Heartland

In another forum, I'm currently having a discussion with someone who is trying to say that because AE never really said they broke up, they didn't.

Were there ever any official statements at the time? Does AE view SOM as an uninterrupted entity from 1981 of which he is the heart and soul?

Zoflan wrote:In another forum, I'm currently having a discussion with someone who is trying to say that because AE never really said they broke up, they didn't.

Jeez! I hope this pedant doesn't find his way here.

what forum is this and why arent i a member

www.bigsoccer.com

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=116754

yes, the original band broke up in 1985. However, Von was back already one year later (1986) with the Sisterhood, and released the LP "Floodland" in 1987 under the name "The Sisters of Mercy". Both projects involved bassist Patricia Morrison.

I assume 99% of the forum members know this already

Yes, I knew that. I would raise your 99% to 100% but, that's why I put it like that: "break up"

I was wondering if there was ever an official statement from the band. The Smiths had one, Phish just made one to name a couple.

The Heartland Anthology makes reference to a MR press release about Wayne and Craig leaving.

I don't think it was very clear at the time. Wayne left and then Craig but they were still under WEA contract. The £25,000 was a publishing advance which either of them could have claimed with a release. But WEA basically refused to release any of the Hussey/Adams records. Instead urged them to get the Sisters of Mercy back together. Neither of them were insterested in that. In the end their manager (Tony Perrin) grabbed the master tape one afternoon from the WEA offices and organised the release later through Chapter 22. By that time Andrew had already released the 'Giving Ground' single while The Mish were courting all the majors. Technically WEA still owns the recordings of those first two singles, but as they were never in a position to release them it was never claimed. It de facto released both Wayne & Craig from their contracts.

So the answer probably is, yes they did split up for a brief while - until Andrew claimed the publishing advance. That basically comitted him to the contract again. And caused him such misery in the end.

Karst wrote:
So the answer probably is, yes they did split up for a brief while - until Andrew claimed the publishing advance. That basically comitted him to the contract again. And caused him such misery in the end.

Misery for who ?

Chairman Bux wrote:Misery for who ?

For whoever said this:

Nothing has changed in our relationship with East West. We have no relationship with East West. We've been withholding our labour for almost seven years now. Your website is too small for a full explanation of East West's uselessness - and everybody who cares knows anyway. There is apparently no chance of East West dropping me, so there is no chance of me participating in a new Sisters album.

Karst wrote:

Chairman Bux wrote:Misery for who ?

For whoever said this:

Nothing has changed in our relationship with East West. We have no relationship with East West. We've been withholding our labour for almost seven years now. Your website is too small for a full explanation of East West's uselessness - and everybody who cares knows anyway. There is apparently no chance of East West dropping me, so there is no chance of me participating in a new Sisters album.

Bad hair day, the Merc mind you is still in the garage i understand....

I thought the £25,000 was the damages they had to pay for the brief use of the Sisterhood name- but you seems to know all the details Karst so

Come to think of it, not a lot of money in today's money is it?

straylight wrote:I thought the £25,000 was the damages they had to pay for the brief use of the Sisterhood name- but you seems to know all the details Karst so. Come to think of it, not a lot of money in today's money is it?

I think it was more the principle at the time. Wayne & Co. deliberatly took on the Sisterhood name to gain publicity. Once the Cult tour was over and the music papers were brimming with the controversy it had outlived its usefulness. Not to say that there were internal wrangling where Simon Hinkler was initially sacked for a short while. With the relaunch of the Mish and Simon reinstated the whole controvery was left to solicitors who probably made a fortune in fees.

Chairman Bux wrote:Bad hair day, the Merc mind you is still in the garage i understand....

Here was me thinking that this was currently au rigeur with the rockstar fraternity.

I always thought it was H***ey having a "Bad News" moment that encouraged the split.

"Look, all i'm asking is you let me sing just ONE number" H***ey

"Yeah, and i say you can't" Eldritch

"Well it's just not fair" H***ey

"Look, it's my band so it's fair ok?" Eldritch

"Well, if that's the way it is it's my brother's PA and i say you all can't use it" H***ey

"The only reason your in this band is coz of the bloody PA!!" Eldritch

"Well, maybe i should take my PA to a band that might apprieciate me a little bit more!" H***ey

"Well, it better be a band in Leeds then coz it's not going back in MY VAN!!" Eldritch

"Yes!!! Which i paid for to have repaired!" Eldritch

Don't be opening up old wounds. Let sleeping dosg lie. My old man's a dustman. Down at the old Mucky Duck.

Since Tony Perrin is namedropped in this thread, I might as well use it.

"Oh, and I launched the m*****n's career. Around 1984, '85, me and Tony Perrin used to go flyposting round South Yorkshire, and somehow, through contact after contact, Tony had ended up managing the Sisters of Mercy. They split into the Sisterhood and Sisters of Mercy, and Tony went with Sisterhood, with That Guitarist and Mick Brown and Simon Hinkler.

They wanted five grand to go round Europe supporting The Cult, so Tony sold me his share in the flyposting business. So I got me five grand, and a year and a half later, The Sisterhood were called The m*****n and they were playing stadiums." - Garry Wilson

Perrin managed Skeletal Family and All About Eve around '85-'90, but I'd never heard of him being associated with the Sisters directly. Always assumed Boyd Steemson was the manager at the time.

" Technically WEA still owns the recordings of those first two singles, but as they were never in a position to release them it was never claimed."

sorry, im not sure what is here being referred to.
the first two M*****n singles?

panzerfaust wrote:" Technically WEA still owns the recordings of those first two singles, but as they were never in a position to release them it was never claimed."

sorry, im not sure what is here being referred to.
the first two M*****n singles?

Yeah, the first 2. Wayne & co were technically still under contract, but WEA didn't want to touch them with a 10 foot pole so they largely turned a blind eye.

reverberater wrote:I always thought it was H***ey having a "Bad News" moment that encouraged the split.

"Look, all i'm asking is you let me sing just ONE number" H***ey

"Yeah, and i say you can't" Eldritch

"Well it's just not fair" H***ey

"Look, it's my band so it's fair ok?" Eldritch

"Well, if that's the way it is it's my brother's PA and i say you all can't use it" H***ey

"The only reason your in this band is coz of the bloody PA!!" Eldritch

"Well, maybe i should take my PA to a band that might apprieciate me a little bit more!" H***ey

"Well, it better be a band in Leeds then coz it's not going back in MY VAN!!" Eldritch

"Yes!!! Which i paid for to have repaired!" Eldritch

Personally, I'd always kinda thought that the band still existed - perhaps on a higher plane -even after the gruesome twosome had left? According to the afore mentioned Heartland anthology from the time, the splitters "didn't understand the direction the band was going" which I took to mean the band continued. Plus there was also a suggestion - perhaps tounge in cheek of Hussey guesting on the Sisters second album. WHich, in itself leads nicely on to the dig about The m*****n's choice of name coming from the then working title of second sisters/ eldritch album Left on m*****n and Revenge.

So ultimately, the split refers to them splitting from the band as oppose to the band splitting up & while not neccessarily in a fully functioning state at the time, The Sisters Of Mercy still existed

Finally, considering - even at that stage - how fluid the lineups were, I've always found it inconcivable that That Guitarist (of all people!) could put an end to the Sisters...! Losing Marx, I'd thought was far more important to enity of The Sisters.
Therefore, I find myself agreeing with the pedant! The Sisters never split!
Indeed, I imagine the only things to survive the Apocolypse will be cockroaches, The Sisters and a small band of fans wondering if this might help speed up the new album!

Consider this: the recording iteration of TSOM has always been ":von: plus guests". Some guests stuck around for longer than others, but it is apparent that "l'état, c'est Von".

Therefore there is an argument that supports the hypothesis that "the band" didn't break up, because there wasn't a band to start with.

Here's where it gets slightly more tricky: starting from the hypothesis that "there was no band" (which we just proved), we can surmise that the band "existed" only in our own minds. This makes perfect sense, given the number of differing opinions concerning "the band" that are found self-confessed Sisters fans. For example, there are some (misguided, Scottish, rat-catching) people who don't think that Vision Thing is worth the vinyl it was written on, while others believe that Damage Done is the finest thing ever launched upon the unsuspecting ears of humanity.

So, "the band" exists only our own heads, providing proof (if proof were needed) that we're not the most mentally well-balanced of people. From this, some of us will enjoy a "multiple personality" order, statistically speaking. As this is the case, if indeed "the band" broke up, then it broke up in our own minds, perhaps an indication that some of our multiple personalities resolved themselves, leaving us with the standard issue of one.

Couple this to 's remark that The Sisters are about "getting into your head by any means necessary" and it should all become crystal (meth) clear to those with eyes to read or wit to reason.

And perhaps David Lynch was channeling (subconsciously or otherwise) during his 2001 film, Mulholland Drive...

No Hay Banda!



which of course further supports the idea that this is all just a figment of our collective imagination (but there's probably a good deal more lesbian shenanigans going on in our collective imagination than Lynch put in the release version of the film).

If, indeed, "the band" is something that we have created using a shared consciousness, then it can be posited that the 4th album will come if we just imagine it hard enough, and that the reason that it hasn't come yet is because, as we grew older, we lost our childlike delight in creating things inside our own heads. The paucity of younger fans mean that the album is increasingly less likely to materialise.

NB I refer here to "the band" (i.e. that which we created) and not to "The Sisters of Mercy" (created and maintained by effort of will by ).

Karst wrote:

Chairman Bux wrote:Bad hair day, the Merc mind you is still in the garage i understand....

Here was me thinking that this was currently au rigeur with the rockstar fraternity.

Silly rabbit - this is the one you mean

The concept of the band existing in the fans own minds is quite interesting. I watched a film about Depeche Mode fans a few weeks ago by Jeremy Deller and am pretty certain that the image of David Gahan bears no relation to reality. Fans were almost placing him in a demi-god context. I think this is why he objected to the film. Admittedly there will be always in the semi-goth fraternity those who will misrepresent the band, be it fans or journalists. Hence 's irritation with the gothic label. I think that it's necessary for a performer to have a distance between him/her and the fanbase. It allows for I think more creativity and not simply repeating oneself. Vision Thing was a great album and completely socially relevant, more so, as time moves on. Yet still I shudder to remember seeing someone wandering round Wembley with a cardboard coffin. Missing the context completely. Great bands and great music reinvent themselves and recontextualise themselves continually. A bit rambling! What I meant to say generally its the person who does the most work that lasts longest in a project!

EvilBastard wrote:Consider this: the recording iteration of TSOM has always been ":von: plus guests". Some guests stuck around for longer than others, but it is apparent that "l'état, c'est Von".

I would submit that this state of affairs only persisted once Gary had left. Before then, The Sisters were Andrew, Gary, plus guests