Hello and Thank You - Very Long Post

[UniversalRinging]

Dear Heartlanders,

Thank you. All of you. The fans, the road dogs, the collectors, the bloggers, the uploaders, the archivists, the researchers, the reviewers, the moderators, the administrator, those that were there at the beginning and those that have only recently discovered the Sisters of Mercy. It’s been my pleasure to make your acquaintance over the past couple of months. I’ve learned more than I thought was possible from your lovely forum, from hilarious anecdotes to bootleg track listings to record company s**t to a straightforward history of the music scene in Leeds during the early eighties. Between the squabbles and rumormongering and showing off and other forum delights, it is possible to judge you all as a very kindhearted, loyal bunch. Opinionated too. And clever, yes. Did I mention obsessive?

I feel like I’ve witnessed the evolution of you all, over fifteen years. Through births, deaths, parties, gigs, relocations, trips, breakups and marriages. How bittersweet it’s been to get a glimpse into your lives, over time, on these pages. What a funny sense of camaraderie you all engender simply by sharing whatever the hell is going on with your day to day. That the Sisters of Mercy’s music has remained a constant in your lives speaks to the very special quality of this band, to which I’d only been introduced this past February. And the massive amount of context you’ve provided has made me love the music even more. Thank you for sharing. It’s been a privilege to read. Thank you.






You probably have better things to do, so by all means go do them and ignore the rest of my post because as you can see, it is LONG. No offense taken. And if this thread gets trashed, that’s okay too. I’m sure I’m violating unwritten rules of decorum by posting such a never-ending editorial. For those bored, masochistic, or currently procrastinating, come this way.

I’m from Los Angeles. I’m thirty-five. I never listened to the Sisters growing up, although I loved plenty of proto-Sisters bands. Suicide, the Velvets, the Stooges, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Motorhead. I loved the Birthday Party and Siouxsie, I really liked the Cure and Joy Division, and I liked Bauhaus. Huge Gun Club and Chameleons fan too. So how the hell, despite direct connections and stylistic connections had I never listened to the Sisters of Mercy before? I’ll confess: I was goth-racist.

Before I’m banned, I want to say, I don’t mean to offend. I’m not here to make fun of anyone or trash anyone’s tastes. I, like many of you, just have strident opinions. That said, if you’re a hardcore goth or a hardcore Wayne fan, maybe you should skip this post. I really don’t want to make anyone upset. Moving on…

Look, I thought FoTN, the m*****n, and the Batcave bands were Goth with a capital G. Like, makeup and costumes Goth. And the young, discovering my tastes me, did not think that was cool. Goth was too campy and the music sucked, all style over substance, witchy vampire s**t. Somehow, the Sisters of Mercy were lumped in with this crowd to my baby brain, and that shut the door on them for twenty years. I really regret it. I regret letting my counterculture prejudices prevent me from hearing some of my favorite music for way too long. And for choosing to be ignorant. Not giving a real chance to a single Sisters record, which I could have easily found. Somewhere here there’s a lesson about tolerance and knowing before you judge. But I’m just going to blame others.

How lucky some of you are, who’d been turned onto the Sisters at the right moment by a friend or sibling, or heard them at a club, or playing in your own city. Why the f**k did no one I know or knew ever play me the Sisters? How come no one sat me straight and said, you think you’re not going to like this, but you’re wrong, here’s SGWBM. I had to retroactively look up FoTN and the m*****n and Alien Sex Fiend and Sex Gang Children and Southern Death Cult and Flesh for Lulu etc. etc. etc. to see if I’d had it backwards about them too. At least I can say what little I remember from my teenage years about those bands seems to be confirmed in 2017. I don’t think I’ll be delving any further. None of them are exactly my cup of tea.

Can I backtrack for a second? After my teenage punk years, I started branching out, listening to prog and folk and jazz and psych and country, dub reggae, pop, hip hop, classical, you name it, until I turned thirty. I got a soul-crushing job and stopped listening to music altogether. Podcasts and public radio were all I could stand. Well hallelujah, that job’s over. Recently, I’ve been writing a novel from home, and thanks to the US election and its aftermath, I found I couldn’t listen to the radio anymore. High time to dig out the record collection, day drink, toast to all my beloved musicians who died in 2016 and play everything I loved again.

I couldn’t find my copy of the Gun Club’s Mother Juno and I had a serious hankering to hear Bill Bailey, so off to YouTube I went. And after bingeing on that, and watching Ghost on the Highway and finding myself in the mother of all internet wormholes about Jeffrey Lee and Kid Congo and Patricia Morrison (thank you Patricia), I found myself on the Sisters of Mercy Wikipedia page. Which made me go back to YouTube and listen to the singles in chronological order. I listened to FALAA. I listened to Floodland. I listened to Vision Thing. I looked up every single article I could find on the band. I watched videos. I watched interviews. I scrolled through Google images. And then I found this place. Consider my mind blown, Heartlanders. Where have you been all my life, the Sisters of Mercy?

Inevitably, there are lines to be drawn, allegiances to pledge, opinions to rabidly espouse. I’ll lay mine out for you. First things first: YCBTO. Lyrically so so funny. Such a brilliant send-up of the stupidest, exploitative rock dick behavior with more than a little self-indictment included. Musically though, I can’t get into Vision Thing. Believe me, I’ve tried. I feel like that album is where Von went full bore into parody. Well, full bore parodying a genre for which I don’t have even an ironic appreciation.

Gimme Shelter? That’ll do fine, because I like the Stones AND I think they’re very stupid. This Corrosion? Yes please. Anyone else get a Nasty by Janet Jackson vibe from this track? More Total Eclipse of the Heart than Bat out of Hell? Stupid good fun. But the whole Whitesnake/Ratt/Night Ranger/Bon Jovi thing? Is the music still ironic if you don’t even sort of like what you’re making fun of in the first place? Or is it that Von actually kind of likes hair metal enough to give it an ironic twist? I can’t imagine that. Maybe I’m wrong. Still, soft, shiny guitars, too not-drum-machine-sounding drums, generic bass lines – no thanks.

On that second most Heartland topic, that of That Guitarist, allow me to come down firmly in the f**k Wayne column. Black Planet, NTTC, RAAHP and Walk Away aren’t bad songs; certainly, I listen to them more than Vision Thing. Marian is my favorite Wayne song, although what really makes it special are the German lyrics and Von’s delivery. I honestly wish Wayne was never in the band. He should have taken his “signature twelve string� and skipped off to jangle town. He should have found his own goddamned bass player and went on to release Marian as a m*****n single. There’d be more to like about the m*****n, more to respect about Wayne if he’d done it on his own. Two different bands, two distinct styles, happy fans.

I can’t help wondering what would have happened with Gary Marx remaining as Von’s principal foil, instead of Wayne jockeying for leadership among them. Three’s a crowd. Well Von, Gary, Craig (and a second guitarist) would’ve probably spent less time f**king around with NTTC or Walk Away. Choosing to promote those songs as singles for the record wasted an opportunity to release FALAA, perhaps with Emma on the B-side. The band opened gigs with FALAA ffs. It’s one of the most recognizable Sisters tracks ever. So why not? That’s right. To showcase the experienced pop guitarist and songwriter. f**king Wayne!

If everything else remained the same, Warners, Dave Allen, too much speed, FALAA could’ve gone - FALAA, Poison Door, Bury Me Deep, On the Wire, Amphetamine Logic, Nine While Nine, SKOS. Plus a few other tracks and B-sides, some revised lyrics, different guitars, different production on the original B-sides. Not bad at all. Now if there’d been no Wayne and no Warners and no Dave Allen, then it starts to get interesting. What if Von had actually written some of the music on the album like he had on every other release? What if Von had signed with Mute? A young Flood would’ve likely been the house engineer in 1984-85. I imagine Von would’ve gotten along better with an engineer who could show him how to record the sound he wanted instead of a producer who had his own ideas about how the songs should sound.

Also, what if The Gift wasn’t a rush to the punch revenge album, but a proper electronic-synth side project to which a bit more time and effort was dedicated. The band could’ve taken a nice break, Von could’ve gone to play in a studio, which he obviously enjoyed and released the Gift under his own name. Maybe Gary and Craig would’ve left anyway. Or maybe there could’ve been another Sisters of Mercy album before/after Floodland by Andrew Eldritch. To me, Wayne’s contributions to the Sisters turned them into the Sisters of Mercy featuring That Guitarist and his twelve string guitar songs. His songs, the reliance on his songs to make Warners happy and the production effort trying to layer/prettify/commercialize and chart those songs led to Von losing the plot, Gary and Craig getting sidelined, the band breaking up, and ultimately some shady-ass backstabbing with the Sisterhood name.

On to less controversial subjects. My pick for the best Sisters era. First things first, I’m a Damage Done lover. Oh my, it’s so pop and so naïve and so amateurish in the best way. I love the submerged AM radio quality of the recording, the bad drumming, the primitive guitars and Von’s relatively high-pitched echo-y vocals. Even the lyrics. The cold war, Thatcher, Dr. Strangelove lyrics. That the Sisters started out as DIY duo very much defines how I categorize the band and makes their trajectory so bizarre. They weren’t born in some London hit-making laboratory, or even in some hip Manchester insider’s circle. They were two boys thrashing around in a basement, utterly unprofessional, utterly without a scene, two weirdoes, two rejects, neither Gang of Four style art punks or slick Soft Cell club kids. One townie, one public school Southerner trying to make an impression, something that differentiated them from various post punk imitators and not quite succeeding.

The Damage Done’s major chord sweetness, the bass line that carries the melody and the screechy guitars that do their own thing over the top, these betray a love of David Bowie more than anything to me. And it’s the love, the Latin “amator� that’s the root of amateur, which spells out the origins of the Sisters of Mercy. Before they were cool. Before they were the leaders of the dark rock scene in Leeds. Before they found their own drum machine and grinding bass sound. They were fans. Geeky music lovers. Which makes their covers repertoire so perfectly logical. When every other contemporary band aspired to experimentation, to pushing the boundaries of staid rock clichés, the Sisters wore their influences on their sleeves. They posed, they sublimated their posing through rock and roll, and somehow, somewhere along the line, they invented something new.

The run of singles and EPs from Body Electric to Temple of Love are by far the best, most original, straight up s**t-hot Sisters of Mercy releases of them all. Body Electric/Adrenochrome is probably my favorite 7� single. Ever. Those two songs are the greatest cuts of mechanized mutant punk disco to grace my ears, and I’ve taken to blasting them full volume on my headphones while on errands around the neighborhood. It’s a special thing for music make you feel sexed up and dangerous when you walk to the supermarket. Alice/Floorshow are pure body moving music, post-apocalyptic dance tracks, all leather and rust and motors and menace, sex and more sex. Those two singles back to back make me want to f**k strangers and rob banks.

Can we talk about the Reptile House EP? I remember a thread from a while ago that asked, what’s your favorite part in a Sister’s song, so allow me to name mine. It’s in the intro to Kiss the Carpet, when the drum machine starts that metallic snare beat and then the guitar and bass come in playing the same melody together. Jesus, what a full body lurch that gives me. Makes me slow bang my head. The Reptile House stands as a short, self-contained concept, like Floodland, with its own atmosphere, its own air pressure. It’s the most minimalistic Sisters record and therefore the one in which the Sisters sound unlike anyone else. There is no contemporary 1983 record that sounds like the Reptile House. It’s slow, stark, all minor key, and Von’s singing has the perfect mixture of snottiness and low-pitched croon. The song structures are blissfully unconventional. There’s no verse-chorus-verse pattern here. And neither is there any relief from the End Times lyrics. War, famine, post-industrialism, drugs, destruction, decay, death, not only is there no future, we’re complicit in our own extinction. As a complete work, it doesn’t get better than this.

As for Temple and Heartland, what a fantastic progression from the Reptile House. What a balls to the wall return to vanity, excess and arrogance. I see Temple/Heartland as homecoming anthems. Recorded after having toured England twice for the last two singles, having built a fan base and an image, having supported bigger, more successful bands, having f**ked loads of groupies and partied like rock stars. Too big for his britches Von with something to prove to his adopted home. These two tracks are for me, where the bravado begins. I like Heartland slightly more, especially the Television-style guitar harmonies at the end. Temple is a great song, but the production prevents me from wholeheartedly loving it. I wish the guitars didn’t sound so fizzy, I wish the drum machine didn’t sound so soft. There are too many fill sounds on the drum track, the kick drum isn’t thumpy enough. I always wonder what it would sound like with more primitive DR-55 sounds, or fantasy of fantasies, with Big Black-style TR-606 beats. The Paradiso 83 version is close.

Speaking of Paradiso 83, I’d cut off my left tit to travel back in time to that gig. Dream set list, dream personnel, dream venue. Generally speaking, 1983 is my favorite Sisters’ year. The video bootlegs from that era - Night Moves, Brixton Ace and Berlin Loft capture so well the filthy f**ked up rock and roll attitude of the band. Say what you want about musicianship or Von’s voice, those motherfuckers had style. Ben and Gary play so scratchy and they’re such good counterparts to Von, musically and visually. And Craig is best in the back, grinding away on his fuzz bass, looking like he could not give one s**t. The bootlegs of the 1984 gigs sound better, the band plays better, and the repertoire is larger, but I’d take the Sisters in 1983 hands down. They were the absolute best before they were actually good.

Let me make a few closing observations and then I’m done, I swear. For me: Sisters 81-83 > Floodland > FALAA Side B > Vision Thing > FALAA side A. Von’s style peak: This Corrosion video, with Chicago Exit Club 84 in second place. Best record cover: All of the singles and EPs up to Body and Soul. (The pre-Warners design aesthetic and the MR logo are so f**king underrated. Anyone else think the covers of the singles/EPs side by side are beautifully artistic as a whole?) Set wish list: Afterhours intro, Kiss, Lucretia, Burn, Heartland, Floorshow, Alice, Nine While Nine, Logic, Suzanne, Ribbons, Adrenochrome, Body Electric. Encore 1: FALAA, Driven Like the Snow, Emma. Encore 2: Sister Ray/Ghostrider/ I Want You Right Now (MC5, sped up double time)/Sister Ray.

Okay okay okay. Again, thank you. Thanks for reading. Thanks for taking this with a bucket of salt. Thanks for suffering my newly formed aggressive opinions. And thanks Von, for the music. I can’t go a day without listening and I don’t give a s**t if nothing else ever gets released. Live your life. Smoke your cigarettes. Adopt more cats. Write, don’t write, who cares. The music is mine. It surely does shine and shimmer.

Emily

[Being645]

... ...

[paint it black]

Jesus wept, and frankly so did I. Anyone who had a heart..

[UnnaturalDisaster]

Suddenly, I'm really lamenting the inability to "like" posts.

[markfiend]

Hi Emily, welcome, and thank you.

[Pista]

Wow! Just....wow!

What a brilliant opening post

Welcome to Heartland.
Hope you brought some biscuits.

[Charlie]

Hi Emily and welcome!
I'm a fellow newbie too, and I totally get where you're coming from. I only discovered the sisters at the start of the year, but what a discovery! They have become my favourite band and i'm pretty sure it will stay that way going forward, they are very special to me.

I wish I could have grown up with them like many of the lucky people on this forum but for whatever reason it didn't happen. I'm 39 so would have been too young at the sisters start and I was more concerned about playing computer games in the 80's, I was (still am) a bit of a geek! No-one at school or friends were interested in that sort of music either so they remained undiscovered.
Funny how things are right under your nose sometimes, I live and grew up not far from Leeds where it was all happening and even once worked with a member of Skeletal Family who were part of all that, but I still didn't come across them!

Still, now we get to experience all the music at once, all the singles, albums, live music, new songs , then there's all the interviews and videos, and the wealth of knowledge from all the marvellous people here to fill in the gaps.

To the regulars: This forum is really great and I know us newbies get very excited! but bear with us everyone, we don't mean any harm and totally respect the years and dedication you've put into the band. I don't like to pester people and if I have a question, there's usually a thread already on here which covers it, so I can find out for myself. (massive thanks to everyone who helps run this forum btw)

Some of the stuff on here is hilarious and it's been a pleasure reading through old threads and as i've said before, anywhere that has an in depth biscuit thread must be an utterly bastard groovy place!

[Swinnow]

May you never run out of bourbons

[abridged]

Hallo! The question isn't the Sisters or the Mish anymore. It's not even the merits (or not) of YCBTO. It's yes or no to biccie dunking?

[Chaotican]

Hello Emily,

Anything I could ever object to in your post is negated by the 'f**k wayne" bit, among other charming items. We're friends now. So what will it take to get you to a show?

Sarah

[million voices]

Gosh. Makes you want to play all the back catalogue again.

Wonderful intro. Welcome aboard.

But did you really listen to Country?

[emilystrange]

Emily. good name.
biscuit?

[Microcosmia]

Hello and welcome. It's so heartening to hear that the Sister's can still have such an impact on someone hearing them for the first time. Also, if your maiden post is anything to go by then the novel that you're writing should be one hell of a read
All the best.

[UniversalRinging]

Hi everybody. What a friendly welcome. I really appreciate it. Excuse me for being a luddite, but I don’t plan on learning how to quote or emoji anytime this year, so I’ll have to respond long-form. I hope this reaches all the right people.

Being645: I bow down to the ground. Sisterswiki. f**k. The. World.

PiB, UnnaturalDisaster, markfiend, Pista, Swinnow, abridged, emilystrange, Microcosmia: Hi and thanks for the kind words. Means a lot coming from you lovely people.

Charlie: Hello fellow newbie. Aren’t you sweet. Better late than never right? Nice to know I’m not the only one who had an inexplicable blind spot, all other things considered. We are very spoiled by the information available at our fingertips. Explains the sudden, massive enthusiasm on both our parts. Yikes!

millionvoices: Townes Van Zandt. Check out Live at the Old Quarter. Put it on in the background while you’re doing weekend chores, and wait for that moment when you’re hugging laundry on your knees in front of the speaker, just so you can hear what he’s singing.

Chaotican: The budget’s tight my friend. No traveling for me in the near future. Although, I like the way you think. We stateside Heartlanders should really show a little solidarity.

And finally biscuits. The chocolate varieties for me. Do you have the slim mint Oreos over there? Mmmmmm. I keep all mine in the freezer and dunk them in screaming hot milky tea. Keeps their biscuity integrity and the temperature texture contrast is sex.

Emily

[sultan2075]

Howdy Emily. You're not alone: I'm a huge fan of Townes Van Zandt (as well as Willie, Waylon, Johnny, Merle, and Ray Wylie Hubbard, and a million others. I'm hoping that Billy Joe Shaver doesn't die before he plays my neighborhood next month). I even played in a band named after one of his records.

There's all kinds of great country music out there - it just doesn't come from Nashville and doesn't get radio play. FYI, the new Marty Stuart album is definitely my album of the year for 2017 (so far - still waiting on the new Hellbound Glory LP).

[SmileySister]

Hello & welcome from me

[UniversalRinging]

Hi Sultan2075. Yessss. Outlaws. Forever. Great to see another country aficionado, and I'll make sure to check out Marty Stuart.

Hello SmileySister. Pleased to meet you.

[EmmaPeelWannaBe]

Welcome, my fellow Californian.

[UniversalRinging]

Hi EmmaPeelWannaBe. Greetings from Long Beach.

[sultan2075]

Hi Sultan2075. Yessss. Outlaws. Forever. Great to see another country aficionado, and I'll make sure to check out Marty Stuart.

Hello SmileySister. Pleased to meet you.

I confess to not knowing his earlier stuff, but his new record, Way Out West, is really quite amazing. As is his hair.

[million voices]

I gave Van Zandt a listen and he didn't exactly float my silver ship.
I had got some Bluegrass scented fabric conditioner as well - just in case.

[Nikolas Vitus Lagartija]

Fantastic first post. 1983 rules.
And don't forget the Peterborough video too.

[mh]

Hello and welcome!

I was gonna go back over your first post and pick out things I particularly approved of (as a fellow member of the "1983 rules" club there would be quite a lot of those!) but one thing in particular needs stating:

Look, I thought FoTN, the m*****n, and the Batcave bands were Goth with a capital G. Like, makeup and costumes Goth. And the young, discovering my tastes me, did not think that was cool. Goth was too campy and the music sucked, all style over substance, witchy vampire s**t. Somehow, the Sisters of Mercy were lumped in with this crowd to my baby brain, and that shut the door on them for twenty years. I really regret it. I regret letting my counterculture prejudices prevent me from hearing some of my favorite music for way too long. And for choosing to be ignorant. Not giving a real chance to a single Sisters record, which I could have easily found. Somewhere here there’s a lesson about tolerance and knowing before you judge. But I’m just going to blame others.

Doesn't matter - you're doing it now!

[UniversalRinging]

Sultan2075: Way Out West by Marty Stuart is gorgeously atmospheric. Glad you said something about it.

million voices: Lol! Fair enough. Good of you to listen anyway.

Nikolas Vitus Lagartija: Thank you. I am deeply indebted to you and your blog. It's a treasure chest. And yes, Peterborough! Didn't mean to leave that one out. Fascinating as an historical record. Great crowd and post gig footage.

mh: Hello and good to meet you. You're too kind. 1983 for life!


Enjoy the weekend everyone,
Emily

[sultan2075]

Sultan2075: Way Out West by Marty Stuart is gorgeously atmospheric. Glad you said something about it.
Emily

I'm glad you like it! At this point, it's my ROTY for 2017 - and I think "gorgeously atmospheric" is a pretty perfect description. I suppose Von might pull one out and surprise me, but I'm not optimistic. I think the only real competition comes from Willie (have the new one, haven't given it a good listen yet), Mark Lanegan (ditto), Chris Stapleton (though it will be hard to top Traveller), and Hellbound Glory (assuming the new one even comes out in 2017).

As for Townes Van Zandt, I mostly and usually agree with Steve Earle: "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that."

I've also been listening to the new record by Angaleena Presley, Wrangled, quite a bit lately. It's very good.

Mark, is this now the official HL country music thread?

Why isn't there a smiley with a cowboy hat?