Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

[MsD]

Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

Women are always diminished in these scenarios.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

They are, but to be fair to the Mancs in this scenario, I don't think Honore and Disques du Crepuscules were involved with much outstanding music (Pauline Murray's record was ace though). It is weird that laddy rock myth types like Joy Division since they got rock classic-ed, though, cause their sound and aesthetic really don't fit the bill - they used to be a weirdo group that goths and effete Smiths fans were into. I blame Oasis.

On the 'worldliness' vs 'intellectual' point Benjm makes, that's true but I guess it depends on your idea of what constitutes worldliness. Ian Curtis was married and had a clerk's working life, which would probably make you more worldly (in the sense of maturity) than bands of former students who'd been to more restaurants.

Bear in mind that food culture is quite a recent thing in the UK, late 90s onward really. Before then you might have a curry if you were really pushing the boat out, and coffee was pretty much a functional drug that came in granules. I remember getting really wound up by certain middle class Londoners I encountered at university who would equate eating food with sophistication. They might have had panini but they hadn't read Kafka. This was shortly before the millennium, after which Starbucks attacked.

[MsD]

Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

Ha ha, very true. Restaurants weren't anything that young people (under 30) got excited about. There was a buzz about the Hard Rock in the 70s, with people queuing to get in and making orgasmic noises over their burgers, (I always found that completely weird) but generally, no fuss about food and certainly no interest in bread.

[Satchmo Distel]

Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

Another diminished woman is Tony Wilson's first wife, Lindsay Reade. Her autobiography is a gripping read but mainly because she is so self-eviscerating about her affairs and use of LSD. The book is, however, deeply moving about the final months of Tony's life. OTOH it utterly destroys the image of Wilson's final marriage, which is harsh on his (still young) widow. There's a self-indulgent cruelty to it.

On Annik Honore, It should be noted that she said in 2011:

It was a completely pure and platonic relationship, very childish, very chaste ... I did not have a sexual relationship with Ian, he was on medication, which rendered it a non-physical relationship. I am so fed up that people question my word or his: people can say whatever they want, but I am the only person to have his letters ... One of his letters says that the relationship with his wife Deborah had already finished prior to us meeting each other.

http://joydivision-neworder.blogspot.com/2011/02/ian-curtis-and-annik-honore-dazzling.html

Nick Drake's relationships followed a similar pattern, it seems. The total opposite of the rock sex god.

[Benjm]

Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

I was using worldliness more in the sense of experience of the world, LL. I wouldn't necessarily equate taking on responsibilities with having the maturity (or desire) to fulfil them. Curtis was 19 when he got married: that sense of being locked down and trapped before you have had a chance to live is one of the main themes of 20th century youth culture. Things have swung rather to the opposite extreme latterly in terms of people maintaining teenage interests into their 40s and 50s.

I'd separate food as something that people associate with particular experiences and life events, which has always been the case, from today's decadent and self aggrandising foodie culture. Lots of people would use food or drink as a kind of shorthand to describe the thrill of going abroad for the first time. Hook definitely seems to be using those examples to indicate how narrow his range of experiences had been in some ways and how with the band he could see life opening up.

The merits of the Crepuscule catalogue aren't really the point (although you'd better not come round to my house and diss Wim Mertens). The reduction of the women in Curtis's life to dutiful but dull wife vs Euro art groupie depersonalises both of them but was allowed to stand for a long time as it was a way for the others to avoid discussing what happened and their own roles in it.

Joy Division/New Order always had quite a laddish element in their live following. Smiths concerts could be quite rough too. I remember people comparing bruises after they had played in Birmingham or Wolverhampton.

[MsD]

Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

satchmo76 wrote:
One of his letters says that the relationship with his wife Deborah had already finished prior to us meeting each other. .

Well, it would, wouldn't it, is my cynical first reaction.

Without any knowledge of the people involved, it's one of the oldest songs in the book. Both women could think they were the only one and he might genuinely have decided on one but not quite told the other.

We shall never know, eh, but I don't think Deborah Curtis was lying or deluded.

[Satchmo Distel]

Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

Does anyone know the precise nature of the illness that killed her? Reports seem vague.

[WOM]

Touching From A Distance - Deborah Curtis

From her company's site:

On July 3rd we learned with great sadness that our co-founder and friend Annik had passed away following a short battle with cancer. Annik co-founded Factory Benelux and Crépuscule with Michel Duval in 1980, having already organised a series of landmark happenings at the Plan K in Brussels (including Factory, Zoo and Postcard nights), and would also play a major role in promoting some of the best Belgian bands of the era including Digital Dance, The Names, Marine and Front 242. There's another story too, which got turned into a movie, but that shouldn't define her.