Man Peter Hook in his book Substance.. some glaring bullshit
He says Bauhaus ripped off his bass line on ICB for Bela Lugosi's Dead... he says it in a humblebrag style like much of his book.. he is the king of humblebragging.. anyways, only problem is ICB came out in 1981 and Bela came out in 1979!
He talks about how some bands play the same songs every night.. says he saw Bruce twice in a row and both nights Bruce played the same set list and even said the same things between the songs... Now I have to doubt Bruce playing the same gig on back to back nights although its possible.. but he is not a good example of that point! I mean Bruce is really well known for switching it up night to night..
I gotta be honest.. the book reads like a lot of bullshit.... I am enjoying it but so much name calling of Bernard Sumner..its a little ridiculous calling your bandmate a "twat" page after page... I mean really? If he was that bad I think you owed it to yourself to leave way sooner..
The other thing is Peter Hook claims to basically have been recording all the songs.. maybe with the engineer Mike Johnson.... like he had this huge role... but as far as making the music he has very little to say... Sumner's description I think fits much more which is that Hook simply overlaid his bass at times on parts of the songs....Hook also makes fun of Bernard for the lyrics repeatedly but in the same book says that they ALL wrote them
And the biggest bullshit may be that he says he doesn't remember why Bernard got the job of lead singer... for someone who was obviously so competitive with Bernard it rings really hollow... he repeatedly accuses Sumner of basically trying to copy him (ie, he bought the car I bought, he wanted the girl I banged, etc.)...
Also, Peter Hook does a nice job explaining all the pranks and harassment he played on Ian Curtis but Bernard describes it differently saying it did take a toll on Ian.... Peter kind of admits to being embarassed by it but he did it and that is the fact.. when Ian was with Annika Peter really made fun of him.. Bernard says he didn't think it was any of his (Bernard's) business... There is also very little from Peter as far as Ian goes in explaining his own friendship with him... at least Bernard describes walking Ian through a cemetery and telling him "Hey look, you don't want to be there!" trying to knock some sense into him... its pretty clear Ian and Bernard were much closer...that does not make Peter a bad person but coupled with Peter basically hazing Ian- who was pretty vulnerable already with his epilepsy, troubled marriage with young baby, confusion about Annika)- its not a very pretty picture...
Its fascinating reading the two books because Bernard's book (at least until page 180) hardly mentions Peter whereas Peter just seems to go off on him constantly.. Peter's book - the way it describes the songwriting- its weird to understand exactly what he did a lot of the time.. a lot of the time his role seems to be to be "recording them" being whatever bernard and morris came up with with all their synths, guitars and drum machines... sometimes he provides a bass that he says Bernard used for the vocal lines but I don't know...
