The reason why the sisters don't put out records...

[Ozpat]

I'm not!

[markfiend]

I got nothing to say I ain't said before
I bled all I can, I won't bleed no more

[Bartek]

OK, i'm gonna involve but, listen very carefully, I shall say this only once!.
One band comes in my mind: PiL- they start touring to raise money to record new album, and they recordong it now*. And they raise that money in like 2 and half years, while TSOM touring for 18 years since they last studio recording.
Besides, if they still recording their every gig, we would have at least decent sound live album that could support raising money for studio/promotion. And don't forget about nicely selling tee's.
All above arguments aginst recording new album are valid, but every reasons for recordings aren't invalid. (Schopenhauer, fcuk yeah )
I'm not shrink or other mind reader, so i'm not gonna spaculate why doesn't want to record. I just want to give few rational reasons that studio album could be recorded and resealed long time ago if there was will to do that.

* Obviously i know that Mr John Lydon a.k.a. Butter Seller do a lot to give media reasons to talk about him and PiL (and i believe that he did this on purpose), while doesn't want to act that way, which i seriously admire, respect.

[sultan2075]

It seems to me that the function (for the artist) of a record has changed today, due to the changes in the market wrought by the mp3 revolution. It's no longer a product which one can expect to sell for a profit. It's a means of advertising for live performances, which is where the money is today (unless you're Lady Gaga, Metallica, etc). As long as tickets are selling reasonably well, there's no need to put out records. I doubt a new album would be a direct income stream for TSOM. It might lead to increased attendance at the gigs, though, and therefore serve to increase an already existing income stream.

So, as much as I bitch and moan about wanting a new record, from a sober-minded assessment of the marketplace, there doesn't seem to be any need for them to put one out. It would be (financially) a losing proposition, especially if it were done the way something like Vision Thing had been done.

[callmelightning]

it's all s**t guys.

to tour all the time in the eternal greatest hits tour.

dont be glib and stop justifying Andrew's lack of willingness to do another album.

the well dried up a while back.

enjoy the legendary albums and be happy we get to play 'em as much as we want.

from one huge SOM fan to you all.

[Being645]

dont be glib and stop justifying Andrew's lack of willingness to do another album.

the well dried up a while back.

... that were justification enough ... ... only, it isn't so.

from one huge SOM fan to you all.

Thanks ... ... and greetings to you as well.

[euphoria]

I got nothing to say I ain't said before
I bled all I can, I won't bleed no more

I think he hints at this in more or less all interviews the last years.

Like the last one (that I know of):

Was the single 'Under the Gun' a deliberate final statement on that phase of your career? Looking back, it seems like after your astonishing monologue in the second half of that song, there's little left to be said and nowhere else to go.

AE: Pop Will Eat Itself? You may be right. Andrew recently wrote 'Far Parade', which is even more absolutely Milan. We think his problem is that he no longer finds it fun to rail against American politics, because American politics are no longer important, what with America about to be the Chinese slaveland and all. Watch this space. Mr Eldritch was studying Mandarin Chinese before he started singing for this band.

But I think he has lost his motivation more generally. He is now much easier to approach than 10-15 years ago, because he simply doesn't care anymore. He's in charge of a professional cover band today, and rather satisfied with that. For a present, motivated , watch youtube videos from 1998 or earlier, like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF075WKjnT8

1998 was their chance, but they didn't take it. I don't know if we'll ever find out whether that was Adam's or Andrew's fault, not that it matters much now.
1998 it was also probably still possible to earn money from an album, not so today as Sultan2075 writes. So has got yet another excuse to not make an album, if he hever needed one.

[Machine Regime]

We probably don't really want a new Sisters record anymore - not with new material, anyway - we've built the whole thing up so much that it could never in a million years match the vague but epic s**t that's been plaguing our dreams (waking or sleeping) for so many years now.

My personal suggestion is that if it matters so much to you, go make your own Sisters records - they don't have to have any relation to the girls in any way, but at least you know what you like, so you're unlikely to disappoint yourself.

You don't even need musical ability these days to cut a great sounding album. Get to it - 'cause you know for sure who won't

[markfiend]

We probably don't really want a new Sisters record anymore - not with new material, anyway - we've built the whole thing up so much that it could never in a million years match the vague but epic s**t that's been plaguing our dreams (waking or sleeping) for so many years now.

I think this is true, and also I think that Eldritch knows it too. After so long, there's just no way that anyone could live up to the expectations.

[Being645]

We probably don't really want a new Sisters record anymore - not with new material, anyway - we've built the whole thing up so much that it could never in a million years match the vague but epic s**t that's been plaguing our dreams (waking or sleeping) for so many years now.

I think this is true, and also I think that Eldritch knows it too. After so long, there's just no way that anyone could live up to the expectations.

IMHO, that's just a frustrating illusion.
Expectations are as diverse as listeners ... so they can never be met in absolute terms ... and have never, as we all know ... ...

Though, now, that I think of and the very nature of encounters with The Sisters of Mercy decades ago,
it seems to me that creating a collective disappointment in an extent as we are encountering for almost twenty years
must have fulfilled his bastard dreams (... ... ) to quite an extent ... ...


Of course, sometimes (for a transitory moment in time) it might feel not so pleasing to get what one wanted ...

[markfiend]

Maybe he thinks he can't live up to his own expectations of what a "new Sisters album" should be?

[Being645]

Maybe he thinks he can't live up to his own expectations of what a "new Sisters album" should be?

If he ever was (which I doubt given certain excesses and stuff at the times they made their records), that should no longer be an issue.

The Sisters have become very professional over the years.
Never seen them so relaxed before ... apart from moments in years, but these were short. Now it's all over ... ...

[MadameButterfly]

I got nothing to say I ain't said before
I bled all I can, I won't bleed no more

exactly!

[Prescott]

We probably don't really want a new Sisters record anymore - not with new material, anyway - we've built the whole thing up so much that it could never in a million years match the vague but epic s**t that's been plaguing our dreams (waking or sleeping) for so many years now.

I think this is true, and also I think that Eldritch knows it too. After so long, there's just no way that anyone could live up to the expectations.

IMHO, that's just a frustrating illusion.
Expectations are as diverse as listeners ... so they can never be met in absolute terms ... and have never, as we all know ... ...

Though, now, that I think of and the very nature of encounters with The Sisters of Mercy decades ago,
it seems to me that creating a collective disappointment in an extent as we are encountering for almost twenty years
must have fulfilled his bastard dreams (... ... ) to quite an extent ... ...


Of course, sometimes (for a transitory moment in time) it might feel not so pleasing to get what one wanted ...

This is described exactly in the lyrics of Gary Marx's song "Idiot Nation" from "Nineteen Ninety Five and Nowhere". I'm growing more convinced every year that he was intentionally trying to sabotage the Sisters at one point. Maybe since then he has some regrets about it all?

I also think that 1998 was pivotal. The catch phrases were "Event Horizon"
and "Seven Shades of Shiva Rising".

Shiva creates from destruction. Maybe the planned destruction of the Sisters, to give birth to a new Sisters, didn't go so well? Or as planned?
He then went "To the Planet Edge" (the ends of the earth) in search of a proper vehicle for the Sisters rebirth, then "Tripped the Light Fantastic" to prove they had record company friendly songs like "Crash and Burn" which summed up the state of the band, still record label-less in 2000 pretty well; only to feel as if the Sisters had been "Exxiled on Euphoria" in the end, for their 20th anniversary in 2001.

I've always felt the tour names were very significant, especially beginning in 1998.

So where is Shiva? And Shiva's Rainbow? Where's the promise after the flood?

[Dan]

Eldo interviewed by Gary Davies, May 1988.

GD "So when are Sisters of Mercy going to go on the road?"
AE "We did that once?"
GD "And?"
AE "The wheels fell off."
GD "So you're not gonna do it again?"
AE "It doesn't look likely."
GD "What ever?"
AE "Yeah. It's not nice, it's such a squalid thing to do."
GD "Yeah, you'd just rather record?"
AE "Yeah, that's what we're good at."

[TheGoodSon]

Eldo interviewed by Gary Davies, May 1988.

GD "So when are Sisters of Mercy going to go on the road?"
AE "We did that once?"
GD "And?"
AE "The wheels fell off."
GD "So you're not gonna do it again?"
AE "It doesn't look likely."
GD "What ever?"
AE "Yeah. It's not nice, it's such a squalid thing to do."
GD "Yeah, you'd just rather record?"
AE "Yeah, that's what we're good at."

He´s said stuff like that over and over through the years - until, all of a sudden, recording and releasing music in some form or other became completely redundant, something he was glad he didn´t need to bother with anymore. I do not get that.
I also remember some quote from UTR, where he said "the recorded song is the norm", talking about how playing the songs live always took away from his original intentions with the song.
Strange, that.

[Pista]

i
from one huge SOM fan to you all.

Is that not TSOM fan??

[stufarq]

I also think that 1998 was pivotal. The catch phrases were "Event Horizon"
and "Seven Shades of Shiva Rising".

Shiva creates from destruction. Maybe the planned destruction of the Sisters, to give birth to a new Sisters, didn't go so well? Or as planned?
He then went "To the Planet Edge" (the ends of the earth) in search of a proper vehicle for the Sisters rebirth, then "Tripped the Light Fantastic" to prove they had record company friendly songs like "Crash and Burn" which summed up the state of the band, still record label-less in 2000 pretty well; only to feel as if the Sisters had been "Exxiled on Euphoria" in the end, for their 20th anniversary in 2001.

I've always felt the tour names were very significant, especially beginning in 1998.

Or maybe he just liked the sound of them and it's easy to read too much into it. After all, Mechanised Europe didn't result in a mechanical recording of any sort and Silver Bullet didn't feature a single werewolf.

On the other hand, the Summer tours were actually played during summer... Maybe you're on to something after all

[Sita]

He´s said stuff like that over and over through the years - until, all of a sudden, recording and releasing music in some form or other became completely redundant, something he was glad he didn´t need to bother with anymore. I do not get that.
I also remember some quote from UTR, where he said "the recorded song is the norm", talking about how playing the songs live always took away from his original intentions with the song.
Strange, that.

I also remember a many funny interviews where Eldritch described how much he feared and loathed playing live and what a drag touring was. He seemed very eloquent, funny and convincing on that.
When interviewed these days, he seems grumpy and one-worded.
So, I don't buy the change of mind. I guess he plays live now because he has to (good for us of course), not because he suddenly likes it. But I don't know the man, so I am purely guessing.

[Being645]

... After so long, there's just no way that anyone could live up to the expectations.

IMHO, that's just a frustrating illusion.
Expectations are as diverse as listeners ... so they can never be met in absolute terms ... and have never, as we all know ... ...

Though, now, that I think of and the very nature of encounters with The Sisters of Mercy decades ago,
it seems to me that creating a collective disappointment in an extent as we are encountering for almost twenty years
must have fulfilled his bastard dreams (... ... ) to quite an extent ... ...


Of course, sometimes (for a transitory moment in time) it might feel not so pleasing to get what one wanted ...

This is described exactly in the lyrics of Gary Marx's song "Idiot Nation" from "Nineteen Ninety Five and Nowhere". I'm growing more convinced every year that he was intentionally trying to sabotage the Sisters at one point. Maybe since then he has some regrets about it all?

I wouldn't say it like that (for I'm just another person, and I don't know 1995 And Nowhere). For me it's more like that sometimes,
the only way to keep one's autonomy and fend off manipulators (a very harmless term in this context, but I just can't find a better one now)
seems to be the destruction of their concern within oneself, i.e. in Von's case The Sisters (well not only and not even The Sisters themselves
but the, say secondary benefits which were - in the view of said manipulators - possibly yieldable from the band as much as from him as a person).

This strategy of destruction doesn't get one what one needs, but at least, "they" won't get it either and will (very likely) eventually lose
interest as there is nothing more to yield and squeeze ... so when "they" are gone, one might have a chance to (re-)create one's self.
IMHO, sabotaging not to mention destroying The Sisters has not been the goal, but counteracting an overload of outside interference.

I also think that 1998 was pivotal. The catch phrases were "Event Horizon"
and "Seven Shades of Shiva Rising".

Shiva creates from destruction. Maybe the planned destruction of the Sisters, to give birth to a new Sisters, didn't go so well? Or as planned?
He then went "To the Planet Edge" (the ends of the earth) in search of a proper vehicle for the Sisters rebirth, then "Tripped the Light Fantastic" to prove they had record company friendly songs like "Crash and Burn" which summed up the state of the band, still record label-less in 2000 pretty well; only to feel as if the Sisters had been "Exxiled on Euphoria" in the end, for their 20th anniversary in 2001.

I've always felt the tour names were very significant, especially beginning in 1998.

A loveable theory, Prescott ... ...
which would be supported by the definition of an event horizon like ...

In general relativity, an event horizon is a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. In layman's terms it is defined as "the point of no return" i.e. the point at which the gravitational pull becomes so great as to make escape impossible. The most common case of an event horizon is that surrounding a black hole. Light emitted from beyond the horizon can never reach the observer. Likewise, any object approaching the horizon from the observer's side appears to slow down and never quite pass through the horizon, with its image becoming more and more redshifted as time elapses. The traveling object, however, experiences no strange effects and does, in fact, pass through the horizon in a finite amount of proper time.

And didn't Von do the background music for this film titled Event Horizon just around the time of that tour? ...

One could draw similarities between both the film and the explanation of the term with the situation of Von and The Sisters ...

Only things did never happen in space and had a different consistence as to their details, dynamics and reasons ...
though the dynamics of things seemed to seem to Von as unadvertable as a natural law ...
which it was not, but avoiding and getting it to a halt would have afforded taking steps, the possible results of which would have
been as decisive as unforeseeable within the ever more heavily discoloured b/w-environment one perceives as pressures increase ...
apart from already existing and very real committments of the band regards touring on the other hand ...

And what hope/dream did ever come true in a lifetime of decades? High risk and plenty costly contrary encounters in store already ...
plus given which was in my perception always the decided top priority of Von, to take and tackle the life one has to live, which in Von's
case consists of The Sisters, and of drawing happiness from whatever that would imply and from everything that would come along
that way ... or in other words: the way, the way ... and taking what the outside brings as a result of one's expression ... the good,
the bad and the ugly ... and the never no turning back ... as this is unnecessary in view of the ever further upcoming progression
of a present and a future ... a straightly existentialist approach, maybe taken a bit too far, I'd say.

Anyway, I've always begged to differ ... because it never worked for me ... always ended in the same unsatisfactory sort of situation,
i.e. in failing and never in fulfilment, because I'm a creature too unique and alone in this world, too far between in my various approaches,
none of which I can develop to a viable extent without an appropriate mirror, challenge, measure and support, all of which I've hardly ever
had. Ha, and that in this ever more capitalist world ... which, for two decades and still, is finding pride in and taking resort to overcoming
the few small merits civilization has achieved...

That gets me back to somewhere up in this thread ... (partial) self-destruction in order to secure and protect one's autonomy. It does work.
But it's a looong way, and one has to be aware of the moment when the road is free and tackle the change. If one still can, because there
has, in effect, been a lifetime filled with contrary behaviour to some extent (and, of course, with further powerplaying from the outside).
This does present one with the difficulty of how to lay down the hard lines and how to change the meanwhile inhabited manners* of ignoring
the basic impulses and personal capacities one had laid aside in order to mimicry some (unexploitable) dumbness or destroyedness ...
or to use a picture:

If you have put strings around your legs and arms and been wearing them for years, your body gotta get used to the freedom
when you take them off ...

This does - logically - start with the frustrating and painful experience of the stiffness of one's limbs ... and the sudden but very clear
conclusion that, hell, now an effort must be taken in a direction one had forbidden oneself for the sake of defending one's autonomy,
one's very self, and of one's own will which was busy with counteracting and taking revenge on incompetent "masters" and teachers
in order to kill the pain, the pain, the pain ... the pain caused beyond one's choice and exerted upon one's (in my case physical) body
completely beyond any reason within oneself, thus apparently denying one's entire subjectness (existence/identity/autonomy) by/and
turning one into a mere object of whatever use decided by it's owner/user ... but after all, one does it all to oneself by giving in to frustration ... ...

* giving "those fuckers" the person they want (or want to see) is another pretty means of the above described (partial) self-destruction,
in that case by giving ground completely which will also lead to the result that "they" won't get what "they" might hope for but rather receive
what "they"'ve given. Either way, one has left one's autonomy behind, in lack of any other way of effective protection and/or development.


For me, First And Last And Always has tackled, among other things, these issues quite well ... including the notion that whatever they do to you,
you gotta forgive yourself that they could do it ... It's got nothing to do with your capacities, with your value, with - yourself. It doesn't change the
least. Go on, express yourself, fight for your dreams and needs ... there is only one you you are ... and you should know and cherish yourself.
Of course, there is never a guarantee, that anybody else will ever do, but that way, you have at least yourself. And - unlike if you don't - there is
no more guarantee that nobody will ever see you. Wonderful. Only one point is missing (though on FALAA, expressed as explicitely as never before):
Without a wholesome and reliable basis, nobody can get anywhere.


Regards The Sisters - the band have always been the basis for Von, and in their current line-up they have taken the challenge.
Of course, it takes more than a band, but after decades of successful counteracting destruction by (self-)destruction crawling
along on the carpet "they"'ve woven in revenche as much as in resistence, it is a fundamental improvement to form and be in
a band with strong enough individuals of sorts. It has taken some time and effort to get there and it has taken some time to
realise it, but

we've seen the results within the improvements during the whole of their latest tour ... ... ...

So where is Shiva? And Shiva's Rainbow? Where's the promise after the flood?

It's here. It's always been there. A promise? Isn't a promise just marking the extent of a(n impossible) guarantee ...
You can't get the taste and content of a fruit, if you won't pick (or buy) and eat it, however promising its appearance
might seem. A flood? What flood, Alice?



* Hell, this short essay on my dream theories of trauma patient strategies should do for another (hopefully very) long time ...
My thanks and recognition to those who might appreciate and my apologies and recognition to those who might not ...
And sorry anyway for my bad punctuation. Corrections are always welcome.

[Yggdrasil]

Only things did never happen in space and had a different consistence as to their details, dynamics and reasons ...
though the dynamics of things seemed to seem to Von as unadvertable as a natural law ...

Never, ever mix peyote, meth and alcohol.

[radiojamaica]

Never, ever mix peyote, meth and alcohol.

Not before noon, at least!

[Being645]

Only things did never happen in space and had a different consistence as to their details, dynamics and reasons ...
though the dynamics of things seemed to seem to Von as unadvertable as a natural law ...

Never, ever mix peyote, meth and alcohol.

... well, ok. I should not have read so many psycho books as a kid
for anyway all this psycho stuff is still as overrated and mystified as a naked knee in the 1930ies ... ...

[Elystan]

Seriously for a second now, I just observed a metallica fan bitching about the fact that the latter half of their career has been a total shambles. Perhaps with bands that last 30 years, it's only really about the first 15 anyway. Anyone here listen to much motorhead? What's your opinion on whether anything since the early 90s has been worth doing?

[stufarq]

And didn't Von do the background music for this film titled Event Horizon just around the time of that tour? ...

No. Michael kamen and orbital did and it was released the year before.

Seriously for a second now, I just observed a metallica fan bitching about the fact that the latter half of their career has been a total shambles. Perhaps with bands that last 30 years, it's only really about the first 15 anyway. Anyone here listen to much motorhead? What's your opinion on whether anything since the early 90s has been worth doing?

Can't speak for Motorhead but Peter Gabriel's work over the last 30+ years has generally been of high quality. However, he sometimes takes years to get an album out because he keeps getting distracted by other things. Elvis Costello, on the other hand, releases an album every Tuesday without fail and they rarely give cause for complaint.