Fookin' 'ell I didn't expect this. I thought he'd maintain his usual reserved silence or be nice about it. A rare chance to hear from Hooky.
'In 1993 he fell out with Steve and Gillian over an interview where they said they wrote most of Republic.' - If booze-addled memory serves me right, back then there was talk of The Other Two writing most of 'Technique' while the other two indulged their suntans on the beach. Who the fuck would want to take credit for that piece of shit anyway?

I have absolutely no interest in the opinions Neworder's previous bass player.

huh?

Actually feel most of Hooky's observations are fair here

Yes but are they motivated by a desire to tell the truth or stir the shit?

Hook's analysis isn't a million miles from my own and whatever the truth, Hook's book will almost certainly be better by being more factual, more technical and more humorous.

As far a Republicgoes - which isn't very far - I seem to recall at the time that Steve and Gillian worked on a lot of the album by day with Barney working with Stephen Hague at night and Hook only being called for on occasion. Much of the publicity at the time was not done by Barney.

Republicis the sort of album that was bought by people who were in the Brittanica Music Club and is one where any band member would want to disassociate it from themselves. Wilson made negative remarks about the album while it was being made 'by the inner circle' and Hook stated recently that it is 'not really a New Order album'.

Hook won't tour it, so Republicisn't worth a light, so to speak :)

Bernard's approach has been more philosophical in style than Hookys and I suspect if you want more low-level details and song writing methodology then a Hooky book will offer more of it. The problem with any Hooky book is how much of it can you really believe? An individual's personal perspective will often differ as they will view the same situation through an entirely different lense and any context they choose to provide will always support the impression they want to create. But the writings of a bitter/vengeful mind will always produce a different result then a content and secure one. I always try to keep that in mind when I'm reading books or listening to interviews.

Must admit I do find it hard to believe Wilson would be "trash-talking" an LP which at the time was being heralded as a potential cash cow to save his label. I'm not saying you're factually wrong but I wouldn't mind reading the interview(s) where he said that.



Republic is an easy album to deride and while it certainly isn't without its flaws it's still impressive they pulled the likes of Regret, Ruined In A Day, Everyone Everywhere, Special and Avalanche out of the bag. Just because it wasn't a 'bass assault' of Age Of Consent x 10 or a Brotherhood clone doesn't mean it wasn't a"New Order album". Hooky's name is on the sleeve, he's in all the promotional photos/videos and he was on the tour just as Bernard, Gillian and Steve were.

It's become convenient for some fans to lay the blame for their dislike of Republic squarely at the door of Bernard (mainly) or Stephen Hague. I prefer to think the band as a whole are ultimately responsible for any album they make: good or bad. If anyone reckons Republic is shit then like it or not all the band members played their part in that.

Personally I don't mind it, it's not half the disaster it's made out to be (and charted reasonably well too).

The apparent delusion is a bit sad, I agree - is Hooky genuinely not getting that Barney's apparently new-found happiness might just be due to the fact that he doesn't have to deal with Hooky any more..? Or is that simply not a possibility in Hooky's mind? He seems to imply Barney is pretending to be happy to make more money, which is a fairly paranoid position to take.

Curious to know just how exactly can he feel justified in being hurt at the spiteful and cruel treatment after the unfettered slagging Hooky has been slinging over the last few years. I've not finished Barney's book yet, but I've not yet read him calling Hooky a cunt or twatto yet.

Also, according to setlist.com, BL never played more than 3 JD songs in a set, more often they’d play just 2 out of 15 or so songs. OK, yes they'd do some NO stuff as well, but the point being made is that BL didn't rely solely on nostalgia or back catalogue when gigging - and every single Light gig relies entirely on nostalgia - not a single new note played in over 5 years. How can he counter that argument?

And for future reference - JG's info is invariably very good!

Republic isn't a terrible album and it has got some decent tracks, but coming from where they were in 88/89' with Technique they hadn't move their sound on much at all, infact they were starting to retread old ground and the album was the first one of theirs that contained tracks that simply weren't good enough ('Liar' is the must obvious one that springs to mind). It was far too conservative in it's approach. The choice of producer was made to keep the band together and 'get-on', whereas they needed a producer who could take them to another level - despite their internal issues - and was never going to be Stephen Hague. This conservatism sadly followed in the remainder of their London Albums, which were patchy and indifferent. A mixed bag.

New Order were tailor made for the 1990's, they could of released a sparser, electronic/ambient sounding album - still with bass - a bit of an update of their PCL era of their career, but they blew it with Republic. They went down the wrong path. To be fair to them, they went for the money after the strain of Factory and weren't focused enough as their were too many distractions, which was understandable.

The best Neworder album was the one they never made, which is why I regard Neworder much more of a singles band, kind of the opposite of their previous incarnation.

It will be interesting to hear what Hook states in his book regarding the end of Factory era, musically speaking, though obviously that's just one members opinion.

Can't Steve do a book as well? :)

The usual guff from Hooky but these days it would be unusual if not so. Every so often he comes out with a corker like "I have to admit that I only have myself to blame for this because it was me that started the whole bloody book thing in the first place. So typically I brought it on all of us." - so if anyone else should write anything in book format on the subject, they must be copying him? - or "The reason, in my view of events, I split the band was that regarding Bernard I came to a point where I could no longer tolerate his behaviour." - but the band is still there. Should that be split from the band - or are we to believe Hooky is the only one in step?

I still love Republic after all these years.  It contains my favourite NO songs of all time.  I even like Liar - (kind of a mischievous song, which contrasts with the melancholy, if that's the right word, of the rest) - which seems to me where the album got its name from, though maybe my imagination is on overtime there. Yet I never thought of it as an album with less of Hooky. To regard Republic as not a New Order album is like saying the sky would be better in another colour, or the atlantic should be narrower or something … it couldn't be changed, without changing so many other things, the idea is meaningless.

They did play Special, it was edited out.