Who will give a home to these rescued Joy Division and New Order tapes?
An ex-personal assistant of the late great post-punk producer Martin Hannett is attempting to get rid of a collection of master tapes and outtakes from Joy Division and New Order, among other bands, after saving them from disposal and failing to raise interest from Peter Hook or record labels. The picture above, pasted on Adamson's Facebook page, shows almost 30 tapes, one of which is tantalisingly labelled 'Joy Division Outtakes'.
Unbelievably, Julia Adamson claims that she "rescued" the tapes, which also include recordings by Magazine and The Psychedelic Furs, from being thrown in the bin (a skip, in fact), before trying to rehouse them with bassist Peter Hook or a label who might be interested in reissuing them, but had no success. She wrote on her Facebook page:
"[Hook]’s not a happy bunny. Tried the other band members, too, to no avail, and the record companies… I have looked after these tapes for a long time and when I approached the artists (who were my first port of call) I was subjected to accusations and abuse… so I don’t really care anymore. I know they are worth something to a collector… and good luck to them. The quality of 'Unknown Pleasures' far surpasses the mastering from vinyl over the years (they lost the master tapes long ago… these are copy masters… and outtakes… that I assure you are quite splendid)."
Adamson, who now runs Invisible Girl Records, says she wants to ensure that the tapes go to a collector or fan, as they were digitised in 2008, and "they are very old and probably deteriorating and should be baked or whatever…nor do I really want to look after them anymore."
