Dead rock stars night

It's on my mind. Enjoy the results.
I never thought much about Ian Curtis's suicide, except to say it was unfortunate. In a way, that was odd, considering how deeply interested I was in both New Order and Joy Division, and how his death profoundly changed their sound.
But then I saw 24 Hour Party People, and they had to deal with his suicide. They did it briefly and left the impression that it was confusing and unexpected. I noted that the corpse in the film wore a wedding ring, and remembered to bring it up to my boyfriend, who is a bigger Joy Division fan than me. He said he thought that the suicide was over a girl, but that it seemed unlikely if he was buried with a wedding ring. We figured that he was married but killed himself over nonsense.
Then my boyfriend bought Ian's widow's book. Now usually, I don't read wife books. I love music and I know how bad men could be in the day, and I don't want my favorite music ruined by knowing exactly how awful the musicians could be. I know all too well that women still have a small voice now, and what we do have was gained through an ongoing strugggle. My part is that since I DJ alot of parties, I make sure female musicians are part of the mix to keep the guys aware.
I read the book as a favor to my boyfriend. He figured I could kill it in a day, and he was right. Plus, he handed it to me and said, "This book made me really think about myself and how I treat you and realize that I need to value you and treat you right." Damn, what was in it?
Well, a sad, pathetic story. Read it only if you have alot of guts. Ian and Deborah married young and had a daughter young. He treated her like a welcome mat, and her matter-of-fact narration makes that even more disturbing. She doesn't come off as angry at him at all. What little emotion is wrapped up in wishing that she had a good family and mostly in wishing that she could retrace her steps and bring him back from the brink of suicide.
But god did that book bring me back. I remember oh so well being the bright, cool girl that had a boy who was both so in love with me and yet unable to stand up to his social group's sexism and demand that they accept me without a fight. Ian was in love with his wife, but he was also in a band and they drew him away from her and into a world of boys being boys and groupies galore.
The saddest part is when she shows up to one of his shows while hugely pregnant and his manager turns her away at the door because a pregnant wife is unseemly.
Thank god alot has changed from then. The biggest change is that women are free to be in bands themselves so men aren't secure looking down on them. I'm friends with a couple in a band, the husband drums and the wife plays bass. She played hugely pregnant. They gave the baby a set of drums and a guitar to decide which he liked.
Still, there's that fear of groupies. They still hang around, desperately hoping that an important man will find them fuckable. It's infuriating.
The thing you walk away realizing is that she has shed alot of anger, that his suicide drained it from her. That all the anger and confusion in their situation, he turned on himself. Mostly I was struck by how young he was. It occurs to me that despite any moodiness and weirdness from my friends, most of them are past suicide age.
Joy Division tends to get grouped with goth bands, and only because Ian Curtis killed himself. They don't have a goth sound by any means. In a way, that's the most irritating of all.