David Owen - Graphic designer of TSOM Artwork '83-85

[eastmidswhizzkid]

This was written for Phil Verne's fabulous "The Sisters Of Mercy 1980-85 " Facebook group and i am sure he will not mind me reproducing it here for those Heartlanders who wouldnt touch FB with a ten-foot pole...

David Owen is a graphic designer and musician from Leeds. His artwork skills were employed by Andrew Eldritch at a crucial time in The Sisters of Mercy history, when he was struggling to manage all aspects of the band's affairs as they became more successful. Owen would go on to enjoy a career as a musician himself (under the name David Ashmoore) as lead singer with the Leeds band The Hollow Men, (named after the TS Eliot poem), a band which also featured equally legendary Leeds figure Choque Hosein on guitar (after his stint in Salvation and before Black Star Liner). The Hollow Men's sole major label album, "Cresta", remains a cult classic to this day. We are very grateful to David for taking the time and trouble to share his reminiscences of his dealings with Andrew Eldritch and The Sisters of Mercy .

"When I was about 16 years old, my family moved from Roundhay, in Leeds, to the small market town of Otley, about 15 miles away. I was in my final O level year in school, so my parents decided not to move me to a new school in Otley, but to leave me to finish my final year at Roundhay High School. This meant my dad would drop me at school each morning, on his way to work and I would get the bus back home after school. I had to get the green bus from Roundhay into Leeds city centre, getting off near the market, and then walk through town to Cookridge Street to get the red bus out to Otley. I always had about 30 minutes to spare in town, so I would call in to Virgin Records at the bottom of Briggate to pass the time. The local punks, who called themselves The X Men used to hang about outside, Sid with his black and white hair, and Ronnie wearing a kilt and bondage trousers, and a few girls who all looked like Siouxsie Sioux. I would chat to them and smoke a cigarette before heading inside. In those days it was albums downstairs and singles upstairs but I was more interested in the newly arrived Space Invaders machine that was positioned near the exit door, by the till. I would kill 30 minutes killing aliens, playing against the Virgin cashier who worked on the bottom till.....he was called Craig Adams, he was a few years older than me and he was in a band called The Expelaires.
This routine went on for a year or so, whilst I finished my O levels and then for a while after, when I started my first job as a junior graphic designer at an advertising agency in Leeds City Centre. I was desperate to leave Otley, I had no friends there and I stood out a mile with my alternative fashions ! The bus journey was boring, day in, day out, except for the occasional days when another ‘alternative’ youth got on at Bramhope, about half way to Leeds. We would smile and acknowledge each other, even though we’d never spoken. Then one morning he came and sat down next to me and we started talking. This was how I met Choque Hosein - we got on like a house on fire, and immediately decided to form a band.
I moved out of home and into a house on Woodside Avenue just off Burley Road on the edge of Headingley in Leeds. Choque moved at about the same time, he lived a few streets away on Beechwood Terrace. We went to the Faversham and The Warehouse and as many other regular music nights as took our fancy. I almost never went to the Phono, I hated it.
I met Marc Almond out and about, he would DJ here and there and was often in the Warehouse. I discussed doing some graphics for Soft Cell, they’d just released Memorabilia and they were great live, I saw them quite a few times in the early days in Leeds, at the Warehouse and later, at the chaotic Amnesia gig. I would sometimes go round to see Marc at 27, Leicester Grove, a house he shared with Alex and Andy and a few others. Then suddenly, Soft Cell were massive, Tainted Love was number 1 and it all went a bit mental. Marc moved house to Graham Avenue, just a few streets away from me, and Choque, (and Village Place).
Choque and I were starting to get The Hollow Men music off the ground at this point. The Warehouse was a great club and had a whole new scene starting up. I was quite good friends with Ian Dewhirst, the DJ there and Choque was also DJ’ing there most weeks. The fledgling ‘goth’ scene was born out the people there, post punks, indie kids, rockabilly types, New Romantics - it was quite a melting pot of ideas and people and music and art - it always annoys me when the goth scene is credited to London and places like the Batcave - Leeds was way ahead of London....
I first encountered the Sisters some time around the Floorshow/Anaconda singles.... I can’t recall the first gig I saw them, it was probably at The Warehouse..... It was only when I saw them live and put names to faces that I realised I already knew Craig.....and then discovered that I also knew Ben Matthews (Gunn) because his mum and dad lived next door to my mum and dad in Otley.....
I can’t remember how my name got suggested to them for artwork duties, I might have just mentioned what I did for a living or they may have been asking around, anyway, somehow I got a phone call from Mark (Gary Marx) and I was “summoned” to Village Place to talk to Andrew about it.
He needed help sorting out the Reptile House stuff - the cover was already done and gone to print, but he was wanting a lyric sheet, stickers and posters.
This was the point when he showed me the artwork he’d started for the lyric sheet. It was incredible. He’d Letraset’d the whole thing - all the lyrics for every song - all directly onto one sheet of paper, at the right size - and all the borders and the other information as well - the only piece that was stuck on separately was the logo. This was madness ! I’m good at Letraset but I’d never have attempted this in this manner.... He’d had to count every line and every word and work out all the spacing. And Letraset is tricky stuff, if you make a mistake, which is easy and frequent, you can remove it with a piece of sticky tape, but only once...it destroys the surface of the paper and makes the replacement letter harder to apply. He could easily have done each songs’ lyrics on a separate piece of paper and then cut it all together, thus allowing for mistakes....or he could have done the whole thing at double size, which would have been much easier as well.....or a combination of both - which is what I would have done...... but, in something bordering on madness and obsession, he’d spent god knows how long doing it as a single piece !
This one moment is pretty much everything you need to know Eldritch. Obsession, patience, detail. Years later, when I read Mervyn Peakes’ Gormanghast and Titus Groan books, I realised that Eldritch is very much like Steerpike !
Anyway, I took all the pieces of artwork away, finished all the loose ends, mounted them onto CS10 art board, put overlays on, marked them up and sent them off for print - to a little printers I knew, who were actually just round the corner, near Autumn Avenue, and who printed all the books, leaflets and other literature for the infamous Sorcerers Apprentice Magic and Occult bookshop, also just round the corner.
A few days later, I went to see The Sisters in Hull - I’d been put on the guest list ! This was the first time I encountered Dave Beer - he was hanging from the lighting rig during the gig...... I already knew Jez Web and Surfin’ Merb a bit......
I returned to Village Place with all the printed inserts, posters and stickers some time later. Andrew gave me a signed, numbered Reptile House test pressing. I didn’t get paid. I hadn’t expected to, so this was excellent payment terms ! (Many years later I sold the test pressing to Pete Bingham......)
We would all still hang out at the Faversham and The Warehouse, sometimes going back to Village Place for late night sessions. Claire Shearsby (Andrews ‘partner’) had a big old Volvo and we would all pile in for a lift. One time I remember Andrew making bacon sandwiches for everyone ! I never saw the curtains open at Village Place. The kitchen was very messy and the air was always thick with smoke. You’d get a coffee and watch videos and smoke. They had a shelf of VHS tapes and were constantly taping stuff off the tv. They had all the tapes numbered and catalogued and a file of papers telling you what was on each tape. (A great system which I adopted myself for home VHS taping). It was hard to make out much else in the gloom of the lounge - there was a paperback copy of Metamorphosis by Kafka and a bunch of books with Chinese lettering on the spine. For a time Andrew got obsessed with a long distance phone number in New York that he’d call up - it was a recorded sex message tape - he’d dial it, then let you listen, then complain that it was costing about £10 per call ! But he’d do it again and again for everyone who was there but it amused him greatly !
Another time I remember there was a heated debate going on because he was convinced that everyone should agree with him that the record A Fine Day by Jane (I think.... on Cherry Red Records) was going to be Number 1. He was playing it and proclaiming its’ genius. Ironically, the record didn’t get anywhere near the charts, although a few years later, the cover version by Opus lll / Spiral Tribe, did get to number one, so I suppose that must have been some consolation for him !
Sometime about this time, Mark (Gary Marx) moved out of Village Place and Danny Horrigan moved in. Salvation we’re recording their first single, due out on Merciful Release. James Kenyan, the Salvation bass player was living in my spare room at the time. He was a lovely man, a bit like a young Oliver Reid. Unfortunately, he drank like an old Oliver Reid...... He didn’t stay in my spare room long.... but I fondly remember him punching Phil (Rose of Avalance) so hard in the face at some gig at The Royal Park, that Phil was knocked backwards, straight through a fire door..... there was no love lost between Rose of Avalance and any of the Sisters people or Salvation or Hollow Men at that time, as far as I can remember.....no idea where or how that started, Mark Thompson, the Rose of Avalance drummer was also a lodger in my spare room for quite a while......
Sometime after that, Choque started playing in Salvation as well as The Hollow Men, replacing Mikey Jumbo on guitar. The Salvation debut single on Merciful Release had been scrapped and they’d started on new material.
London goth club the Batcave did an ‘on tour’ thing and came to the Warehouse in Leeds - Specimen, Sex Beat and Alien Sex Fiend played, as far as I can remember - Eldritch prowled around.....the rest of the Warehouse regulars had all decided to not wear black for the evening and everyone was wearing flowery shirts so as not to be mistaken for Batcave goths......A look that would resurface many years later....
On another occasion, Sex Gang Children played the Warehouse - again, Eldritch prowled around like a lion defending his territory.....muttering something about who was the tallest....him or Andi Sex Gang....
When Ben left the Sisters it didn’t seem to be much of a surprise and I don’t remember there being any animosity at the time. I remember being at his house one night after the Faversham, with Craig. We Were listening to the Ramones live album and Ben was showing me some artwork for the single he was putting out on his new label (Flame On) and the logo he’d done using a bit of graphic art from a DC superhero comic.....
I’ve always doubted the comments about Eldritch “folding like a cheap deckchair” at the first chance of signing the Sisters or big label money..... The Sisters were always very professional and seemed quite clear and determined on success and record sales. They were aiming high from the off. People in bands almost always dream of, or aspire to, success and fame and money - it’s why most people get into rock and roll in the first place....sex, drugs, money, fame etc..... Very few people are satisfied with remaining “indie” and just playing pub gigs all their lives..... And Ben clearly had his own desire for success and fame etc when he left the Sisters and set up his own label and released his own music - he clearly wanted to try and emulate what Andrew had done.... the fact that he failed to do so, would lead me to think that his comments about “folding like a cheap deckchair” are just sour grapes.
Wayne’s arrival was great. I knew who he was and his heritage in Dead of Alive and Liverpool etc. He just seemed to instantly fit in with everyone, although I personally rarely ever had any dealings with him.
I remember being sat in Claire’s Volvo outside the Faversham with Andrew in the back, in the car park, listening to a tape of the newly recorded Temple Of Love single. Andrew commented that he was worried it was too fast for people to dance to. He must have needed the sleeve sorting out quickly because he asked me to do the artwork over the weekend - this time he gave me a pile of cut-up pieces of card with various Letraset bits on and logos and other stuff written on paper for me to finish and sort out. The cover image, the sun burst, was a scrap of A4 paper with the design on in black ink - it was a bit tatty and rough and I had to clean it up quite a bit to make it look ok. Because I need to finish the artwork over the weekend and I needed a drawing board, I ended up going home to see my dad in Otley, he a had a drawing board at home and he helped me mount up all the artwork onto CS10 board and ensure it was all square and marked up for print etc.
I didn’t have any dealings with Andrew about the artwork for Body and Soul or No Time To Cry. The Sisters has signed to Warner’s and I expected that all the artwork would be done in-house from then on, which was fine by me. The Hollow Men stuff was going well and I still saw all the Sisters here and there and the whole Leeds scene was taking off at this point. So I was quite surprised when he turned up on my doorstep one day and asked me to sort out the album artwork for him.
He had a huge pile of stuff with him, artwork and Letraset and sketch pads etc. We spent ages talking through it all. He wanted me to do artwork for Walk Away and the album First and Last and Always. He wanted to change to artwork look and template and move in a new direction. He’d sketched out the idea for the circular motif and the Sisters head logo in the long box. The intention was to put different textures behind the circular motif for each release. The Walk Away single sleeve would have no texture, just the new design style but the album had a lace background inside the circular motif. The information for the single was all complete and ready to go so I was able to put all the artwork together over the next few days and that could go to print. The album artwork was more complicated. The track listing wasn’t finalised and photos needed selecting and Andrew wanted a keyline version of the Caslon Antique font on the album and it wasn’t available easily so I’d have to go to a commercial typesetting house for it. This also made corrections and changes more expensive. But we sat and looked through all the transparency’s for the final photos and got most of the sleeve ideas sorted out and then he asked me to do the artwork and bring it down to the studio where they were recording for him to see it and approve it.
He headed back off to the studio to finish recording and I spent the next week sorting the artwork. It all went smoothly, except I remember the manager of the typesetting house dropping a bottle of ink all over the artwork and we had a mad panic and quite a hard time getting it all off again.
I got in touch with Nick Jones (Sisters manager at that time) and he organised for me to travel to London and be collected by some road crew/drivers and taken to the studio to see the band and get the artwork signed off. This all took place one hot Saturday - I was driven from Kings Cross to the studio (I can’t remember its name). I had to wait for Andrew to finish doing some vocals before we went through the artwork.
Craig and Mark and Wayne and I all went and played tennis or badminton and kicked a football around for an hour or so out in the studio grounds to pass the time....
Andrew made a few corrections and comments to the artwork and gave me instruction for dispatching it when finished etc. The drivers took me back to London, via the pub, and I came back to Leeds and made all the corrections and then sent the artwork off to Warners.
Then news came that Andrew was ill, he’d collapsed at the studio and had been forced to take time off to recuperate. He’d suffered from exhaustion and substance abuse and everything was put on hold and the album and tour was delayed.
In the meantime though, the Walk Away single was done and pressed and released in the new look sleeve.
Meanwhile, whilst recovering, Andrew decided to change the album sleeve and redesigned it and reverted back to the original Sisters artwork style. When the album came out, my name was no longer on the sleeve as artwork credit - which annoyed me a bit, most of the artwork was pretty mush as I’d done it, but there had been a lot of changes, especially to the front cover, so I suppose it was fair enough that whoever had redone the artwork had their name on it..... I would have taken my name off it and replaced it, if I had been doing the new version.....
That’s why the Walk Away sleeve is completely out of style with all the other sleeves.
I saw the Sisters at a live gig at Sheffield Uni sometime around The Reptile House - a great gig and a great venue.... they came on stage to a really long intro version of Kiss The Carpet. But the thing I remember most was leaving the bar to head into the main hall when the gig was starting....there was a mad crush to get out the doors.....Dave Beer was on someone’s shoulders, heading for the door, in the crowd, but was clearly not going to get through the door whilst on shoulders..... as he arrived the door or rather the wall above the door, the person carrying him started to duck to get through, and Dave Beer reaches up his hand to the point where the wall above the door met the ceiling, about 10ft off the ground....and he slapped a Reptile House sticker onto the wall...really high up.....inaccessible to anyone to remove easily....
I only mention this because it stuck in my memory...and then, many years later, in 1989 I think, The Hollow Men are playing at Sheffield Uni, supporting The Stone Roses, and I’m sat in the bar at a table with Gary Marx, who’d come along to see us - and I looked up and it’s still there...after all these years, the Reptile House sticker that Dave Beer slapped on the wall about 10ft up was still there.....and I’m thinking what a weird world it is....I was here to see Gary Marx and the Sisters when that sticker went up, and now, all these years later, Gary Marx is here to see us play at the same venue.....
The next time I saw Andrew was outside the Warehouse, he had turned up at 2am, at the end of the night, to meet Josie, from Vicious Pink Phenomena, with whom he was having a bit of a thing..... we chatted for a few minutes then went off. This happened a few times over the next few weeks, he’d turn up at 2am to meet her at the end of the night....I don’t know why or how this arrangement worked...but one night, Brian, the other half of Vicious Pink, and Josie’s previous partner, got into a fight with Andrew and he got seriously injured.
A long time later, after the split, after the Sisterhood etc, I was round at Choque’s house one morning when Andrew knocked at the door. (Choque lived about 50 yards from Village Place).
He was dressed very smartly, in a suit and tie and was carrying an umbrella. He came in and tea was made and we sat and chatted. He said he was starting work the next day on new material (that would become Floodland era stuff). He hung out at Choque’s with us all day, drinking, smoking, listening to music etc. I remember him looking at Choque’s kitchen cupboards and asking what black eyed beans were....... When evening came it was suggested that we all go out for food, which we did, heading around the corner to the local bistro diner. Choque’s then girlfriend, Justine, also came with us. We ate and drank and then all went our separate ways home.
The Hollow Men has just released our first album, and, for the sake of a bit of free PR, we sent a cryptic written message to all the music magazines, NME, Melody Maker, Sounds etc about the clandestine meeting between The Hollow Men and Eldritch. Sounds ran with the story, and commissioned illustrator Simon Cooper to draw a charicature cartoon of the meeting. I spoke to Simon about this recently via Instagram and he said :
“I haven’t seen it for a hundred years but yes, guilty as charged. I don’t remember the brief but you’re right, I didn’t have any photo reference. Sounds sent me a copy of Tales of the Riverbank on vinyl (which I’m delighted to say I still have) and told me to get on with it. Not sure about the young lady wearing the helmet! Cheers for getting in touch. Love your art by the way and am enjoying ‘Died for Love’ as we speak. All the best, Simon“
The last time I saw Eldritch was at Reading Festival in 1991. The Hollow Men had played in the NME tent and we were in the backstage area behind the main stage later in the day with every other band and manager and journalist and roadie etc, drinking and hanging out. I bumped into Eldritch at the bar, the first thing he said was “last time I saw you I ended up in Sounds in some weird cartoon” or words to that effect - which was rather odd bearing in mind the amount of time that had passed since the Sounds cartoon and the amount of water under the bridge and the fact that it had done no one any harm and here we all were backstage at Reading !
Anyway, we chatted for a bit then went on our way.
One final thing that I remember him telling me was that he continued to send demos of The Sisters to the A & R department at Warner’s to check if they were actually paying attention and listening to stuff. His assumption was that they should be able either spot the Sisters sound, or, should be enticed by the demo sent in and want to sign the band....just as they’d signed the Sisters..... I assumed he’d sent them under a different name.....
I went on to design sleeves for Ghost Dance. I did some sleeve work for Salvation and also some T-shirt’s, in the early days....and I even remember doing a sleeve for The Batfish Boys...something with a crocodile on it.... Many years later I was doing a sleeve for Australian band The Church (which didn’t get used at the end of the day) but I did end up doing some work with All About Eve via Marty Wilson Piper who was at that time playing with both bands.
The Hollow Men later supported Ghost Dance and The Wonder Stuff and The Stone Roses and we played gigs with Primal Scream and even a very early Blur and a host of others before it all fell apart in a s**t of Sex,drugs,rocknroll, and money....the way these things do.....
The Hollow Men back catalogue is currently awaiting remastering and rerelease....
David Owen

**i've double-posted this here and in "Interviews/reviews. if a mod or Quiffboy could choose where its more suited and delete t'other i'd say: ta muchly!

[Planet Dave]

Magnificent, cheers for posting that Lee

...and now the circle is complete, after the esteemed EMWK crashed on Woodside Avenue after the last hometown Sisters show last March

[eastmidswhizzkid]

you are more than welcome bro...and i will see you on the sat in london as i am now going to tha one as well

[Pista]

**i've double-posted this here and in "Interviews/reviews. if a mod or Quiffboy could choose where its more suited and delete t'other i'd say: ta muchly!

This one's getting all the views so I'll chop the other one

[Icon]

Dear EMWK, thank you very much for posting this here, as I am one of those who wouldn‘t touch FB...
Brilliant read, lots of interesting info, the picture of our much loved Von is getting more coherent by all the recent stuff, such as this and Waiting for another War and all the things he said himself during all the years.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

**i've double-posted this here and in "Interviews/reviews. if a mod or Quiffboy could choose where its more suited and delete t'other i'd say: ta muchly!

This one's getting all the views so I'll chop the other one

safe bro

[eastmidswhizzkid]

Dear EMWK, thank you very much for posting this here, as I am one of those who wouldn‘t touch FB...
Brilliant read, lots of interesting info, the picture of our much loved Von is getting more coherent by all the recent stuff, such as this and Waiting for another War and all the things he said himself during all the years.

it does seem unfair that we have to be on FB for such juicy tidbits. Phil Vernes group is as unlike the [s]pondlife[/s] group as we are and i'm sure info exchange between the hardcore fanbase wont upset anyone but "people we dont talk to" so VOILA!


edit: why doesnt the bbcode for strikethroughs work on this new forum?

[Planet Dave]

you are more than welcome bro...and i will see you on the sat in london as i am now going to tha one as well

Everything and more crossed that that will come to pass and if you're making it for 2 out of the 3 nights, it'd frankly be chuffing rude for you not to be given a guestlist spot for the missing night by those wot give out guestlist spots, whoever tf they may actually be.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

you are more than welcome bro...and i will see you on the sat in london as i am now going to tha one as well

Everything and more crossed that that will come to pass and if you're making it for 2 out of the 3 nights, it'd frankly be chuffing rude for you not to be given a guestlist spot for the missing night by those wot give out guestlist spots, whoever tf they may actually be.

ahh if only such things happened with our fave beat combo,...,Our Moon never fails to light & anchor us and Kali-ma knows me as her own... i am sure the Universe will provide as ever.

[Being645]

Thank you David Owen for this lovely account. Such a pleasure to read ... ...

and many thanks to you, Lee, for posting it here ... ... ...

[Todashi]

That was a lovely evocative read. Thanks to those who made it possible.

[Gothicbiff]

I'll be reading this later with a glass of vino in hand

Thanks for posting

[OLDFART]

That was a great read , thanks for putting it up EMWK .

[ruffers]

Good read, thanks for posting.

[paint it black]

So this makes it even more likely the 1984 Hendrix Melody in Manchester owed a nod to Soft Cell.

Great to see so many names places details I recall. Maybe I haven’t been dreaming after all

[Swinnow]

So this makes it even more likely the 1984 Hendrix Melody in Manchester owed a nod to Soft Cell.

Thinking back, it was a girl we knew who also knew Ben Matthews "pretty well" who first played us the Soft Cell medley, as she had the bonus disc. Admittedly, wrong guitarist for that gig though.

[paint it black]

@Sinnow

Yep but could’ve been on in the tour bus etc for a time. The Suicide vibe to the Soft Cell version is very obvious so no doubt appealed

Plus rare pre internet days always made stuff sound better