Heartland

Dan wrote:Well it better be mp3, not flippin realaudio like on the Ghostdance site.

Details of how to order Nineteen Ninety Five And Nowhere will be posted in time for October release. A real audio sample of the title track is available here today.

Gary Marx wrote:As a result of your persistant enquiries, details of how to order the album Nineteen Ninety Five And Nowhere will be posted soon.

Nineteen Ninety Five And Nowhere

Twenty years after kicking off the Black October Tour in Edinburgh sees the release of the 1995 sessions.

Details of how to order to follow.

Nineteen Ninety Five And Nowhere

The story goes something like this :

In early 1995 I was out in Leeds for the night and bumped into a friend of a friend who was working for the Sisters. We got chatting over one or two drinks and during the conversation I expressed my frustration at Eldritch's inactivity - a sentiment which clearly struck a chord with said employee.
I didn't think any more of it until a couple of days later when I got a call from Andrew - I hadn't spoken to him for at least nine years prior to the call. He told me how the word had got back to him that I was keen to work with him again and we discussed on what terms this might happen. He seemed to think I was interested in playing live which I wasn't. I didn't wish to go in the studio with him either, I simply wanted to write some new songs with him so it wasn't an eternity before his next album came out.

He seemed to acknowledge the interest this might generate among the Sisters' fan-base and was generally relaxed and open to the idea. We arranged to meet in Leeds to catch up and talk through how it might work on a practical level. I suggested going out to Hamburg where he was living at the time so I could get a sense of where he was at musically.

I had no idea what direction he might want to move in - the electronica and dance slanted things he'd dabbled with or whether the Vision Thing sound represented a permanent shift.

Despite my request to work head to head, Andrew wanted to work more like we used to circa '84 with me providing fully arranged backing tracks for him to try out ideas for vocals over. I was reluctant to take this approach because I knew how long a process this could be with him. The whole rationale for me suggesting getting involved again in the first place was to speed up the process and actually get some material out. He wouldn't move, (now why doesn't that arrive as a surprise to anyone reading ?) So I finally agreed to record the backing tracks and mail them to him in Hamburg, trying to second guess the direction of the new material as best I could.

I rattled off 11 tracks and mailed them out to him.

To this day he hasn't even acknowledged that he got them.

We didn't speak again until just before the Sisters' 20th anniversary gig in York, when he rang me with an invitation to 'participate'. I didn't, and we're roughly back to where we were anytime between the Royal Albert Hall gig and the meeting in Leeds in Spring'95, (ie nowhere).

In preparing material for this site and responding to requests for interviews regarding my 'comeback' I was reminded of the 1995 tracks and dug them out to see how they stood up. While a couple of things hadn't stayed the distance most of the stuff sounded great. I decided to finish them with me writing lyrics and providing vocals.

I did consider getting someone else in to sing,(not Eldritch) to get away from the limitations of my voice but decided to record the first of the tracks ('Black Eyed Faith') as a trial run. It seemed to work ok and made more sense to me than getting someone from outside the Sisters' camp in to sing.

So that was it - I wrote the rest of the lyrics for the album and tried to put it together as we mght have done back then.

As for the individual songs, a good many of the lyrics were written as a direct response to the circumstances I've just described - musings on the missed opportunities and what it would be like to actually run away with that particular circus again.

'1995' clearly takes a fairly literal cue from the tale I've just outlined for its lyric. '1995 and nowhere selling disembodied lullabies..' was pretty much how it felt to be going back to these tunes which had been swallowed up by a black hole somewhere between Leeds and Hamburg nine years earlier. The finished lyric is edited from an even longer version which included the following lines in its final verse:

'more vapour trail than beating heart
four digits stranded beneath the stars
wiped out by an unseen hand
folded in a camper van
between the brothel creepers and the badly bruised
those born to blame and drawn to soon..'

I think the 'brothel creepers' relates to how I remember Craig when I first met him. Perm any one from three for the others.

'Black-Eyed Faith' was just about trying to reconnect with some underlying reason or belief.

'Blindfold' includes what I thought was the useful conceit of spinning the vitriol and negativity of Andrew's 'Gift' statement in its opening lines.

If 'poison' were German for a 'gift' rather than vice versa - ergo, if relations between us all hadn't taken such a tumble back in the day.
It's essentially a madcap look at the F.A.L.A.A era Sisters back on the road - four dysfunctional forty-somethings touring the World's war-zones.

'Sound And Sound' looked at the idea of being dragged back into a world you thought you'd left behind - largely in the context of a relationship, but again parallels with the band can be drawn fairly easily.

'Dumb' isn't so wrapped up in veiled messages to ex band-mates, focusing more on a culture in collapse.

'we're talking cola wars and designer fatigues
and the terminally bored lined up like slot machines..'

'Zapruder' is similarly more interested in the wider world and, in this instance, the escalating number of conspiracy theories. I like to think of this as a lyrical cocktail : three parts JFK to one part 'Metal Guru' by T.Rex.

'Default' has a simple starting premise - you wake up to find falsehood and distortion are the norm. The little lies multiply until, (as the old sage Leonard Cohen once pointed out) there's nothing you can measure any more.

Gary Marx wrote:Nineteen Ninety Five And Nowhere

[...]I rattled off 11 tracks and mailed them out to him. [...]

Quiff Boy wrote:so to clarify on the garymarx.com site the "1995 sisters sessions" songs are:

1995
Black-Eyed Faith
Blindfold
Sound And Sound
Dumb
Zapruder
Default

In preparing material for this site and responding to requests for interviews regarding my 'comeback' I was reminded of the 1995 tracks and dug them out to see how they stood up. While a couple of things hadn't stayed the distance most of the stuff sounded great. I decided to finish them with me writing lyrics and providing vocals.

Quiff Boy wrote:so maybe 4 "hadn't stayed the distance"?

Gary Marx wrote:
I rattled off 11 tracks and mailed them out to him.

To this day he hasn't even acknowledged that he got them.

Dave R wrote:Oh my, me and my geeks interest...

type this into your bowser:-

http://www.garymarx.com/support/

then simply download the lot....

oh joy!

Dan wrote:

Dave R wrote:Oh my, me and my geeks interest...

type this into your bowser:-

http://www.garymarx.com/support/

then simply download the lot....

oh joy!

You complete f#$%!ng moron. I've had my eye on that page for quite some time, noting when new tracks were added. Why couldn't you just have kept it to yourself. Go on, take a look at what's on the page now.

Dave R wrote:.....any one want the entire directory just pm me.....i can zip and email em....

if thats okay with you all??????????

Dave R wrote:@Dan, don't be so bleedin hostile....share and share alike.

I do not like being referred to as a F***** Moron....just so you know.

Dan wrote:

Dave R wrote:@Dan, don't be so bleedin hostile....share and share alike.

I do not like being referred to as a F***** Moron....just so you know.

I'm not against sharing. You could've pm'd people with a "Pssst, pass it on, just don't mention it on a public forum where Gary will see it and close the directory preventing anyone from getting any goodies in the future."

Do you see?

Quiff Boy wrote:

Dan wrote:

Dave R wrote:Oh my, me and my geeks interest...

type this into your bowser:-

http://www.garymarx.com/support/

then simply download the lot....

oh joy!

You complete f#$%!ng moron. I've had my eye on that page for quite some time, noting when new tracks were added. Why couldn't you just have kept it to yourself. Go on, take a look at what's on the page now.

nah, you can blame biggy for that