Celeb chef Jamie Oliver discovers Joy Division and New Order master tapes in basement

NME today reports: "Jamie Oliver has apparently found rare Joy Division and New Order master tapes when digging up the basement of a new restaurant in Manchester." Oh, also! They found guns and gold stashed away down there, too. (thanks, Michael Donaldson)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Prismo

Eat your heart out, Geraldo.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

Wow….I sooooooooooo did not see this coming. What a freaking cool story!
sean

Cool! NME says the workmen found guns and gold stashed down there, which were turned over to the treasury. If there were any kilos of coke (which seems fitting), they didn’t report it.
- Wreckrob8
  
  What it is cut with can have a detrimental effect on its potency if it is not consumed within a certain time. Wraps should come with use by dates.
  - OoerictoO
    
    in salt form, even 99% pure has a limited shelf life
http://johnmc.net/ johnmc

… which was nice.
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

Any sign of the masters for New Order’s unreleased album “Get Rich or Die Tryin”?
franko

man, celebrity chef AND discoverer of cool, rare masters? some people have all the luck.
http://doran.pacifist.net/ Doran

After seeing Jamie battle with the LAUSD, he deserves any bit of good fortune he can find.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness

Would have been cooler to find the risen corpse of Ian Curtis.
- bklynchris
  
  Oh, to be given the chance to quench my unrequited post-mortem love. To this day those eyes and that mournful crooning sets me timbers a shiver.
http://www.facebook.com/mikemystery Mike Middleton

with his Joy Division Oven Gloves?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IH3CQ7VQW6OVWD2OW367WYETXU William

More info – the building was once an HSBC bank, and these items were found inside the safety deposit boxes: http://www.contactmusic.com/news/jamie-oliver-discovers-joy-division-master-tapes-in-basement_1295279
penguinchris

As per William’s link, HSBC says: “We were moving to a new site and wanted to transfer the safe deposit boxes.However [because the building is a Grade II listed building] National Heritage said we were unable to take the actual boxes with us, because they were part of the structure.”

But how is it that Jamie Oliver takes possession of the contents of the boxes along with the building? Why didn’t HSBC track down the owners of the boxes and inform them of the move? I guess we have to assume the owners couldn’t be found, and to avoid any legal issues (e.g. implicating the owners of the illegal guns) they just abandoned them – which is a pretty shitty thing to do to your clients.
- That_Anonymous_Coward
  
  Are we sure they aren’t a division of BOA?
- toyg
  
  I don’t understand why they couldn’t just empty the boxes and put contents back in new one, filing them to the same “lost” owners. Who cares that they cannot be found now, maybe in 5 years some heir would have come up with a piece of paper asking for box 12345. I think this is shocking behaviour for a bank!
  Hopefully somebody will show up soon claiming ownership, with the right papers, and we’ll actually get to hear some of these tapes. Otherwise, the legal risk for J. Oliver is too high — if he publishes them and then gets sued, it’s going to be painful.
toyg

This is the building: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=rosso&hl=en&ll=53.4808,-2.241951&spn=0.005867,0.015846&sll=53.402483,-2.1681&sspn=0.011757,0.031693&hq=rosso&t=m&layer=c&cbll=53.480809,-2.241887&cbp=12,0,,0,0&photoid=po-4210843&z=17

That intersection is now officially a Manchester nightlife hotspot… Apart from Rio Ferdinand’s “Rosso” (never been, it’s the one showing in GMaps pics as “Karim’s”, i.e. the old name), there’s The Room just opposite, which is a stunning 19th century Reform Club refurbished with a modern vibe (food is so-so, but the place is really cool).