Book: Waiting For Another War
-
elamanamou
- Slight Overbomber
- Posts: 1677
- Joined: 07 Jun 2004, 19:11
- Location: Fordingbridge, Hampshire
Small world. A school friend I never knew liked the Sisters wrote a good review.
-
bismarck
- Utterly Bastard Groovy Amphetamine Filth
- Posts: 655
- Joined: 04 May 2003, 23:04
- Location: Sedan
Oh wow, Christian is a friend of yours from school? Post his review here.elamanamou wrote: ↑04 May 2021, 22:20 Small world. A school friend I never knew liked the Sisters wrote a good review.
The great questions of the day will not be
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
-
elamanamou
- Slight Overbomber
- Posts: 1677
- Joined: 07 Jun 2004, 19:11
- Location: Fordingbridge, Hampshire
So I read Waiting for Another War the history of the Sisters of Mercy (till 1985) by Trevor Ristow. It is a really good readable book with a limited market (probably people who bought The Reptile House ep) and charts the various incarnations of the Sisters of Mercy to 85; three main line ups and styles, with only the auteur Andrew Eldritch making it all the way through: though Gary Marx had every opportunity to.
Eldritch is as you imagine: aloof, intellectual, amphetamine driven and a huge fan of late 60s rock. He despises the Cult, which surprised me given they were doing much the same thing -- trying to be Led Zeppelin. Except Eldritch was trying to be Lemmy. Still Eldritch is a sympathetic character to my mind in comparison with That Guitarist -- who is depicted as immature, fawning and dangerously our of control at times, such as when he drove a car through red lights all the way down 5th Ave. just for fun. (One of the bands biggest US promoters was killed a couple of years later crushed by a car when someone did the same). Of course this is a massively pro Eldritch book - he comes over as a dick only twice really - so I shall read Salad Daze by That Guitarist when time allows.
Goth culture seems to have come together despite the intentions of the bands associated with it and was a post punk thing with distinct British and US trends, but Eldritch hated goths with a passion. Hussey saw them as a fantastic market, and liked them - his own sensibilities were pure Led Zeppelin, exactly with The Cult, but Eldritch was desperate to reject the goth label to stop the band being sidelined and forced from the mainstream. (He utterly failed and bitterly resented it).
There are less rock n Roll excess stories than you would expect, and a lot more of Eldritch getting his label WEA to give him total artistic control, and then experimenting with other band members having some input before deciding to do everything his way. Marx did not want to be a rockstar and wanted to be ar home with the missus, and Ben Gunn found taking the Sisters seriously as a deal breaker and walked first. Craig Adams and Hussey loved excess and partying and wound up good mates: Eldritch seems to have pitied them rather, and held out a hand but the end was inevitable.
Where the book is weaker is in the lyrical analysis: some good stuff but I am pretty certain that there are far more dense layers of literary allusion. Marian reminds me of Marianne by Percy Byshe Shelley
"And hark! a rush as if the deep
Had burst its bonds; she looked behind
And saw over the western steep
A raging flood descend, and wind
Through that wide vale; she felt no fear,
But said within herself, 'Tis clear
These towers are Nature's own, and she
To save them has sent forth the sea"
and his subsequent death by drowning: see https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2014/07/ ... e-shelley/
More than the Romantics though the spectre of T. S. Elliot appears again and again, and many lyrics are taken from there in much the way Jefferson Airplane plundered A.A.Milne and Dadaist poetry. The author acknowledges this, citing Elliot's "White bodies naked on the low damp ground" which obviously is mirrored in The Floorshow lyric. I would have enjoyed more of this kind of teasing out the multiple layers of allusion.
Now let us be clear: Eldritch is avowed anti-Fascist, but one of the most interesting way to read his lyrics is through Klaus Theweleit's classic study of Freikorp art and literature: Male Fantasies: women, flood, bodies, history which is replete with symbolism of pure snow, trains and red terror. As a cultural analysis of certain expressions of dangerous masculinity it is unexpected- and while the English translation was 1987 it was originally published as Männerphantasien, 2 Vols., Verlag Roter Stern/Stroemfeld, Frankfurt am Main/Basel 1977–1978. This is Eldritch - I am sure he appreciates German literature and film too, and read the important intellectuals from a Leftist position?
This is the most intellectual type of dumb rock and roll ever concieved: and Eldritch is unlikely to explain himself. The Sisters at their best represent a tearing conflict between the Appolonian and the Dionysian, and I really loved them though I never got them. There may be a reason for that.
Eldritch's biography in the book is scant: RAF child Ely - Singapore - Great Malvern - London. I am astonished there are no West German bases there. Ely however really explains some of the lyrics and my affection for them. There is something of the more melancholy baroque about the music, and Ely cathedral might loom over it. Mostly though it reminds me of the Fens, and the Breck, driving through the landscapes of my youth - 1984, Weston at the wheel, the landscape pure floodland, a mirror of snow under the blackest of skies, a train rumbling to Cambridge, and the roar of US jets across the sky.
I guess we all find our own meanings in every song we love, and Eldritch is more willing than most to step back and let us. Shame, he seems like someone I could talk to. Still, while we have no autobiography Ristow's book is a great place to start. Highly recommended.
Eldritch is as you imagine: aloof, intellectual, amphetamine driven and a huge fan of late 60s rock. He despises the Cult, which surprised me given they were doing much the same thing -- trying to be Led Zeppelin. Except Eldritch was trying to be Lemmy. Still Eldritch is a sympathetic character to my mind in comparison with That Guitarist -- who is depicted as immature, fawning and dangerously our of control at times, such as when he drove a car through red lights all the way down 5th Ave. just for fun. (One of the bands biggest US promoters was killed a couple of years later crushed by a car when someone did the same). Of course this is a massively pro Eldritch book - he comes over as a dick only twice really - so I shall read Salad Daze by That Guitarist when time allows.
Goth culture seems to have come together despite the intentions of the bands associated with it and was a post punk thing with distinct British and US trends, but Eldritch hated goths with a passion. Hussey saw them as a fantastic market, and liked them - his own sensibilities were pure Led Zeppelin, exactly with The Cult, but Eldritch was desperate to reject the goth label to stop the band being sidelined and forced from the mainstream. (He utterly failed and bitterly resented it).
There are less rock n Roll excess stories than you would expect, and a lot more of Eldritch getting his label WEA to give him total artistic control, and then experimenting with other band members having some input before deciding to do everything his way. Marx did not want to be a rockstar and wanted to be ar home with the missus, and Ben Gunn found taking the Sisters seriously as a deal breaker and walked first. Craig Adams and Hussey loved excess and partying and wound up good mates: Eldritch seems to have pitied them rather, and held out a hand but the end was inevitable.
Where the book is weaker is in the lyrical analysis: some good stuff but I am pretty certain that there are far more dense layers of literary allusion. Marian reminds me of Marianne by Percy Byshe Shelley
"And hark! a rush as if the deep
Had burst its bonds; she looked behind
And saw over the western steep
A raging flood descend, and wind
Through that wide vale; she felt no fear,
But said within herself, 'Tis clear
These towers are Nature's own, and she
To save them has sent forth the sea"
and his subsequent death by drowning: see https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2014/07/ ... e-shelley/
More than the Romantics though the spectre of T. S. Elliot appears again and again, and many lyrics are taken from there in much the way Jefferson Airplane plundered A.A.Milne and Dadaist poetry. The author acknowledges this, citing Elliot's "White bodies naked on the low damp ground" which obviously is mirrored in The Floorshow lyric. I would have enjoyed more of this kind of teasing out the multiple layers of allusion.
Now let us be clear: Eldritch is avowed anti-Fascist, but one of the most interesting way to read his lyrics is through Klaus Theweleit's classic study of Freikorp art and literature: Male Fantasies: women, flood, bodies, history which is replete with symbolism of pure snow, trains and red terror. As a cultural analysis of certain expressions of dangerous masculinity it is unexpected- and while the English translation was 1987 it was originally published as Männerphantasien, 2 Vols., Verlag Roter Stern/Stroemfeld, Frankfurt am Main/Basel 1977–1978. This is Eldritch - I am sure he appreciates German literature and film too, and read the important intellectuals from a Leftist position?
This is the most intellectual type of dumb rock and roll ever concieved: and Eldritch is unlikely to explain himself. The Sisters at their best represent a tearing conflict between the Appolonian and the Dionysian, and I really loved them though I never got them. There may be a reason for that.
Eldritch's biography in the book is scant: RAF child Ely - Singapore - Great Malvern - London. I am astonished there are no West German bases there. Ely however really explains some of the lyrics and my affection for them. There is something of the more melancholy baroque about the music, and Ely cathedral might loom over it. Mostly though it reminds me of the Fens, and the Breck, driving through the landscapes of my youth - 1984, Weston at the wheel, the landscape pure floodland, a mirror of snow under the blackest of skies, a train rumbling to Cambridge, and the roar of US jets across the sky.
I guess we all find our own meanings in every song we love, and Eldritch is more willing than most to step back and let us. Shame, he seems like someone I could talk to. Still, while we have no autobiography Ristow's book is a great place to start. Highly recommended.
Last edited by elamanamou on 07 May 2021, 09:34, edited 1 time in total.
-
elamanamou
- Slight Overbomber
- Posts: 1677
- Joined: 07 Jun 2004, 19:11
- Location: Fordingbridge, Hampshire
Posted Christian’s review abovebismarck wrote: ↑06 May 2021, 21:44Oh wow, Christian is a friend of yours from school? Post his review here.elamanamou wrote: ↑04 May 2021, 22:20 Small world. A school friend I never knew liked the Sisters wrote a good review.
-
eastmidswhizzkid
- Faster Than The Light Of Speed
- Posts: 9883
- Joined: 24 Mar 2005, 00:01
- Location: WhizzWorld
- Contact:
its a pretty boring up-its-own-arse review though. pseud's... 
Well I was handsome and I was strong
And I knew the words to every song.
"Did my singing please you?"
"No! The words you sang were wrong!"
And I knew the words to every song.
"Did my singing please you?"
"No! The words you sang were wrong!"
-
bismarck
- Utterly Bastard Groovy Amphetamine Filth
- Posts: 655
- Joined: 04 May 2003, 23:04
- Location: Sedan
Many thanks Gethz. Vol. II is in the works. I'll do a much better job of announcing it in advance this time.
The great questions of the day will not be
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
-
bismarck
- Utterly Bastard Groovy Amphetamine Filth
- Posts: 655
- Joined: 04 May 2003, 23:04
- Location: Sedan
Back in stock at Rough Trade in London: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/trevor-ri ... -1-1980-85
Also back in stock at Topos, with free US shipping: https://www.toposbookstore.com/product/ ... WXkPR058Kg
GKW Press (in other words, me) will be away from our shipping facilities (my desk) for a while starting in about a week, so I won't be able to fulfill orders. I will take the buying option down on the website while I am away. But if you want a paperback, the two stores above can help you while supplies last there.
Also back in stock at Topos, with free US shipping: https://www.toposbookstore.com/product/ ... WXkPR058Kg
GKW Press (in other words, me) will be away from our shipping facilities (my desk) for a while starting in about a week, so I won't be able to fulfill orders. I will take the buying option down on the website while I am away. But if you want a paperback, the two stores above can help you while supplies last there.
The great questions of the day will not be
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
-
Memphis Rich
- Gonzoid Amphetamine Filth
- Posts: 360
- Joined: 17 Jul 2010, 23:45
Just got around to reading the book. Excellent work! Looking forward to volume two.
Words are just turds
In sewers of sound
In sewers of sound
-
bismarck
- Utterly Bastard Groovy Amphetamine Filth
- Posts: 655
- Joined: 04 May 2003, 23:04
- Location: Sedan
Many thanks Rich.Memphis Rich wrote: ↑15 Jul 2021, 10:09 Just got around to reading the book. Excellent work! Looking forward to volume two.
The great questions of the day will not be
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
-
bismarck
- Utterly Bastard Groovy Amphetamine Filth
- Posts: 655
- Joined: 04 May 2003, 23:04
- Location: Sedan
In case you are suffering through a heatwave (as we are), here is a very original blog post about popsicles and Waiting For Another War:
https://thelovingbelly.com/sisters-of-m ... popsicles/
Thank you to Courtney Whitman.
https://thelovingbelly.com/sisters-of-m ... popsicles/
Thank you to Courtney Whitman.
The great questions of the day will not be
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
-
eastmidswhizzkid
- Faster Than The Light Of Speed
- Posts: 9883
- Joined: 24 Mar 2005, 00:01
- Location: WhizzWorld
- Contact:
another nice little review. with recipes for Goth ice-lollies! ace.bismarck wrote: ↑12 Aug 2021, 17:12 In case you are suffering through a heatwave (as we are), here is a very original blog post about popsicles and Waiting For Another War:
https://thelovingbelly.com/sisters-of-m ... popsicles/
Thank you to Courtney Whitman.
Well I was handsome and I was strong
And I knew the words to every song.
"Did my singing please you?"
"No! The words you sang were wrong!"
And I knew the words to every song.
"Did my singing please you?"
"No! The words you sang were wrong!"
-
bismarck
- Utterly Bastard Groovy Amphetamine Filth
- Posts: 655
- Joined: 04 May 2003, 23:04
- Location: Sedan
Rough Trade in London have imported another shipment of Waiting For Another War, which is now available to pre-order.
Because they will only import very limited quantities at one time, I don't know how long these will last there. But if you're in the UK or EU, and you want one in a week or so, now's the time to get in:
https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/trevor-ri ... -1-1980-85
Because they will only import very limited quantities at one time, I don't know how long these will last there. But if you're in the UK or EU, and you want one in a week or so, now's the time to get in:
https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/trevor-ri ... -1-1980-85
The great questions of the day will not be
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
resolved by speeches and majority decisions,
but by iron and blood.
- Otto von Bismarck
-
Gothicbiff
- Utterly Bastard Groovy Amphetamine Filth
- Posts: 709
- Joined: 22 Oct 2019, 12:06
For anyone not on Facebook 
I have seen The Sisters at The Paradiso. I will die happy
With massive thanks to Ruffers for his company and help.
A girl is never too old to wear a Sisters tshirt!
With massive thanks to Ruffers for his company and help.
A girl is never too old to wear a Sisters tshirt!
-
paint it black
- Black, black, black & even blacker
- Posts: 4966
- Joined: 11 Jul 2002, 01:00
Nice one! Well done Trev 
Goths have feelings too
-
Rantz Hoseley
- Road Kill
- Posts: 48
- Joined: 22 Jul 2020, 19:37
- Location: Los Angeles
- Contact:
Where's the best place in the states currently to pick this up?
Admin note: Ian has sourced a copy now. Many thanks.
Hi. I've joined this forum today in my search for a copy of 'WFAW'. I'm in the UK and can't find one anywhere. Amazon have a digital copy but there's a warning attached, stating that the quality is dubious, plus, digital books suck.
Please can anyone help? Thanks, Ian
Hi. I've joined this forum today in my search for a copy of 'WFAW'. I'm in the UK and can't find one anywhere. Amazon have a digital copy but there's a warning attached, stating that the quality is dubious, plus, digital books suck.
Please can anyone help? Thanks, Ian
Hello & welcome toIan1971 wrote: ↑20 Feb 2023, 18:28 Hi. I've joined this forum today in my search for a copy of 'WFAW'. I'm in the UK and can't find one anywhere. Amazon have a digital copy but there's a warning attached, stating that the quality is dubious, plus, digital books suck.
Please can anyone help? Thanks, Ian
Good luck in your search. Pretty sure someone round these parts can point in in roughly the right direction
I've got a spare copy (Mint Condition) if you'd like to Purchase it off of me? I'll take care of the Postage cost.Ian1971 wrote: ↑20 Feb 2023, 18:28 Hi. I've joined this forum today in my search for a copy of 'WFAW'. I'm in the UK and can't find one anywhere. Amazon have a digital copy but there's a warning attached, stating that the quality is dubious, plus, digital books suck.
Please can anyone help? Thanks, Ian
Regards,
Big Si
Hey. Thanks for getting back to me but it's okay, I went and bought the digital version and now my paperback copy of 'Paint my name in black and gold' has arrived, so my need to read about SOM is satisfied. Looks like I can't edit my first post to add that I don't need it anymore?Big Si wrote: ↑21 Feb 2023, 19:42I've got a spare copy (Mint Condition) if you'd like to Purchase it off of me? I'll take care of the Postage cost.Ian1971 wrote: ↑20 Feb 2023, 18:28 Hi. I've joined this forum today in my search for a copy of 'WFAW'. I'm in the UK and can't find one anywhere. Amazon have a digital copy but there's a warning attached, stating that the quality is dubious, plus, digital books suck.
Please can anyone help? Thanks, Ian
Regards,
Big Si
Cheers,
Ian