Peter Hook has confirmed he is hoping to gain possession of Joy Division master tapes which were reported earlier this month to have been rescued from a bin but, unsurprisingly, his shall-we-say strained relationship with Bernard Sumner and the rest of his former New Order bandmates is holding up the process.
Writing on Facebook, a former PA to respected Manchester producer Martin Hannett revealed she had obtained a veritable treasure trove of 80s musical history which had been consigned to the scrapheap, but claimed that her offer to pass on the various master tapes which had once belonged to Hannett, who died in 1991, to their relevant musicians had fallen on deaf ears.
However Peter Hook, in conversation with Pitchfork, has appeared to be far more receptive to getting hold of the tapes, which include Joy Division’s classic debut ‘Unknown Pleasures‘, with a view to officially releasing them.
“I’ve been trying to get Martin Hannett’s outtakes,” he said. “We did actually amass a big pile of tapes of Martin Hannett’s, and these are the next part of Martin’s collection. Warner Bros has reissued a hell of a lot of Joy Division stuff, but it’s just the same stuff over and over. It’d be nice to issue something that fans would love and cherish. Hopefully these tapes will enable us to do something different.”
“I’m contesting their right to the trademark,” Hook continued on his battle with New Order. “So everything to do with Joy Division is stopped while that is sorted out. There are so many bootlegged Joy Division/Martin Hannett tapes, a lot of really bad bootlegs on the Internet.”