Heartland

Hey all, I started my rant-of-sorts below first in the Resources section, but thought I'd move it here to gauge some reaction from you fellow addicts. It started with a reaction to the Bux entry:

slicepack wrote:Certain persons can mutter about copyright as much as they like,
but in the utter drought of product and appearances, if we weren't discussing
TSOM, showing each other images and such like - then who would?

NOW - I agree, I mean, yeah, let's get some lawyers in here to stamp out what amounts of die-hard (though sometimes sad) but utterly reverent fandom for a band that bitched about a lousy record company, finally got released SEVEN years ago, and continues to blame...record companies for the lack of releases.

Just a note, I recently saw EINSTÃœRZENDE NEUBAUTEN in New York, and
they were frank, honest, and light-hearted when they explained to the audience the problems of touring in the US now, what with Ticketmaster jacking fans for big $$$, as well as Clear Channel taking serious issue with the recording of shows (by EN themselves) and them selling after the show (a high quality 2 CD-R set) for the fans to enjoy (they're beating the boots by making them themselves.)

Also, if you look at their website, they detail their lofty plans of having fans contribute some pennies toward funding new product, and being able to get exclusive material through the site, and also being able to download (for a reasonable amount) new and old and live material through their site.

Granted, they DID finally sign to Mute, but mainly because they NEEDED a record company in order to distribute discs, and to mount any kind of tour, which they did admit before the show, does not pay a lot.

Nevertheless, I don't know if Von is obsessed with getting a 'major', but contracts offer less $$$ today unless you're HUGE, and SOM are not, so it might be wise to hook up with a smaller, respected label in order to keep total control.

I like to be optimistic. There are two ways SOM can go--basically just never release anything again, tour a bit more until the inevitable dwindling of the crowds causes them to have to call it quits due to financial issues (losing $ on tour)

OR

They hunker down, find get cash from a smaller, willing record co, finish the album of songs we all know by heart by now, mount a small tour (maybe, just maybe playing in America?!) and take it from there.

Yes, I realize the record industry has indeed changed, but folks, bands, both small and large STILL DO get signed, they STILL DO tour, and they STILL DO release albums and singles. The Sisters are not so far out in left field here, it's a matter of will, of compromise, and acknowledgement of a group of people out there who love them, WILL buy product, and would love to hear their fabulous, shiny, and crashing sounds again one day.

While I would rather not see SOM lowered to playing Asbury Park, New Jersey, there is no reason they can't continue to play solid, well-promoted shows at the London Forum, for instance, or Hammerstein Ballroom here in NY, or Roseland (Poseland), or any decent 2000-person show that would make people happy, and please Von after I buy my $32 dollar long-sleeve t-shirt.

Electrochrome wrote: ...basically just never release anything again, tour a bit more until the inevitable dwindling of the crowds causes them to have to call it quits due to financial issues (losing $ on tour)...

Methinks this should be worded in the past tense.

Seems to me that it is all a question of hard cash. Sisters shows are expensive. When Andrew makes a record he wants full control. Those aspects are hard to swollow for many labels/promotors. You need to compromise. Wayne is signed to SPV and does short tours around Europe and is probably off to South Africa again later in the year. He's also making a record. But this is on a very different budget then when they were signed to Phonogram. Still, I think Wayne has a lot of equipment from those days and still enjoys preforming and writing music. And anyway, he probably would be the first to admit that he wouldn't know what else to do .

So question for Andrew is really, is there anything left to prove, does he want to be part of the music industry and does he want to compromise. If the answer is *no* to all of the above then we have a stalemate.

Karst wrote:Still, I think Wayne has a lot of equipment from those days and still enjoys preforming and writing music.

The Sisters sold $$$ worth of equipment in 2001-2002. Paid £250k+ for it over the years, all gone.

Electrochrome wrote: NOW - I agree, I mean, yeah, let's get some lawyers in here to stamp out what amounts of die-hard (though sometimes sad) but utterly reverent fandom for a band that bitched about a lousy record company, finally got released SEVEN years ago, and continues to blame...record companies for the lack of releases.


While I would rather not see SOM lowered to playing Asbury Park, New Jersey, .

Von's the only one to blame for the lack of any current TSOM release. If you want something badly enough, then you make it happen. You do whatever it takes, and sometimes that means compromise.

If he's too stubborn to compromise then it will never happen.

As for TSOM playing Asbury Park, are you talking about The Stone Pony?
http://www.stoneponyonline.com/

The Stone Pony is one of the world's most well-known music venues.

According to the vice president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Robert Santelli, "the club has already earned its place in history as one of rock 'n' roll's great venues. Most rock critics and historians that I come in contact with on a regular basis feel that The Stone Pony is one of the greatest rock clubs of all time."

TSOM at The Stone Pony? I'd be there in heartbeat.

Black Planet wrote:

Electrochrome wrote: NOW - I agree, I mean, yeah, let's get some lawyers in here to stamp out what amounts of die-hard (though sometimes sad) but utterly reverent fandom for a band that bitched about a lousy record company, finally got released SEVEN years ago, and continues to blame...record companies for the lack of releases.


While I would rather not see SOM lowered to playing Asbury Park, New Jersey, .

Von's the only one to blame for the lack of any current TSOM release. If you want something badly enough, then you make it happen. You do whatever it takes, and sometimes that means compromise.

If he's too stubborn to compromise then it will never happen.

As for TSOM playing Asbury Park, are you talking about The Stone Pony?
http://www.stoneponyonline.com/

The Stone Pony is one of the world's most well-known music venues.

According to the vice president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Robert Santelli, "the club has already earned its place in history as one of rock 'n' roll's great venues. Most rock critics and historians that I come in contact with on a regular basis feel that The Stone Pony is one of the greatest rock clubs of all time."

TSOM at The Stone Pony? I'd be there in heartbeat.

Okay, you got me on that. Good point. For them to play Asbury Park, actually, would the Sisters taking their show to the USA, already a memory(!) I'd probably be there, too!

Recently, I was trying to gauge whether Irving Plaza in Manhattan could hold a Sisters show, but it's quite small. I have fears that if they return to NY, where they couldn't sell out Roseland the last two times (so I heard), where they could go...

They never played here tho.

please ignore that night's particular headliners, it was the only pic I could find

Why cant they just tour & then sell those CDs as Neubauten or Pixies. They will get good money from them (35€ a 2CD on Neubauten), Von can do the same...... (if you isnt too stoned...)

From a personal point of view I'm at the stage where I'm happy with the best sounding recent boot I have for the simple reason that unless something drastic changes, we folks ain't gonna see new Sisters product.

Although some (probably most) of us view the current stance of "We want X amount of money or nothing comes out" as stubborn & infuriating, look at it fron Von's point of view... he blatantly hates the industry, he has nothing to prove to anyone, he gets his money from the occasional excursion & therefore doesn't really need much more to live on (due to the fact that they've been doing the excursions since 97 I think he must be able to live happily on the funds).

If we put ourselves in Von's shoes for a mo, unless we got the money we would want, why would we do it!??!

He's got a voice for his creativity, & that voice is expressed in occasional jaunts across the UK where he knows us poor hapless b@stards will pay whatever he asks to see him. Tenner says that if there is another tour, it'll be 25 or 30 quid a ticket next time just so he can hibernate for a good two or three years afterwards.

Unless one of us suddenly becomes rich enough to finance a new record or Von (& equally Adam) has a change of heart & realises they owe something to us sad saps who got them there in the first place (though I'm only 24 so I don't quite include myself in that quote, unfortunately) then sorry folks, but we are wating in vain...

I really do believe that Von would like a new record to come out, but his demands are obviously unreasonable.


Still, although I can't count myself as one of those who got them there in the first place, I do count myself as one of the hapless b@stards who will love The Sisters Of Mercy no matter what... & that fact still gives me a glimmer of hope that one day I will hear Crash & Burn, Summer, War On Drugs, Romeo Down et all brand spanking new.
Will I Dream? Apparently I do, I just hope dreams come true.


C'mon Andrew, its a small world (& it smells funny) its short & sweet, your an entertainer, please entertain us some more before its all too late.

Al.

jenzi-benzi wrote:Why cant they just tour & then sell those CDs as Neubauten or Pixies. They will get good money from them (35€ a 2CD on Neubauten), Von can do the same...... (if you isnt too stoned...)

I agree. He ought to be taping and selling them himself. Better quality all around, and he'd pocket some quick cash.



If you need help counting the money Von, or balancing your books,pm me. I know my debits from my credits, and my assets from my liabilities.

Black Planet wrote:He ought to be taping and selling them himself. Better quality all around, and he'd pocket some quick cash.

Where do you think the bootleggers get soundboard tapes from?

Can't help remembering the old Von quote about how real bands make records and play tours, a barbed jibe aimed at Wayne I do believe. Funny how things go, eh?

bands offering such gig-cd service like the pixies and pearl jam happen to revolutionise their setlists every gig - and songs played are already available in their studio incarnation. for the sisters it would be more reasonable to sell a prepared, mixed, edited and overdubbed 2 cd set of already recorded live material at gigs.

other merch articles could include well know hats, glasses, photographies of jane seymoure featuring hand written love poems by von or revisions of wittgensteins collected works (which should be ready soon )

It's also funny how The Sisters are one hell of a lazy band. Writing like ONE new song a year ... if that... half of them which are mediocre at best. I also think it's a really sh*tty thing to play the same setlist for days or almost years in a row... especially since they know that their hardcore following will go to every gig they can... and that at prices which where pretty steep last year. I for one was beginning to feel kinda silly last year when we were at our 6th gig of that tour and the girl next to me was asking me what they were going to play next and I almost knew the whole setlist by heart... As for merchandise... the prices they are charging nowadays are outrageous... The stupid thing is just that I love this band so much. If it would have been any other band then I would have never forked out that much money over the years.

I just hope that one day Von will wake up from that alcohol and drugs induced stupor he has been in for the past 13 years and realises that when the smoke clears there will be just him standing there. And I would hate to see him end up singing his golden oldies to a bunch of drunken farts in a pub on the Reeperbahn... or him being the strange man selling strange flowers.

The Sisters of Mercy wrote:We make records, sometimes.
We play concerts, sometimes.

You're here anyway.

Whilst I'm sure the band appreciates your concern and your frankly rather scary levels of devotion, The Sisters owe you nothing. To assume they owe you a new record is rather arrogant on your part.

Go outside, catch a bus into town and go to your local indie record store. Have a good look around - there are plenty of other bands around. Granted none are as good as The Sisters, but you can't have everything you want in life, can you? Life cannot be that perfect. That would just be spoiling you. Also, we all know that true nirvana can only be found in the south of Spain. And very specific parts of northern Germany.

The Sisters play live and you come to watch. It is a simple, and rather perfect example of a symbiotic relationship (apart from the small fact that one half of this partnership, if it so chose, could actually exist without the other....)

If you don’t want to watch then they won’t play live anymore, which let's face it leaves more time for playing in the sun.

I refer the good gentlemen and women of Heartland to the following address:

http://www.thesistersofmercy.com/gen/faqdim/faqdim.htm

And I quote:

The Sisters of Mercy also wrote:Hmm. Why don't you put out studio albums more often?

It's often imagined that we must be very miserable, skulking around without the dignity of labour, because there's no life outside the grinding humiliation of minor rock stardom. It's said that we need to spend two-enervating-years-per-album being wantonly misunderstood and abused, and even the cats are beginning to feel depressed. Judge for yourself.

We don't put studio albums out more often...

Because we don't have to. We are not like most bands, who are slaves to their accountants, their record company, their agents or the media, all of whom like to dictate the rhythms of a band's career - for their own purposes.

Because (unlike most bands) we have other things to do, which we are just as happy to do. Not just music, either. There is more to our lives than music, and we believe our music is made better because of it. You might think it wrong of us to spend so much time playing computer games, reading books without pictures, doing chemistry experiments, thinking about politics and having sex, but we like our songs to be grounded in a life of some kind.

Because (unlike most bands) we do not believe in putting out an album with only two good songs on it.

This is a good topic though - you've sparked some interesting debate.

nobody owes anybody anything - most people in here are aware of that regardless to which side they belong. as the war is still ongoing nobody excpects a band to release new material anyway.
a bloody platte or a series of gigs are more than a devotional kiss away.

i would be happy already with a little info about whats going on in backstage area - although i do not owe you anything for such info. so, whats going on?

i definitely agree about wanting to hear the new stuff in a studio recorded context (mainly to do the songs justice!), but i don't know if i care that much about whats going on "backstage"... i like the idea that they emerge out of the woodwork as and when they want, having done whatever it is that they do, and we all go trecking across the country to see them

it just kind of re-enforces the whole "von is a bastard" image - which is fine by me

Quiff Boy wrote:it just kind of re-enforces the whole "von is a bastard" image - which is fine by me

Don't know if it does. People will just lose interest. Seem to recall that when Wayne bumped into Andrew & co at the M'ere Luna Festival the comment was 'glad to see you're as washed up as I am'. Wayne was obviously stung by that - considering he had just restarted the band - but there is an element of truth in that I'd say. For both the Mish & the Sisters. Difference is that Wayne goes with it - as he always does. Pretty much to the bitter end. Andrew doesn't have to - so he doesn't. He has a different life. There is not many people who are in that position IMHO. Only person I know of is Chris DeGarmo - guitarist & main songwriter for Seattle metallers Queensryche. He went off to become an airline pilot. Very different - he did appear on their last album though. But he has a choice - and so it seems does Andrew (ref quotes from the site above).

I agree about recording the new songs - and I'm pretty sure Sanctuary would be glad to put it out. But they probably won't be in a position to pay. And IMHO of the current tracks played live - it misses a middle track for the disc to lift it.

Quiff Boy wrote:it just kind of re-enforces the whole "von is a bastard" image - which is fine by me

I kind of think the same way. I think its great to hear new material but I considder its mostly as a little gift for there fans at gigs.
and i don't care what the hell 'Von' is doing. it would be nice though if they would releace a DvD or so to give us a glimps of what they are like in a new and modern way.
the sisters are a band of mysteries, I hope they will stay that way and don't become some old dated band with a lasy singer and a drumcomputer.

Karst wrote:I agree about recording the new songs - and I'm pretty sure Sanctuary would be glad to put it out.

why are sanctuary always mentioned in this context? is it something specific, or was it just a label mentioned off the top of someone's head and we've all adopted it?

what about domino, for example?

Quiff Boy wrote:why are sanctuary always mentioned in this context? is it something specific, or was it just a label mentioned off the top of someone's head and we've all adopted it?

It is the only label IMHO who would have both the inclination and possible finance in place to give the Sisters what they want (or close to). See the Morrissey machine currently rolled out. In that context MR could be set up in the same context as Attack currently is for dear Stephen. Domino are nice and are doing a good job with FF but are hardly on that international platform as seems to be required. Mute is another possibility but I think that was tried before in the US?

about mute:

http://www.thesistersofmercy.com/gen/fa ... aqnorm.htm

"What happened to the 1991 truce with East West which involved Sisters records retaining WEA distribution in America (to satisfy Time Warner) and coming out via Mute (to satisfy the band - and Mute)?

We had to get away from Elektra, but we weren't allowed to move outside the Warner family. Mute was the only Warner-distributed label to have any interest in the band, and we liked them. We were getting on fine until the first Sisters/Mute record was due to come out.

Mute sent a fax to London, telling East West that East West's poor scheduling would damage the band in America. Nothing unusual (in our case) about the fax or its content. Unfortunately Mute sent a copy to Andrew, whereupon East West terminated the deal.

Since then the Sisters have had no representation in America. Having been on Elektra, we haven't really noticed the difference."

Well, that's that then. Going to Mute means WEA and that's a no-no. Probably. Then again Matt Johnston was fed up with Sony decided to leave, ended up with Interscope - which was taken over by Universal - which he didn't like to he went back to Sony to re-issue his backcatalogue - fell out over the DVD production to complement the release and is now travelling somewhere in sout-east Asia.

What is it with people who were an insperation to me when I grew up and now have disappeared of the dial. Or did I just grow up.

Chairman Bux wrote:

The Sisters of Mercy wrote:We make records, sometimes.
We play concerts, sometimes.

You're here anyway.

Change that to "made" and we're pretty much there.

No, the Sisters don't owe us anything, and we should be grateful that we all had a pretty good journey together for a while.

Still damn frustrating hearing the likes of "Summer" on a shoddy bootleg, recognising it for the great song it is, and not being able to hear it properly.

mh wrote:

Chairman Bux wrote:

The Sisters of Mercy wrote:We make records, sometimes.
We play concerts, sometimes.

You're here anyway.

Change that to "made" and we're pretty much there.

i reckon the "sometimes" covers them on that one

mh wrote:Still damn frustrating hearing the likes of "Summer" on a shoddy bootleg, recognising it for the great song it is, and not being able to hear it properly.

definitely