Cult Manchester exclusive: ‘There was some sadness attached to those records…’
- David Nolan
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
When I went to visit Kelvin Briggs at his home near Alderley Edge I was expecting a cup of tea, a nice chat and a gentle correction to something I'd written. What I wasn’t expecting was to be looking though Ian Curtis’ record collection. By David Nolan.
Kelvin had contacted me to politely correct something I’d said in my book I Swear I Was There. I’d written that Ian Curtis hadn’t attended the famed Sex Pistols’ gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall on 4 June 1976. The reason I - and every other writer about Manchester music - had said this is because that’s what it says in Deborah Curtis’ book Touching from a Distance. And who am I to argue with a book like that?
But Kelvin has a different story. He went to school with Curtis at King’s in Macclesfield having met him at a football match the previous year. ‘I remember this big gangly, quite fast lad who played,’ he says. ‘And the next year I went to King's School, and there's this same lad. So immediately, I recognised Ian and we remembered the football match. We immediately struck up a bit of a friendship. We both played a little bit of rugby and Ian was put on the wing because he was electrically quick. He also did some sprint training in the summer for athletics.’
But it was music that soon overtook any interest in sports: ‘He always had interesting taste in music, so in the early days, he'd be listening to Bowie, Roxy Music, Mott the Hoople, that type of stuff. Really, I sort of followed his lead a little bit. We all used to go to a mutual friend's house in Macclesfield, a guy called Oliver Cleaver, and we'd sit in his bedroom and listen to ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ [Velvet Underground]. We were on a completely different wavelength from all the lads listening to Deep Purple and progressive rock in the common room at King's. We were living a different life, quite frankly. They were a bit more hippified. We did different things. And Ian would always want to go to concerts and live music, and he'd go quite often to Manchester.’
Kelvin was best man when Ian married Deborah Woodruff in 1975. ‘I think it was chosen because Debbie's mother probably thought I was the safe one from a few of Ian's other friends,’ he says. ‘I was regarded as the guy who wouldn't drop the ball on the day and would say the right things.’
Kelvin went to work for a subsidiary of Nat West Bank. The offices were on Peter Street, opposite the Free Trade Hall. He would visit Ian at Rare Records on nearby John Dalton Street. Curtis had a job there. ‘I guess music went off the boil for me a little bit,’ says Kelvin. ‘But Ian kept it going and there was always a love for it. So, it was no surprise when he talked about this new wave of punk music.
‘Quite often I'd meet up in Manchester with Ian, and we'd go out for a drink. And Debbie was usually in tow. Ian got in touch with me and said, there's this group called the Sex Pistols. They're on at the Lesser Free Trade Hall. Why don't you come into Manchester? We'll go and see them. I'll get the tickets. So, we did that. I remember Ian turning up with a bag with a record in it. It was a very early Ramones album [their debut had been released in April of that year]. He was telling me it was fantastic, and he'd been listening to it in the shop. Outside there was this really weird-looking guy that I now realise was Malcolm McLaren; leather-clad and carrying what I think must have been a tape recorder.
‘When we went in there weren't very many people there, and we had to sit down. Then this absolutely weird band came on, that was just totally not our scene [support group Solstice]. They were like ageing hippies, and the music was more like the progressive rock. It was loud, long… so long. It was just depressing, frankly. And then, of course, Sex Pistols came on and there was all this energy. The guy on the left was Glenn Matlock and I remember thinking… he doesn't look the same as the other guys. He was like studious and could play the instrument a bit. I thought that he just doesn't look like he's part of it all. But it was very noisy. And of course, we recognised a few of the tunes. ‘No Fun’ by The Stooges. That was one of Ian's favourite bands. He liked Iggy and we'd listen to Iggy back in Macclesfield. And so that was quite a night really. I have absolute certainty in my mind that we went to that gig, and it was quite interesting to read your book I Swear I Was There and not see a mention of Ian. So, I thought… I'm going to get in touch with David and just pass it on.’
The punk style wasn’t really for Kelvin, who was more of a soul boy. It wasn’t really for Ian either: ‘Ian never really wore the clothes. Ian was actually a very plain dresser, some shiny trousers with sta press pants - simple, plain clothes. He didn't get into punk gear.’
Despite keeping things smart/casual, there was one item of punk clothing that Ian did adopt: ‘I had my old Morris car, my pride and joy,’ Kelvin remembers. ‘Ian had painted the word HATE on the back of his jacket in white paint. And the paint stuck to the plastic seat in the back of the car, so I wasn't too impressed with that. But that was the first time that the enormity of this new wave music hit us. The Clash were very impressive. It was loud, it was fast. It was energetic. First time I'd seen people pogoing and jumping around.’
That energy spurred Curtis into action: ‘He told me… I'm getting into a band, and I've met these guys and we're doing some stuff and very quickly it was… we're rehearsing now.’ Curtis even asked if Kelvin would consider being the band’s manager. Not for me, he told his friend.
‘It wasn't that long before it's… we're going to Strawberry Studios, and we're going to make an album. So, it all moved quite quickly, really quickly. And I remember going to Bowdon Vale Youth Club [in 1979] and seeing the band play there. And of course, I recognised [drummer] Steve Morris from school. He was a year younger than us, but I used to see him out in a pub in Macclesfield. I remember at Bowden Vale recognising these two girls from Macclesfield. Two sisters. And they had very Gothic-style makeup, dark hair, and they were always close to the stage. It was only a few years later, I realised one of them was Gillian Gilbert [New Order]. Her and Steve became an item.’
As Joy Division took off, the band’s success took Curtis away from his home… and away from his friends. ‘We grew apart a little bit, so I didn't really get to follow them that much. But there was the odd interaction when he'd tell me… we're going to be playing there or we're doing this or we're going abroad. He’d share news and what have you. I was just gobsmacked one day to get a phone call from Debbie to say Ian had passed away. It was evident Ian had ended his life.’
Depressed, epileptic and with his complex personal life becoming too much for him, Ian Curtis died in the early hours of 18 May 1980. He was 23. The last record he’d been listening to was The Idiot by Iggy Pop.
Ian’s death caused Kelvin to re-establish contact with Deborah Curtis. He brought her into his social group, taught her to drive and even helped with the organisation of Ian Curtis’ funeral. One day, Deborah Curtis arrived with an armful of records. Ian’s records: ‘Debbie told me that some of them were bad memories for her, for various reasons. There was some sadness attached to some of those records. He actually had very few records in the end. But I've got some of those still. And I've got things that he sold me or swapped with me.’
Throughout our conversation Ian's records had been strewn across Kelvin’s kitchen table. They'd been stored away for years and had that 'garage' smell to them. As he started to talk me through them, I asked if it was okay if I videoed this part of our chat; Kelvin said it was fine. There was an affectionate story attached to each one of the records as he went through the pile - Roxy Music, John Cale, Kraftwerk - but I couldn’t help but notice one record in particular. I had to ask about it.
As I leave, I ask Kelvin about Ian's former bandmates who are, famously, still at odds with each other - and who both live nearby: ‘I do bump into Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner occasionally because I live very close to them. I'm on sociable terms with them both. We just say… hi, how are you doing? We talk about our aches and pains and operations.’
On 4 June this year Kelvin took to the stage of the Academy in Manchester to introduce Peter Hook & The Light. He told the audience about his memories of seeing the Pistols with Ian exactly 50 years earlier. ‘Little did I know that Peter Hook was there,’ he said from the stage. ‘Little did Peter know that I was there with an old schoolfriend of mine called Ian Curtis.’
As for those records? Kelvin recently sold one - a copy of Joy Division's debut album Unknown Pleasures given to him by Ian Curtis. It sold for £5,000. He donated the money to the Epilepsy Society. Their website is here.
Many thanks to Kelvin Briggs.
