Heartland

Machine Regime wrote: NTTC is a great track BTW - easily one the girls' best.

mh wrote:Body and Soul - described at the time as "a vision of heaven with everyone on speed" by the band.
Nope, don't buy the theory. If nothing else the band certainly thought that it was the right thing to release back then.

Can I ask - were you guys there at the time? I remember the golden run of records - Alice, Ananconda, Reptile House, Temple of Love.. then No No No No Time to Cry was just ...meh. Walk Away was good but a bit odd - too fast, strange drums.. then Body and Soul - saved only by the other tracks on the 12". That amazing feeling of anticipation at the next release was replaced with a feeling of deflation - they were just fading away... Body and Soul must have lost them a heap of momentum.

Having said that, they bounced back with the next singles - videos on heavy rotation on MTV...America beckoned. But I guess the big contract just strangled them.

bearskin wrote:

Machine Regime wrote: NTTC is a great track BTW - easily one the girls' best.

mh wrote:Body and Soul - described at the time as "a vision of heaven with everyone on speed" by the band.
Nope, don't buy the theory. If nothing else the band certainly thought that it was the right thing to release back then.

Can I ask - were you guys there at the time? I remember the golden run of records - Alice, Ananconda, Reptile House, Temple of Love.. then No No No No Time to Cry was just ...meh. Walk Away was good but a bit odd - too fast, strange drums.. then Body and Soul - saved only by the other tracks on the 12". That amazing feeling of anticipation at the next release was replaced with a feeling of deflation - they were just fading away... Body and Soul must have lost them a heap of momentum.

Having said that, they bounced back with the next singles - videos on heavy rotation on MTV...America beckoned. But I guess the big contract just strangled them.

I wasn't there at the time no - I was about ten years old then, but does that diminish my claim that No Time is one the girls' finest? I particularly love the modern live rendition. The FALAA album was fantastic, but for me, only a couple of the album tracks are better on the record than their modern live versions. But then I'm a metalhead, go figure.

Nikolas Vitus Lagartija wrote:Most HLers will have experienced frustration at having to explain who TSOM are to friends and acquaintances. Why did the Girls never make it as big as they deserved ? What was Von's biggest faux pas along the way ?

Not being able to keep a settled line-up for more than five minutes ?
Forgetting to release any new product for two decades ?
Allowing the "Cure - ification" of FALAA ?
A weakness for female sidekicks/duettists who do little to advance the cause ?
Allowing Hussey/James into the fold ?
Or are you one of the dwindling few who believe that has papal infallibility ?

To start the ball rolling, IMHO the most damaging decision was that to release Body and Soul as the first single on WEA in June 84. At that time, the Sisters were one of the coollest names to drop and tipped as the Next Big Thing. A decent song choice would have ensured a top forty chart slot, "Top of the Pops", capturing the zeitgeist and joining contemporaries REM/U2 etc on the path to stardom. In the end, pluggers were faced with a half-paced dirge with no real ending and "yesterday, today, tomorrow" lyrics more at home on an advert for TV sets. OK, the other three tracks, the re-recording of BE, the generic (Short) Train and the fantastically atmospheric Afterhours, revealed the true genius of AE, but many key observers summarily dismissed tha band as irrelevant and a cursory listen to the lead track. No wonder it didn't make it on to FALAA ...

Yes, Body And Soul was a mistake. It was released but nothing really happened. Bringing in Wayne - some hardcore fans is constantly saying bad things about him. But I remember it all well,
I was a Sistersfan right before he joined. He brought something to the band, with him, Andy, Craig and Gary Marx it felt that The Sisters Of Mercy was completed.
(And remember, he was in the band for about a year and that is now 26 years ago. What an impact he made, after all. Anyone remember Chris Starling? or Varjak? Varjak, after all, wrote a few nice songs, among them We Are The Same, Susannne.)

They grew bigger than before and First And Last Always is a classic album from that time and without the release of that album the band wouldn´t get that cult status which gave Andrew the opportunity to release the very odd album Gift and later the more succesfull Floodland and then Vision Thing with a comeback tour that felt very magic at that time.

The Sisters Of Mercy was considered a magic band for a long time, and of course he knew that That Guitarist was part of responsible for that and the "nasty fight" they both played made Andrew an icon of sort, every newspaper wanted to know more. This was a completely different time with no internet, twitter, facebook etc etc etc. There was a more magical feel to The Sisters Of Mercy.

IMO Andrews biggest mistake is to still touring as The Sisters Of Mercy. The magic is lost and to be honest, even the band is long gone.
Nothing of what the band used to stand for remains. Nothing that Andrew stood for remains.
And the Sisters in the past was always one step ahead all others. They run the audience down for every tour and never repeated themselves. I remember when he said "this is last time we´re gonna play this song" right before 1969. That is how you make statements and looking forward and letting the past be a cult-thing like "oh, I wish I saw that tour, it will never be the same again".
But that was a looooooooong time ago. The past ten years or whatever has been a constant repetetion and the same versions of songs like Anaconda, Temple, First + Last has been played too many times now. Nowadays you know what you will get.

"In illusion comfort lies
the safest way - the straight and narrow
No confusion no surprise"

bearskin wrote:Can I ask - were you guys there at the time?

I have vague memories from 85/86 and was definitely aware that the band existed, but really came aboard in 87, so - no.

bearskin wrote:No No No No Time to Cry

She will, she will, she will, she will, blow away.

The second side of FALAA was always better anyway IMO.

So, biggest mistake may have been the situation that led to Marx leaving. Yeah, I know it's hip and trendy to dismiss Wayne's contributions to the band, but with the evidence of so many of his subsequent musical accomplishments on offer, it's kinda hard to come to any conclusion but that his departure was in the longer term a good thing. Something like Bird of Passage as a Sisters song? No thanks!

SSV - That entire episode is easily the BIG mistake. That must be one of the most counter-productive and completely self-destructive decisions in the history of rock music. OK, maybe not as bad as Lars lambasting Napster, but close. Seriously? What was he thinking?

Prescott wrote:SSV - That entire episode is easily the BIG mistake. That must be one of the most counter-productive and completely self-destructive decisions in the history of rock music. OK, maybe not as bad as Lars lambasting Napster, but close. Seriously? What was he thinking?

"get me the hell out of dodge!"?

Prescott wrote:SSV - That entire episode is easily the BIG mistake. That must be one of the most counter-productive and completely self-destructive decisions in the history of rock music. OK, maybe not as bad as Lars lambasting Napster, but close. Seriously? What was he thinking?

... I love that record ... I think it's as great as any other Eldritch produce ... and yes, exactly ...
again something that hasn't been done in the history of rock music business before ... no-one could ever have done that and even got it released... ...

To me it's as true and real as the versions of Bowie's Station To Station songs,
The Sisters played before their gigs a few times this year, way more real in some respect than the original record tracks ...

Machine Regime wrote: I wasn't there at the time no - I was about ten years old then, but does that diminish my claim that No Time is one the girls' finest? .

No, it doesn't affect anyone's opinion of the single retrospectively. The point I was making was how people felt at the time those records were released.

My local record store used to have these little black and white A5 flyers on the counter a few weeks before the new Sisters records were coming out (I still have them now), and you'd get the adverts in the music press, and then some airplay - usually Kid Jensen or whoever was on the mid-evening slot on R1. Finally you'd get down the record store on a saturday morning, and have the vinyl in your hands...rush home and put it on.

I remember the feeling when you discovered that what you had in your hands was... The Reptile House...or...The Temple of Love.

Imagine that feeling for the first time. Brand new. Amazing. Pure magic. The first time you had Temple of Love blasting from your stereo.

Then you got NTTC.. and Body and Soul... meh.

However, I admit they do suffer in comparing them to the previous record I mean, to follow Temple of Love is just not fair. I guess.

Sorry, just an old man's memories!!

I don't think they had a duff single until Under The Gun TBH.

Body & Soul was good as were the FALAA singles.

If you were at a gig tomorrow & they played those tracks you'd all be over the moon.

Under The Gun was........how to put this?......... carp.

Following TOL was always going to be a tall order, but what followed was very respectable IMHO

Was any of it a mistake? I left a s**t job last year that I had been in wayyyyyyyy too long for another s**t job that has been a totally dispiriting experience from day one.

Von has been his own boss for 30 years, gets to see the world the way he wants to when he wants to with people he wants to see it with. I don't think I could advise him to do things "my way".

So although I think he should have stuck another record out whilst there was still some commercial clout kicking around rather than going on strike and/or doing the SSV nonsense, when it comes to looking back at where it might or might not have gone wrong, I'm inclined to be quite envious of him

moses wrote:

Big Si wrote:
But they offered the best publishing deal for the band, which kept them going through all the tours of 1984-1985, and Merciful Release. Besides he got on fantastically well with the German branch of the label, it's the UK and Electra in the USA that messed everything else up

I thought they were published through RCA?

Sorry my earlier post missed out some detail. Temple of Love 1983 was published by Mirage Music Ltd

Many years ago I had a very long, very early morning chat with the guy who helped run their office in London, and helped them get the Record deal and the later publishing deal with RCA/Candlemasse. From what he told me I understood that they could have continued on Merciful Release as the record sales were enough to break even, but the money on offer was too good to turn down, and WEAs marketing and Distribution would have made a huge difference

So to sum up the answers to my original question, only a couple of you (thanks bearskin and playboy) agree with me that B+S et al brought a "magical time" of the "golden run of singles" of 82-83 to an end (I remember the days when the first you knew about a new release was the display in Jumbo records totally covered with the new sleeve and rushing in to buy said product from a youthful Choque Hussein who worked there).

It's difficult to argue against the majority view however that the ongoing record company wrangling, however Von's position may be honorable, has been ultimately debilitating.

Maybe both views are linked by mh's perceptively oblique comments about the departures of Marx and Adams. Craig's contribution to the "golden run" was immense, whilst Marx was the Richard to 's Jagger, his McCartney to 's Lennon, the Wise to 's Morecambe. Had they stayed...well who knows.

As for NTTC, I hated it's watered down jangly Smithsesque vibe when it first came out, but 25 years on I love it's subtle vulnerability. Just goes to show why still makes a living as a professional musician and the rest of us just post comments on a forum !

Nikolas Vitus Lagartija wrote:
As for NTTC, I hated it's watered down jangly Smithsesque vibe when it first came out, but 25 years on I love it's subtle vulnerability. Just goes to show why still makes a living as a professional musician ...

As does Mr Smith

Nikolas Vitus Lagartija wrote:So to sum up the answers to my original question, only a couple of you (thanks bearskin and playboy) agree with me that B+S et al brought a "magical time" of the "golden run of singles" of 82-83 to an end (I remember the days when the first you knew about a new release was the display in Jumbo records totally covered with the new sleeve and rushing in to buy said product from a youthful Choque Hussein who worked there).

It's difficult to argue against the majority view however that the ongoing record company wrangling, however Von's position may be honorable, has been ultimately debilitating.

Maybe both views are linked by mh's perceptively oblique comments about the departures of Marx and Adams. Craig's contribution to the "golden run" was immense, whilst Marx was the Richard to 's Jagger, his McCartney to 's Lennon, the Wise to 's Morecambe. Had they stayed...well who knows.

As for NTTC, I hated it's watered down jangly Smithsesque vibe when it first came out, but 25 years on I love it's subtle vulnerability. Just goes to show why still makes a living as a professional musician and the rest of us just post comments on a forum !

Well perhaps those 1984-1985 A-sides could have been better produced, but you gotta love them B-Sides, yeah?

Body Electric
Train (and Long Train)
Afterhours
Poison Door
On the Wire
Blood Money
Bury Me Deep

I'd say they're better than a lot of the tracks that ended up on FALAA

Big Si wrote:
Well perhaps those 1984-1985 A-sides could have been better produced, but you gotta love them B-Sides, yeah?

Body Electric
Train (and Long Train)
Afterhours
Poison Door
On the Wire
Blood Money
Bury Me Deep

I'd say they're better than a lot of the tracks that ended up on FALAA

Oh yeah... some awesome tracks in there. Don't know that i would change FALAA to accommodate them though.

It was the days before digital and MP3 collections etc, and you treasured what you had as a collection indivdually. So, I personally already had those tracks - I would buy the 12" versions of the singles so that i got all the extras.

Personally, I think NTTC, Body and Soul and Walk Away are excellent tracks, but not the best choices for singles - especially when the very idea of a single is to appeal to the masses. Think This Corrosion, Temple of Love etc. I always thought Body and Soul should have been on FALAA. All three of these singles are excellent album tracks but don't quite cut it as singles.

When you think every track on FALAA, Black Planet aside, deals with personal relationships, love, despair, desire, heartache etc, then I think Body and Soul, a plea for total intimacy and everlasting love, would have complemented an album that basically deals with a range of human emotions and conditions.

I would say it is pretty hard to "make it" if you do not release any new material for 20 years.
Seriously Von makes Axl look like a wonder of creativity.

Axl, Kate Bush, Siouxsie, Duke Nukem....

All things I never thought I'd see happen before a new Sisters record.

Prescott wrote:Axl, Kate Bush, Siouxsie, Duke Nukem....

All things I never thought I'd see happen before a new Sisters record.

A black American president

The collapse of the world financial markets

Star Wars prequels

The 'War on Terror'

Michael Jackson dying

The Internet

Smart phones...

Definitely- cutting his hair and start wearing yellow :.P

Yup. Shaving that head waz verrrrrrrry wrong

Salome wrote:Definitely- cutting his hair and start wearing yellow :.P

He probably had little choice about the hair - age catches up with us all.
As for that yellow coat at the NEC - a fashion faux pas but a deliberate step away from black !

hmm... hair transplants then? :.P

I don't feel like reading the whole thread, I don't like the topic. Just passing through to mention that I love the no hair look and I think it was a shame to conceal such a shapely dimple above the back of the neck with hair. God it's late, and I'm tired, I'd better go to sleep and stop thinking aloud here.

centurionofprix wrote:In terms of commercial success, though, I think it was in allowing the early 90's momentum to run out.

This. After Temple of Love and Under the Gun, the Sisters were on the brink of a major breakthrough. But he let it slip away.