Damage Done

By June 1983, my Sisters vinyl collection was virtually complete. A copy of the CNT single (Body Electric/ Adrenochrome) had turned up in the 2nd hand section of a branch of Selectadisc, whilst everything else was still available at any independent record shop (and was clogging up the upper reaches of the indie charts). With uni virtually finished for the year, earlier in the week that would see the Sisters play the legendary free gig at Sheefield Uni, the Steel City also hosted a second memorable gig, with a rapidly disintegrating Bauhaus touring the incendiary (and as it turned out, largely unfinished) Burning from the Inside swansong. An early arrival in the capital of the Republic of South Yorkshire (at the time under David Blunkett's quasi-communist council) meant a bit of time to kill (no 24 hour pubs in those days !), and a chance to browse the record stores. There, incredibly, in the "Reduced to 50p" box at one store were two mint copies of the Sisters' debut single, Damage Done. Heading to a gig is not the best time to buy a single, but the opportunity seemed unique and so the purchase was made (sadly only one copy !) and the vinyl made it back to Leeds in good condition, and it still has pride of place in my collection to this day. Within months, copies of DD would be changing hands for £30 and enterprising bootleggers were knocking out fakes of various quality ; meanwhile smug so-and-so's (like me) were swapping "Where did you get yours ?" stories like anniversary celebrating couples remembering how they first met ...