This, I should warn you, will be a long post, filled with much digression. Fitting really, as it is something of an epitaph. I don't think I'll be making any further posts for a considerable period of time. Nothing personal, I just have other demands on my spare time. Primarily, a change in lifestyle before I am driven completely insane by the day job.
Right, back to the plot. Over the last five weeks or so, now that the sweat has dried, I've been reflecting on Eldritch's last outing, and as much as it pains me to say so, it wasn't very good.
I've remained loyal to the band for almost sixteen years, but at the last I'm finally forced to concede that I have rarely witnessed such a squandering of talent, a series of missed opportunities and ruined dreams, as that demonstrated by the Sisters over the last eleven years.
Where then, I hear you ask, IMHO did it all go wrong? If I were to try and pinpoint a date it was probably with the whole, "I'm really a normal bloke" thing back in 1993. Now, don't get me wrong, I've a certain sympathy for Eldritch where this is concerned, because at the time the Goth tag was harming the band, mainly due to lazy journalists using it as a convenient excuse to dismiss Eldritch and his music. But in the final analysis it has all been rather a waste of effort. If recent compilations, books and magazine articles prove anything, it is that the history of the Sisters cannot be revised. We have all seen the photo's, watched the videos and listened to the records. No matter how much underlying humour or irony there was, the Sisters were a dark band. Eldritch cast a long shadow; one that has proven almost impossible for him to escape. The popular conception of him will always remain as that of the Goth Overlord. The poor bastard can bleach himself to baldness if he wants, but he's never going to be allowed to escape his earlier image. If he had put half as much effort into writing songs and making records as has into trying to re-brand himself, the Sisters' back catalogue would be a far meatier and impressive beast than it is today.
This brings me to the new songs; what do I think of them? Do they measure up to those of old? First, without hearing actual studio versions, it is perhaps an unfair comparison; however, you've got to work with what you've got. Lyrically, I don't think they measure up; you can claim that the sparse words are a maturation of the song writing process if you want, and you might be right, but to me it also suggests a certain laziness. It' hard to imagine Eldritch writing anything as puerile as I Have Slept With All The Girls In Berlin ten years ago. To be fair, they do tend to sound better when actually sung, and I happen to rather like War On Drugs. Musically, I am again struck by the fact that Eldritch rarely bothers to write a tune these days (well, certainly not those that are played live). Although Crash And Burn is easily as good as any of the songs on Vision Thing, I'm not, on the whole, a great fan of Adam Pearson's music. It has a tendency to be all rather chugga chugga chugga. It's rather telling that one of the best of the new songs musically, We Are The Same, Susanne, was actually penned by Mike Varjak. However, that's yet another lost opportunity, much like the fragmentation of the Vision Thing line up before it actually had a chance to prove itself.
Finally, there's Eldritch himself. Now, I don't know the man personally, so this is supposition, but the impression he has given over the last few year is one of apathy. He appears to have no passion left for what he is doing, no thirst for success. The Sisters, he once rightfully observed, deserve to be massive, and yet he seems unwilling to commit to the cause. His interviews used to be a dream to read, but with the welcome exception of last year's GPS interview, everything I've read recently has been rather facile, indeed, in some cases it bordered on the infantile. What has happened to the man? If he really is that bored, why doesn't he go off and do something he enjoys like writing for computer magazines, or finish that Chinese degree? Instead, for the sake of some easy money, he apparently prefers to slip into self parody and drag his hired hands round venues of every decreasing size, playing (not in every case, or all of the time) bad cover versions of his own songs. If he's not careful he's gonna end up pissing all over the Sisters' reputation.
Believe it or not, I'm not bitter here, though God knows I should be. The Sisters will always hold a special place in my heart - I grew up with them. However, unless there is a radical change of heart by Eldritch, or some quality new product, I rather doubt I'll be flitting up and down the country next time he heads out.
And no, I don't flatter myself that he'll miss my £100 of ticket sales, there will be plenty of others in my place.
Finally, should anyone connected with the band stumble across this, tell Andrew that there is nothing that would give me greater pleasure than for him to prove me wrong, to prove my accusations completely without foundation. After all, it's not my band, it's not my life, what the hell do I know? He didn't ask me to buy the records, or go to the gigs, that was my idea. Perhaps I've finally grown up or wised up, but I've come to realise I don't owe him anything either, certainly not a living.
At least the T-shirts will go on forever.
Well, that's all I got to say, thanks to everybody who made it to the end. I'm gonna miss you people in the interim. I might not have always replied to your posts but I enjoyed reading them.
PS
Don't tell Bux where I live, I'm only a little fella!
