Heartland

...what is it about the Sisters? What got you interested? For me it was a there and then thing. I was at Leeds University studying French and Italian from 1981 to 1985 and they happened to be there as well. Saw the posters. Caught my eye. The name. The byline - Rise And Reverberate - clicked somehow. Joined in the dance at the Thursday Cattle Market at the Students Union. Discovered The Phono. Bought The Reptile House at Jumbo (was actually looking for the Alice 12" but they must have sold out). Then Temple Of Love came out. Finally got to see them on the Black October tour by which time I'd traded my donkey jacket in for a leather and almost looked the part. A lapsed Catholic altar boy plucked from the green and pleasant south and lost in a seedy Victorian wasteland. The music, words and imagery had a strangely familiar appeal. But if I'd been somewhere else, would I have even heard of them? I don't think I would have been lured by the Top Of The Pops stuff, but then I'd stopped watching it by then. I don't think First And Last would have floated my boat. Lucretia, possibly. More. Probably. I had played Bat Out Of Hell to death in my teens. Lyrics. Some wonderful lines, certainly. Needs her tranqs to tell her that the world's OK. Love is always over in the morning. Too much contact not enough feeling. Loved the Body And Soul artwork. Emma live was outstanding. But having been expected to study 15th century French and Italian literature and not even being able to cope with the English translations (Dante's Inferno is much better in pictures), looking for hidden depths in Eldritch's lyrics was well past my bedtime. Don't think, get drunk and dance was what the Sisters meant to me. I've gone on a bit haven't I? More than you needed to know? But I need to know. What's the story? It's Christmas. Indulge me.

Nicely put Thrash
My story is similar, having done the artschool thing, being a bit more Motorhead than Damned and sharing a flat with a bloke from Leeds, I had heard about them. By their rise (85), I was working for a Quango and had a love of all things black. The Sisters struck a chord, I loved their look, artwork and above all music. It has been downhill ever since their appearance on the Whistle Test.

PS. I got kicked out of alter boy training and never made it live 'on stage'

For yours truley , it was working in Leeds in 82 and 83, working in an old hotel called "The Wellesley".As luck would have it we had an arrangement with the people at the Warehouse(club) in that we would send any punters from the hotel to their club and in return we ( the staff) would get free entry on most nights.Very handy as the hotel was only 500 meters from the club.................Anyhows we started to notice this really cool T Shirt that appeared to be sported by about 50% of the punters , didnt know who the band was ,but loved the shirt.At roughly the same time span we started to hear the "Body Electric and Alice" singles...........Again not knowing the band in question.
And from then it was just a case of putting two and two together and BINGO

Great Music........Great T Shirt.........Great Club


THE END

Well I think, that I'm quite young for a TSOM fan (23). Since 1994 I have been a great Black Sabbath (I mean I love all their incarnations, not only the classic albums with Ozzy and then Dio on vocals) fan. I also loved (and I still do) Iron Maiden, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Metallica, Motorhead etc... Somewhere in 1996 when first 24/7 polish music television (Atomic, which then turned into MTV Poland) started broadcasting I've seen a music video with a skinny guy running around in some old factory. It had a catchy bass line, but I couldn't remember the band's name. Possibly in 1997 I heard that track once again, this time in a large club Kwadratowa in Gdansk. The DJ played it after a Metallica track, and before Type - o - Negative's Black no.1 . He announced this track, and I came to know that it was TSOM's Lucretia. I was hooked. I bought Floodland the day after. And that's it. Now i have around 30-40 bootlegs, and in april this year I've seen The Sisters live in Warsaw.

Ahhh... 1987... what a year that was! That was the year I discovered The Sisters, discovered the euphoria of alcohol and... lost my virginity...!
From then on, it was downhill... for all the above reasons!

three words for you mr scardwel:

too

much

information

RicheyJames wrote:three words for you mr scardwel:

too

much

information

Um isnt that Duran Duran? Too much information.................


For me,...okay at the risk of being crucified.....


In 1987 for me it was The MissionUK.

Years later....they led me to The Sisters. One glimpse at him and Floodland....GONE.. Then his web site..genius. He really is an intellectual love God.

Thankyou all for sharing.

I have a vague memory of seeing them performing Walk Away on the telly somtime round '84. Sometime round '86I was mostly listening to Skinny Puppy and Running Wild, when a friend gave me a tape with the songs Temple of Love, Heartland and Gimme Shelter. That tape totally blew me away, those three songs defined everything I had ever wanted musically, that was what I had been looking for, for so long. So, back to the record shop, and there was a nice looking back catalogue to go through. All stuff was vastly different from one another, FALAA, Body & Soul, Reptile House, et cetera, but they all rocked and they all met my high expectations. They were all brilliant. Then later, when I still considered myself a Sisters novice, the new incarnation of the band emerged, This Corrosion was all over the record stores, and I knew I was witnessing history in the making. The world was changing, east europe was falling apart, Reagan and Gorbachev signed a treaty, Chernobyl exploded, Iran Iraq was at war, Halley's Comet was on a collision course (not really) and on top of it all, Andrew emerged triumphant and victorious. Fabulous.

I got my big bruv to thank, as ever, for saturating me with top tunes. Already responsible for my love of 70's hippyrock, Motorhead, AC/DC etc, he took to taxiing me round Manchester (to show off his new car), whilst blasting REMs Life's Rich Paegent from the crummy stereo. Around this time he started dating a goth (teehee - he's so ungoth it ain't true), and shortly after First & Last made its way onto the playlist. All I remember is how stonking the title track was, and how way way OTT Marian sounded - and how likely that song was to really p@ss me mum and dad off when utilising the in-house hifi. So far so good.

A year or so later, xmas eve and I ain't got a clue what to get me bruv for a prezzie. Desperation well and truly in, wandering round Leeds HMV, I spotted the Wake video, 'that'll do nicely' even though he'd long since dumped the girl and I hadn't heard the album for ages.

Xmas day morning, he looked at the prezz 'oh ta', and into the corner it was chucked. I stuck it on later, and was truly blown away - Emma (more ridiculous than Marian), Logic, Floorshow and Heaven's Door hooked me instantly. Corrosion came out around this time (musta been 87 then), and really that was that. Out went the nondescript wardrobe, in came trashed jeans and black stuff. The back catalogue was plundered - Temple / Heartland / Gimme Shelter wiping the floor with everything else at the time.

The ferocity, subtletly, craft, p*ss-taking and all round joyful ridiculousness of the songs was what grabbed me. Trying to work the lyrics out has kept me busy ever since. And for that I thank him. The odd gig is highly appreciated too.

Whether or not a new album materialises, the impact of the band on my life will not diminish. 'We do whatever the hell we like'. Yeah, well, we like.

Black Planet wrote:In 1987 for me it was The MissionUK.

Don't worry, you're not the only one.

I saw The m*****n on The Tube doing Wasteland. Bought "God's Own Medicine". One of my mates had an elder brother who told me, "You like the m*****n? You should listen to the band that Wayne and Craig used to be in"... He taped me F&L&A.

Trawling round record shops, I managed to pick up the 12"s of Temple, Alice, Reptile House, Body & Soul.

And then buying Floodland on the day of release. Wow. Andrew and Patsy on TOTP and the TOTP rip-off that ITV had at the time. Trying to get that ripped-trousers look that Andrew had but doing it wrong and having to throw the jeans away. The Banshee. Wearing sunglasses in a nightclub (I still have my mirrored aviators). Drugs and booze and having a good time.

Fast forward a couple of years. Hmmm. I'd better go to University. Leeds seems like a good idea Tony James in the Sisters? Buying More on day of release. Prefer the B-side Tenth anniversary gig Drugs and booze and having a good time (again) seem more important than a degree, so dropped out of Uni. Stayed in Leeds though, on the dole and on the wire. Still hanging round the University goth crowd. Met Mrs. markfiend (also a Sisters fan)

A few more years. Some Girls Wander -- great to get the old singles on CD now. Slight Case Of Overbombing -- Didn't bother, I've already got all the material on vinyl anyway (and am I the only person that prefers the 7" to the 12" of "Lucretia")

More years, no more releases, but the occasional tour. The new songs could be released? (well they were new then...) More people dropping away. "Their appeal is becoming more selective". Will the Sisters end up just another might-have-been?

I've depressed myself now.

My introduction was similar to Markfiend's,through my closest friend in 1987,she gave me a tape of "Cryptic Flowers" and I was hooked.Que then out to get the back catalogue.
I didn't really know what Von looked like till one Friday night and the vid to "This Corrosion" was on. Smitten He was as close to my ideal of the perfect fella as could be and to this day I still have a "thing" for pale slim fellows,preferably with medium to long hair.
All the girlie swoony stuff aside he spoke utter volumes to me in his lyrics and ideas.I thought he was a genius then and still do now.
As for my constant love of "Marian" and "Nine While Nine" this may illustrate now what context it's all in.

I distinctly remember seeing the Body & Soul vid back in 84, but it meant little to me at the time. I was a fairly keen music press reader, so I can't have failed to have noticed the split (particularly since the Albert Hall gig was on my 14th birthday), and I think I may still have some old magazines containing original reviews of Gift and Wake. Didn't really start to take notice until a friend started getting into the m*****n and recommending them to me. (Wasteland was all over the radio at the time.) I didn't bite, but did do a bit of research and decided to try go one better - then TC rather fortuitiously happened at just the right time. The fighting between myself and my fast becoming ex-friend became fairly severe (these things actually mattered once) but Floodland became a constant soundtrack for the next year or so. Usual story - small town, crap record shops, couldn't find anything else. Late Summer 88 I think it was that the floodgates opened. First & Last & Always was very quickly followed by my first few bootlegs, then the old singles started turning up. Alice was first (and the first single I ever bought - usual story - small town, crap record shops, couldn't find anything), then Dominion, Reptile House, Body & Soul (after 4 years having the song stuck in my head I finally got to hear it). Then silence. I went off to college, started being more interested in girls than music, and nothing really momentous happened until one day I heard More on the radio. Bought VT on the day of release, discovered the Dominion mailing list about the same time, way too many bootlegs to be healthy (most now mysteriously vanished) started getting really excited over the next few years, then utter silence. Spacemen 3 really took over and I completely lost interest until about 97 or 98, when the new songs started slipping out, which really brings us up to round about now.

I also remember only looking in the 'S' section of big record stores, I was also a big Shriekback head.

Thanks again, one and all. My interest started to wane after I finally saw them live and was less impressed than I'd hoped. I guess I'd got too used to the studio versions and they just didn't sound as good live. Not being able to see much for the smoke and the lack of interaction with the crowd didn't help. I expect to feel I've got to know a band a bit better after seeing them live, but they were giving nothing away. I didn't much like the stuff after Temple Of Love, except for the re-working of Body Electric which instantly became the last thing on my turntable before I headed out the front door of an evening. Walk Away was the last 12" I bought. When First And Last came out, my mate bought it, but I wasn't impressed. All the energy seemed to have gone as had all the imagery from the lyrics. It all seemed a bit to introspective and understated. So I didn't even bother buying it. Rumours abounded that Gary Marx had all but disowned it, and shortly after I heard he'd left. I'd started a serious relationship with a lass from Manchester and, although I occasionally found myself at the Phono, it just wasn't the same anymore. I didn't read the music press so I wasn't aware of the split or the Wake video and gave them one last chance by buying Gift when I stumbled across it in HMV c1986. I wished I hadn't. Couldn't figure out what it was all about really. Tried to like it but couldn't.

I think I saw a m*****n video where they were wandering around what could have been any one of the many urban parks in Leeds, but wasn't impressed. Caught a bit of Eldritch and Herself on TOTP as well once, I think it was This Corrosion, and just thought it was ridiculous. Mentioned it at work and a couple of guys said ooh yes Sister Of Mercy, she's hot. Obvioulsy not the band I had known. A few years ago, possibly around the time of the 20th anniversary, I discovered Some Girls and was over the moon at the thought of having all my early Sisters 12"s on CD to play in the car. I hadn't listened to any of my vinyl for about a decade as it was all packed away. But I was disappointed to find the original Body Electric, which I don't think I even knew existed, tho I must have heard it floating around in the early days as that would explain why the 84 version clicked immediately. Then started looking on the net. Found all the usual stuff, joined Dominion, bought First And Last, Floodland and Vision Thing CDs and rekindled the flame. It's amazing how hard you'll try to like something you wouldn't usually give a second thought to, when it's by a band that meant so much. Credit to the man. He can obviously write a good lyric, compose a good tune and knows the limitations of his voice. He's managed to expand musically and reach a different audience. But every time I tell anyone I like the Sisters, I get that sad old goth snigger. I guess I had gothic tendencies, but I would never have had the balls to go full-on make-up hair and chains. The goths I saw hanging around in those days were far from sad. They were prize peacocks. They might not have smiled much, but they had a glint in their eyes!

@ Harry

Gosh. That was very poignant stuff. Maybe I am feeling sentimental anyway but....I dunno. Something very touching in all that.

Nice one fella.

M

You're welcome.

Ah,that is sweet
Thanks Thrash!

All this began for me in 1990 or '91 when I heard Sisters first time from the radio. Absolutely accidentally. It was just like a revelation.
And when Some Girls came out (at first I got a Polish bootleg cassette, then an original cassette from England) a friend of mine noticed that I listened to that cassette every time when he visited me (actually I did it every day and at least a couple of years).
Soon I had to confess I'm a Sisters fan (although I have tried to listen to all kind of music after my teenage heavy metal years).
And soon I gave my Led Zeppelin shirt and poster away and sold a book of Zep. That the way love goes