First And Last - Strathclyde University, 9th March 1985

After what seemed an interminable wait (extended by the sound mixing issues and personal health problems which meant that the planned release to tie in with what then became the Black October tour never materialised), The Sisters of Mercy finally unleashed their debut album First And Last And Always on March 11th 1985. Although the tour which started two days previously was officially called “Tune In, Tune On, Burn Out” (an adapted quote from 60’s hippy guru Timothy Leary), the Strathclyde gig was certainly a perfect fit for the First and Last aesthetic:

- The FIRST gig of the crucial year of 1985.

- The FIRST live outing for key tracks on the FALAA album.

- The FIRST gig where Eldritch wore his trademark hat on stage, a key part of the band’s visual image.

- The start of the LAST tour with Gary Marx, who left after the final UK gig at Brighton on April 1st (although he did appear on the Old Grey Whistle Test recording the next day).

- The start of the band’s LAST set of live shows of the 1980’s.

However, mention the Strathclyde ‘85 gig to any obsessive TSOM fan and they will think of two things: the extra-long soundcheck, a poor quality audio recording of which exists and is well-known to collectors, and the eye patch which Andrew Eldritch sported during the gig. The latter was not some piratical affectation, but the essential consequence of an incident that had allegedly taken place the day before in Leeds. The singer is of course entitled to his privacy, so I have not researched any further the rumours printed at the time that the injury resulted from an altercation regarding a dispute with a jealous boyfriend, but Eldritch referred to the very obvious white bandage which he was sporting in the customary inter-song banter. “My vision’s a little blurred tonight,” he said. “I’d like to say thanks to Carol for the glasses” [is he referring to his customary shades or is it an ironic reference to a “glassing”?] “I spent the night in Casualty”. He pronounced the final syllable of that last word in a very obvious attempt at a Leeds accent, pausing briefly before it and pronouncing it “teh” , the only time I can recall him imitating the Loiner drawl on stage. Eldritch allegedly sported the bandage over his left eye at the following night’s gig in Edinburgh too, making photos from these gigs particularly easy to identify, such as these examples of Glasgow kindly shared on FB by Douglas G and Gyongyi. [The known photos of the Edinburgh gig are taken from the wrong side of the stage to see whether or not this was the case, so if anyone has any further pics, it would be great to see them.]

Pic shared by Gyongyi

Pic taken and shared by Douglas (Choque H pointed out that a ghostly Gary seems to be symbolically heading in a different direction to Andrew)

In the years since this gig, fans have gradually been able to piece together the events which took place between the end of the European tour of November 1984 and the March 85 UK tour: Eldritch’s recuperation in Italy, the singer working independently on the b-sides to the No Time To Cry single (which was released the day before the Strathclyde gig), the wrangling over the mixes to be used on FALAA, etc. In all likelihood, the band would have had precious little time for rehearsals, which would explain the 45+ minute soundcheck, longer than many of the actual gigs of the previous iteration of the band in 1982/83, whose recordings would fit snugly on one side of a C90 cassette (to the delight of bootleggers everywhere).

The soundcheck is notable for a couple of snippets of songs which weren’t ever played live by the band. Phil Verne of the 1980-1985 The Sisters of Mercy Facebook fan group kindly shared this extract on Soundcloud which features Wayne Hussey sketching out the riff to what would become one of the early tracks on The Mission’s major label debut God’s Own Medicine, Bridges Burning. Hussey had worked on a whole selection of new songs which Eldritch would reject for The Sisters, and clearly this would be a factor in the ultimate break-up of the band, and here he picks out the distinctive Bridges Burning melody as the group improvise whilst they tune up, after (Gary has played?) a section of Abba’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!. Doktor Avalanche then strikes up the familiar Ghost Rider loop, enabling the band to tune/warm-up further in a more organised but still improvised manner. Further improvisation follows, including the riff from Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain amongst many other little riffs (including Burn) on various instruments before Eldritch finally joins in for the more traditionally structured songs, starting with Stairway to Heaven, which is significantly longer here than the well-known encore version which went straight into Sister Ray after the first two verses. It was clear that by 1985 the band was more focussed on Led Zeppelin than on, say, The Ramones, as they had been at the start of their career when they had been as much a punk as a rock band. As the soundcheck continues, the band continue to warm up simultaneously but independently, with fragments of the likes of Purple Haze, No Time To Cry and Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around all competing for dominance at one moment. Eventually the Doktor again brings an end to the cacophony with the opening salvo of what is an excellent run through of then current single No Time To Cry, the first formal song performed (some twenty minutes into the soundcheck), even if Eldritch misses out a few sections. 

The singer then reverts to his a capella version of Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, which is rudely interrupted by the opening bars of Train, with the band again sounding really tight from the opening chords, and the singer deigning to sing the full song this time. After several minutes of animated but sadly mostly indecipherable discussion between the band, the E-bow is dusted down and the familiar whooshing sound can be heard over the PA as after a brief Doktor false start, the familiar haunting strains of Marian can be heard. Eldritch’s voice is particularly low in the mix, with the Doktor’s dull thud and the E-bow’s mournful wail initially dominant, although the balance is significantly better by the German section. After further improvisation typical of the tuning up between songs of any of the band’s live shows of that era. The final bit of the soundcheck is the most fascinating, with Eldritch having a third unsuccessful attempt at getting the band to accompany him on Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, but this time the Doktor doesn’t even wait for him to finish his stanza, and Eldritch is still singing the Stevie Nicks number over the entirety of the introduction of Burn, which the rest of the band are playing full-on, only switching to the correct song at the very last moment. Those who like to read a lot into these things (guilty as charged, m’lud) might see this as symptomatic of a band whose members were pulling in different directions. However, the soundcheck ends with a great abbreviated version of Louie Louie featuring just Eldritch on vocals and Adams on bass. Job done.

And so on to the gig itself. As with some previous posts, this review of the gig was written by Sisters expert Ollie C, to whom I am very grateful:

So, thanks to Nik's introduction we can focus directly on the setlist. As the last tour was just about three months previously, the setlist is not changed completely. A few old classics are kicked out ("Heartland", "Anaconda" and "Adrenochrome"), and instead we get some more songs from the album, some of which had already been played on the "Black October" tour. So the crowd is familiar with "No Time To Cry" (released as a single two days before as well), "Marian", "A Rock And A Hard Place" and of course "Walk Away". Probably the most notable change for this "blueprint" of all the upcoming gigs, including the last one in the Royal Albert Hall, is the opener.

As new opener the Sisters chose the title track of the album. This was a tough decision, as it had never been played live to an audience before: to start a gig with a premiere is quite a challenge for both band and fans...as a band, you feel more comfortable playing a song live for the first time after you have been warmed up a bit after a couple of songs, while of course the audience is confronted with unknown material, so you can't be sure how the crowd will react.   

Unfortunately, I only can judge by listening to this 35 year old recording what kind of effect this track had on the audience. If I try to imagine having witnessed this and hearing this track for the very first time, I probably would have been impressed by the long Doktor's four to the floor intro giving it a trance-like prelude, then Gary's guitar kicking in with maybe his most legendary guitar riff, this kind of celtic-sounding melody which probably gave it the working title "The Scottish One" before it was finished. Craig and Wayne join one by one to form the foundation for Andrew's vocals, which are a bit low in the mix for the first seconds, but this is corrected quickly. This very song is a perfect example of the typical Sisters sound of this era. The main melody is carried by Gary (who wrote it), while Wayne adds some more complex riffs and chords. Wayne also uses a kind of slow morphing flanger effect which adds a kind of psychedelic feeling. Craig drives his bass as usual, but also starts to play some more melodic stuff. The Doktor changes into a glopping groove that honors his name. So, in good mood and shape, "First And Last Always" is performed very powerfully, the guitars sound fresh and clear, and Andrew's voice is very strong and even delivers some high sung notes, not typical for later versions of the song. So, the premiere was fulfilled par excellence. And, if we go back to the question why this song has been chosen as the opener, to me it works so fantastically well that it can be regarded as probably the best opener ever (OK quite a personal opinion, and to be fair "Kiss The Carpet" gets very close ;-) )

The set goes on with both sides of the first WEA-single "Body And Soul" and "Train", followed by three tracks off the album in a row, all from side A and so all Hussey compositions ("Marian", "No Time To Cry" and "Walk Away"). These work well together and fit perfectly in the set, showing the direction the album takes on side one. Then we move back to some 1983's classics ("Burn" and "Emma"), both appreciated by the audience. With the following "A Rock And A Hard Place" the first side of the album is finished for this set.

What follows is the second premiere for this evening (and unfortunately the second and last song played from the second, "Marx" side of the album...("Possession" will be played the next day). We get the first ever performance of "Amphetamine Logic". The crazy thing about it is the title. To choose a title that shows your drug abuse so obviously is kinda naughty. In fact the complete title didn't make it on the album cover, due to distribution fears. The lyrics leave no room for misunderstandings regarding what the song is about.

After Eldritch's introduction and the first steps of the Doktor the song starts with a riff by Gary, who will again carry the whole song with his theme, Wayne again adding some real rough and razor-sharp chords during the verse, changing to some really thrilling staccato-like high notes in the chorus. Andrew sings his lines very close to the recorded version, preparing the audience and himself for the climax, that is of course the end of the refrain when he, backed by Wayne, gets to rise his voice an octave higher to present us the final words closing the song, nearly getting out of breath, the screamed "Give me my Speed". Well, to me, this premiere is also delivered very well.

The time for new songs or surprises is now over, we are now back on track for the setlist played the tour before, which means we get a firework of old classics ("Floorshow", "Alice", "Body Electric"), then finishing the main set with "Gimme Shelter". The songs are all well-played and the band seem to be in a good mood, which is a good sign for the upcoming encore section. The first one "Knockin’ On Heaven's Door" is always welcomed and is played here in a nice version with even some improvised parts from the vocals here, accompanied by Wayne's typical guitar solo.

The second and final encore is the highlight for many fans, and probably for the band as well. Nobody ever knows if it's going to be "Sister Ray", Ghostrider", "Louie Louie" or a combination of two or three of them. I wonder how the decision was made. Did they go backstage, take some refreshments and someone suggests "Hey, let's do Ghostrider/Sister Ray" or "Louie Louie" or what else now??? Or was it decided on stage after the Doktor's groove started??? I would be very interested if someone has an idea about it.

Well, tonight we get "Sister Ray/Louie Louie" for a very pleasing 10 minutes, that show the band in a great mood, having fun in improvising. It sounds if they are enjoying playing together after a break, feeling relieved maybe they successfully went through the first gig of the new tour and the new songs went well... so why not play some dirty Rock'n'Roll? Wayne's flanger effect gives the whole thing a Hawkwind-like space-rock feel, while Andrew has fun with some improvised screaming parts. Of course the medley ends in a cacophony of the hammering Doktor and droning guitars, with some final screams. A perfect ending for the first date of the tour!

Thanks, Ollie!

The Strathclyde University venue was one arguably the highest the band ever played, being situated on the eighth floor of the University Union building. The Union still stands today in the very heart of Glasgow, but they sadly no longer put on gigs, which is a shame given the recent fire at the nearby 02 where The Sisters played as recently as 2015, their most recent gig in Scotland. Back in 1985, like most Students Union buildings in the UK, licensing laws meant that only members could be admitted, with the result that many people couldn’t initially get into the gig. Sisters fan Rob C was at the gig (as indeed he has at every Scottish gig the band has ever played) and recalls, “I don’t think Eldritch liked this and it got sorted.” This had also been the case the previous year, an event recorded in this preamble to an interview in Scottish fanzine Deadbeat in 1984.

Like so many who witnessed the band that year, those who did manage to get in to the Strathclyde gig thirty-five years ago saw a band at the forefront of the musical zeitgeist at the beginning of the end of what for some was the first and last great era of The Sisters of Mercy.

My thanks for this post are due to in particular to Ollie C and Phil V, as well as Douglas and Gyongyi for the photos, and Choque, Rob and others for their comments. I would also particularly like to thank Alan for sharing an excellent new audio source of the gig. Those who are interested in finding our more about the gig are invited to join the debate and discover further artefacts in The Sisters of Mercy unofficial 1980-1985 fan page, expertly curated by Phil V.

Gnome Time To Cry - Zurich, 26/4/1985

When The Sisters of Mercy arrived in Switzerland for their first ever gig in the cantons towards the end of April in 1985, one can easily imagine their state of mind. The first leg of the gruelling Armageddon tour was now behind them, with ten gigs in Belgium, Holland and (West) Germany completed in the past thirteen days, their first as a three-piece after Gary Marx’s departure, so there must have been a palpable sense of relief. This was evident a few days beforehand when Wayne Hussey had taken part in a phone interview with a Swiss radio station, where he discussed how well the band were coping with him as sole guitarist, to the extent of the very strong likelihood that Gary would not replaced. Wayne was even compos mentis enough to correct the radio DJ on the date of the forthcoming Zurich gig.

The Zurich gig (advertised on Swiss copies of FALAA by this sticker, from the collection of LG) was very much in the middle of a brief lull in the middle of the touring schedule being the only gig in a four day spell between gigs in Munich and Milan, with  a further dozen dates in sixteen days in Italy, Germany (again) and Scandinavia to follow (tour book extract courtesy of Graeme Salt who shared it on the TSOM 1980-1985 FB group). One can imagine how relieved Eldritch and co must have been to see the words "Band and crew: NO TRAVEL". 

The band certainly seem to have been in relaxed mood during interviews around the gig, with a further Swiss radio interview featuring all three remaining members also broadcast and with this presumably also being the venue for Judith Ammann’s interview with Eldritch which featured in her 1987 German language book of interviews with post-punk acts, Who’s Been Sleeping In My Brain? (Ammann being originally from Lucerne).

The interview focusses on the lyrics of two of the tracks on the recently released debut LP, No Time To Cry and Possession. A live version of the latter was one of two tracks (Body and Soul being the other) which have been widely bootlegged from the gig at the Zurich Volkshaus on Friday 26^th April 1985, featuring on both the Echoes series of LPs and the Acid Rain 12”. Eldritch, clearly tiring of touring and feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities of the figurehead position which he had rapidly attained, speaks with great candour about the “Possession” lyrics (the Zurich version of which has been kindly uploaded to Soundcloud by Phil Verne of The Sisters of Mercy 1980 – 1985Facebook group) in the Ammann interview.

Lines in the song such as :

I'll be your imagination
Tear apart what you believe
Make a mess of your conviction
Take away my pride and leave
Nothing, but the debris
Cuts, two ways.

take on extra meaning in the context of Eldritch’s comments in reply to Ammann who had asked him if he felt like a screen on which the audience projected their own dreams and desires that were not a true reflection of Eldritch himself. “Not if you play the game the way I do,” the singer replied (if my approximate translation of the German is correct). “Our song Possession is about this very subject. I’m simply trying to show an image of the relationship between the writer, the singer, the song and the audience. If singers and audiences continue to insist on sticking to their roles as they are normally understood, nothing remains [after the end of the song].” Ammann asks Eldritch what he IS trying to project, eliciting the answer: “I'm just trying to be a responsible puppet for other people’s emotions; no matter what you try to represent, this is what it always comes down to. That's what the audience demands and understands …It can be soul-destroying. Sometimes you almost feel contempt [for the audience]. In this particular song [Possession] I was trying to say: Please don’t trust me too much, because this is still me [Andrew] and not something that you want to see in me. Be careful, because if you trust me even more, I may just become what you want to see in me, and that won’t help anyone. So there’s this balance between contempt and the responsibility that anyone feels when standing up there and singing about pain. That's exactly what we sing about.” This probably helps to explain why the vocal on the FALAA version of Possession sounds particularly raw, as Eldritch strove to convey the extent of his emotion on the issue, rather than the more polished and enhanced vocal on most of the rest of the band’s canon.

But back to the puppet show. Possibly as a result of the radio pre-publicity, the fact that it was the band’s first ever show in Switzerland, and this rather fine and unique advert for the show which appeared in Swiss magazines, the show at the Volkshaus was very well-attended, as can be seen in the wonderful contemporary photo below ((c) Sonja Flurry)  According to reports from those who were there, it wasn’t just the cramped audience conditions and the apparent heat (see the sweat on the face of the Jordan Pickford lookalike at the bottom right of the photo) which made the gig an intense experience for those in attendance, but also the sheer volume at which the band played that night.

Tom G Warrior of contemporary and highly influential Swiss “extreme metal” band Celtic Frost (and therefore something of an occupational expert in loud concerts) was at the gig, and spoke about it in an interview with The Quietus’ Jimmy Martin in 2017. “I saw The Sisters of Mercy with Martin Ain from Celtic Frost in Zurich in April 1985 on the tour [for FALAA]. It was the loudest concert I’ve ever heard in my life. It was so loud that you had to leave the hall periodically because it was so painful. But at the same time we witnessed something that we had never witnessed before. When we stood there and we saw Marian and …First And Last And Always live, with that heaviness, that darkness, that volume, it was amazing.”

Blogger JHG Shark was also at the gig, and also found it a unique experience amongst the many shows catalogued on his website : “It was a strange gig, because people screamed and whistled between the songs, but there was no applause! I’d never experienced anything like it. I don’t think it was because of the band’s sound or the show on stage, it’s just how Sisters fans were. I personally really enjoyed the gig, even though the sound was thinner than on the record.” [This could of course be due to the fact that there was only the one guitarist, with Marx back in West Yorkshire] “After the gig I had to go to the Big Apple Club to do my DJ shift. The Sisters and some of their fans also found their way to the club, and some fans requested that I play a few TSOM tracks. I thought, “No way,” and just played the usual records. Eventually, the members of the band got up to dance … and to the great astonishment of all their fans present, they were dancing to… SIMPLE MINDS”. Sadly no video evidence of this event has yet surfaced…

The gig itself was however recorded by several attendees, and listening to a copy of the show (kindly provided to me by Phil Verne of the TSOM 1980-1985 Facebook fan group) the volume issues and the strange atmosphere are immediately apparent. Doktor Avalanche is incredibly high in the mix, the beats bludgeoning the senses, and this is probably the only gig of this era I have heard where Eldritch doesn’t utter a single word during the entire show between the songs, save for the title of the next number. The Volkshaus acoustics are particularly effective on Body and Soul, with Hussey’s guitar reverberating around the arena, whilst the thin-ness of the guitar sound is all too apparent on Walk Away. Hussey makes a guitar pitch error during his “No…No…No…” backing vocals section on No Time To Cry, but Eldritch makes an even bigger gaffe on Amphetamine Logic, coming in two lines early and singing the chorus over the verse backing, leaving Adams and Hussey to play the chorus as an instrumental on the first play-through. The singer was in notably finer form on Emma and Marian, and the recording ends with the best live version which I have heard of Train, sadly and suddenly curtailed on this copy of the recording. 

So a distinctive as much as a legendary gig in one of the more attractive venues on the tour (pic above, credit Wikipedia) and one which I'm pleased to report is still going strong today (as is the Seegarten Hotel where they stayed, now charging around £175 a night for a standard double room - the band had clearly arrived!). Having originally opened back in 1910, The Volkshaus’ 1200 capacity hall hosted recent gigs for As I Lay Dying and Vampire Weekend amongst others, but many bands, including TSOM, now play at the city’s “Rote Fabrik” (“Red Factory”) instead.

My grateful thanks for this post are due to LG, to Phil Verne of the TSOM 1980-1985 Facebook fan group, to Graeme Salt, to JHG Shark and all others who have contributed.

The Sisterhood - interview with Lucas Fox

Lucas Fox was Andrew Eldritch’s right hand man on The Sisterhood project in 1986, helping the Sisters’ vocalist to rush-record and release the Giving Ground single to wrest control of The Sisterhood band name from Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams, and then working on the follow-up Gift mini-LP, a remastered version of which is due to be re-released on Cadiz Music in 2020. Fox, who famously was Motörhead’s first drummer before also being a founder member of London punk band Warsaw Pakt (whose only LP was released within twenty-four hours of being recorded in 1977 – a useful experience for the Giving Ground project!) and a touring and session drummer and producer for countless other acts before supporting The Sisters as a temporary member of The Scientists in 1985.

Thereafter Fox relocated to France where he became a well-respected industry figure,  resurfacing as a musician when drumming on the Pink Faeries’ new album for Cleopatra Records in 2018. Now writing his musical autobiography, Lucas Fox gave a series of interviews last year in which he spoke in some detail about his involvement with The Sisterhood (notably in this Croatian interview) amongst many other projects, and when his old friend and music paper lensman Tony Mottram kindly suggested to The Sisters of Mercy 1980-1985 Facebook fan group administrator that he would be happy to pass on any questions to Lucas Fox, I jumped at the opportunity to find out more about one of the most fascinating periods of both his and Andrew Eldritch’s very different forty year musical careers.

Lucas very kindly provided full answers to my questions below, which help to confirm many aspects of The Sisterhood project and to add some extra details in places. I am very grateful to Phil, to Tony and of course to Lucas, and hope that you find the latter’s answers as interesting as I do.

NVL: What can you remember of when you first met the Sisters?
Lucas Fox: We were based at the same office Ladbroke Grove in London. Like other Gothic bands of the time they wore only black, as did I.

NVL: What were your first impressions?
Lucas Fox: Andrew was austere and aloof, but Wayne and Craig and I got on straight away. Andrew and I warmed to each other as we got to know each other.

NVL: Eldritch has often stated that he was a big Motörhead fan – did he regularly grill you about your time in the band?
Lucas Fox: Not “grill”… but he would ask questions about Lemmy occasionally - about sulphate consumption,  about our musical interests when we (Lemmy and I) started the band…

NVL: Could you hear much of a Motörhead influence in the Sisters’ sound?
Lucas Fox: Not really. There were/are far more dynamics in the Sisters’ song arrangements. At full tilt there are some likenesses, but I couldn’t really say that I see a lot of influence.

NVL: Eldritch drummed on the first TSOM single but has employed a drum machine ever since. Did you often discuss this issue with him, the merits of human versus machine?
Lucas Fox: After he’d seen me play with The Scientists and knew I’d been producing. My drumming style with The Scientists intrigued him and I think he had a yearning.

NVL: When you toured with The Sisters as last-minute replacement drummer for the Scientists, was that your first major tour for a while, as it was seven years since Warsaw Pakt split up?
Lucas Fox: I worked with Carl Groszman’s White Lightning, recording and touring, with SPYS (same), Walking Wounded, Freddie “Fingers Lee”, Fools Dance (Simon Gallup of the Cure)… I played, recorded and toured with Martin Stephenson (& the Daintees)... and many sessions..

NVL: Were you aware on the Scientists’ tour with The Sisters that the band was on the verge of splitting up?
Lucas Fox: No

NVL: When you were asked to join the Sisters for Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door [at the Brighton Top Rank gig on April 1^st, 1985), was that pre-planned, or just a last-minute spur of the moment thing?
Lucas Fox: On the moment, it was Andrew’s idea.

NVL: That gig was Gary Marx’s last show with the Sisters. Did you know that this would be the case at the time?
Lucas Fox: No, I didn’t.

NVL: Was it a surprise when Andrew contacted you to work at the beginning of 1986 to work on the Sisterhood project, or had he already mooted the idea the previous year?
Lucas Fox: No, it was a reaction to Wayne & co wanting to use the name Sisterhood (the Sisters fan club)...

NVL: As you may be aware, Andrew has the reputation of being something of a perfectionist in the studio, and some have found him difficult to work with as a result. How did you find him in that regard?
Lucas Fox: Complicated, fascinating, sometimes difficult, always obsessive...

NVL: Were you aware of the importance of rush-releasing the “Giving Ground” to secure the band name and the publishing deal advance when you were recording the song?
Lucas Fox: Yes, but not the publishing advance part.

NVL: Was there a lot of pressure?
Lucas Fox: Well, I just went for it as usual.

Was the atmosphere different when you went to Fairview to record “Gift”?
Lucas Fox: Yes it was just me and Andrew and Roy the engineer for 6 weeks, only at night, apart from when James Ray or Patricia were there.

NVL: Were the songs in a fully finished form and it was just a case of recording them, or were they basic ideas which were then worked out in the studio?
Lucas Fox: Most didn’t exist at all!

NVL: Were you surprised by the content of The Sisterhood material, which was very different to The Sisters of Mercy’s output?
Lucas Fox: No, it was still obviously Andrew’s work and style.

NVL: Have you listened back to the album much since?
Lucas Fox: Yes, quite a few times.

NVL: Did Alan Vega visit the studio or did he contribute via tape ?
Lucas Fox: No, it was by tape.

NVL: Was there any other times subsequently when you worked with Andrew?
Lucas Fox: No, just the mixes at Eel Pie [Pete Townshend’s studios in Twickenham near London] after the sessions at Hull.

NVL: More recently, The Sisters of Mercy have covered Motörhead’s Capricorn and Larry Wallis’ Police Car in live shows. Have you heard either of them (easily findable on YouTube) and if so, what did you think of them?
Lucas Fox: No, I must listen to them!

NVL: Where do you rank The Sisterhood in the various musical projects you have been involved in over your career?
Lucas Fox: As a very interesting project.

NVL: You drummed on some old Motörhead songs at a show with a Greek tribute towards the end of 2019 ….
Lucas Fox: Yes, it went fabulously well, hundreds of autograph signings (+selfies etc) and I got to play 3 Motörhead songs that hadn’t been played in that version since 1975, an awesome experience! Greek metal fans are great and know all the words ...

NVL: And would you like to work with Eldritch again one day? Are you still in touch with him?
Lucas Fox: Yes, I wouldn’t mind but I can’t see it being likely, and no, we’re not in touch.

Thanks again to Lucas for his reminiscences of a facinating time in TSOM history. Keep an eye out for his musical autobiography which will be a wonderful insight into the early days of metal, punk and goth!

Andrew Eldritch's Leeds, pt 2 - Campus culture

(This is the second of a three part series looking at Andrew Eldritch’s Leeds from the air, thanks to the wonders of Google Maps)

When Andy Taylor arrived in Leeds in October 1978 to enrol at the city’s university, it represented a fresh start for him after what must have been the disappointment of dropping out of Oxford University. Leeds had been chosen almost by chance, as it was one of fewer than half a dozen universities in the UK at the time offering an undergraduate degree in Chinese, and possessing the impressive A Level grades required for entry to his previous academic institution, being accepted by the University of Leeds was something of a formality for the confirmed Southerner.

However, once again fate would take a hand, and a combination of factors (not least the requirement to spend a heavily-chaperoned second year of the course studying in Beijing) would lead to Eldritch dropping out for a second time after a mere year's study, but not before he had immersed himself in the city’s emerging punk culture and the more centralised fun offered by a large city campus.

The left-hand side of this aerial photo of the campus is virtually unchanged in the forty years since Eldritch completed his matriculation in the formal surroundings of the Parkinson Building, which features an Italianate/phallic (depending on your level of maturity) white tower in the upper centre left of the picture, just above the circular Brotherton Library. The lower part of the campus however has changed significantly since the 1980’s, as can be seen by comparing an aerial photo from the early 80’s (recently shared by the University online) with a similar view from Google maps.

The first stop-off for a TSOM heritage tourist however would most likely be St George’s Field (labelled with a number “1” on the image), one of the few remaining areas of greenery on an increasingly dense campus, for it is here that one of the most iconic images of the band was taken (by Tom Sheehan in early 1985), oft-reproduced because of the graveyard feel which reinforced the media’s goth stereotyping of the band. The stone memorial has become a place of pilgrimage for Sisters fans (the bottom photo below, for example was taken by noted Belgian collector Bruno Bossier and is reproduced with thanks), and TSOM tribute band The Marching Men (with The Blogging Goth curator Tim in the Eldritch role) recreated the classic shot during their own all-too-brief heyday (middle photo), a photo often confused with the real McCoy (write your own goth pun).

(Tom Sheehan photo of TSOM, 1985)

(TSOM tribute band The Marching Men)

(Photo of St George's Field by Bruno Bossier)

Central to campus life for all Leeds students was the University Union, a social and cultural centre for students which was – and still is - one of the largest and most dynamic in the country. On this image, it’s the group of buildings (of different eras and styles) to the right of the red number “2”. The Union houses the Riley Smith Hall, where TSOM gigs played in 1981, 1982 and 1984, and this can be seen (with a dirty red roof) just under the “Lee” of “University of Leeds” on the aerial photo at the top of this blog. The Refectory, the canteen-cum-concert hall where they played on the Black October tour and then again in March 1985, is also part of this collection of buildings, the long thin red-roofed building just to the left of the red number 3. In a very early piece on this blog I described it thus: “The Refectory was basically the respectable student and staff self-service restaurant serving glorified school meals and salads during the day, but transformed into a rather unconvincing concert venue in the evening. The balcony added some atmosphere, and also gave more extrovert performers like Bono and Lux Interior somewhere to climb up to during the inevitable “Look at me!!” phases of their gigs”. This was also the hall where The Who recorded what is considered to be one of the best-ever live albums, “Live In Leeds”, and there is now a blue plaque outside the building commemorating this fact. The Riley Smith Hall was (according to the same blog post) “the union’s main debating hall and home of the weekly political bearpit, the OGM (“Ordinary General Meeting”), where party hacks of the future lined up to take on the all-powerful Socialist Workers’ Party”. All gigs at the university were put on by the Union’s “Ents” and “Events” committees, dedicated groups of music-loving students who volunteered to cook, steward or do a variety of other jobs to keep ticket prices down for students and non-students alike.

Also visible on this aerial image at the top of the page are the two pubs indelibly linked with The Sisters of Mercy. The building just underneath the red number 4 is the Faversham (known to one and all as the “Fav”), literally a stone’s throw from the campus edge and immediately next to the most upmarket and therefore expensive of the student residences, Charles Morris Hall (known as “Charlie Mo” to its upper middle-class inhabitants), which provided most of its clientele. Allegedly because of its late night bar and its pool table (and according to Mark Andrews’ article on TSOM for The Quietus, Eldritch’s girlfriend Claire was a real pool shark), the “Fav” became the unofficial base of the band and its entourage, and on my one visit to sup the over-priced (compared to the Union) beer there Ben Gunn was at seated at an adjoining table and Eldritch was over by the bar with a group of fawning acolytes. It was also probably the closest pub to Eldritch’s early 80’s flat on Bellevue Road, undoubtedly another reason for its popularity with the singer.

(Faversham advert from Leeds Student newspaper, 1985)

The other pub with a heavy TSOM connection is The Fenton, indicated by the red number 5 on the aerial shot and directly opposite the sandstone church on Woodhouse Road. Eldritch spoke enthusiastically of the Tetley’s pub when reminiscing with Mark Andrews for his Quietus piece: “It was the pub you went to before gigs at the uni. Everybody thought fondly of the Fenton. Going back to the days when there was street fighting, the Fenton was very unwelcoming of Nazis and welcoming of the likes of us. The whole atmosphere was very politically-charged and we were very clear which side we were on.” It was no accident that The Fenton for the warm-up gig (billed as “Near Meth Experience”) when TSOM returned to gigging after a three year hiatus to tour as main support to The Sex Pistols on their own legendary comeback tour in Germany in 1996.

The other number marked on our photo of the university campus (“6”) marks the location of the university’s Chinese department in the late 1970’s. The singer would spend only last one year of the four year course in the then modern building before dropping out for the second time.

The third and final post in this trilogy on Andrew Eldritch's Leeds will focus on the city centre. My thanks for this post are due to Bruno Bossier, Phil Verne of the 1980-1985 TSOM FB fan page, and to others who have helped.

Book Review – It Ain’t Peters & Lee! – Richard Rouska

When I started this blog towards the beginning of this decade, my aim was to shed a bit of light on what life was like in Leeds in the early 1980’s, so that The Sisters of Mercy fans from other cities or countries, or those who had only discovered the band more recently, might have a better understanding of the context in which the band was formed and developed. Ignored by mainstream media or derided (along with the rest of the goth “movement”) as a joke, it seemed as if future generations would only have TSOM’s records and the few surviving Eldritch interviews to try to piece together the band’s rationale and genesis.

Unlike other Northern British cities (in particular those on the other side of the Pennines), the typically modest and self-deprecating Leeds character had discouraged any belief that the wider world might have an interest in what was happening in ther city in the post-punk era when its bands were (albeit briefly) at the forefront of British cultural life, developing a unique musical and political aesthetic that continues to fascinate to this day.

Over the past five years, however, a variety of high-quality works have sought to correct the imbalance in this regard (compared to the scenes of Liverpool and in particular Manchester), more searingly honest and less self-congratulatory in tone than those examining other cities. In particular, there’s been the Sound City documentary, Mark Andrews’ articles for the Quietus (and more recently Dave Simpson’s piece in the Guardian), the recent volume reprinting the issues of seminal contemporary Leeds fanzine Whippings and Apologies, Wayne Hussey's autobiography and a series of self-published tomes by former Leeds resident Richard Rouska, the latest of which, “It Ain’t Peters and Lee – The Leeds rock, pop, punk, new wave and indie scene 1977-87” has just been published.

Leaving aside the dreadful title (and cover), this latest work is wonderful treasure trove of detailed information about what was happening in the city over that crucial eleven year period, presented in almanac form, taking one month at a time. Amongst the train-spotter facts – for example, the list of gigs in the city which appears at the end of each month’s entry – there are mini pen-portraits of pretty much every band on the scene, however successful or short-lived, detailing the band’s members, their record releases and a brief but honest appraisal of their place in the overall scheme of things. For those not intimately involved in the Leeds scene at the time, much of this information will be of little intrinsic interest, but it does show the vast array of different musical strands being developed at any one time, and will be of real interest to future researchers into the Leeds scene.

There are also highly readable mini-essays and opinion pieces throughout, about the crucial role of promoter John Keenan, for example, or the relative merits of other fanzine writers. In many ways this is where Rouska is at his best, as was always the case with his own fanzine which he ran in the city in the mid-80’s before launching his own record label which notably brought goth/EBM legends The Cassandra Complex to a wider audience. Possessing tremendous drive and enthusiasm, Rouska carved himself a central position in the Leeds music scene and his knowledge of that era is unrivalled. Through his contacts at the time, he even got to perform (as a punk poet) between the bands at the 1984 York Rock Festival.

But what about The Sisters, I hear you ask? Rouska has always been aware of his potential market, and therefore TSOM do indeed have a central role in the book. Using rarely seen but excellent Steve Drury photos, Rouska charts the familiar chapters of the band’s history in the appropriate months (see the example below quoting this very blog), helpfully listing at the end of each entry when the band next appear in the book. Although very few new facts about the band emerge, there are many insights into Eldritch’s character from those who knew him at the time, plus little-known quotes from reviews from the contemporary independent magazine Leeds’ Other Paper (LOP), a periodical which I must confess I never once read during my years in the city.

Rouska also gives prominence to other bands on the 80’s scene, from Red Lorry Yellow Lorry to The Rose of Avalanche, and the earlier bands (GO4, Mekons, Delta 5 etc) are also covered in appropriate detail. Other well-known local bands who were unheard of outside of the LS postcode area (e.g. Xero Slingsby, The Prowlers etc) are also recorded for posterity in the book. But again, it’s in the analysis of the scene that Rouska is at his strongest, as he builds a convincing picture of what was a very fragmented scene where people stayed within their own circles rather than it being one big happy post-punk family, which is very much how I also personally remember it.

Inevitably, some will find this labour of love a little disjointed given the almanac approach, or quibble with minor details (there are a couple of common inaccuracies regarding the Sisters for example), but these two hundred and twenty pages of densely packed information create a real sense of the reality of life in Leeds in the decade under discussion, and this book is an essential purchase for those with an interest in the Leeds music scene at that time whilst further whetting the appetite for Mark Andrews' forthcoming biography of the early years of The Sisters of Mercy

It Ain’t Peters & Lee is available directly from the author’s own website for £15 (with free p and p for UK purchasers). Mine arrived within three days so you can order with confidence!

The Arsonist Entertains - review of Salad Daze, Wayne Hussey's autobiography

Barely a month goes by without my local Waterstone’s displaying a new tome devoted to one of the cult bands of the 1980’s, be it The Smiths, Joy Division or even Motley Crüe. Yet curiously not one major book has yet been written chronicling the history of one of the most wilfully mysterious, most avidly collected and most revered bands of that era, The Sisters of Mercy.

The endless fascination of both TSOM fans and media alike has been with a brief period of the band’s near forty year existence, between the release of the Alice single in late 1982 and the acrimonious split in the band in 1985, shortly after the release of debut album First and Last And Always, often referred to as the cornerstone of gothic culture.

A couple of years ago, a fan commented on the Heartland TSOM fan forum that he had wanted to answer questions on the band for his specialist round on BBC TV’s Mastermind quiz programme, but had been prevented from doing so because of the lack of any formal books published about the band. However, this situation is finally now changing with the future publication of Mark Andrews’ crowd-funded history of the band, and this memoir from guitarist Wayne Hussey, whose career is always seen through the prism of the two years which he spent in the band between the autumns of 1983 and 1985.

Salad Daze is the first of his two-part autobiography, and charts the Mission frontman’s life from his birth and early years in Bristol through to his departure from the Sisters of Mercy thirty-four years ago. The eagerly anticipated book promised to lift the lid on Hussey’s time in the band, and given his penchant for amusingly provocative yet self-deprecatory soundbites, it was clearly going to be an unmissable read for all Sisters fans.

I have to confess to being disappointed on receiving my copy and discovering that two hundred of  the three hundred and fifty pages dealt with his life before he joined TSOM, but I expected that I would skip through these chapters at some pace in order to get to the “real deal”.

However, this mood changed instantly as I began to read the Prologue, an incredibly moving account of the circumstances of his mother’s pregnancy and of his birth, which was both well-written and a coruscating exposé of the moral double-standards of the late 1950’s. Indeed, rather than flicking rapidly through them, I really savoured the early chapters, which would strike a chord with anyone who grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, with its everyman tales of family holidays, conflicting emotions and chance encounters with minor celebrities from Specimen/Banshees guitarist Jon Klein to former Villa winger Ray Graydon. Wryly observed and well-expressed, Hussey’s memoir is both engaging and thought-provoking, and he is (retrospectively at least) generous in his assessment and evaluation of those who played key roles in his formative years. I can well imagine that even the resolutely non-goth Mrs L will enjoy reading these early chapters when I pass the book to her.

So it’s over one hundred pages in before Wayne joins his first really serious band (Ded Byrds) having moved to Liverpool, and each subsequent band up to and including Dead or Alive is dealt with in impressive detail, with Hussey’s memory untainted by the ravages of drugs and alcohol at this point, as he stayed true to the teachings of his strict Mormon upbringing. This means that we get an insight into the legendary Eric’s scene and the development of Scouse luminaries such as Echo and the Bunnymen, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and, erm, A Flock of Seagulls, plus the development of Planet X club where Hussey used to DJ.

During his latter years in Liverpool and his time in Dead or Alive in particular, the guitarist began to dabble in drugs, discovering the joys of speed in particular, and his touring experiences thereafter become a bit of a haze. Sadly, this is particularly the case during his stint in the Sisters, and Hussey himself confesses that for some tours he remembers virtually nothing! For others he has vivid memories of the sex and the drugs, but sadly very little of the rock’n’roll, so what should be the most fascinating chapters of the book become a tedious litany of whizz and groupie reminiscences, which nonetheless reveal that Eldritch would not have had to use much imagination in coming up with many of the lyrics for the songs on FALAA (“nothing but the knife to live for”, “And I don’t care what you’re called, tell me later if at all” etc).

However, Wayne is never shy of an opinion or an amusing anecdote, and is particularly strong and surprisingly objective at analysing the subtext of the group dynamic, stating that with hindsight the band’s ultimate 1985 split(s) seemed almost inevitable from the moment he joined the band, and providing a great deal of evidence to back up his assertion.

Although he acknowledges that it is difficult to reconstitute with total accuracy events of almost thirty five years ago, Hussey presents his recollections of the reasons and issues which finally saw him leaving Eldritch and forming his own band with Craig Adams, accepting that the “real truth” would emerge from an amalgam of the reminiscences of all four members, rather than just his own “truth”. His account is however the only one published in detail to date, and is sufficiently honest and candid to give a highly credible breakdown and timeline for the band’s demise, which is incidentally largely similar to the version (factual or otherwise) uncovered by “enthusiastic online sleuthing by a fan”. In particular, his portrayal of the complex character and behaviour of Andrew Eldritch is laudably even-handed given both the huge frustration which this had caused him at the time, and the way in which he has been subsequently viewed by a zealous faction of rabidly pro-Eldritch Sisters fans (whom he describes as “a bigoted, sour bunch”) who continue to hold him (Hussey) solely responsible for the 1985 break-up. Although proud of the fact that (like Craig Adams) he refused to change his name to join the group (as Andrew, Mark and Ben had done), it has to be said that Hussey like Eldritch becomes a rock’n’roll caricature with his shades, hat and black clothing, enthusiastically adopting the trademark lifestyle far removed from his previous and subsequent existence.

Even for the most obsessed TSOM fan, there are plenty of new facts and anecdotes in Salad Daze about Hussey’s time in the group, from technical details of the guitars he played through information about song-writing credits to stories about the likes of Jez, Danny and Grape which some of them might wish had remained private. And certain long-standing mysteries, such as why Eldritch began wearing hats, the circumstances in which Marx and Hussey had a trial at replacing Eldritch as vocalist and the origin of the phrase “Victims of Circumstance” are elucidated en passant.

By turns entertaining, enlightening and though-provoking but always disarmingly frank, Salad Daze is a great read despite some sloppy editing which has failed to remove some basic errors, contradictions and repetitions. But these are minor quibbles with what is a highly recommended publication, which comes with its own WH curated Spotify and YouTube playlists and a variety of editions including a deluxe package which contains previously unheard recordings from Wayne's early years in bands in Liverpool. Chapeau, Wayne!

Salad Daze is out now, published by Omnibus Press, and is available online from The Mission's website.

Andrew Eldritch's Leeds - part 1, red brick studentsville

(To mark Andrew Eldritch’s 60th birthday, this blog is publishing a three-part guide to the frontman’s most famous haunts of the early 1980s)

Californian lo-fi indie folk band the Mountain Goats gained some press inches and media hype last year with their single “Andrew Eldritch is moving back to Leeds”, a witty song about the general indifference that would surround the prodigal son’s return to the self-proclaimed capital of the People’s Republic of West Yorkshire. Whilst the song’s central concept is based on a false premise, in that Eldritch has maintained a presence in the Leeds area over the years despite spending much of his time on mainland Europe (primarily in [West] Germany, the Netherlands and Spain according to his own interviews), there was one section of the lyrics (“Guys in Motorhead jackets, Who knew him way back then, Haven’t raised a drink in years, But now meet up again”) which reminded me that goth nostalgia tourism was once a thing in Leeds. Indeed, the very university from which Eldritch dropped out at the turn of the 1980s began to use the city’s “birthplace of goth” image to market itself at impressionable Sixth Formers less than a decade later, and even now I (as no doubt are many others) am occasionally contacted by fans of the band from all over the world who are making a pilgrimage to the city and want to know the best places to visit.

One day in the future, long after Eldritch has shuffled off this mortal coil, the city will belatedly embrace the legacy of a rare creative flourish within the metropolis and will hopefully site “black plaques” on some of the key buildings to help goth tourists eager to spend the “dark pound” in the city to navigate their way around. But until then, hopefully these few annotated aerial photos from the ever-wonderful Google Maps might be of use to some.

Photo 1 – Studentsville

To those who have never lived in Leeds, the northern suburb of Headingly is synonymous with sport, being the home of and giving its name to the back-to-back rugby league (Leeds Rhinos) and cricket (Yorkshire CCC) stadia labelled at the bottom left of the image above. But to Leodensians the suburb and the neighbouring districts of Hyde Park and Burley have in recent generations been first and foremost linked to the city’s transient student population which has colonised the seemingly endless rows of red brick terraced streets originally intended to house the workers from city’s many cotton mills back in the days when the city dominated the British Empire’s rag trade. These streets dominate this aerial image, and one of these, marked at the bottom of the red number 1 on the image, was (and indeed still is) Village Place, a cul-de-sac in the Burley area down towards Kirkstall Abbey, where Eldritch and Marx lived at house number 7 (along with Eldritch’s girlfriend Claire) in the mid-1980s. This unprepossessing house was effectively the headquarters of Merciful Release records, and its address famously featured on the lyric sheet of The Reptile House EP. Gary Marx described the house superbly in Mark Andrews’ piece for The Quietus: “The popular myth appears to be of Hunter S. Thompson taking over Bruce Wayne’s Batcave, with high-tech excess being the order of the day. The curtains downstairs stayed closed at the front of the house all the time, which no doubt gave it the air of a drug-den. The reality was that it was in a quiet street of about 20 houses and our neighbours – Jack and Nora – were people we got on with, amazingly given the racket they had to tolerate.” 

(Photo credit - Mike Read)

The house was also the scene of Wayne Hussey’s infamous audition to join the band in October 1983, as humorously recounted in the first volume of his autobiography published in May 2018, Salad Daze. Incidentally, Si Denbigh inherited the house’s sofa (which seems to feature in most stories about 7VP) when Eldritch moved on from the house, and he himself in turn gave it away just a couple of years ago having advertised it on Facebook thus: “This is the sofa that used to reside in 7 Village Place, also known as The Reptile House. Many songs were written upon it, much excess performed, schemes hatched, dark games played, and many a famous arse has sat upon it. At some point I inherited it. This sofa is more gothic than anyone! If it could write a book …A bit of Leeds history”. Hopefully the sofa has been preserved for posterity (although not necessarily, given its condition, for more posteriors), as one wag commented at the time “Ben Gunn is probably still down the back of it.”

Anyone wishing to make a pilgrimage to Village Place from central Leeds could either take a bus up Burley Road or take the train just one stop from the main Leeds railway station on the Harrogate line, alighting at Burley Park station (marked with the British Rail symbol on the Google aerial photo), which is just a few minutes’ walk from 7VP. Incidentally, Wayne Hussey would move into a house directly opposite this station when he himself came through to live in Leeds after the successful audition. Burley Park itself (i.e. the actual park, not the station) is the site of one of the more famous TSOM photoshoots of the Hussey era, when Tony Mottram snapped the group there in full gothed-up hat regalia on a chilly but sunny day, prints of which can still be ordered from the photographer in question.

(12, St John's Terrace - Google Streetview)

Our Sisters tourist could then walk south (although it looks north on this image) past the wonderful contemporary venue The Brudenell Social Club (where Near Meth Experience – who may or may not be relevant to us - played a benefit gig for Si Denbigh a couple of years back) towards Woodhouse Moor, the large park at the top of the image which is effectively the dividing line between residential Headingly/Hyde Park area and the university precinct beyond. No. 2 on our map marks the location of 12, St John’s Terrace, where Eldritch lived before moving to 7VP, much more conveniently situated for the university and indeed the city itself. This address featured on the band’s first promotional demo tape, and Eldritch was based here for the first couple of years of the 1980s. Jon Langford (or The Three Johns, who guested for the band at some live shows in early 1982) recalled in a 2016 interview, “Andy lived in the same street as me…On Bellevue Road.” (St John’s Terrace being one block of large terraced houses on that road).

The other numbers (3, 4 and 5) on the bird's eye view of Leeds' student residential district refer to places either on or in the vicinity of the university campus itself, being St George’s Field, the University Union and the Faversham pub respectively….but these will feature in the second part of our aerial guide to Eldritch’s Leeds.

(Thanks to Mike for sharing the photos of his pilgrimage to 7VP with the 1980-1985 TSOM FB Fan Group, and to Ed, Phil , Bruno, Si, Wayne and others who have helped either willingly or inadvertently with this post.)