Peter Hook to sell Joy Division and New Order guitars and memorabilia

Ian Curtis (left) and Peter Hook at a Joy Division gig in 1979

Bassist Peter Hook is to auction a collection of guitars and memorabilia from his Joy Division and New Order days after falling out with his former bandmates.

The items up for sale include his first bass and the guitar he used on Joy Division's second album, Closer.

It comes a year after a legal action with the rest of the band was settled.

"The court cases with the others didn't help me viewing either band in a very rosy light," Hook told the BBC.

Hook fell out with the other group members in 2007 and began playing Joy Division material with his own band, The Light, in 2010.

He told BBC News he had come to feel "something had to go" and that the memories associated with the Joy Division and New Order items had become tarnished.

Hook is selling his Gibson EB-0 replica bass and well-worn leather jacket

"Since starting again in 2010 and playing the music, which is the only thing I'm allowed to do, I came to realise that the people who allowed me to play the music - i.e. the fans - were the only ones that mattered," he said.

"I felt something had been broken and I thought, 'is it time to let [the items] fly?' It felt like the right time. Maybe not for the right reason, I have to say."

The memorabilia up for sale includes the Gibson EB-0 replica he bought the day after watching the Sex Pistols' legendary 1976 gig at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall, a concert that is credited with inspiring a generation of musicians.

"I borrowed the money off my mother," Hook recalled. "Bernard [Sumner] had told me, 'Make sure you get a bass guitar because I've got a guitar.' I didn't know the difference.

"I didn't have any more money to buy a case so [the shop owner] stuffed it in two black bin liners and I very proudly sat on the bus with my bass guitar in its two black bin liners. It was punk from start to finish.

"When I got home my father laughed at me and said, 'What are you going to do with that?' At that precise moment I did not have a clue.

"I just knew I wanted to run off and join the circus, and Johnny Rotten had shown me the way."

Hook is on tour with his current band The Light

Hook played that bass on Joy Division's debut EP, An Ideal for Living, and used it to write for the band's first album, Unknown Pleasures.

It will go up for sale with a £4,000 valuation at Omega Auctions in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, on 2 March.

A portion of the auction's proceeds will go to mental health charity Calm and The Epilepsy Society, in remembrance of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who was epileptic.

Curtis took his own life shortly before the band were due to set off on a US tour in 1980.

Other lots on sale include the itineraries for that tour and a Shergold Marathon custom six-string bass.

Hook, 62, used the instrument on Joy Division's second album and after New Order formed following Curtis's death.

Curtis's typed and signed lyrics for the song Failures, which appeared on An Ideal for Living, will be offered, as will a leather jacket Hook bought in 1977 and wore into the late 1980s.

He is also selling Factory Records' famous floating boardroom table.

"I'm just hoping these things will go out into the world and be appreciated for the massive part they played in history," said Hook.

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