Searching for an Eldritch quote

THE place for your Sisters-related comments, questions and snippets of Sisters information. For those who do not know, The Sisters of Mercy are a rock'n'roll band. And a pop band. And an industrial groove machine. Or so they say. They make records. Lots of records, apparently. But not in your galaxy. They play concerts. Lots of concerts, actually. But you still cannot see them. So what's it all about, Alfie? This is one of the few tightly-moderated forums on Heartland, so please keep on-topic. All off-topic posts will either be moved or deleted. Chairman Bux is the editor and the editor's decision is final. Danke.
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mik
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Seem to remember a quote in the dim and distant where he was talking about the amount of smoke they used when playing live and he said something along the lines of "providing a space where the audience could find themselves"

Ringing any bells?

Ta muchly.
Something pithy.
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sultan2075
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It's in the liner notes to Some Girls Wander By Mistake.
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The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
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mik
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:notworthy:
Danke :)

And for those of you wanting the quote yourselves....
"I had moved to Leeds to learn Chinese and I was living above the chemist with Claire and Spiggy the cat. One day I dared to set up the drum kit which someone had stored in the cellar.
I still can't play the drums but at least I was the only drummer in town who could be relied upon to avoid anything complicated.

Gary Marx and I knew each other from the F Club. He was a big fan of The
Fall, I was a big fan of Pere Ubu, and we both loved The Stooges.
Gary had no money and no equipment, but wanted to hear himself on the
radio. We pressed a few thousand copies, and sold a few. Even at the time it was hard to get hold of - and even harder to listen to. That should have been the end of it, but ...

We hooked up with Craig Adams, probably because he too lived over the
chemists. He was a big fan of Hawkwind and Motorhead, and he had this
bass sound that suddenly defined The Sisters - along with the drum machine that we brought because we all loved Suicide.
Everybody loved Suicide. The drum machine became Doktor Avalanche. Gary became a guitar player and I became the singer almost by default.

I think we spent the next few years in the back of a van. When it wasn't
parked above the chemist we were making the loudest noise possible in some of England's most disgusting clubs. we still had no money and no equipment - almost everything went on making the next gig louder than the last.

I like to think that it was the songs that made this band. I know it wasn't!
We used a lot of smoke, very few lights, stepped right back and just made a space where you could lose yourself (but more probably find yourself) in a tide of colour and noise.


It sounds simple, but no-one that wanted to be a rock n roll star could have done it. Apart from anything else, it took a long time and burned more than a few people out.

The records were never supposed to reflect that experience - it's a different medium and one we're still learning. Maybe some of it comes through.

Anyway, in those first 4 years, when we had the money (and often when we didn't) we would drop in on Kenny Giles in Bridlington. He had an eight track and he was the only person who would help us make records the way we wanted. Thanks ken.

They may not sound like anybody else's, they may not even sound like
records - but we loved them !
For what it's worth.
Something pithy.
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mh
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It amuses me somewhat that the band didn't actually use smoke during that era. :)
If I told them once, I told them a hundred times to put 'Spinal Tap' first and 'Puppet Show' last.
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Jeremiah
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mh wrote:It amuses me somewhat that the band didn't actually use smoke during that era. :)
But I hear that Von smoked a lot of cigarettes in those days. 8)
I tried to tell her
About Marx and Eldritch, God and angels
I don't really know what for.
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Mothra
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I always smirked at bit at that remark too. All photographic evidence suggests otherwise, but then I guess when Von wrote the notes, Heartland was still just a song, not a place where his every utterance/move would be analysed :)

I always loved the 'lose yourself (but more likely find yourself) line 8)
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Johnny Rev 7.0
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mh wrote:It amuses me somewhat that the band didn't actually use smoke during that era. :)
Umm...
Andrew Eldritch wrote:Anyway, in those first 4 years...
So he's generalising over 1981 to 1985.
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to be beautiful
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copper
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mh wrote:It amuses me somewhat that the band didn't actually use smoke during that era. :)
I figured I had a date on this. And, indeedy.
copper wrote:INT: What's the presentation like live with the Sisters of Mercy when they're playing at the concert.

AE: We got into smoke recently. They gave us smoke last time we played in New York and we really got off on it. So we use a lot of smoke these days.

And we had a lighting engineer on the last tour who really knew how to light the stage with smoke and we had a great time wandering around in this fog. It was very effective, it was very very stupid, and very silly, but at the same time it really affected you like smoke is supposed to affect you in that sort of bozo gut-wrenching heavy metal way.

- July 1984

Cross-referencing to the Sisters gigography dates the NYC show at 13 April, 1984, at the Danceteria.

So that could be the first show with the smoke.
"I hold myself personally responsible for Nine Inch Nails (among others), but not for the fact that they look like Alien Sex Fiend." - Von, '95
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Being645
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copper wrote:
mh wrote:It amuses me somewhat that the band didn't actually use smoke during that era. :)
I figured I had a date on this. And, indeedy.
copper wrote:INT: What's the presentation like live with the Sisters of Mercy when they're playing at the concert.

AE: We got into smoke recently. They gave us smoke last time we played in New York and we really got off on it. So we use a lot of smoke these days.

And we had a lighting engineer on the last tour who really knew how to light the stage with smoke and we had a great time wandering around in this fog. It was very effective, it was very very stupid, and very silly, but at the same time it really affected you like smoke is supposed to affect you in that sort of bozo gut-wrenching heavy metal way.

- July 1984

Cross-referencing to the Sisters gigography dates the NYC show at 13 April, 1984, at the Danceteria.

So that could be the first show with the smoke.
Swallowed ... ;D ;D ...
http://sisterswiki.org/Fri,_13-Apr-1984

Btw, does anybody know the actual origin of this interview? It sounds so very familiar to me ... :? ...
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mh
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Johnny Rev 7.0 wrote:
mh wrote:It amuses me somewhat that the band didn't actually use smoke during that era. :)
Umm...
Andrew Eldritch wrote:Anyway, in those first 4 years...
So he's generalising over 1981 to 1985.
SGWBM explicitly covers the 4 years 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983. Nothing was made with Kenny Giles post-83.
If I told them once, I told them a hundred times to put 'Spinal Tap' first and 'Puppet Show' last.
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Thread necro! Oh it's a spammer - Donald Cooper your time is up...
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
—Bertrand Russell
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czuczu
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Looked like a genuine post to me, didn't even mention kitchens! :D
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Pista
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czuczu wrote:Looked like a genuine post to me, didn't even mention kitchens! :D
:lol:
Kitchens are so 2017.
It's all holidays in the Middle East & people with sh!at grammar these days
Cheers.
Steve
Just like the old days

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