In 1980 I was mainly listening to avant-garde classical music and post-punk. Even so, the darkness of this Joy Division classic scared me. But last year I heard the song on the Muzak at a Palm Springs grocery store, so I guess everything is okay now.
The guitar is a real weirdo: a Baldwin Virginian from the last ’60s or early ’70s. I scored it for $90 at Starving Musician in San Jose, where we’d sometimes play hooky when I was working at Guitar Player magazine. It’s got great Burns pickups. Burns had sold their brand to Baldwin, and off course, everything went to shit. Still, this is a cool instrument, which I usually tune down a few steps. I eventually learned that both Lenny Breau and Al Green’s Teenie Hodges played this model. Here’s a clip of me playing it with PJ Harvey at Glastonbury ’95.
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