Playlist - Peter Hook's "Field recordings" favourite live tracks in Stooges, Who, Rolling Stones

Having played Movement and Power, Corruption And Lives by his former band New Order in full earlier this year at Manchester Cathedral as Peter Hook And The Lights, the bassist is in the mood for a live album or two. With the recordings from the January gigs were released earlier this week (22 April), Hooky has put together a Playlist for Q of his favourite live recordings, something he worries could be a dying art. “When I came to do this, I looked but was surprised at the lack of modern artists releasing live album and wondered why we don’t get the likes of Arctic Monkeys Live At Leeds nowadays? It’s probably down to the brutal truth that the record companies don’t see them as viable in the current climate but it is a shame that classic live album format doesn’t seem to be employed much any more,” he explains. “The ones I’ve chosen are all from the 70s or early 80s these I was shocked at how little recent material had been properly released. The irony is that there’s some many people out there doing gigs and probably recording them but that they’re not getting properly released. Our friends in the bootleg societies seem to flourish off them so there’s definitely a demand for them” Here’s Hooky’s selections…

“Child In Time was one of my favourite songs when I was a kid. It’s overly dramatic and here the live version is an elongated version which are the ones I like. When you can hear the musicians playing around with the track that’s only evoked by a live rendition. Rather than listen to the same version every time, back then there was a lot of experimentation around, each version being different to the last. These live recordings use the musicians talent more and though sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, it makes them more exciting.”

“Space Ritual is just one of my favourite LPs ever because it’s so far ahead of its time. If you listen to a lot of house music now you hear influences from Hawkwind, you hear a lot of that drive, that percussive synth sound that you find in acid house, It’s kind of like pre-acid house, acid house.”

“Oh Jim is such a wonderful song and soft songs like that are very difficult to pull off live, you have to be really, really confident and it’s such a confident performance and its great the way the audience give it such due regard, because it’s such a downbeat, soft track, he pulls it off really, really well.”

“We were asked to do this just after our first Australian tour. When we left it was the Brisbane disaster and a friend suggested that we released the recording to support the fund. It’s by no means perfect but the interesting thing is that you can see the development in the band and how nervous they were at the start. When you compare it to a recording six months later, the change is unbelievable. I hate to admit it as well but my singing has improved a lot since then as well but you can hear the nervousness and the fright in this track, especially since its one of the hardest for me to sing. It reminds me how much you can come on when you’ve got good people working with you”

“The interplay between the members of The Stones ever since they formed has always been very exciting. It’s always quite strange when you get people who don’t write together who mesh so well as a group. As all the songs are written by Jagger and Richards yet the interplay between them is unique and you can hear a wonderful meld of styles and their characters. The way they allow for each other and allow somebody to come forward, go back, its quite a rare quality for groups to have.”

“Siouxsie And The Banshees were one of our big influences like The Sex Pistols but they were in the first wave and we were in the second wave. Siouxsie is such a wonderful performer and a wonderful woman, we recorded with her in Real World and she was so nice, so great to be with. The Banshees first LP was one of my favourite ever records, the way the guitarist and the drummer played was a really unusual way of playing and this album showcases a landmark performance by an iconic band.”

“Well Phil Lynott’s a singing bass player which I don’t usually go for as its very hard to combine but I was always very fond of Phil who was always connected to Manchester and funnily enough I’ve met all three of his daughters. He was a real character and on this, the crowd chanting Lizzy at the start and then the wall of guitar coming in, it’s very well recorded and evocative as well of the time.”

“The whole LP this is from, Metallic KO, is so frightening in a funny way because of all the glass being thrown around. There was a Hells Angel’s riot at the gig and there’s a real sense of danger to it. I just love the way that Iggy flirts with danger, his whole performance was based around winding people up and seeing how far he could push people and I do think that Ian Curtis in particular was very influenced by Iggy’s stage persona and how he lived his life. On this album you can really hear it, I think if Iggy has been assassinated, shot and killed or something, he would have thought, Wow, what a way to go.”

“This was given to me as a present as I only had it on cassette and it took me a long time to find it on vinyl. It’s really good because the guys obviously just done it on a cassette on a table in a cabaret club and you get a real feel for the intimacy of the performance. There’s a real closeness, people talking around the table about the band, you really do feel like you were right in the middle of the performance on that one.”

“This is probably the first live album that I listened to and you were just impressed by the power and the passion of them live. I was a big Who fan from the early albums and it’s one of the great live albums, a fantastic performance. The track’s about going to India, that romantic notion of getting on a magic bus and going off exploring the world, which in many ways is what I did really so it’s quite apt, a great analogy for the life of rock and roll.”

For more head to www.peterhook.co.uk.