ZOUNDS
the
Sisters
of Mercy
By Mac GE
We do bomble Wings to look great and we look great simply to be
homable Andrew Edrichs than lips quiver in a midtown Manhattan
record company conference room. We're a very 20th century.acthetic."
New world man hadrew Eldritch -back Dressed in black and
swathed in an even blacker fumes the 32-year-old Englishman has
emerged from frehane in Timburg, Germany, to give the world
Haum Flac Sisters thin fun and a wonderfully ludicrous comme-jole
just so fumay yet so sud. His like WC. Fred the Manquis
de Sade and the Oxford graduate he is all rofekup into one. way
willy record a very droll record. It's so itopic-at
pomis. There's a line in the song Ribbons I tried
to tell her about Marx and Engels/Cod and angels/1
eally don't know what for/ But she looked gaadin
ribbons. It's basically lasher movie set to music
but you have to listen for it. I cut her up, anyway. It's
the tongue-in-check qualifying that's so greal
Cone from the public's eye for the three years since
Floodland, a brooding keyboard-driven affair between
Eldritch and costwdale bassist Patricia Momson The
cruel jokester has made a triumphant return with
Vision Thing. The last incarnation simply wasn't up
to making the necessary changes, Andrew coldly
notes. "Basic things like playing live. Accompanying
Eldritch this time-sweet-metal guitarists Andreas
Bruhn, Tim Brecheno (ex-All About Eve, notorious
ex-Gen-X/Sigue Sputnick bass-man Tony James
(who, ironically once-ellempted to draft Eldritch into
Sputnick) and their ever-faithful precision pumanci
ing drum machine. Doktor Avalanche. The Sisters
Mach 3 is both a thunderoar tetura to their founding
principles and an edgy, metallic somp
The guitars are purposely camp the turbulent-
frontman snickers. Did you see the video for the
track) Morely the Fellini heavy metal videol
For latecomers. The Sisters carly days take a bit of
explaining. The band was formed in Leeds, England.
in 1980. After five years of gies a string of highly
collectible singles Alice Damage Done, Body
Electric. Reptile House, Temple Of Love) on
their own Merciful Release label and an album
called Fint and Last and Alas, they split into two
factions. Eldritch continued undaunted, and guitarist
Wayne Hussey fonce a member of Dead Or Alive).
along with bassist Craig Marx, formed The Mission
Slagging matches raged in the press for months after-
wards, and years later the lawsuits and legal head-
aches are stift in limbo
And Eldritch has gained a reputation of being
impossibly hard to work with. 'I'm not, he states. I
simply expect of other people what I expect of myself.
It's my show People have left this band for a variety
of reasons. Some have left because they want the
pound without being willing to work for it. Others
teave because they want me to sing songs which I
think are crap, or they think a certain guitar part is
great when it's just shit. If you want to sing your
song or play your guitar part, do it in the context of
your own band
No. Andrew Eldritch isn't about to launch a cam-
paign to inform people what a swell guy he is. Like
anything all in the interpretation Fm honest
The says, in an age where people aren't allowed to
say what they're really thinking because it might not
be considered cool. Sex is a great example of that, all
wrapped up in a lot of psycho-bubble that stops peo-
ple from saying what they really want to. A song tite
Ribbons is someone speaking honestly, without
regard for the so-called sensible people who might
recoil in mock honor at the very notion of sex and
violence being regarded in the same breath. By the 1
way. I don't maintain that you really have to stash
people up to have great sex"
Thus spake Andrew Eldritch like Jack the Ripper
on comedy night.
The
Sisters
Of
Mercy
Sonic
Youth
The
Hell Billys
Buglamp
"IT'S JUST
SO FUNNY
AND YET SO
CRUEL."
The Sisters of Mercy brought apocalyptic shock rock to
hordes of foolish mortals at The Warfield in S.F. at the
height of their Vision Thing Tour. Photo by Bryce Kanights