Just finished the book.
A great read and (obviously) highly recommended.


The whole 1992-2007 period was a painful (but interesting) read though. It must have been a pretty horrible time for him, going from one upsetting moment to the next.

I was impressed that, although he was critical of other band members to a certain degree, he was very much measured in his assessments. There were a few 'yeah, he pissed me off at times', but was countered with things like 'I reckon I must have been pretty annoying myself'. Steve also points out that, to be working that closely with individuals for so long, you're bound to find things that annoy you about them. It's only natural.

I'm just glad (and not at all surprised) that he resisted the temptation to lay into one particular member. In fact, he was generally understanding of that person's problems with the band dynamic. Although he admits that he rarely took sides, and tried to see both sides to arguments.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but Steve did seem to be a little critical of the band's management, Andy Robinson particularly. There are a few incidents where it appears that he felt that Andy wasn't very supportive.

There were a couple of really disheartening band decisions that shocked and slightly upset me.

Firstly, as Fotz mentions above, that 'Big Day Out' incident is really uncomfortable reading.
Rather than go along with Steve's wishes to not travel that far away from home (which, given his daughter's serious illness, seemed reasonable), Bernard and Hooky pretty callously suggested "no problem, we'll just get another drummer". Management agreed ("Problem solved").

Steve said that this incident made him feel 'easily replaceable' and must have made him feel like he wasn't really part of the band (they'd replaced Gillian; they could just as easily replace him). Pretty horrible really. And not the way to treat a founder member.

Secondly, during 'Republic', Stephen Hague had got a session drummer in to play the 'real drums' on the LP. This was a revelation and, again, is pretty shoddy treatment. Steve went along with it, rather than upset anyone.
Not only is this bad behaviour (this time from Hague, rather than Bernard & Hooky), it's almost unbelievable.
They got a session drummer in to replace arguably one of the finest drummers in rock music?! Madness.

Again, Bernard and Hooky probably should've been more supportive of Steve.

It's been said many times before but, had Rob been around, I'm sure that a lot of the problems could've been avoided.

I don’t really get your point, Michael.

Also “Thirty years to come up with Night Voice”?
You’re not making any sense?

You seem to be harping on about The Other Two as if that project is acknowledged as Steve’s crowning achievement; the thing that defines him as an artist, rather than something the two of them did in their spare time whilst B&H couldn’t be arsed with New Order.

No one (fans, press or S&G themselves) are saying that it was the finest work they ever created. It was purely a vehicle for the two of them to release soundtracks that they’d been working on during ‘down time’.

There’s plenty of great stuff in the JD/NO canon that’s far more worthy of your attention.

It’s like me saying that Paul McCartney is a talentless shit, just because ‘Biker Like An Icon’ sucked big donkey balls. Whilst at the same time completely dismissing ‘Yesterday’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Hey Jude’ etc.

(Incidentally, I’ve always found The Beatles somewhat overrated. Perhaps I should head over to their forums, to mock Macca and his shit side projects.)
Wings... only the band The Beatles could’ve been.

Both Stephen and Hooky do state on their books that Regret is allegedly "the last track they wrote all together, as a band", in studio. There seems to be an earlier production finished (or not) with Pascal Gabriel, pre-Hague, back in 1992. Dunno the minutiae of the chronology at that point, but apparently both Bernard and Hooky still had appointments with Electronic and Revenge respectively. The Republic sessions resumed later that year, with S. Hague already on board.