Heartland

Staging The Sisters

Having been gloomily forewarned to expect a Kremlin-like wall of silence from the Sisters backstage team - "they might want to protect their trade secrets" was the whisper - production manager CRAIG SHERWOOD and his two backline chaps proved affable: almost unstoppable, in fact. BARON BEEMOLL 'BEAT' TROY looks after the band's guitars, while JEZ WEBB takes care of the MIDI racks and other hi-tech goings-on.
Jez: "I look after the drums (sic), the racks and stuff, and live I look after TIM BRICHENO, changing his guitars and making sure he's alright. Today we could have lots of bottles filled with warm p*ss so I'll be putting the marigolds on shortly - it's a marvellous life really!"
'NIPPER' mixes the monitors, and how their FOH engineer landed the job with a conventional name like PETE TURNER is a mystery. Exercising their muscle as headliners, the Sisters brought their own monitors, from Northampton based Tour Tech. Sez Jez: "The band feel more at ease and it's easier for Nipper to come in and know what he's got to do."
Having worked for the Sisters since 1985, Jez confirms Mr ELDRITCH is enjoying touring again - after a long absence from the road: "Yes, he's back!" He also has the drop on that famous drummer-less line-up: "With all that smoke around people don't realise - we've been asked for drumsticks before! We've been thinking of getting some printed with the name DR AVALANCHE or having a riser with just the tops of cymbals showing - especially in America, they'd fall for it there!"
The microphone set-up was fairly basic - a Samson SM-58 radio mic for Andrew's vocal with just a touch of reverb on his voice. Jez: "It's there already - he's hitting 'em pretty loud!"
As to instruments and effects Jez elucidates:
"Basically, Tim plays Squire Telecaster and Stratocasters and a Gibson Chet Atkins solid body 12-string and various Boss pedals, split into a JC120 and a Marshall 50W head with a Marshall cab - which he's cut down to overdrive into one speaker.
"ANDREAS BRUHN plays his Kramer guitars through a Quad-reverb, a Mesaboogie stereo amp and a Marshall stereo 4x12 cab. Tony plays Wal basses through a Korg multi-effects unit and 2 Ampeg SVT rigs."
For keyboards, there's a Roland D-50 which on certain songs triggers a Korg M3R, with a piano sound and a personalised sound. The drums are delivered by a Compaq portable 386 hard disc PC running the Voyetra sequencer program.
Jez: "Andrew used it from the start and he's stayed with it. It triggers two Akai S1000samplers; all the drums are loaded from an external hard disk and on two songs, there are bass and guitar samples off two floppies."
Wasn't it ever so-slightly nerve-wracking, relying so heavily on one computer?
Jez: "I've never looked after anthing like that before. I usually do guitars. We do carry a spare computer but we've had no trouble from the Compaq, it seems a sturdy enough beast. Mind you, it did crash once out there and we had to re-load everything - it seemed to take about a week..."
So that was Reading '91 - technically interesting, if musically a bit patchy. Aside from the Sisters, both Brit Row's crew and yours truly found CARTER USM easily the weekend's most, er, moving band,Why? We'll have to leave that to future generations to ponder...


Gear Check
Sisters Of Mercy

Tim Bricheno
Squire Strat, 2x Squire Tele, Gibson 'Chet Atkins', 2xJC120, 2x4x12 Marshall cabs, 1x50w Marshall amp, Ibanez Tube Screamer, 2xBoss DD-3, Boss MZ-2
Andreas Bruhn
2xKramer Focus 1000 (with DiMarzio PAFs), Mesa Boogie Strategy 400, Mesa Boogie Quad pre-amp, 2xMarshall stero cabs, Quadraverb FX, Rat distortion, Morley wah-wah, Boss CS-3
Tony James
WAL Custom bass, WAL MIDI Custom bass, 2xAMPEG SVT amps, 2xAMPEG 8x10 cabs, Korg A3FX
Sequencing
Compac 386 portable PC, running Voyetra software, 2xAkai S1000, with external hard drives

Mike Lethby
IM November 91