Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

The Mission
Joy Division

THE CURE Southern Death Cult

Cocteau Twins

SIOUXSIE &
THE BANSHEES
SISTERS
OF MERCY
All About Eve

& THE GORY YEARS OF GOTHIC ROCK 1976-1992 RIP

Bauhaus

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 17 us $10.95 uk £5.99 PRINTED IN THE UK

07

0 70992 30039 6

Fields Of The Nephilim The Creatures The Birthday Party

 The Best Of
OUT NOW
19 songs including Tainted Love, Disposable Teens, mOBSCENE,
The Beautiful People, Personal Jesus & two bonus tracks
Special CD/DVD set available featuring
20 videos including the (s)AINT exclusive

i
www.marilynmanson.com
Contents
Chapter 1 1976-79
9-20
Chapter 2 1980
21-32
Chapter 3 1981
33-40
Chapter 4 1982
41-54
Chapter 5 1983
55-68
Chapter 6 1984
69-76
Chapter 7 1985
77-90
Chapter 8 1986
91-98
Chapter 9 1987
99-114
Chapter 10 1988
115-124
Chapter 11 1989
COVER SHOT: STEVE DOUBLE. THIS PAGE: DEREK RIDGERS

125-134
Chapter 12 1990-92
135-145
 Editor’s Letter

“The children of the

night, what sweet
music they make”
–Count Dracula
w
hile research was underway we’re all going to die. Goth wallows in this Children weren’t. Killing Joke? Some
on this edition of NME eternally darkest of jokes and provides said yea and some nay. Psychedelic Furs?
Originals, the estimable a suitably doom-laden soundtrack to Mostly nay. And so on it raged until it was
DJ and cool music this monumental morbidity. As we grow decided, for sanity and space’s sake, to deal
connoisseur Mr Sean older and closer to the inevitable, we with the species that I guess we might term
Rowley was busy compiling an album understandably tend to fill our time with Stadium Goth. In other words, the big,
called ‘Guilty Pleasures’ full of songs stuff to avoid such thoughts and slough influential bands that, for better or worse,
generally considered naff. The phenomenal off Goth as a ridiculous phase we grew have influence on and can claim some
response to Mr Rowley’s project through. Well, that and the fact that if responsibility for all of today’s dark stuff,
– celebrities and fans alike swamping you’re still wearing the widow’s weeds and from Marilyn Manson through Mortis to
his radio shows with calls confessing bogbrush hair as you exit your thirties, Dashboard Confessional.
previously hidden affections for the likes of you’re either a treasured rich eccentric like So, a quick apology to those faithful few
Barry Manilow and Boston – begged only Robert Smith or you tend to look like some who hung around the Batcave and to those
one question: where was all the Goth?! sad kind of escapee from the nuthouse. who’ll throw a hissy fit because Virgin
If the experience of creating NME That said, like most things rooted in our Prunes, Danse Society or Red Lorry Yellow
Originals: Goth has taught me anything it’s adolescence, we are fiercely protective of its Lorry just didn’t make the cut. And a big
that, although we seldom dare mention its memory. Hence the incredible arguments welcome to the rest of you. Goth, it seems
name, there’s a little bit of Goth in all of us. that ensued over the compilation of the to me, is in the ascendancy just now. The
Cranking up the soundtrack to the months volume you’re now reading. There was Cure are being honoured by MTV and
of research – the Sisters’ ‘This Corrosion’, no dissent over the roots of Goth. The name-dropped by The Strokes et al, while
Siouxsie’s ‘Happy House’ and, of course, first usage of the term referred to a tribe Interpol are reinventing Joy Division for
the Bauhaus classic ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ of ancient Germans that the civilised a new generation. Gloom is back big time.
booming off the CD in our tiny office Romans regarded as barbaric. Later the So time to climb out of the closet. Buy this
– caused many a passer-by to stop at the term was applied to a particularly brutish issue – go on, you know you want to! – wrap
doorway and sheepishly grin, “Fuck me, form of medieval architecture. And then, it inside your copy of NME if you must,
I haven’t heard that in ages. You ain’t got in the early 1980s, it was used by music hurry it home, dim the lights, spark up the
a copy of ‘Dawnrazor’ have you?” critics to describe the emerging black-clad candles and, as the great Nick Cave once so
Why, of all musical genres, Goth should movement of bands and their fans who, gruesomely hollered, release the bats!
be among the last to be rehabilitated by out of the ashes of punk, were determined
history probably has something to do with to revel in the misery of human mortality.
the fact that it is a determinedly adolescent So far so good. But when it came to
pleasure. Goth makes all the sense it’s actually deciding who was Goth enough
ever going to make almost exclusively in to feature in this magazine and who was
those teenage years when you suddenly merely Peripheral Goth, all hell broke
realise that everything you’re being taught, loose. Numerous phone calls ended with
everything you’re being groomed for, colleagues or acquaintances (ex-Goths
everything about everything, in fact, is all) vowing not to buy the issue if Echo & Steve Sutherland
an utter waste of time and effort because The Bunnymen were in it or if Sex Gang Editor

4 NME ORIGINALS
 MIKE MORTON

NME ORIGINALS 5
6 NME ORIGINALS
NME ORIGINALS 7
 three imaginary boys
THE LEGENDARY 1979 DEBUT ALBUM
2 CD DELUXE EDITION

2 CD SET COMPILED BY ROBERT SMITH

Digitally Remastered from the Original Master Tapes
Features 6 previously unreleased songs and 17 tracks on CD for the very first time
Deluxe package contains a 16 page booklet including sleevenotes with rare and
previously unseen photographs
982 182-8
 Chapter 1
1976-79
DEREK RIDGERS
 Bromley Contingent

Siouxsie &
The Banshees
100 Club, London MM, 2 October 1976, p26

I t’s never the same at a Pistols Apart from Suzi, it wasn’t Deliver us from
evil: Siouxsie, Steve
gig nowadays (in London, decided who would actually end
Havoc, Marco Pirroni
anyway) if what is known as up doing the 100 Club festival until and Sid Vicious at
the “Bromley Contingent” isn’t there. the day. Everyone thought though the 100 Club
This inseparable unit is Steve (21), that they’d carry out their much-
Bill (22) and Simon (19) – he sells hot advertised plan to sing ‘Goldfinger’. had one rehearsal. And a mature gent
dogs off a mobile stand during the It was not to be. At the last called Marco was the lead guitarist.
day – raspberry-haired Debbie and moment, in an orgy of rock The prayer begins. It’s a wild
Suzi [sic], of Suzi & The Banshees. iconoclasm, they decided on ‘The improvisation, a bizarre stage fantasy
They first heard the Pistols at their Lord’s Prayer’ spiced with “the most acted out for real. The sound is what
local tech in January and they’ve ridiculous rock songs ever written”. you’d expect from, er, novices.
been faithful followers ever since. Two-tone Steve (his hair is black But Sid, with miraculous
They made the trip to Paris, in a on top, white at the sides) was on the command, starts his minimal thud
ropey old car, to see their heroes’ first bass he picked up for the first time and the beat doesn’t fluctuate from
overseas performance, and Siouxsie,
shocking in her semi-nudity, got
punched on the nose.
She is nothing if not m agnificent.
‘The Lord’s Prayer’ begins. It’s wild – wonders how much more it can take.
Twenty minutes later, on the nod
Her short hair, which she sweeps in
great waves over her head, is streaked
a bizarre stage fantasy acted out for real from Marco, Sid just stops.
The enthusiastic cheering is
with red, like flames. She’ll wear the night before. Sid Vicious, Johnny the start to the finish of the, er, set. just recognition of their success.
black plastic non-existent bras, one Rotten’s friend and inventor of the Against this knobbly sound, Siouxsie, If the punk rock scene has anything
mesh and one rubber stocking, and pogo dance, was on drums. He has with the grace of a redeemed ghoul, to offer then it’s the opportunity
suspender belts (various colours), rifles the senses with an unnerving, for anyone who wants to get up
all covered by a polka-dotted, screeching recital of ‘Twist And and experience the reality of their
transparent plastic mac. Shout’ and ‘Knocking On Heaven’s wildest, stage-struck dreams. The
Over the weeks the Bromley Door’. Sid’s smile flickers. Marco, bar-flies are horrified.
Contingent’s parade of inventive his guitar feeding back, rolls up his “God, it was awful,” says Howard
dress (it’s rarely the same two weeks sleeves, and two-tone Steve two- Thompson, an A&R man from Island.
running) has set the fashion pace of tones. But Suzi is not interested in contracts.
the scene. It was only a matter of time The audience, enjoying the band’s “The ending was a mistake,” she
before they took their street theatre nerve and audacity, eggs them on, says. “I thought we’d go on until they
to the stage. gets bored, has a laugh, and then pulled us off.”

“Too many Jews for NME, 29 October 1977, p3

MM, 29 October 1977, p17
my liking”, sang
Sioux. Ironically,
of course
RAY STEVENSON/RETNA/REX FEATURES

10 NME ORIGINALS
This is Siouxsie
& The Banshees.
They are
patient.
They will win.
In the end.
A World Domination By 1984 Special
by Paul Morley NME, 14 January 1978, p7

s
iouxsie is the frail-faced, tough-minded, Calm down and reflect on a looking different, dancing
strange-light-in-her-eyes voice/ bewildering reputation. It’s now around, on drums, PP
performer of Siouxsie & The Banshees. 15 months since the Banshees, Barnum on guitar. They were
When she was a little girl… “I was in a spirited, impulsive shot of unformulated, but intense.
very lonely. The few friends I had were gypsies. audience participation, went From there, the growth has
When I was eight I tried to commit suicide to get on stage at the 100 Club and been subdued and careful,
noticed by my parents. I used to do things like set their unique, shocking, PP Barnum left (he’s now
fall on the floor upstairs so that they’d think I’d honest precedent. That’s a dark, formed Heroes); Martin
fallen downstairs, and I’d have bottles of pills in distant past, perhaps the only was brought in. The group,
my hands. I’ve always felt on the outside, really.” period that the Banshees have as would be expected, have
She, like the rest of the group, admits to being actually felt that they belonged touched controversy. There’s
a loner. They don’t really like people. Their to something. A movement been a farcical fracas with the
reason for existing is to perform noise with that pressed self-destruct police, resulting in a £20 fine
meaning for people to share and benefit from. early on, a movement whose for Siouxsie, and the infamous
They could be the last “rock” group. The only successful ones were, with odd spraying incident, “Sign
“rock” group. They are not a “rock” group. Siouxsie & The Banshees.”
They are twentieth century performers. No record deal, except the
Friday night at The Nashville. An
incongruously traditional venue, it would
“When I was eight I tried to commit occasional futile one-off, and it’s only in
the last few months that they gelled as a
suicide to get noticed by my parents”
DEREK RIDGERS, ADRIAN BOOT/URBANIMAGE.TV

seem, for the Banshees. Isn’t anywhere? It considered, permanent group. And now?
is ‘an occasion’. Names/faces are scattered, Their development has happened away
perhaps admiring the path of individualism. exceptions, the shrewdest, the most adaptable from the subcultural acceleration. There is no
Wayne County, Billy Idol, Marianne Faithfull, to the business, as opposed to the most creative, rush. They are patient.
Jordan and on. It is a sell-out. People straggle challenging and committed. “Now we’re starting to do interviews, we’ve
outside, hoping for admission. Some, absurdly, In March/April of ’77 a new Banshees just begun to understand what we’re doing,
produce five pound notes in vain attempts at appeared, playing their first real gig at the Roxy, whereas before without doing interviews we


bribing the doorman. What is this? with Siouxsie singing, Steve on bass, Kenny never really thought about motives.”

NME ORIGINALS 11
 Southern
The New Trend
DeAth Cult

For a group who leave such a huge question Whatever the reasons for their popularity, it emotion that comes up, you’re not realising it.”
mark after their work, it is hard for the Banshees exists, and their audience intuitively grasps the Emotion? “Passion… it’s just emotion full stop.
to take being so readily wrapped and dismissed fact that they’re not absorbing run-of-the-mill There’s no other words. It’s just one thing.”
in the rock press, often as either “oh-a-girl, the- music/noise. It is unconventional in form, but no
future-is-female. Great. Next” or “ooh-Nazism- way inaccessible. Structured noise. Do they view If the emotions of the group have toughened/
nasty-destroy. Next.” themselves as musicians? flowered over the last few months, then so has
They had indeed been misinterpreted, though “As non-musicians. Sound innovators.” A their intensity as performers.
admittedly, as regards ‘Nazism’, as a result of comprehensible term? “It’s making different “Now, we seem to have some sense of
their lack of forethought. They wore swastikas. sounds with what you’ve got. We go out of our direction. We haven’t just gone out and done
There were stiff-armed salutes. Their lushly way not to be musicians… we don’t rehearse every gig that we’ve been offered. The best things
subversive, brutally sensual words and the till our fingers bleed. We can play rock’n’roll, are those when you go down really badly but
rhythmic/anthemic noise they create to form an but we ignore it, shove it in a corner. We don’t you know you’ve done a good set… we don’t
undoubted Teutonic heaviness didn’t help. see ourselves in the same context as rock’n’roll really need audience approval… we’re putting
“But always with any sort of politics, which is groups. We’re out on a limb. It is dangerous, but on a show for ourselves and if anyone wants to
why we haven’t got any, you get extremists, and it excites us, makes it worthwhile.” take something from it it’s up to them. We’re
once you get extremists you get people doing Visually, Siouxsie is harsh, asexual. She wears not going to impose anything on anyone. It’s
great things and terrible things… for every shorts/short skirts for freedom of movement. entertainment for some people but it’s not
following of some sort you get followers who She is nicknamed ‘Android’ by the group. mainstream entertainment.
distort things.”

And yet , despite all this, Siouxsie & The Banshees Siouxsie is harsh, asexual. She wears short skirts for
find themselves in an almost enviable position.
Siouxsie is, according to the NME poll, the
fourteenth most popular female singer in the
freedom of movement. She is nicknamed ‘Android’
world. They hold the house record at the Vortex. Her make-up, which eerily transforms her The Banshees’ words are of a strange
They sold out The Nashville two nights running. nervous, wistful, pale face into the hard-lined language, derived from experience and
They have made no commitment sacrifices, no clown-tragedian, is the one concession to the observation, chilling vignettes of minor
compromises, and they feel comfortable that audience. Her voice is staggered. No orthodox atrocities and gruesome indulgences, of
what they’re saying is necessary. fluid melodies, but clipped, forced lines, sharply frustration, of unrequited love. From the dark
“Things have to go on. We’re trying to show falling and rising. side of life, grinning, perverted, subversive;
that it does not have to be pop-punk next, it She displays no exhaustion, euphoria and depression, vision and
doesn’t have to be the same old rock’n’roll riffs. exhilaration, amusement, pessimism mysteriously co-exist. The truth
We don’t like trends. We formed initially because frustration or any of those in ugliness. Striving to manufacture
we felt we had something of our own to say.” other colourful sideshows some semblance of order, or
Is it this different way of doing things/saying that performers often find in purposefulness, set against the
things/playing things that has attracted this themselves. In the early days there absurdity and pointlessness of life.
curious following? Or is it just hip to like them? was little nervousness when she Their realism is vital, snatches of
Are they the new trend? got on stage. Now, she gets everyday life exaggerated for effect:
“Well, there’s the girl thing… there’s a lot of very nervous. “People live in a dreamworld”.
people who’ve latched on to us because of the… “Maybe it’s because
because they’ve understood things that aren’t there’s a lot more emotion Their abrasive, uncompromising
there… like being labelled Nazis… many of the put into what we’re doing language, and the way that its
audience don’t understand… we probably don’t now… when you just get presented, is not of the type that is
understand ourselves completely.” up there like we used to, the liable to entice record companies to
propose lucrative deals. The group
realises this is important.
(Right) “Put your “We want to become successful because
left leg in, your left
leg out…”: Sioux it would mean that people are confronting
invents the punk what we’re putting down on vinyl and
hokey-cokey paper… but if we are, we’d probably be
successful for the wrong reasons.
“Every day there’s a problem about
having to compromise… everyday there’s
a reporter wanting to interview just
Siouxsie, getting across that it’s a backing
band for Siouxsie. It’s not that at all. It’s
a four-piece band. In the end you have to
explain yourself in the most basic, moronic
way and that takes something away. Record
companies aren’t there to help a band
progress, that’s bullshit. That they’re to make
money for themselves. They don’t care if a
band falls by the wayside as long as they’ve
made enough money out of them. We want
commitments from a record company so
that we can do what we want to do.
ADRIAN BOOT/DAVID MUSCROFT

“We’ll win in the end. If we don’t let

people get the better of us, influence us,
like the establishment.
“As long as we can resist I think
we’ll win in the end.”

12 NME ORIGINALS
 (L to r) Siouxsie,
John McKay,
Kenny Morris and
Steve Severin

jigsaw pieces tra la la”) with

NME, 18 November 1978, p45
unpleasant but truthful sociology

SIOUXSIE & topics (going mental, self-

mutilation, Fascism, cancer):
THE BANSHEES subjects which have only been
The Scream dealt with in any number by “punk”.
(Polydor) I quite enjoyed singing along
Good-day, second-class of ’78! to ‘Helter Skelter’ (the least awful
And now, for the last goddam effort here, and even that was
time in my life – I ask you, who written elsewhere), and ‘Carcass’
wants to be David Bowie when they got me a bit jittery until I saw the
graduate? Hands up! Siouxsie – ah, joke, giggled and yawned. The rest
Siouxsie, come up the front here a song called ‘Love In A Void’. This won’t you beat up that nasty girl (barely) struck me as endless plain
and show the boys and girls how it song featured the line “Too many and make her fade away? She hurts noise totally bereft of melody.
should be done. Jews for my liking”. my ears and she bores me and the Her words for ‘Switch’ and
One: must be This, says Siouxsie, only reason she hasn’t been written ‘Nicotine Stain’ (she should write
skinny, wear a mass was a metaphor off yet as a corny ‘art-rock’ act is more lyrics alone) contain a certain
of make-up and look for too many fat that she once used to hang around germ, which is rendered totally
asexual enough to businessmen waiting some, ah, punk band. ineffectual via drone, pretension
accommodate every to pounce, suck the Standing alone, the Banshee and conceit. Her words for the
closet’s ambivalent youth from and cast sound is a self-important threshing stunning ‘Suburban Relapse’ are
fantasies. Two: blind aside new talent. machine thrashing all stringed flawed only in the tune that John
the critics with words I do not see the instruments down onto the same McKay sets it to and, naturally, by
and silence and all but connection. I consider
a few ungrateful hack swine
will lick your soles for the privilege
of an interview from you. Three:
this to be the most
disgusting and unforgivable lyric
ever written. Siouxsie is well into
She must be either evil or retarded. Stick
flirt with the all-time contraband
coquette that is Fascism, and it will
her twenties, so ignorant youth is
no excuse. Therefore she must be
your shocking song up your ass, Siouxsie
still get that ridiculously uncool yet either evil or retarded. low level alongside that draggy the singularly awful Banshee sound.
controversial minority going. Four: I am disgusted by the way sub-voice as it attempts futile Ah well, kid, hear it for yourself
get out of your depth. Jewish writers (Viv Goldman) and swoops around the mono-beat. and examine your subconscious.
Things I like about Siouxsie: otherwise extremely moral writers Their sound is certainly different Maybe you’ll love it. Me, I keep
‘Hong Kong Garden’; the way she (Chris Brazier) have drooled over the from the normal guitar-bass- seeing Siouxsie up there in her
treats her audience like muck, silly cow, letting her get away with drums-voice set-up. But it’s radically swastika armband making nothing
knowing why the gross majority of that line. Well, take your shocking stodgy, as opposed to that light- but a fashion accessory out of the
them come to gape at her; I even song and stick it up your rude white fantastic Public Image trip. It’s loud, death of millions of people.
kind of liked the way she danced on ass, Sioux, because here’s a review heavy and levelling, the sound of And I honestly don’t think that a
Top Of The Pops. that don’t believe in running with suet pudding. rilly sensitive person like myself can
Fact: until recently, Siouxsie & The the pack. The Banshees unite sub-glam ever see beyond that.
RETNA

Banshees included in their stage set Oh daddy please, pretty please, flowering poesie (“Amorphous Julie Burchill

NME ORIGINALS 13
 Where Will It End?

NME, 12 May 1979, p43

THE CURE
Three Imaginary Boys
(Fiction)

Aaah! More alert and

anguished young
men. Do not applaud
them. This glistening
long-player contains
NME, 16 December 1978, p16
variations upon the
smoothly quirky

Ain’t No Blues For

theme that brought
the world the
pleasurable ‘Killing
An Arab’. Over a whole album that pretty

The Summertime Cure

bending and doodling does a lot less than
please, and a lot more than grate.
But The Cure are not just making pop music.
They are trying to tell us something. They are
trying to tell us they do not exist. They are
trying to say that everything is empty. They
are represented on the ice-cream colour cover
by three bulky, ageing household gadgets. Lol
Tolhurst (drums) is a fridge. Michael Dempsey
R obert Smith, teenage lynchpin of The
Cure, plays a Woolworth’s Top Twenty
guitar that set the lad back precisely £20.
Hands up those of you who still reckon you
(bass, voice) is an upright Hoover. Robert Smith need expensive instruments to play rock’n’roll?
(guitar, voice) is a standard lamp. Each song is An abrasive Light Metal trio hailing from
represented on the back sleeve by a picture and Crawley, a far-flung southern outpost of
on the label by a symbol. London’s commuter hinterland, The Cure are
All this charming, childish fiddling about like a breath of fresh suburban air on the capital’s The Cure: (l to r)
aims for the anti-image but naturally creates the smog-ridden pub and club circuit. Robert Smith, Lol
perfect malleable image: the tantalising enigma Compact and self-sufficient – guitarist Tolhurst and
Mike Dempsey
of The Cure. They try to take everything away Smith balances the group’s sound live himself
from the purpose and idea of the rock performer aided by a portable mixing desk at the side of either. It got to the stage where we would have
but try so hard they put more in than they take the stage – The Cure are a triumph of impulse become the Barron Knights of punk…”
out. They add to the falseness. and spontaneity. As Smith explains, “We see so With their five-year Ariola-Hansa contract
The Cure, really, are trying to sell us many of the people we went to school with doing terminated, The Cure, master tapes tucked
something. Their product is more artificial than absolutely nothing. A lot of them are talented firmly under their armpits, went back to gigging
most. This is perhaps part of their master plan, enough to, but they just don’t bother themselves. at local venues until an old friend lent them the
but it seems more like their naivety. The Cure “There are so many people playing music that cash to cut some last-ditch demos.
set themselves up as though they float along is absolute rubbish and getting somewhere doing A dozen copies of the resultant tape were
way outside the realms of anything we can it. You just think, if they’re doing it, why don’t mailed out to record companies. A week or so
understand. They are scandalous, fulfilled aliens, you, when you know you’re so much better?” later, young Rob received a call from former
and they look down on us. What do they see? Smith formed the band at school with Polydor A&R man and Jam producer Chris
Not much that’ll shoot your being through drummer Lol Tolhurst and bassist Mike Parry, with whom they have finally recorded a
with vigour or sudden understanding, but they Dempsey as long ago as 1976. They spent most of single, ‘Killing An Arab’. The title comes from
never stop nagging. Willowy songs wallow in last year in limbo, The Stranger, a
the murk and marsh of tawdry images, inane
realisations, dull epigrams. Sometimes a song is
unhappily signed to
German disco label “ We could have been the book by Camus
about an Algerian

Barron Knights of punk”

as pretty as ‘Killing An Arab’: ‘Accuracy’ (a target Ariola-Hansa and uprising.
over a man’s eye) or ‘Fire In Cairo’ (palm tree in recording demos “It’s not racist, if
JILL FURMANOVSKY/JUSTIN THOMAS/KEVIN CUMMINS/IDOLS

the desert). But nowhere is there anything truly with unsympathetic you know what the
adventurous. What The Cure have done here producers, but never song is about,” says
is the equivalent of an album of Enid Blyton actually getting that elusive first single release. Rob. “It just happened that the main character
readings packaged as readings from Angela “We thought we’d be able to do all these in the book had killed an Arab, but it could have
Carter. No, it’s maybe not that awful-good. outrageous songs we’d written, but all they been a Scandinavian or an English bloke.”
It’s just that in 1979 people shouldn’t be wanted were really banal old rock’n’roll songs. With a John Peel session and more extensive
allowed to get away with things like this. “Then they gave us the money to do our own London gigging on their immediate agenda, it
There are too many who do. Fatigue music. So demos. And of course they didn’t like them. So remains to be seen whether or not The Cure can
transparent. So light and – oh, how it nags. they tried putting us in the studio with one of retain their refreshing joie de vivre.
Paul Morley their soul producers, and that didn’t work out Adrian Thrills

14 NME ORIGINALS
 1978 - 1979

MM, 21 July 1979, p27 is a possible hit single: it’s certainly

the obvious track for radio to play.
Deep and dark vocals ride over
JOY DIVISION an irresistible, circular backing
Unknown Pleasures that threatens to break loose but
(Factory) never does; the tension ends in a
“To talk of life today is like talking of crescendo of synthesized noise.
rope in the house of a hanged man.” Three faster tracks follow
Where will it end? – mutated heavy pop, all built
The point is so obvious. It’s been around punishing rhythms and riffs
made time and time again. At the it’d be tempting to call metal, except
time of writing, our control is everywhere. ‘Shadowplay’
very own mode of is a metallic travelogue, with
(Western, advanced, and Martin Hannett’s and with lightning speed; Curtis fleeing internal demons;
techno) capitalism shiny, waking-dream unwinding and winding as the rigid ‘Wilderness’ externalises things
is slipping down the production gloss are metal music folds and unfolds over into Lovecraftian fantasy, all
slope to its terminal one perfect reflection him. Recording demands a different echoed drumming and sickening
phase: critical mass. of Manchester’s dark context: Hannett imposes a colder, guitar slides, while ‘Interzone’
One particular and spaces and empty more controlled hysteria – songs moves through a clipped, perfect
vigorous product of places, endless sodium merge in and out of one another in a introduction to guitar shrills and
capitalism’s excess lights and hidden semis brittle, metallic atmosphere. murder-mystery mumbles.
has been pop music, seen from a speeding car, Opener ‘Disorder’ races briskly, Both sides end with tracks – ‘New
not so much because of the form’s vacant industrial sites – the endless with ominous organ swirls – at the Dawn Fades’ and ‘I Remember
intrinsic merit (if any) but because, detritus of the 19th century – seen end, Curtis intones “Feeling feeling Nothing’ – so slow and atmospheric
for many, bar football, it’s the only gaping like rotten teeth from an feeling” in the tones of someone that alienation becomes a waking
arena going, in this country at least. orange bus, Hulme seen from the who’s not sure he has any left. Two dream upon which nothing
“Trying to find a clue/Trying to fifth floor on a threatening, rainy slower songs follow, both based on impinges: “Me in my own world…”
find a way/ To get out!” ‘Unknown day… This is not specifically to massively accented drumming and Leaving the 20th century is
Pleasures’ is a brave bulletin, a glamorise: it could be anywhere. rumbling bass. ‘Day Of The Lords’ is difficult; most people prefer to go
danceable dream; brilliantly, a The song titles read as an opaque built around a wrenching chorus of back and nostalgise. Joy Division at
record of place. Of one particular manifesto: ‘Disorder’, ‘Day Of The “Where will it end?” while the even least set a course in the present with
city, Manchester. And in defining Lords’, ‘Candidate’, ‘Insight’, ‘New sparser ‘Candidate’ fleshes out the contrails for the future – perhaps
reaction and adjustment to place Dawn Fades’. Loosely, they restate bare rhythm section with chance you can’t ask for much more.
so accurately, it makes the specific Indeed, ‘Unknown Pleasures’ may
general, the particular a paradigm.
“To the centre of the city in the
night/Waiting for you…” Joy
The album’s two aces are ‘Insight’ and very well be one of the best white,
English, debut LPs of the year.
Problems remain: in recording
Division’s spatial, circular themes
‘She’s Lost Control’ – here, finally, Gary place so accurately, Joy Division
are vulnerable to any success the

Glitter meets The Velvet Underground album may bring – once the delicate
relationship with environment is
altered, they may never produce
outsider themes: individuals caught guitar ambience. anything as good again.
in a trap they dimly perceive – anger, The album’s two aces are ‘Insight’ Perhaps it’s time we all started
paranoia, alienation, feelings of and ‘She’s Lost Control’; here, facing the future. Where will it end?
thwarted power, and so on. Hardly finally, Gary Glitter meets the Velvet Jon Savage
pretty, but compulsive. Underground. Both rely on rock-
What gives Joy Division their hard echoed drumming and bass
edge is the taut danceability recorded well up to take the melody
of their faster songs, and the – the guitar provides textural icing
dreamlike spell of their slower and thrust over the top. The former’s
explorations. Both rely on the attractive, bouncing melody belies
tense, careful counterpoint of the lyrics: “But I don’t care any more/
bass (Peter Hook), drums (Stephen I’ve lost the will to want more”.
Morris) and guitar (Bernard Dickin); ‘She’s Lost Control’, remixed to
Ian Curtis’ expressive, confused emphasise guitar and percussion,
vocals croon deeply over recurring
musical patterns which themselves Facing the future:
mock any idea of escape. Stephen Morris, Ian
Live, he appears possessed Curtis, Bernard Dickin
and Peter Hook
by demons, dancing spastically

NME ORIGINALS 15
 Me In My Own World

l
et me draw back the curtains on a
winter night last year. A midweek night
of no special significance, save that Joy
Division had come marching into town.
It wasn’t much of a welcome. It wasn’t one of
those jam-packed little-league sell-outs where
you can’t get in for the length of the guest list
and where breath is bated in anticipation of
something about to turn big. Nothing of the sort.
Down in the basement confines of a celebrated
Islington watering hole it was relaxed and cool.
In front of the stage, though, a gaggle of
a dozen or so modern boys staked out their
territory like there was some sort of conspiracy
afoot. Minions were dispatched to fetch the
pints. The space in front of the stage was
jealously guarded. Their muted green tribal
colours set them apart from the dowdy crowd.
They had come, heaven knows where from,
for Joy Division. Another Manchester Band. The
band that looks dead set to follow Buzzcocks out
of merely local and underground acclaim and
into the wider limelight – at least judging by the

Take No
rapturous critical reaction to their first album,
‘Unknown Pleasures’.

A single overhead spot floods the centre-stage

microphone and spills out onto the heads of the
aforementioned gaggle of sartorial hot-shots.
Heads that start to bob furiously at the first pulse
of streamlined rhythm, attached to bodies that
lurch back and forth, attached to legs that jerk up
and down at the knees and arms that swing in a
loose crawl or elbows that flap madly.
The spot picks out singer Ian Curtis. The rest
of Joy Division are shrouded in darkness as they
pour out their harsh metal thunder. The singer’s
body shakes, rocks and palpitates, a mad dervish
caught in that one spotlight.
Were you to shine a torch around this
subterranean scene you would see the young,
tidy faces of Joy Division and notice perhaps the
ordinary, neat cut of their clothes, with the barest
hint of the regimental overtones of their name
in their flap-pocket shirts. You might also notice
the excitement in the faces of the onlookers, all
locking into the irresistible motion of the music.
The strongest new music to emerge this year.
It owes nothing to the after-punk cult of the
amateur. If it’s pop, that’s purely accidental. And
it plays with musical perimeters in ingenious,
never pretentious, ways – by building carefully
on their standard rock basis and using sounds
as textures with which to construct a song. It’s a
technique that anyone who listens to the radio
these days will be familiar with, from ‘I Feel
Love’ to ‘Public Image’, to give but two examples.
The themes of Joy Division’s music are
sorrowful, painful and sometimes deeply sad.
Ian Curtis (left) and
It’s music that gives often harrowing glimpses
Bernard Albrecht
anxiously await the of confusion and alienation. Joy Division walk
Joy Division backlash alone, with their heads bowed.

16 NME ORIGINALS
 1979

noisy, unkempt beginnings in ’77 to the superb

controlled heat they generate now.
But up until now Joy Division have been
dogged by business problems, stalled by
personal problems, and ignored. They mistrust
the glowing reviews they now get, and wait,
dispassionately, for the backlash.

Being on the outside has made them very insular

and possessive about their music. It has also
given them their strength: not a resentful, we’ll-
show-’em sort of strength, but the satisfaction
they derive from their music.
“All the business side – that really fucks you
up,” moans Peter. “Once you get back in the
rehearsal room and there’s just the four of us
with instruments we’re back where we started.
It still hangs over you like a cloud – but once
you get your instrument you’re free…”
“You’re always working on the next song,” says
(L to r) Bernard Ian. “No matter how many songs you’ve done,
Albrecht, Ian Curtis, you’re always looking for the next one. Basically
Peter Hook and we play what we want. It’d be very easy for us to
Stephen Morris

NME, 11 August 1979, p24

Prisoners, Leave No Clues

Not just another band from Manchester, Joy Division’s ‘Unknown say, ‘Well, all these people seem to like such and
such a song – it’d be easy to knock out another

Pleasures’ LP puts them at the top of the league. By Paul Rambali one.’ But we don’t.
“We don’t want to get diluted, really, and
by staying at Factory we’re free to do what we
want. There’s no one restricting us or the music
high and faltering, not swarthy and assertive, – or even the artwork and promotion. You get
At least, that’s my interpretation. Joy Division and his shyness you would not guess from his bands that are given huge advances – loans
aren’t giving anybody any clues. They don’t agree onstage abandon. really – but what do they spend it on? What is
with lyric sheets. Stephen Morris, the drummer who completed all that money going to get? Is it going to make
“You get people who seem to think you should the foursome a few months after Ian joined, the music any better?”
put your lyrics on so you can get your message lives, like Ian, in Macclesfield, and owns a huge “Another good thing about it,” says Stephen,
across,” says bearded bass player, Peter Hook, record collection, partly inherited from his jazz from the heart, “is if you’ve got some sort of
with obvious disdain. “We’ve said to people, enthusiast father: “He took me to see Count frustration, something eating you, you can get it
‘Haven’t you ever been listening to a record Basie once… So I took him to see Hawkwind. He out just by playing.”
where you’ve been singing a certain line and was getting all dressed up and I had to explain “The thing is, if you’ve got a brain,” explains
when you find what it really is you feel let down?’ that, no Dad, it’s not that sort of concert…” Peter, “obviously you want to do something with
But they just won’t admit that at all. They still He bought his first drum kit by chopping up your life, or whatever. I’m sure a lot of people feel
wanted to know what our lyrics were about. the furniture in his house to sell as firewood. like that. Now that we’ve got this, we don’t.”
“Don’t you think it’s wrong to pin somebody Which leaves only Bernard Albrecht, who Ian: “When I was about 15 or 16 at school, I
down like that? Our lyrics may mean something plays guitar, and went to school with Hook. He used to talk with me mates and we’d say, ‘Right.
completely different to every single individual.” is astute and eager to explain himself. As soon as we leave we’ll be down in London,
Why not write gibberish then? On a variation “I don’t like a lot of music,” he admits, “but doing something nobody else is doing.’ Then
of the monkey-and-typewriter principle it’ll the music I do like I get more out of than from I used to work in a factory, and I was happy
mean something to someone sooner or later.
“The songs mean something personal to us,
but that’s not the point. It’s like saying, ‘What did “You get back to the rehearsal room, and there’s just
Max Escher mean when he did that painting?’”
He points to a giant print of one of Escher’s
typical perspective puzzles that hangs on the
the four of us. You get your instrument and you’re free”
wall of Manchester’s Central Sound Studio, anything else in life. I want to put the feeling that because I could daydream all day. All I had to do
where we are now located. “He might just say, I get out of music back into music as well. was push this wagon up and down. But I didn’t
‘I was pissed.’ We don’t want to say anything. “When we started off none of us could play. have to think. I could think about the weekend,
We don’t want to influence people. We don’t But each time we go one step forward – and that imagine what I was going to spend me money on,
want people to know what we think.” draws you on. It’s just a really good feeling. I which LP I was going to buy… You can live in
think that’s why a lot of people get disillusioned, your own little world.”
Ian, who writes the lyrics, broadly speaking ’cos, like, the music dries up.” Too true. But whichever world you choose to
PENNIE SMITH

shares these views. He is off stage the virtual It’s relatively easy to trace the stealthy progress live in the chances are it’ll soon coincide with
opposite of what he is on. His speaking voice is Joy Division have made from their aggressive, Joy Division’s. They’re here to stay.

NME ORIGINALS 17
 Trouble At The Top

MM, 1 September 1979, p23

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES

Join Hands
(Polydor)

A year ago, the

Banshees had a hit
album, a Top 10 single
(‘Hong Kong Garden’),
the crossover pop
audience and the
punk audience.
Credibility, critical
acclaim and pop
prowess. They even wore their
clothes nicely – perfect. Blink… and it’s gone!
There was a weak follow-up, ‘Staircase’.
The group doesn’t play much; the audience
fragments, as the matrix moves to new areas.
In limbo, the Banshees plump for standbys:
“art” and “mystery”. It hurts. Shorn of the bounce
and verve that balanced the odd obscurity of
‘The Scream’, ‘Join Hands’ is a confusing, in parts
brilliant, in parts awful, faintly musty collection.
Conveniently, almost all the better pieces
are kept on the first side. ‘Poppy Day’, is a short,
powerful evocation of the Great War graveyards
in Flanders. McKay’s phased guitar scythes out a
barrage of sound while the bass carries the tune.
‘Regal Zone’ opens with an urgent flurry, muted
slightly by McKay’s sax: it shifts into an urgent,
insistent claustrophobia.
The two best tracks follow: ‘Placebo Effect’ has
a stunning flanged guitar intro, chasing clinical
MM, 15 September 1979, p3
lyrics covering some insertion or operation. It
winds down, spaciously, into the apocalyptic
‘Icon’. Siouxsie begins awkwardly, and the band
slip into one of the oldest tricks in the book – the
Bo Diddley rhythm – and make it their own: the
brilliantly reverbed guitar is a perfect foil for
t he Siouxsie & The Banshees tour ground
to a halt after only one gig last week when
guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny
Morris left the group and disappeared after a row
Siouxsie were aware of problems with McKay and
Morris – they were given the option of leaving the
group before the tour started – they anticipated
the make-or-break aspect of the tour would not
Siouxsie’s soaring and, for once, emotional vocal. in a record shop. be decided until the dates had finished.
The second side begins with the single, After the row, which followed a disagreement “They have just run away,” said Siouxsie.
‘Playground Twist’. Siouxsie’s fascination for the over signing autographs and giving away “Their actions were a complete cop-out. They
macabre finds an expression that suits it in a swirl promotional LPs in the Aberdeen shop on have showed complete apathy. If they wanted
of child-like disorientation and terror. A great Friday, the pair went back to their hotel, packed, to object to something, or felt they were being
song. ‘Mother’ then sets alarm bells ringing: a arranged their pressured, they
short recital by Sioux, childlike, over a music box, pillows in their beds should have shouted
it’s mawkish rather than evocative.
With ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ the alarm bells burst
to look as if they
were occupied, and
“They have just run away. Their back, or hit me, but
instead they did this.
into a cacophony of sirens. Over 13 minutes,
Siouxsie pulls the wings off the Lord’s Prayer over
a Banshee boogie which, when it shifts, provides
fixed their backstage
passes to the pillows.
Apart from a brief
actions were a complete cop-out” “I consider it is
the worst, the most
cowardly way they
the only movements of interest. It’s not art, not encounter with their manager, Nils Stevenson, could have behaved. It is the most disgusting
proper noise: the Banshees aren’t, respectively, as they drove away in a taxi, Morris and McKay thing they could have done to a band, and worst
good enough artists or incompetent enough have not been seen since. of all, their action feels so calculated – it wasn’t
musicians. The 100 Club one-liner (and myth), Their sudden departure means that Siouxsie as if they stormed out in a fury.”
taken out of context, is made absurd. and Steve Severin had to pull out of their The band have cancelled dates this week,
At its worst, ‘Join Hands’ is unforgivably Aberdeen show, but after explaining to fans that although there is a chance they will have been
necrophiliac; at its best, it captures the power “the two art students have left”, Siouxsie and able to rehearse with two new members to open
of which the Banshees are capable. Translated Severin joined support band The Cure for a again at Oxford’s New Theatre on Friday. Venues
PAUL SLATTERY

practically, all this means: listen before you buy. ten-minute version of “The Lord’s Prayer”. should be checked locally. Tonight’s Bradford
Jon Savage Severin told MM on Monday that while he and show has been postponed until 24 September.

18 NME ORIGINALS
www.wychwood.co.uk

The legendary Hobgoblin beer is the per fect potion for celebrating All Hallow’s Eve. Available from
all good supermarkets and of f-licences, it’s enough to scare the taste buds of f any lagerboy.
 Enfants Terribles

If you really think The Banshees sprog of some belly-dancer and a

MM, 24 June 1978, p23 NME, 30 June 1979, p31
spent the past year in a contract- poisonous reptile. Compact bass

JOY DIVISION
less limbo because their music
was too near the edge, then you
guitar motif, descending alone.
Then those vocals – taut, terse,
SIOUXSIE &
An Ideal For Living must spend a lot of your time tense intonation, a voice like that THE BANSHEES
(Enigma) going round walking into walls. feeling you get watching the faces Playground Twist
Yet more promising new music The Banshees have fans, lots of on the workaday tube ride after (Polydor)

from Manchester. Joy Division them, and no record company stepping out at dawn for the third If Ingmar Bergman produced
were called Warsaw until they worth its salt would pass up the time without sleep. records, they might sound like
recorded this EP last November, chance to sell them records. “Standing on the beach/With this. The listener is immediately
and it was under that name that And what about releasing a gun in my hand/Staring at the engulfed in a maelstrom of
I saw them at the Electric Circus a record themselves? Don’t sea/Staring at the sand/Staring whirling sound punctuated by
the month before (they’ve made they know the old mass access down the barrel at the Arab on the ominous tolling of church
it on to the new Virgin album argument hardly applies any the ground/Can see his open bells, phased guitars, thundering
commemorating the Circus’ last more? But here it is, a brash, mouth/ But I hear no sound/I’m percussion, a surreal alto sax and
weekend). This has the familiar delirious two-chord triumph alive/I’m dead/I’m the stranger/ the wail of Siouxsie’s voice. It
rough-hewn nature of home- that I would never have thought Killing an Arab”. demands to be played repeatedly
produced records but they’re no them capable of, being not in the And racism has got nothing to at threshold-of-pain volume to
mere drone-vendors – there are least enamoured of their facile do with it. elicit its full nightmarish quality.
a lot of good ideas here, and they attempts at creating radical music. Tony Parsons Roy Carr
could be a very interesting band ‘Hong Kong Garden’, a long-
by now, seven months on. time stage favourite, is a bright,
Chris Brazier vivid narrative, something like
snapshots from the window of a
speeding Japanese train, power-
charged by the most original,
intoxicating guitar playing I’ve
heard in a long, long time.
Would you believe it’s going
to be played on the radio? Would
you believe Siouxsie on Top Of The
Pops? Would you believe not one
mention of Blondie… oops.
Paul Rambali MM, 30 June 1979, p31 NME, 17 November 1979, p25

THE CURE JOY DIVISION

Boys Don’t Cry Transmission
NME, 19 August 1978, p19 (Fiction) (Factory)

Hum… this is something of a Dance, dance, dance to the radio!

SIOUXSIE & disappointment. On stage ‘Boys

Don’t Cry’ is invariably one of the
A bass guitar slowly stirs and
quivers. A relentless, dipping riff
THE BANSHEES high points, but somehow, in its gathers momentum and sweeps
Hong Kong Garden translation onto vinyl, the good’s its way into a spiralling electric
(Polydor) virtually gone. The agile interplay guitar as a distant drummer
A lot of people have been waiting between the three Cure members, pumps out strict Can doublebeats.
for a long time for this disc, while and the reverberating economy This is an awesome disc, scaling
punk’s self-styled enfant terrible that producer Chris Parry the heights fellow Mancunians
played cat-and-mouse with a NME, 27 January 1979, p20 spotlighted on the debut album, Magazine merely hinted at in
music industry she openly regards have been edged out in favour of a ‘Shot By Both Sides’.
with contempt and disdain. THE CURE muddy mix and an old-fashioned Ian Curtis provides regular
Siouxsie’s got a point. The Killing An Arab hierarchy of instruments. It just Iggy-style grunted vocal
record companies who decide (Small Wonder) sounds so ORDINARY now. The interjections while the simmering
what you’re going to be able to Apparently based on Albert’s flip, ‘Plastic Passion’, doesn’t production – again the work of
buy are often reactionary and The Outsider and, if so, quite redeem the situation either. A Martin ‘Zero’ Hannett – is crisp
staid and can be accused of possibly the straw that broke feeling of disappointment makes enough to push ‘Transmission’
manipulating the populace. But Camus’ back. Cymbals crash once, a slim song sound threadbare. into the chart. With the right
then she isn’t entirely blameless twice, three times. A guitar, full of Such a shame. breaks, this could easily be a hit!
on that last count herself. eerie promises, slithering like the Ian Birch Adrian Thrills

20 NME ORIGINALS
 Chapter 2
1980
DEREK RIDGERS
 The New Pink Floyd?

Joy Division
University Of London
NME, 16 February 1980, p55

j
Simply the First Division
oy Division at the University
of London was a sell-out.
music. As Richard Jobson said,
Division’s music is genuinely
nightmares, clearly drawn, potent
and personal. But Joy Division’s
These new songs show that
Division’s music is as natural as
The guest list was huge. violent, and it’s the violence of dreams are the inescapable places PiL’s, not held down by the grey
Their impact was substantial. beauty rooted in beastly desire, the where we live. It’s all suggestion hands of limitation or expectation.
Seeing Joy Division, if you violence of breakdown, inhibition, rather than direction or dogma. Joy Division are still coming up
are properly tuned, is a jarring failure, fatalism… Joy Division sped through with new ways to alter the shape,
experience. The music keeps It could be vanity, it could be their early songs with intensity emphasis and texture of their
coming, trenchant, serene, impatience, even nervousness, of feeling and concentration. music. The new songs are as
steady, hard, almost an orgiastic but during a Joy Division set, The group pointedly proved that organised, hostile and spacious
celebration of the fact that Joy as the last set, but there’s all-
Division have arrived at a noise and
form that is distinctive, instinctive
and immeasurably dynamic. The
Their songs are desperate nightmares, round intensification, further
emphasis on the lead bass and
the active drums, even an overall
introversion and singularity of
the four musicians is fitfully held
clearly drawn, potent and personal simplification.
The songs have extreme, para-
under control and private music outside of the songs, you’ll be they still work well away from melodies, and some have no bass,
is forced out into the open. The lucky to hear more than two or the mainstream, forging ahead some no guitars. Synthesizers
tension is startling. three words. Hello and goodbye. down the slippery corridor of and bass with the drums, or two
The presentation is as grey and No introductions, no promotion. experimentation. They played guitars. The new single ‘Love Will
bland as the noise is volatile and Good or bad? Inside the songs, more new songs than old (they Tear Us Apart’ is one hell of a
deeply black – singer Ian Curtis’ careful words – settings, situations, didn’t play ‘She’s Lost Control’ or ‘classic’ – bass, synth, drums, voice;
KEVIN CUMMINS/IDOLS

comical trapped-butterfly flapping dilemmas, images that are ‘Transmission’ or ‘Disorder’ or… Curtis hugging a white guitar up
the only real stage movement, primitive and anxious. Joy Division name your favourite) and these to his chest but rarely using it.
a visual representation of the are a powerful act of make-believe, new songs give no suggestion of The song’s mobility and fluidity
struggle inherent in Division’s their songs like desperate bits of Division stagnation. shows how much potential there

22 NME ORIGINALS
 1980

MM, 14 June 1980, p10

NME, 26 April 1980, p37

THE CURE
Seventeen Seconds
(Fiction)

For a group as
young as The Cure,
it seems amazing
that they have
covered so much
territory in such a
brief time.
It’s impossible
to locate one
continuous
thread linking works as dramatically
opposed as their solemn debut 45 ‘Killing
An Arab’, the classic single ‘Boys Don’t Cry’,
and now the oblique, stilted soundtracks
that populate ‘Seventeen Seconds’.
Only one factor remains constant:
Robert Smith’s pleading whine of a
voice and (‘Boys Don’t Cry’ excepted) his
dependence upon keeping up a shield of
– often mischievous – distance.
After ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ (and its
commercial failure), Smith regrouped with
a keyboard player, one Matthieu Hartley,
taking on many of the textural chores that
Smith’s guitar had previously covered.
A brief, pensive keyboard exercise very
much in the mould of Brian Eno’s ‘Through
Hollow Lands’ – entitled ‘A Reflection’
– opens ‘Seventeen Seconds’, setting
the mood. ‘Play For Today’ builds on its
predecessor: keyboard notes and sombre
electric guitar touches act as a prelude
for an odd, mysterious piece of music
that aims to haunt through extensive
use of a stock pulse-beat overladen with
brush-strokes of guitar, bass and synth,
while Smith’s vocals hang limply in the
mix. You either find yourself drawn into
the landscape created or else you sit there
is in the simple contrasting and like a dislocated and depraved Joy Division’s music is waiting for a sudden jolt, an acceleration.
connecting of instruments that improvement upon Bowie’s physical and lucid, music about This mode of musical arrangement
Division use. It’s a staggeringly ‘Heroes’. So impressive. uncontrollable emotions, finds its fullest realisation in the single ‘A
melodic and momentous piece. Part of Joy Division’s ‘success’ impulses, prejudices, fears. The Forest’ – yet the scenario, once created,
For ‘Isolation’ they have the is the breadth and certainty of the group have turned inarticulacy soon sounds limp, devoid of any tension
same instrumentation, but it’s reactions they inspire. For this into concrete impressions of the or mystery. Again, one keeps waiting for a
more withdrawn and estranged; performance there were three deepest, most degenerate desires. sudden lift-off, yet the song just lies there
a song they wrote only days obvious ones: love, penetration It’s simple music, but not twitching occasionally. It’s a symptom
before that reveals Numan and and stimulation is one all in simple-minded; cryptic but not throughout ‘Seventeen Seconds’.
Foxx as true fools. The full itself, and if I wasn’t tied down impenetrable. As Danny Baker The album occupies a midway land
introduction of synthesizer has by language and responsibility I said, Joy Division are due some where much is insinuated but nothing is
not damaged the coherence and could attempt to explain. Simple sort of backlash, but he’s not the truly delivered. It seems caught in that
balance of the music in any way. frustration; that the group didn’t one to do it. If the group had very sense of ‘distance’ that Smith seems
It simply increases the amount of lay out for selfish delectation shown the slightest indication of so obsessive about keeping up.
mood, atmosphere, ephemeral their eloquent standards. How slackening I would have attacked. To many, ‘Seventeen Seconds’ may
terror Division are capable ironical! And old-fashioned But they are now better than they seem a valid progression. I however find
of achieving. The encore is a derision. A dissenter behind me, have ever been. Joy Division will it depressingly regressive. Even so, I await
confident, compelling, utterly with a spiteful snort, reckoned Joy tear you apart. Still. their next move with great interest.
withdrawn ballad, something Division are the new Pink Floyd. Paul Morley Nick Kent

NME ORIGINALS 23
 Southern DeAth
Something so good…
Cult

Don’t Walk Away

In Silence
Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division and one of the most talented performers
and writers in contemporary rock music, committed suicide on 18 May 1980.
Paul Morley and Adrian Thrills pay tribute to the man and the group
s
o why do we get so animated and The month before what were to have been their But the earthy offstage demeanours – the
enthralled by Joy Division? first American gigs, Joy Division completed an blunt, wary Peter Hook; the mischievous Bernie
Their music is filled with the horror impromptu set of British dates. In keeping with Albrecht; the quiet, easy-going Stephen Morris
of the times – no cheap shocks, no rocky their aversion to regulation and routine, the gigs and the shy, fragile, polite Ian Curtis – were
horror, no tricks with mirrors, but catastrophic hardly qualified as a tour proper. transformed the minute they stepped out into
images of compulsion, contradiction, wonder, The dates took in London venues as diverse the misty glare of the stage spotlights.
fear. The threatening nature of society hangs as the Rainbow, where they supported The Though a reticent student audience were
heavy; each song is a mystery, a pursuit. The Stranglers, to three nights at the Moonlight Club. sluggish in warming to them, Joy Division’s
music is brutally sensual and melancholically Out of town, they went largely unannounced power and purity of purpose was immediately
tender. The songs never avoid loneliness, cruelty, or were advertised only locally. Though a few apparent in the undiluted vigour of their music.
suffering; they defy these things. dates were cancelled as Ian Curtis fell ill, it was a Their ultimate live set, characteristically,
All this isn’t out of a love for deep, oppressive period of intense activity for the group. made few concessions to rockbiz tradition,
seriousness; we’re not celebrating doom. It’s The last of the gigs was in the University Of the opening number being an unfamiliar
more a loathing for mediocrity and hypocrisy Birmingham’s High Hall on Friday, 2 May. It instrumental built around a revolving drum
and complacency, the deceptions rock often was also, fatefully, the last public appearance Ian motif, one of two new songs already written and
seems proud to mould. There can be nothing Curtis made as vocalist in Joy Division. rehearsed in the few weeks since the completion
so silly as believing that rock is a saviour, and Four days before the Birmingham gig, a video of the new LP, ‘Closer’.
nothing as outrageous as accepting it as an was filmed in Manchester for the forthcoming A ripple of cheers greets a feedback-ridden,
artificial, attractive network of trash and flash. ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ single. The location faster than usual ‘Shadowplay’. But Joy Division
Joy Division pushed its possibilities to the limits. – a disused, windswept, Dickensian warehouse never stooped to easy games, and follow the
The very best rock music is art, and that is converted into a rehearsal studio – seemed the familiar song with two choppy, strident ones
nothing to be ashamed of. Good rock music ideal place for a Joy Division video. But the from the new album, ‘Means To An End’ and
is entertaining and amusing, legitimate and band’s attitude to proceedings was withdrawn ‘Passover’. Indeed, it is only with the end of
intelligent, and from week to week, single to and disinterested. Even on camera, they seemed the slow, mournful ‘New Dawn Fades’ that Ian
single, upset to upset, it keeps us going. It is to have little time for such promotional niceties. Curtis acknowledged the audience verbally for
rarely straightforward intelligence and wit that Such lethargy could hardly have been further the first time with a curt ‘Hello’.
produces the very best rock music. It is dreams, removed from the mood in the university But the crowd, surprisingly, stand transfixed,
naivety, aspirations, intuition, exuberance… dressing room later that week as the band their feet taking all of five numbers to warm to
there are dreams that shout for a better world prepared for the Birmingham gig – Joy Division, the dark dance music as the swirling guitar and
and a deeper understanding. These are the despite their reputation as sober individuals, drum patterns of the hypnotic ‘Twenty-Four
dreams of the very best rock music. despite the myth of romanticised gloom, were Hours’ give way to the pulsebeat of the throbbing
Joy Division make art. The prejudice that earthy and easy-going people. bass introduction to ‘Transmission’. The song
hangs around the word ‘art’ puts people off, As Tony Wilson says, “To people they seemed suddenly seems to take on the aura of the hit it
makes them think of the untouchable and the a very gloomy band, but as human beings they should have been as the audience finally begin to
unrealistic. Joy Division put reality into rock. were the absolute opposite.” They indulged in respond with real vigour, their reticence melting
Yet for all the intensity and violence of their the customary dressing room horseplay and in the face of the frightening intensity of Joy
images, the music never relinquishes a classic practical joking, beer-swilling and football talk Division’s performance.
accessibility; rhythm, melody, atmosphere are – Ian Curtis was a Manchester United supporter. The euphoria rises through ‘Disorder’, Curtis’s
awesomely sophisticated. flailing robotic juggle dance taking

“They seemed a gloomy band, but

Joy Division achieve something on almost violent proportions as
KEVIN CUMMINS/IDOLS

unique. Joy Division are not Morris and Hook hold down the
merely a hip new wave group on backbeat with precision and power
a fashionable independent label.
Oh no! they were the absolute opposite” and Albrecht picks out the purest
improvised guitar solos.

24 NME ORIGINALS
NME ORIGINALS 25
 … Just Can’t Function No More

The guitarist takes over on synthesizer for so much unconstrained emotion. Ian’s leaving and recorded a thrilling single for Factory called
the two closers, the translucent ‘Isolation’ and gives his words and his images a final desperate, ‘Transmission’.
the serene ‘Decades’, a track, like the awesome sad edge of clarity. It’s a perverse way for Joy They quietly established their independence;
‘Atmosphere’, that provides a sharp counterpoint Division to get their deserved attention. prolifically and ambitiously expanded upon their
to the more physical hard rock that comprises Our memories add to the myth. Ian Curtis’ already considerable originality; unpretentiously
most of their set. own myths, the myths he dragged up from the discovered the capacity there is in rock for truly
Curtis, however, stumbles from the stage deep and tuned to our reality, inspire it. traumatic and radical developments. They played
before the end of the song, totally exhausted and The myth gets stronger… we might as well get scores of gigs, but never made it seem like they
obviously showing signs of strain. The band, on with it. Ian would love this myth. Ian Curtis were merely promoting product. They created
despite demands for more, return for only a was young, but he had already seen the depths. their own pace. They made it look so easy. ‘It’
sharp one-song encore, a revamped version of His death is a waste, but he had already given us being something like a total lack of compromise.
the 1978 Factory Sampler track ‘Digital’… more than we dare hope from anyone. Only the cruellest blow could shatter Joy
We were looking towards him. Division’s brilliant development. Really, they
It doesn’t really need saying, but Ian Curtis was And he was no longer there. show what is possible. They never dared wonder
highly emotional, deeply romantic and acutely aloud what effect they were having. They never
sensitive. It was these qualities, plus an irrational Joy Division played their first gig at the Electric asked for special treatment. They never shouted
willingness to take the blame, combined with Circus supporting Buzzcocks and Penetration in for attention, they just got on with the job.
a set of problems it’s not relevant to reveal, May 1977. Their name was then Warsaw, having Joy Division’s powerful work will naturally
that made him decide to leave us. A change of rejected the Pete Shelley suggestion of Stiff live on. The name Joy Division will not be used
scenery. For him, perhaps, freedom. Kittens. The name Warsaw was derived from by Hook, Albrecht and Morris. The group
On Saturday 17 May, four days before Joy ‘Warszawa’, a song on Bowie’s ‘Low’. had decided a long while back that if any one
Division were to fly to America, he had visited Warsaw were undistinguished, but there was of the quartet should, for whatever reason, in
his old house in Macclesfield to watch the a great belief and romance guiding them. Slowly, whatever way, depart, the rest would, in cautious
televised film Stroszek by his favourite director, the noises formed. They recorded a four-track recognition of the fact they were making
Herzog. Hours later, in the early hours of the single, ‘An Ideal For Living’, and planned to something special, change the name of the group.
Sunday morning, he hung himself. He was 23. release the EP using their new name Joy Division There are no set plans for the future, but it
That a myth will develop is inevitable, if only – Joy Division being the prostitutes’ wing of must be said that Ian Curtis was not the major
because of the type of group Joy Division seemed a concentration camp. Poor sound quality force in the group. He wrote the words and
to be, the passions they arouse. Ian Curtis’ postponed the release and even when it was put offered contributions to the musical make-up.
words are vivid and dramatic. They omit links out, it created no stir, although something was Hook and Albrecht wrote the melodies, Morris
and open up perspectives; they are set deep in obviously forming. composed the rhythms. Curtis was a dazzling
untamed, unfenced darkness. He confronted
himself with ultimate realities.
However it’s written, this piece contributes Ian Curtis was young, but he had seen the
depths. He gave us more than we dared hope
to the myth. Things need to be said, things that
would have been said anyway, without perhaps

In 1978 Joy Division met their focus, but the music is unique in itself. Each
manager Rob Gretton. Producer contribution was equal.
Martin ‘Zero’ Hannett took an
active interest in the group, and The impact of Joy Division can only grow
he and Gretton became fifth and stronger. Joy Division can not clean away the
sixth members. trivia and delusion of mass-based rock music,
Joy Division had a quarter of but they throw a shadow over it all.
the Factory Sampler, contributing They emphasise the vanity and vulgarity
two songs, the first indication of the rock music so recklessly publicised and
that Joy Division had a special glorified by industry and media, the plain
understanding. But still, the mundanity of the majority of pop, and their
completeness and strength of their own complete lack of conceit or ego indicates
first LP, ‘Unknown Pleasures’, the uselessness of pretending rock is some sort of
was unnerving. The group had weapon of change. The very best rock is part of
discovered their own potential. a fight, a widespread perception, something that
They had quietly, effectively actively removes prejudice and restriction.
travelled from one extreme to the Rock’s greatness is its emotional effect on
other. Every word counted, every the individual. Joy Division’s worth is immense
line had a chilling penetration. to every individual who does not resent their
Somewhere between ‘An Ideal For strange awareness. The struggle and the
Living’ and the few months later conflict never ceases. There is no real safety, no
when ‘Unknown Pleasures’ was consolation, and often the evil, futile boundaries
recorded, a radical transformation of existence become too claustrophobic.
had taken place. Everything had Ian Curtis decided to leave us, and yet he
fallen into place. leaves words of such strength they urge us to
An audience began to look fight, seek and reconcile. Joy Division will not
their way, but Joy Division never change the world. But there is value; there has
let go. They relished Factory’s to be. The effect of Joy Division, the unknown
uncomplicated flexibility, pleasures each individual fully tuned into Joy
KEVIN CUMMINS/IDOLS

contributing two extra songs from the Division discovers, can only be guessed at. But
Ian Curtis: the
myth grows ‘Unknown Pleasures’ session to Fast’s the moods and the insight must inspire us, excite
stronger ‘Earcom 2’, recording two new songs us, challenge us…
for French label Sordide Sentimentale The value of Joy Division is the value of love.

26 NNMMEE OORRIIGGIINNAALLSS
??
NME ORIGINALS 27
 Play For Today

h
ere we go again.
I walk into The Cure’s
dressing room for the
night. I always hate
these sort of entrances. The four
members of The Cure, stood
among empty guitar cases,
practice amps, lager cans, dead
chairs, look limp and vacant. I slip
on my best brave face. Someone
rushes off to get me a Cure T-shirt,
something I’ll be happy to wear.
Somebody else hands me a can of
lager, something I force myself to
swallow. Robert Smith is nearest to
me as I hover by the open door.
“Hello,” he says amiably, “are
you nervous?” Yes, I say through
a narrow throat, I always am. He
grins goofishly. I grin goofishly.
Last year, on the night of the
General Election, I reviewed-
destroyed The Cure’s first LP
‘Three Imaginary Boys’, at first
spluttering at what I saw as a
queasy blend of arrogance and
austerity, then growing steadily
annoyed at what I fantasised as a
grand conspiracy of pompous pop
people and relentlessly hateful
politicians. I saw ‘Three Imaginary
Boys’ as a conceited scrapbook
with a bitter lack of internal
coherence. Wrapped up in dinky
pinkness, with symbols instead
of titles, it was too self-conscious,
and fitted in a place where talk of
innovation and stimulation was
all pose, no action, and where the
next mask was more important
than the next song. I thought The
Cure were horrible.
“I listened to that LP three
times,” says Robert Smith, and
murmurs in assent when I mention
that the second LP ‘Seventeen
Seconds’ is much more soulful and
direct. “The first LP in a lot of ways
was like a compilation, it didn’t
have a lot to do with what we were
doing even at the time.”
At that time Robert Smith
felt hurt by my antagonism. He
immediately wrote me a note,
sternly and hilariously parodying
my own indulgent word-play,
pissing all over it. The Cure sang
a song about the review during a
Peel session. The incident got silly.
Then quickly forgotten. When we
meet, I turn up deeply in love with
‘Seventeen Seconds’ and Robert
Smith doesn’t hate me at all.
Smith is soft where I imagined
he would be hard. He’s not a big
softie. He’s always on a fine line
between agitation and boredom,
and such a balance turns out
The Cure Mk II: (l to r)
Lol Tolhurst, Mathieu faintly, deviously charming. He’s
PAUL COX/LFI

Hartley, Simon Gallup no pretentious mock recluse,

and Robert Smith perpetually feigning intensity

28 NME ORIGINALS
 1980

DAYS OF WINE
That’s elevating musicians to
an unfair status.”
This background and his
hardening pubby experience
developed and disciplined
Smith’s beautifully polished and
adventurous guitar – a personal
and delicious post-Hendrix

POSES
technique wasted on the first

AND
LP but exquisitely exploited for
Seventeen Seconds’. (Similarly his
obsessive, compelling vocals.)
It was automatic for Smith to
play on a stage with friends, for
himself, with the audience only
half-welcome. It was difficult for
Smith to express himself. There
was so much he wanted to say, but
it was almost as if he didn’t want
anyone to hear his words.
“I don’t know. I’ve always

Y’see it wasn’t that The Cure ever had a non-image, they just didn’t have written things down ever since I
could remember. Mainly because
sometimes I get really angry. I’ve
an image, right? Nothing terribly wrong about that, is there? Well... got a really violent temper but it’s
not physical because I don’t think

Paul Morley shares a bottle and begins to understand I should vent my frustrations and
depressions on anybody else. I
don’t throw tantrums or anything
of vision. He’s never quite sure Smith realises that The Cure expect respect, they want their like that, so rather than smash the
what to say. Does he take himself don’t fit into the rude rock gig, but privacy. ‘Seventeen Seconds’ is a room up I write things down. It’s a
seriously? he likes to play. record of exceptional quality. Brief release. But I haven’t got over the
“I do take myself seriously but “It’s very selfish when I go on and wistful. The Cure leave it there idea of separating communicating
there’s a point beyond which you stage. It matters what the audience as much as they are able. from preaching. My words are
become a comic figure.” thinks, but I write songs for myself. “I don’t think that we have any mainly about me, how I feel,
Robert Smith is a songwriter It’s very narrow-minded. And we right to an audience. I don’t think they’re not about world situations
who wrote songs of enough don’t present shows. We don’t leap that just because we make records and alternatives.”
individuality and attraction to about on stage. We could make it people should listen, or if we play The Cure dispensed with most
warrant interest, who got hooked visual and everything but we’re they should come. If we weren’t of their versions. They developed
into the record business and then not like that naturally so why selling records I’d still be playing originals. A debut single, ‘Killing
had to start wondering about should we? I’d prefer it if we really in a pub or something, which I was An Arab’, caused a bit of alarm;
justification, morals, compromise. impressed a lot of people who’ll like a year before we got a recording Robert Smith was pulled into
Robert Smith cannot believe The us for a long time rather than give contract. Just because I enjoy it. It’s the flow before he’d even tested it
Fuss: “I still don’t feel comfortable someone a good night out who’ll as simple as that. I’d rather be on out. Fiction signed them. ‘Three
holding a guitar.” Smith has the forget it next week.” stage than doing anything else.” Imaginary Boys’ was pinned
look of the perpetually puzzled. He What does he mean by impress? together. But the three-piece Cure
stutters, he blunders… he wonders “Just to show… I dunno… that The Cure story is a blur. It started was destined not to last long. The
what the hell it’s all about, this we’ve got something to offer.” in pubs, now it’s reached clubs and Siouxsie & The Banshees bust-up
rock thing. “I sometimes think I He chuckles. He’ll want to telly, and it will end quietly. They accelerated fate. The Cure were
might be in someone else’s idea of change that later. started as a three-piece in 1977: supporting them.
heaven,” he says with grisly irony. Kenny and John left the

In the early hours. We’re soul-deep “I still don’t feel comfortable holding a Banshees. Budgie played for
Kenny. Robert played for
into bottles of red wine, muttering John, using his superior guitar
about the state of the art, the guitar. Sometimes I think I might be in temperament to adapt perfectly to
idleness and extravagance of the the Banshee shapes. For that tour
shady rock heroes.
A Cure live set of the moment is
someone else’s idea of heaven” he played two shows a night. The
Cure barely survived.
nothing like the sort of putrefied The Cure form part of a new Smith, drummer Lol Tolhurst and “It just became like a job. I’d
and obsolete rock’n’roll gig a lot of realism in a part of rock that won’t bassist Michael Dempsey. They known Lol since I was six, but not
people think is the only way. Their take over but won’t disappear. played other people’s songs, it was Michael, and the differences were
new songs sound faded and lonely, Rock that isn’t trapped in a maze all for fun and fun was all it was. between him and me. I found
rely on touch and quietness. They of mirrors, that isn’t lost and Robert Smith was part of a very on the Banshees tour that I was
don’t nag at you or remove your ignoble in a wasteland of dead musical family. He recalls that enjoying it more playing with the
independence. They rouse your pride and rigid beliefs. The Cure there was always an instrument in Banshees than The Cure. That’s
curiosity rather than remove it. don’t demand everyone be like the house, always people playing what really made the decision. Lol
These songs are a slight chill, not a them, and their expectations are music. At five he walking around felt the same way, Michael wasn’t
right charge. A build-up of gloom, moderate. The space to breathe, hitting guitars. Just making noises. criticising or joining in on any
shadows, broken bits of dreams decent access to recording and “I don’t know if I believe that sort of level. We were sticking to
and expectations, not guaranteed releasing, a modest listening thing about some people being the same set night after night and

to supply the good night out. level. The Cure want to exist, they born musicians and some not. the whole thing was getting like

NME ORIGINALS 29
 Art And Artifice fi

a joke. There wasn’t

much point carrying on.”
Late ’79, Dempsey left.
Two new members were
drafted – keyboardist
Matthieu Hartley and
bassist Simon Gallup
– who oddly made the
MM, 26 July 1980, p17 music more sparse and
withdrawn.
“They’ve added a new
SIOUXSIE & dimension to the group
THE BANSHEES – pissheads.”
Kaleidoscope Resisting the
(Polydor) compromising The Cure model for
‘Kaleidoscope’ temptation to become the Littlewood’s
catalogue ‘post-
follows hard on a full-time Banshee,
punk’ collection
the heels of the Smith and The Cure
morale-boosting emerged more in
chart successes control than they’d ever been. Out of bad times I stay away from. I’m not a seller. In fact I sometimes
of ‘Christine’ and and sad times was blended the tender ‘Seventeen go the opposite way. Which is a bit stupid.”
‘Happy House’, Seconds’ – a collection of songs restlessly remaking Sometimes it seems as though Robert Smith is
both of which and reworking one particular incident from inside a embarrassed by living. He is unsettled by the extent
are featured love trap. Smith reflects on a moment from different and demands of his ego, necessarily oblique about
here. ‘Christine’, points of view: resentful on ‘Play For Today’; his work, finally ashamed by the vulgar way it tends
the story of the schizophrenic with 22 morbid on ‘In Your House’; near-extinguished on to be sold. But slowly he is beginning to realise that
clashing personalities, was breathtaking: ‘Seventeen Seconds’. he cannot exist in a vacuum. He is consolidating
strong, steady drumming, a running bass, “It was a really condensed incident, a rush of his position within this Fuss, striking a fine balance
a skilful acoustic guitar and Siouxsie’s feelings that I’d found in myself had been watered between playing the game and reconciling his own
compassionate vocals all evoke perfectly down mainly by playing in a group. It’s a really inner conflicts. And ‘Seventeen Seconds’ is a victory
the song’s stark atmosphere. strange situation, but I find touring and things like of aspiration over circumstances: one of the most
‘Happy House’ was great pop as well, that shut me down. I harden and get very reclusive, calm, liberating and progressive rock LPs of recent
everything moving together to form sort of shun people. All the things that I’d been years. It’s easy (so calm! So uncluttered!) to miss. It
its own distinctive sound. And now shutting down just came out in a big rush and should be heard again and again and again (fade).
‘Kaleidoscope’ – a series of sketches each for the following two weeks every day I’d just be
evoking its own atmosphere and place. thinking about that one particular incident. One Deep into
the deep red wine, deep into the deep
‘Happy House’ kicks off Side One day I’d wake up wanting to kill somebody, the next conversation, Robert and I are talking about image.
before ‘Tenant’ is ushered in with a slow, day I wouldn’t even bother getting up. It was awful. Around the time of ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ they
almost Public Image feel, with Severin “I wasn’t fighting it, whereas in everyday life seemed to be elaborately disguising their plainness.
contributing electric sitar, among other you’d have to control those feelings. But it’s good My mistake: I called it the anti-image. Robert Smith
things. ‘Trophy’ is a McGeogh number that it happened. At the time I
with a recurring guitar motif and an
exploration by Siouxsie of the futility of
was shutting down and didn’t feel
like writing any more songs, I just “One day I’d wake up wanting to kill
remembering past triumphs. couldn’t be bothered, and it was
‘Hybrid’, though meticulously
constructed, tends to outstay its
through actually being in a group,
through playing songs, that
somebody, the next day I wouldn’t even
welcome, while ‘Clockface’ seems trite,
save for Siouxsie’s chanting. The side
caused me to stop writing songs!”
Out of such a strained
bother getting up. I was shutting down”
ends with ‘Lunar Camel’: slow, a trifle experience came an extraordinary LP: the was utterly fed up by that. “We had to get away from
draggy, it lacks characteristic Banshee atmospheres are consistently melancholic, that anti-image thing, which we didn’t even create
purpose or direction. the textures relaxed and subtle. No hurrying in the first place. And it seemed like we were trying
Side Two: ‘Desert Kisses’ boasts a or harrying. The Cure use genuine technical to be more obscure. We just didn’t like the standard
great swirling feel of power and intent originality – the sound is light and misty, paler and rock thing. The whole thing got really out of hand.
with Siouxsie’s voice reminding us of thinner than ‘Another Green World’, as convincing I was trying really hard to be normal, at home I
its unique quality. ‘Red Frame’ is almost as rock music can be in conveying the way the mind was being all nice, and my mum kept saying to me,
Human League but with more depth runs, slows, repeats itself. It is definitive soft rock: ‘What’s an anti-image?’”
and darkness, while ‘Paradise Place’ and a crumbling world and its pervasive persistence in I tell Robert he can often be infuriatingly vague,
‘Skin’ are just classic Banshee pieces. memory is beautifully evoked, there is the quiet because he can.
Hypnotic, relentless, and incisive, both agony of love and loss, a constant sense of distance – “I am very vague. I don’t know why. Ha! Ha!”
feature Steve Jones on guitar, revealing a between people, places, past and present. ‘Seventeen Does obscurity mean anything to Smith?
hitherto unknown side of the (S)ex Pistol. Seconds’ is an LP of romantic melancholy, of “I’m not doing this to make my name go down
As the title implies, ‘Kaleidoscope’ anguish and finally of horror. in history. I really couldn’t care less. I’m not saying
aims to give the listener exactly that. “There is genuine emotion on there and again that to look good in the interview, I honestly don’t
A kaleidoscope of sound and imagery, whether people want to take it that way is up to think like that. There are so many people trying to
new forms, and content, flashing before them. I’m not going to say you’ve got to believe me, do that, it’s like another facet of the treadmill, and
our eyes. Undoubtedly a lot of the album this genuine emotion, because now I’ve done it I it’s pointless because I could never win it anyway.
is a success on those terms, but even after don’t really care. It’s there if people like to listen to I’ve got faith in what I’m doing from a personal
about ten plays it’s still hard to fully grasp it. It’s not the type of LP you’re going to put on if you point of view, but as to whether I go down in history,
‘Kaleidoscope’ as a concrete whole. Or want a party. Nor a record to put on if you’re having I’m very doubtful about that… so I don’t let it worry
PAUL COX/LFI

maybe that’s the beauty. a fit of depression. The whole thing of doing Top Of me. If I let that worry me along with everything else
Paulo Hewitt The Pops, of selling it, the whole shop window thing, I’d crack up before I’m going to anyway.”

30 NME ORIGINALS
 1980
MM, 30 August 1980, p27

Bauhaus Scamps, Oxford

bass notes, ‘Double
Oh bondage, up
yours: Peter Murphy Dare’ was a killer, with NME, 8 November 1980, p32
of Bauhaus Kevin Haskins beating
the living daylights out
of his drum kit and BAUHAUS
Danny Ash torturing In The Flat Field
his guitar – yet they all (4AD)

looked so restrained! Crossovers are

‘In The Flat Field’ interesting to
was the first of two observe, but
new numbers and generally not
came over very well, a lot of fun to
while ‘Boys’ had Peter listen to.
Murphy dragging We’re now
Danny Ash across the in the throes
stage by his hair and of a hard
going down on his punk/moderne
guitar à la Bowie and monochrome crossover, with
Ronson. bands like Killing Joke and Bauhaus
There’s more than on the verge of tapping a potentially
a touch of truth in massive market opened up by Siouxsie
talk of their affiliation & The Banshees, Adam & The Ants and
with glam rock. Their even Joy Division. To these ears, there’s
version of ‘Telegram as palpable a difference between these
Sam’ did justice to two groups of groups as there is between
Marc Bolan, and the Sex Pistols and Cockney Rejects
both that and ‘Terror – something like the difference between
Couple Kill Colonel’ art and artifice, but not quite.
had the previously ‘In The Flat Field’ is the first Bauhaus
unresponsive crowd album, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised
up and twitching. to see it storming up the “alternative”
One of the charts, at the very least. It oughtn’t to.
highlights of their I must admit to a passing liking for
very varied set was their three singles. I was even prepared
‘Stigmata Martyr’, to overlook their taking their name in
which had the vain (what the hell has their Gothick-
band emulating the Romantick schtick got to do with the
crucifixion while stripped, no-nonsense principles of
chanting the blessing. the Bauhaus?), but over the length of
They closed with an album, their limitations and endless
‘St Vitus Dance’, pretence are just too much to take.
though the audience ‘In The Flat Field’ is nine meaningless

A
trendy disco in was still quiet. moans and flails bereft of even the
the centre of an
Oxford shopping
Bauhaus are consistently Bauhaus never
fail to alienate
most cursory contour of interest, a
record which deserves all the damning
precinct seemed an
incongruous place for
a band like Bauhaus to
challenging, perplexing and elating certain sections
of their audience,
but such is the lot
adjectives usually levelled at grim-faced
“modernists”. It’s doom for doom’s sake.
If nothing else, this sheds some
play on the opening night of their arrogant features and with the of a band who are consistently light on the punk/moderne crossover
British tour. But with this lot rest of the band hovering in the challenging, perplexing and audience, who, in their taste for excessive
nothing is predictable. half-light, all was forgiven. elating. Enigmas indeed! tribal plumage and dismal, doom-laden
An extremely bizarre but From the buzzing opening Gill Smith music, are more closely related to the
intricate film served as a support, heavy metal hordes than they’d like to
and after much shuffling around believe. And Bauhaus are nothing more
with screens, the band emerged than a hip Black Sabbath. Really.
from the crowd and walked Personally, I couldn’t give a toss, not
on stage. Talk about lack of feeling much affinity with many other
PHILIPPE CARLY - WWW.NEWWAVEPHOTOS.COM

mystery! It gave everyone in human beings in general, and certainly

the audience a chance to gawp not with any tribal group. I just wish this
at close quarters at them and record had been more interesting, more
completely destroyed, for me, original, and less reliant on the obvious.
their glamorous untouchability. Ah well. Their singles showed Bauhaus
But in a moment, with the weren’t devoid of an idea or two; this
stark white light bleaching album shows they’ve used them both up.
out Peter Murphy’s elegantly Andy Gill

NME ORIGINALS 31
 The Bye
Bye CureBlackheads

an unsettled individual listening

NME, 8 March 1980, p23 out for a strange guiding voice, Curtis dolefully sings “Don’t walk
while the band play an attractively away in silence”. This is deeply

SIOUXSIE & doomy tune, enhanced by reticent

drums and carefully folded-in
moving music.
‘She’s Lost Control’ shows just
THE BANSHEES keyboard lines. Nice, vaguely how far the band moved ahead
Happy House/ psychedelic, production too. after recording the ‘Unknown
Drop Dead Celebration Chris Bohn Pleasures’ album. The song has
(Polydor) been given a totally new feel
Seemingly, hell hath no fury to the original version, aided
like a Siouxsie scorned. For by producer Martin Hannett’s
all the contrived cynicism, it’s masterful drum and bass sound,
Budgie’s remarkable drop-beat NME, 5 April 1980, p4 and ‘Closer’-style synth work
drumnastics that dominate the towards the end.
exotic, danceable top-side. But Lynden Barber
it’s the unbridled viciousness of THE CURE
the flip – supported by the cryptic A Forest
message ‘Bye Bye Blackheads’ (Fiction)

etched next to the run-off Unfortunately tagged as

groove – that overshadows the naively witty suburbanites by
whole affair. Obviously aimed admirers, precocious darlings
at former Banshees Morris and by detractors, The Cure’s severe MM, 28 June 1980, p16
McKay, it’s probably one of the growth problems were largely
most venomous put-downs caused by unwarranted heavy
ever recorded. It’s as if Siouxsie attention early on. Consequently, JOY DIVISION
is gleefully sticking pins in wax writer Robert Smith’s ability to Love Will Tear Us Apart
effigies as she shouts out her construct fleetingly mysterious (Factory)

abuse. When it comes to carrying and highly evocative scenarios This single, a follow-up to the free
grudges, Sweet Sioux makes went uncredited, as critics tried flexi-disc which some baddies in NME, 22 November 1980, p18
Madams Thatcher and Ghandi instead to pinpoint the band record shops have been selling,
look like Sisters of Mercy.
Roy Carr
sociologically. ‘A Forest’ is a good
example, which gets better with
has been invested with sad
significance after singer Ian Curtis’
SIOUXSIE &
age: Smith’s dry, lost vocal tells of tragic suicide. THE BANSHEES
Joy Division were (and may Israel
remain) an innovative and (Polydor)

courageous band. Divorced from Siouxsie Schmiouxsie – what

Curtis’ fate, this record offers a does it matter as long she makes
taster for their forthcoming album good singles? ‘Christine’ was
‘Closer’. Evocative, interesting… a one and ‘Israel’ isn’t. At first
powerfully original piece of music. impressive, grandiose, the song
Martyn Sutton meanders into tedium and clutter
and not even the wholesale
MM, 13 September 1980, p17 homage to Herzog’s soundtrack
can offset that.
As for the flip, ‘Red Over White’,
JOY DIVISION God spare us from all this pseudo-
She’s Lost Control / religious Catholic guilt hogwash
Atmosphere with feebly disguised drum solos
(Factory) and stream-of-consciousness
A record that puts nearly hippy lyrics.
everything else to shame. You see how prejudice will
‘Atmosphere’ was only available beget prejudice? I’m quite happy
previously as a collectors’ item humming the odd Banshees tune
French import and thank God but faced with the attendant
Factory Records have decided to iconography that surrounds them
JANETTE BECKHAM

put it out as an official release. these days all I can see in their
Severin and It features a plaintive bassline image is a twee pose.
Sioux: hell and sparse drumbeats as Ian Max Bell
hath no fury…

32 NME ORIGINALS
 Chapter 3
1981
DEREK RIDGERS
 Small talk stinks

Northampton
discovers NME, 21 February 1981, p12

art school rock!!

But school cad Chris Bohn picks apart Bauhaus designs
i
f the truth doesn’t fit, embroider Matched as they are to tortuous hard rock
it. A basic rule of promotion is workouts over lurching rhythms, Bauhaus
to set up the myth early on and have arrived at a pomposity almost equal to
hope the band will eventually live up to that of the early ’70s progressive bands.
it. The game can be fun, and Bauhaus have “I was brought up a Catholic, so I obviously
always suggested that they were willing, if felt it was something to write about,” Peter
not particularly adept, participants. says. “One track, ‘Stigmata Martyr’ was about
Formed a few years back, their evocative total fi xation with Jesus Christ to the point of
name – lifted from this century’s most bleeding from the same places as Christ bled.
influential art school – irrevocably links It seemed like a really strong subject to me.”
them with 1920s Germany, making it easy for Bauhaus are better appreciated live.
commentators to draw expressionist leanings Murphy’s overwrought drama is highlighted
from their shadowy live shows. by stark white lights battened to the floor, thus
But the true face of Bauhaus is far removed throwing up heavy shadows of the band onto
from singer Peter Murphy’s pained onstage the wall. The effect is visibly gothic.
mugging, and they go to great lengths No, it’s not, contests Kevin Haskins: “It
to deny the German connections when I seemed to us like a no-nonsense thing that
meet them at bassist David Jay’s pleasantly contradicts that whole gothic romance thing.”
suburban Northampton home. Jay and Unless you see it in terms of old German
drummer brother Kevin Haskins timidly silent movies…
fend off criticisms, while Murphy reacts more “We hadn’t seen any films like that when
spunkily. Danny Ash, guitarist, is absent after we started,” points out David Jay. “
catching an iron filing in his eye. But this statement’s considerably
Bauhaus deserve their cult following. undermined when they hand me a copy of the
So far they’ve made two very good ‘Bela Lugosi’ 12-inch featuring a back cover
singles in their debut, ‘Bela still from The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari. David
Lugosi’s Dead’, and the terse, Jay notices me glancing at it suspiciously.
cogent ‘Terror Couple Kill “Our guitarist Danny had torn it out of a
Colonel’; a failed commercial book and gave it to us without telling us where
gambit in their cover of it came from,” he explains timidly.
‘Telegram Sam’; and one It’s not much of an excuse but there’s no
flop, ‘Dark Entries’. reason to disbelieve him in light of Bauhaus’
But their debut album, ‘In wilfully haphazard approach.
The Flat Field’, pointed up Made up of former art school students and
all the limitations of their an ex-printer (Murphy) who wished he was
approach. Murphy’s words one, Bauhaus are laudably open to ideas, but
get inextricably tangled they’ve yet to show they’re capable of using
in introspective journeys them. After a brief description of art school
through the terrors of a life from Jay, Murphy rues his missed chance.
Catholic past, but worse, “I was accepted for art college but then I
his classicist leanings changed my mind. I imagined you had to have
means he twists them a good idea of what you wanted to do before
into needlessly inverted you enrolled.”
sentences and forces “It’s the opposite,” says Jay. “It opens you
unnecessary rhymes. up to different levels and ways of thinking.”
Going by their singles, Bauhaus have it
KEVIN CUMMINS/IDOLS

in them to pull off a masterpiece, but at the

“I was brought up a Catholic… ‘Stigmata moment they’re still stuck at the sketchbook
stage. As it is, hang onto those early sketches
Martyr’ is about total fixation with Christ” – look what happened to Adam & The Ants.

34 N M E ORIGINALS
 1981

of The Cure’s first two albums,

might have spotted the penchant
for pop on the first and detected
the spots of blood on the sombre
sleeves of the second and added
them together. But he couldn’t
have predicted the richness and
deceptive power of ‘Faith’.
They start as they mean to go
on with ‘The Holy Hour’, where
Simon Gallup’s slowly phased bass
riff is beaten and punched by Lol
Tolhurst’s fat, dead percussion.
The rest of the first side, except
the wonderfully streamlined single
‘Primary’, offers variations on
these themes. ‘Other Voices’ slyly
builds enough momentum to start
pushing crockery off the sideboard.
‘All Cats Are Grey’ (in the dark?)
adopts a more sluggish tempo
but wrenches it into a completely
different perspective via Robert
Smith’s desperate keyboards.
Siouxsie: better
than Toyah. Then There’s an inexplicable melancholy
again, what isn’t? to it which is overwhelming.
Overleaf, you run straight into
‘The Funeral Party’, suggesting a
coach-load of pall-bearers enjoying
NME, 27 June 1981, p34 a works outing to the great morgues
of Europe. On ‘The Drowning Man’,

SIOUXSIE & the skeletal structure is modified by

speaker-swapping overdubs and
THE BANSHEES clipped handclaps.
Juju ‘Doubt’ is Side Two’s ‘Primary’,
(Polydor) slicing through the dominant
Of course, I watched Top Of The Pops moody textures with angry vocals
last week. It was poor – it’s going in and grunting bass. “Tear that flesh
four-week cycles at the moment, and rip that skin”, snarls Smith,
the good, the bad, the sagging, the who would rather mince people
so-so – but Siouxsie & The Banshees words and images are intended ‘Spellbound’, ‘Into than words.
were on. A savage gloss, a slashing to be profound and responsible, The Light’, ‘Arabian Mostly, ‘Faith’ is a
glamour amid the tepid turns, a or brutally corrective. ‘Juju’ songs Nights’, ‘Halloween’ and sophisticated exercise
turn-on like few others. don’t deal with dull matters, but ‘Monitor’. Side Two’s in atmosphere and
The Banshees are a terrific vision, with peculiar things in a taut and highlights: ‘Night Shift’, production, gloomy
an exclusive attraction, a peak in teasing manner. ‘Sin In My Heart’, ‘Head but frequently
entertainment; Siouxsie & The The words are not as imposing Cut’ and ‘Voodoo majestic. You may
Banshees – the display of hair, skirt, as people imagine. Precise syllables Dolly’. ‘Juju’ is the not love it, but you’ll
boys, vanity, flash, thigh, smile, and broken rhythms are used to first integrated and become addicted to it.
cheek to cheek, back to back – are dramatise the music. The mood sparkling-complete Adam Sweeting
a discerning and devious of a Banshee song Banshees album since ‘The Scream’.
distortion of the ‘Pop is disapproval: not It’s ‘Electric Warrior’ to the ‘Tanx’ of
Group’ that can be a great intensity but Toyah’s ‘Anthem’.
traced back to The an idealistic, vexed Paul Morley
Velvet Underground, profanity. A Banshee
Hendrix, The Doors pop song is a bitter
and the dark side of twist, a grave grace. MM, 18 April 1981, p20
Bolan: never wise The diabolical
or mellow, meek themes, the emotional THE CURE
or smutty, sweet poignancy and Faith
or ‘significant’. None of this remoteness are part of (Fiction)

romantic desire for action. the whole. It’s not all a weeping There’s not a lot here you can
There is nothing earthy about over lost pleasures, neither is it stuff carelessly into the drawer
Banshee music. Their fourth LP a thanksgiving. Banshee words labelled “fun”. Just check the
– thus far, their second-best – is a are an effective way to reject the song titles – ‘The Holy Hour’,
FIN COSTELLO/REDFERNS/M BRITTON

gliding, comfortless delivery of self- prosaic, to avoid the vulgar, and ‘The Funeral Party’, ‘The
distrust, infatuation and fetishism. the grouping of the words, the Drowning Man’. Not the stuff
‘Juju’ has an infernal quality: melodramatic undercurrents Mrs Mills albums are made of. The Cure: touring
nothing majestic or mysterious but enable the glorious Sioux to camp But it’s impressive. The the great morgues
of Europe
a kind of unawed unworldliness. The and exult with priceless poise. professional genre detective,
mistake is to imagine that Banshee Side One’s highlights: confronted by the evidence

NME ORIGINALS 35
 The sound of music
Pew, what
a scorcher:
bassist Tracy
with Nick Cave

MM, 17 October 1981, p15

BAUHAUS
Mask
(Beggars Banquet)

Bauhaus, though
I loathe to admit
it, are about to
be big.
The signs
are all there.
An inevitable
commercial dog-end of post-Joy Division
doom, they’ve wedded that image-
conscious, pretentious inner soul-searching
to Bowie’s glib theatricality and come up
crowd-pleasing trumps. At Bingley they
were showbiz magnificent.
‘In The Flat Field’, their last long-player,
sold well on sub-Banshees pseudo-religion
and a splash of Cramps Hammer horror
alone. ‘Mask’ (an apt name – very Siouxsie)
is a suitably showy, hollow successor – a
souvenir of their crass live show; all shock
no substance.
In the face of outmoded criteria like NME, 12 September 1981, p50
originality, having something to say, etc,
Bauhaus are a joke; so old-hat Iggy-bound
they shouldn’t exist. But with the current
accent on imitative image over anything
else, Murphy just MUST be an idol.
The Birthday
Africa Centre, London
Party
Teen mags will lap up his muscular
suntan and false aggression despite
the patent unlistenability of just about

A
strange venue for
everything they’ve ever recorded except
the ‘Young Americans’-cloned ‘Kick In
The Eye’ (re-recorded here).
a strange group.
Crammed into a hall
It’s like standing too close to a firework
Bauhaus are a soulless stance, a pathetic
excuse for idolatry in an era when heroes
shouldn’t exist but seem to be so badly
that is more used to hearing
discussions on African culture,
politics and poetry are a
– dangerous but compulsive
Whatever reservations ‘normal’ rock concerns of sex,
longed for. Adam & The Ants and The motley collection of after- I have about their ‘Prayers sadism and sacrifice.
Human League all better watch out – ‘Mask’ dark dancers, anticipating the On Fire’ LP are immediately Yet despite their apparent
may not yield any potentially massive hit arrival of a group who have dispelled by their dynamic strangeness, The Birthday
singles but the leather-jacketed hordes been compared to The Pop performance. There is Party are a lot of fun. They give
are eager and waiting. Group and The Cramps. wildness in the air, a feral so totally in performance that
The impression and atmosphere of “Welcome to The Birthday psychosis that owes as much to questions of approachability
‘Mask’ counts today more than anybody Party. Forty-five minutes of the modern notion of paranoia and involvement go flying
else’s struggling commitment – a Glitter sheer hell.” as it does to a prehistoric, out of the window. Their
Band for post-punk depressives. Its appeal Nick Cave does indeed look animal instinct of survival. unrestrained enjoyment in
is obvious: cosmic electronics, ethereal sax, like a skinny Lux Interior as Cave’s voice seems to come playing creates a positively
tribal drums, scratch-unfocussed guitar he introduces the group, an from somewhere else; it’s organic atmosphere – a
and eerie, effective/affected vocals… a odd assortment of Australian hard to believe his slender steaming jungle in which you
pantomime pretence of communication. reptiles in checked shirts frame can accommodate the can laugh yourself silly or be
Bauhaus are an unstoppable surge and the occasional Stetson. relentless howl that screeches, scared to death.
towards the sham/glam mid-’70s. ‘Mask’, Their sound bursts from the screams and throbs its way The Birthday Party are
more than Spandau, more than Rondo, tiny stage like a primordial around the sexual/surrealistic genuine (ab)originals.
takes the stylistic route to success by the beast shedding the chains of lyrics. Obsessions scuttle, Watching them is a bit like
short and curlies and flaunts it as a virtue. convention – a nightmarish slither and crawl through the standing too close to a firework
Top Ten. I hate it. Gothic brew of Beefheartian songs like so many nasty little – dangerous but compulsive.
Steve Sutherland wordplay and nerve-jangling creatures – insects, fish, bugs Light blue touch paper and
TOM SHEEHAN

guitars stirred into a bubbling and bats are predominant stand near.
rhythmic broth. images – reinterpreting the Neil Norman

36 NME ORIGINALS
 1981

pain either. On the naked feelings must have

contrary, they viewed got harder every time. Joy
exposing themselves Division presented them
to pain as one way of with that hardest thing to
breaking the aura of swallow: reality. Theirs was
insensitivity, suggesting all the more indigestible
that through brutality as it juggled together
or self-abasement the commonplace with
they might achieve the taboo, brutality with
those elusive moments of true sensuality and stark
NME, 17 October 1981, p41
feeling. On ‘The Sound Of Music’, horror with simple,
Curtis sings: “I’ll walk you through appealing melody. But Joy
JOY DIVISION the hard breaks/Show you all the Division never spared
Still outtakes/I can see it getting higher/ themselves in their
(Factory) Systematically degraded/ pursuit of experience
It shouldn’t have Emotionally a and truth.
happened, but as it did scapegoat /I can see You can feel
let’s take consolation in it getting better”, it still.
the fact that lan Curtis’s with the ecstatic Chris Bohn
death on 18 May, affirmation: “LOVE!/
1980 didn’t so much LIFE!/Makes you
bring Joy Division’s feel/Higher/
journey to the heart Higher /Higher!/
of darkness to an HIGHER!”
abrupt halt as freeze At their
it for all eternity at the brink of best, Joy Division were
discovery. At least we can still travel awesome, frightening
that far with them, and though they and beautiful – never
had positioned themselves well for more so than on ‘Dead
a final breakthrough, who knows Souls’, which somehow
if they’d have been able to cope on embodied the tragedy
the other side? of their vision, their
Their quest remains just that, its grasping after the
purity unspoiled by repetition, bad unattainable and
moves or false conclusions. It was the inevitable
founded in a courageous analysis of disillusionment that
their own condition, presented on would follow.
‘Still’ as a struggle towards a new, Joy Division never
more complete consciousness far resorted to faking
removed from the street squabbling emotions. Their
of the punk that spawned it. concerts seemed
Instead of moaning about the to be purgative
mess they were in, Joy Division experiences,
confronted it and discovered the especially for Curtis,
causes of the current depression who found release
to be rooted in spiritual rather in intense, brief
than material impoverishment. bursts of butterfly
They registered a profound movement. To
estrangement from their ugly watch him was like
environment and shock at the witnessing the last
callousness of the age. just man accepting the
They were fascinated by that sins of the world as his
which repelled them; their music’s personal burden.
tension often emanated from their The two live sides work
approximating the characteristics as a patchy retrospective,

They juggled brutality with sensitivity,

and horror with simple, appealing melody
of the very things they found despite the fact the synths
oppressive, either in undeniably went horribly awry on most
attractive abstractions of cityscapes of the ‘Closer’ material and
or in superbly drilled militaristic that Ian’s voice is often lost
marches. Unlike the dumb futurists, in the shoddy mix.
past and present, they neither Bearing in mind how
KEVIN CUMMINS/IDOLS

embraced nor glorified the speed quickly an audience grows

of modern life, but presented it as a accustomed to emotional Ian Curtis:
symptom of their malaise. shocks to its ordered grasping after
They wouldn’t shy away from system, expressing such the unattainable

NME ORIGINALS 37
 blast off!

Sometimes pleasure A Manhattan melodrama starring The Birthday Party, by Barney Hoskyns

i
t’s a chill, exposed night in New York The management is not amused. After the intellect to a “raw power”, that original sin which
City. The East Coast has just recovered second song, ‘Zoo-Music Girl’, someone’s Iggy Stooge so rightly perceived as “Laughing at
from a week of torrential rain, and the climbing on the stage and telling them their time you and me…”
winds sweeping up the island’s avenues is up. They thunder into one last, outrageous But the Birthday Party do not suffer from
from Battery Park to the Bronx threaten more. exhibition of carnal mayhem and disappear. delusions of grandeur.
But the show must go on, and at a swanky This little scenario is roughly what The “I mean fuck it,” says Nick Cave, “what we’re
disco in Union Square called the Underground Birthday Party call “a really great gig”. I mean, trying to do is the biggest musical cliché in the
it’s only just beginning. Strutting their stuff to how degenerate can you get? world. It’s just that some people forget the cliché.
English imports like ‘Planet Earth’ and ‘Don’t Say Can you imagine Echo & The Bunnymen trying
That’s Just For White Boys’ are second division In this climate of cold design and concealed to let themselves go?”
preppies and neat executives from Hoboken. despair, The Birthday Party take the concept
They are trying to get their dates drunk. of stage performance about as far as you
The night is flowing by pretty amorphously are likely to see it go. Live, the songs of Nick
when suddenly, at one o’clock, the lights dim and Cave and Rowland Howard are driven to an
the sound dies. Everyone looks round; without emotional edge where pain and pleasure fuse
the disco their plans are ruined. Their faces drop. – in cathartic madness for the performer
Onto the stage are climbing five undesirable and dithyrambic joy for the
aliens. One, festooned in split-crotch gold- audience. Their concerts
lamé drainpipes, his bruised features twitching are feasts of energy, chaotic
through black flames of hair, appears to be the spectacles which break the
singer. Another, strapping on a bass guitar like a surface of art and carry
giant dildo, sports a fishnet vest, a Stetson, and sound and lyric to ultimate
the sort of moustache you might cultivate for violence. The Birthday
hustling some meat on Christopher Street. Party in performance burst
Perhaps most disturbing of all, a kind of through the constrictions of

“Fuck it, what we’re trying to do is the

biggest musical cliché in the world”
gangling, psychotic hillbilly in a ridiculous suit
is fastening on a guitar like he was auditioning
for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
It’s not quite what the management was
expecting. Hell, they haven’t even played a note
and already half the crowd is filing out.
The next moment, all the worst premonitions
are justified. Cranking out of the amps comes
this murderous death-rattle, like the gaze of
Medusa freezing the few foolhardy adventurers
who dare to look. The bass lurches obscenely
into the foray, and finally, his body doubling up
in unholy convulsions, the macilent wreck of a
singer starts to spit and fume…
“AMERICAN HEADS WILL ROLL IN
TEXAS!”
Hmmmm… like what is this? Some turn
away in nervous laughter, the rest suck on
straws and pray it’s over soon.
When the song ends, however, an ugly pause
ensues. Something’s wrong with the guitar.
There’s trouble stirring. Seconds later, there’s
this ashen-faced nut behind the keyboard
shouting into his mic, very loudly but very The Birthday Party:
slowly, again and again and again: Mick Harvey, Nick
“WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU Cave, Phil Calvert,
Tracy Pew and
BASTARDS?. . . WHAT’S THE MATTER
TOM SHEEHAN

Roland S Howard.
WITH YOU BASTARDS? . . . WHAT’S THE Jelly and ice cream
MATTER?…” not pictured

38 NNMMEE OORRIIGGIINNAALLSS
??
 1981

heads must burn

NME, 17 October 1981, p29

He sprawls across the bar, finding his drink. for that soapbox, toilet-roll politico.” anus of culture. Not Del Shannon but Iggy Pop.”
“I think it’s really important to rely on clichés Pew: “Our last two London gigs have been the Cave: “The point is that the creative process
– like Suicide did. Not that it sounds like a cliché. best. Before that the audiences only lost control is not some fucking craft. WE’RE A LIVING
As a matter of fact I think ‘King Ink’ is one of the when they were told to, like Pavlovian dogs.” MUSICAL CLICHE.”
best songs ever written. That song can become so Cave: “Compared to the gigs in Australia,
intense it puts me on another planet, though especially in Sydney, they’re nothing. You The Birthday Party started life as The Boys Next
I don’t think the recorded version is at all good. remember when that girl was slicing me up with Door. “We went through a year in Australia
“The record, as a cultural event, is a very a key, Tracy? In Australia, you really feel you’re playing the most disgusting kind of shit. Like
limited concept. With the cover and everything, turning decent people into monsters. [their 1979 LP] ‘Door, Door’,” Cave recalls.
it can be much more than just the music.” “We’re not setting ourselves up as some “We were a bunch of snivelling little poofs,”
The Birthday Party have come to shake us kind of demonic force, it’s just that things are Pew interjects.
out of our inhibitions. They militate against the more successful when they become blind and So what happened?
sedative boundaries of Pop. unconscious. You feel anything could happen.” Howard stares into his drink for an answer.
Cave: “There’s a real need for an intelligent Is popular music culture an important thing? “It was just a case of natural progression.”
but aggressive group in London. All the Cave: “When the history of rock music is Yeah, like the state of a person’s mind before
treasured groups are just so softcore. written – which, since it’s practically dead, will he drops acid to the trip itself. Tell us another.
At one time there was a real be soon – it’ll just be remembered as a sordid “It’s the honest truth,” he protests, “things just
upsurge of new young groups, interruption of normality.” got a little… wilder, that’s all.”
like The Pop Group before Pew: “Rock will be remembered as the That’s obvious. It was on the 1980 LP ‘The
they sacrificed the music Birthday Party’ that perennial influences such
as the Stooges and Beefheart and more
recent ones like Pere Ubu and The Pop
Group began to coalesce in Cave’s
and Howard’s songwriting. The result
is unique and unmissable.
By this time, the group had been
so inspired by the weird sounds
imported from possible goldmines
abroad they decided it was time to leave.
Their sights naturally settled on England.
Cave clears his throat with an evil grin.
“Coming to London has been one of the most
disillusioning experiences of my life. When we
arrived, we saw this package show at the Lyceum,
with Echo & The Bunnymen, A Certain Ratio,

“Rock will be remembered

as the anus of culture”
The Teardrop Explodes and so forth and…
well, I’ve never been able to take English music
seriously since. It was horrible.”
The Birthday Party arrived in Britain just
as the last, perhaps most intense vestiges of
punk energy were burning themselves out:
the anger, the revolt, the sensuality went into a
coma. Perhaps as a result, The Birthday Party’s
wake-up call has won them the kind of critical
approval whose terms simply don’t apply to the
likes of Spandau Ballet. ‘Release The Bats’, their
“voodoo rockabilly” anthem, saw three weeks
at the top of the alternative singles chart. Their
latest LP, ‘Prayers On Fire’, has been in the indie
LP charts ever since its release. And attendance
at London gigs has been growing all the time.
After the year of “pop”, 1980, The Birthday
Party realised the solution was… TO ATTACK.
So in the words of ‘A Dead Song’:
“HIT IT! WITH WORDS LIKE
“THOU SHALT NOT
“THIS IS THE END”.

NME ORIGINALS 39
 mad eyed screamers

ain’t pretty, but they’re a welcome

antidote to the age of Ultravox.
Colin Irwin

MM, 28 March 1981, p18

THE CURE
Primary
(Fiction) MM, 26 September 1981, p14
This is a triumphant return to The
Cure’s rushing, rhythmic roots THE CREATURES
after the limpid wanderings of the Mad Eyed Screamer/So
‘Seventeen Seconds’ album. Unreal/But Not Them/
Robert Smith has rediscovered Wild Thing/Thumb
the fine-tuning control installed (Polydor)

in his unusual musical sensibility, NME, 4 July 1981, P31 insensitivity by a band who’ve I hear the sound of distant
and as a result ‘Primary’ is overcome my inherent distrust drums… again. The Sandie Shaw
unbearably urgent, matching a BAUHAUS of Australians with a series of of yesterday’s punk, Siouxsie
new-found sense of space with The Passion Of Lovers hugely entertaining interviews. Banshee delivers her usual
brilliantly focussed precision. (Beggars Banquet) Both tracks here wield similar atmospheric vocals over Budgie’s
Smith’s propulsive guitar drone The desperation of losers… characteristics – brutal and bloody lonely percussion.
is punctuated by crashing waves Adrian Thrills amid a volley of drums It’s spread over a double-45
of percussion, and his voice floats and arrogant bravado. soft-porn epic that includes a
yearningly over the top. The Birthday Party are the lame repeat of The Troggs’ finest
It’s oddly like a more tightly kind of boys who bopped the two minutes and ten seconds.
reined U2, and is a far better teacher while the rest of the class Jane Birkin was steamier than this.
pretext for a national holiday than sniggered and played with their Ian Pye
the forthcoming Royal Wedding. geometry sets. They certainly
Adam Sweeting

MM, 25 July 1981, p23

SIOUXSIE &
THE BANSHEES
Arabian Nights
(Polydor)

MM, 23 May 1981, p27 More menacing childhood

memories dredged up and

SIOUXSIE & dressed up in tired old riffs.

Siouxsie sounds disinterested;
THE BANSHEES McGeoch wrenches out the
Spellbound standard guitar atmospherics.
(Polydor) Thin, brittle, forgettable; no push,
For a group that’s accused, no magic; avoid this voodoo.
and rightly so sometimes, of Allan Jones
hiding behind a “pretentious
smokescreen of art”, they don’t MM, 22 August 1981, p12
half make great singles. This is
one of them. Archetypal Siouxsie
vocal, set to a strident, even
THE BIRTHDAY
military feel, that just takes off and PARTY
never lets go. As exhilarating as Blast Off/Release The Bats
Ricky Villa’s winner last Thursday (4AD)
The Creatures:
and you know how great that was. Three-minute horror movie some people will
RETNA

Paulo Hewitt soundtracks of jarring do anything to

get on TV

40 NME ORIGINALS
 Chapter 4
1982
DEREK RIDGERS
Last Year I Was 21…

MM, 27 FEBRUARY 1982, p11

The sisterhood of terror

“From Detroit, pretending to destroy themselves before anybody else could, came Iggy &The Stooges…”
From Leeds, threatening to destroy everybody else in a multi-megaton pre-emptive strike, came
The Sisters Of Mercy. Adam Sweeting has a terrifying experience with an extremely dangerous group
u
nleashed into the no-man’s-land and I think, er, Hunter Thompson, he was
of Vanbrugh College dining room twigging something.”
(c/o York University), The Sisters As Dr Avalanche pumps through the PA
Of Mercy are four men in pursuit like a battery of AK-47s, the bespectacled Ben
of renegade drum machine Dr Gunn cowers behind his guitar at the back
Avalanche. No respecter of anything, of the stage. A slight and tremulous figure,
the doctor careers ahead manically how could he be caught up in this hideous
like a slavering Doberman taking barrage of sound? He won’t tell me, and he
Norman Wisdom for a walk. won’t have his picture taken.
Attached to the mic like it was Next to and in front of him, other guitarist
a failing life-support system is Gary Marx has no such scruples. A burly
Spiggy, alias Andy, a skinny black- figure in boots and thick socks, he storms
clad thing from the corners of the and rages through the songs, flaying chords
night, kept alive by ginger beer. with his hands and crushing the stage with
“These are the finest legs his feet. On bass, the stocky and stalwart Jon
in rock’n’roll,” he boasts later. Langford seems to be in control of his new
“These legs are thinner than any career – he used to drum for The Mekons.
of the Delta 5’s legs. These legs And whatever you do, don’t compare
are the thinnest in Leeds.” The Sisters Of Mercy to Bauhaus.
Spiggy has a high opinion of “We made a tape once and took it down to
himself and his group. “We’re Rough Trade. Geoff Travis gave it one listen,
not a provincial band, we’re it was 18 minutes long, lotsa tracks, tapped
a MAJOR ENTITY. There’s his feet all the way through and turned
no reason we round and said, ‘It’s like Bauhaus.’
should be “You’re continually coming up against
compressed people like that. They work in weird and
into this sort of wonderful ways, their marvels to perform.”
hicks-from-the- Spiggy oozes a sickly sort of charisma,
sticks mentality, which is surprising considering his lank
which is so black hair and specs.
damning. It’s hard “All the people who have asked me for
being a cult band when autographs have been under 16 and female.
you really wanna be immense. It’s amazing, when you go out and play that
There’s no reason we shouldn’t raw sort of thing… it’s not pretty.”

“All the people who’ve asked me for autographs

have been under 16 and female. It’s amazing”
be able to carry on playing more or Through the boiling rage of massed
less like we do at the moment and guitars and mechanik percussion, it’s
be IMMENSE.” possible to discern the odd word that Spiggy
Soon you will be able to is spitting out. Ah yes, “1969…”
purchase a single from the Spig: “It’s the first song off the first Stooges
Sisters called ‘Adrenochrome’, album – the first album being the best,
a double A-side with ‘Body whatever The Birthday Party say.”
Electric’ (sing it!). The Sisters Of Mercy all-time order of
“‘Adrenochrome’ is merit: “There was one great heavy metal
Eldritch, aka
Spiggy: skinny like a theme for the band group and that was the Stooges, and there’s
legs, big fat ego really,” Spiggy reports, only two bands around that can touch them,
“inasmuch as I wake up a and they’re Motorhead and The Birthday
lot of mornings and I look Party. We’re not as good as Motorhead but
TOM SHEEHAN

at the wall, and I’m not sure we’re better than The Birthday Party. That
if it’s the wall or the ceiling, makes us pretty damn good.”
 1982
Nick The Stripper
on stage at the
Venue, London

MM, 27 February 1982, p27

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY/

LYDIA LUNCH
Drunk On The Pope’s Blood/The Agony
Is The Ecstasy
(4AD)

So much mumbo-
jumbo’s been made
of adolescent art, of
pop or rock voicing
the vainglorious
views of each
new generation,
washing the sins
NME, 13 March 1982, p51 of the fathers (and
mothers) from the hands of the
kids, that it’s long been forgotten that the
The Birthday Party The venue, London real truth lies in tantrum.
Most lucrative noise is – and always has
been – made by (non) musicians old enough

T
to know better, but never prepared to admit
hings weren’t looking here rhythm is compressed that he possesses an almost or accept it. It’s not a well-aimed kick against
bright. The Birthday to a disconcerting on-beat intimidating innocence. growing up and its values, but a blind sulk
Party’s bassist, Tracy Pew, is stiffness and vocals to a mere This group is an explosion and shout about already being there. Pop is a
back home doing time on a gutteral rambling. The effect of sensuality and laughter at toddler’s plea for selfish attention, a “me, me,
labour farm, and his temporary is compulsive. Some of the the desensitised mediocrity me, me” not an “I told you so”. It’s mean and
replacement, Barry Adamson, earlier numbers still prove of our lives. They are our new it’s meaningless. And that’s its great beauty.
had only had one rehearsal. troublesome, for there’s no Rolling Stones, but holding The Birthday Party, more than most,
But all fears were promptly doubt that more than one back their profiles in shadow, appreciate the perverse practicality of
allayed by a volley of intense of the group’s arrangements in the penumbra of myth. In making a row. They’re obnoxious, so much so
and hectic songs which reduced outstrip their current musical them jazz races with punk that they piss people off. Not only the clichéd
most of the spectators to capabilities. ‘Zoo-Music Girl’, and rock’n’roll slips on funk, old fuddy-duddies and traditional church
speechlessness. Let us make for example, has grown too a collision of forms whose wardens, but also the hipsters and boffins
certain things clear from the shambolic for its own good. domain is lust suspended in the who fawn and dote over pop flash and fact.
start: The Birthday Party Chaos, however, is The timeless zone of excess – bodily The Birthday Party are awful. Subversively
appal by revelling in the pain Birthday Party’s speciality. exhumation and spiritual awful. Awfully great. Awesomely brilliant.
of artifice – the desperate With the stage in its normal disease. Here Jerry Lee Lewis ‘Drunk On The Pope’s Blood’ is their second
drive of will to emotion state of disarray, bouncers and meets ‘The Modern Dance’, really BAD long-playing record. Recorded
through exhibition. Theirs is a stage-hands scrambling about and sex meets death. live at the Venue, it struggles – in vain
genuinely ritualistic theatre of madly in pursuit of overturned Who else is using words – to capture and/or castrate the ranting
frustration, a farrago of sound microphones and tripped so stridently as a musical confrontation of their stage act. “Get involved
so visceral it can only produce wires, Nick Cave was at his medium of rhetoric? They are … say something!” Nick Cave screams while
gestures of exhaustion and most gloriously irresponsible. the religious conflagration of Beefheart is brutally butchered behind.
despair. Some terrible void at So perfect a parody is he of melos itself. Back beyond basics, this is what punk
the heart of human energy has the rock’n’roll egomaniac Barney Hoskyns ought to be like – angry and futile with
been reached here. nothing to say and barely the words to
On Friday night, the group express it. The critics turn pop into protest
revisited their surreal junkyard because that gives it a comforting logic, an
of forms and images with a aim and direction that renders it open to
higher intoxication than ever. sane comprehension. Sheer bloody-minded
That forlorn and shimmering pointlessness is too mad and too menacing.
ballad ‘She’s Hit’ has taken on The Birthday Party are violently pointless.
added starkness and splendour, That’s why they’re important. Their “16
perfectly brought out on minutes of sheer hell” is all ugly feedback.
this occasion by Adamson’s Unlistenably listenable. Love it to death.
languorous bass. Lydia Lunch’s unpleasant squawking on
Previously unheard were the other side is even more potent. I hate it. It
‘Dead Joe’ and ‘Hamlet’, two neither exasperates nor elevates. It irritates.
PETER ANDERSON

brutal, mythopoeic parables And that, or course, is exactly the point.

Cave: “‘Religious
shorn even of the group’s conflagration of
Ah art! Don’t you just love it?
usual semi-jazz structures: melos’? Moi?” Steve Sutherland

NME ORIGINALS 43
 All We Ever Wanted
NME, 20 March 1982, p24

Bauhaus:
Breaking down the
walls of art-ache
“When we heard that you were going to interview us, we came up with two possibilities:
a) being physical violence, and b) being a reasoned discussion. We decided to plump for the latter,
but this doesn’t mean that the former isn’t in with a ffifi ighting chance…” Victim: Paul Morley
e
xcerpts from a conversation: Number The day’s labourer: “But because of the is received that you go over the top and the idea
Two – weak knees anticipate the kiss? system that you operate within, a withdrawal or gets smothered by incidentals.”
Murphy: “…by intending to provoke a vagueness tends to suggest that you’re merely Jay: “No… it’s just there’s a belief in the idea
us, maybe a reaction you’ll get will be one of trying to create a mystique, an enigma.” that we have, a passionate belief, it really is…”
absolute anger and hurt.” Murphy: “It’s not that… if we’re going to Ash: “Also, when we’re on stage, our feelings
Jay: “You could have got your head kicked in try and label our work, which a lot of the time are concentrated into one hour… it’s all
if we were Killing Joke.” comes from our subconscious, it will be a wrong intensified and enlarged. It’s all going into one
The day’s labourer: “I’ve been through this labelling. What we might say about one aspect hour, not one week or one lifetime. It’s all got to
one (a similar situation) with Killing Joke.” of what we do might be totally wrong because… be condensed and so you put everything into it.”
Murphy: “I know…” we are not really sure ourselves. A lot of what
Jay: “The initial reaction when we read your I do is totally spontaneous. It comes from my Additional remarks: One – one little streak of
review and then heard that you were going to emotions and, uh, how can you…” grey that matched the wall.
interview us, we though how we were going to Jay: “We believe in the beauty of an idea, Bauhaus are recording some new music at
approach it. We came up with two possibilities: without grinding it into the ground. If Morgan Studios in North London. The group
a) being physical violence, and b) being a something is working, no matter how simple it are sat close together when I arrive, collected
reasoned discussion. We decided to plump for is, we try and maintain it without elaborating around a small mixing desk. They’re almost
the latter, but this doesn’t mean that the former upon it. That’s really important to us.” holding hands. And I am completely ignored.
isn’t in with a fighting chance…” Ash: We think that a lot of the best ideas are I am dirt the wind’s blown in. They don’t care
the simple ones.” for me! It’s not surprising.
Excerpts from a conversation: Number Three Jay: “That’s nearly always the case. If Recently I reviewed their live show – which
– sex times technology equals the future. something is overworked it will show.” they say is an extreme but vigorously valid
Murphy: “I’ve always thought that as far as The day’s labourer: “But your stage integration of the very anxious stuff they’re
Bauhaus were concerned what we have to say or presentation does seem to be overworked.” about – and implied that at the core of their
theorise about what we do isn’t important. Ash: “We feel that if the stage is there, why entertainment lay a lump of shit. I suggested
“The actual act of listening to the music is just stand on it and play… you might as well that their heart was made up of sick.
the be-all and end-all of what we’re about. We put a record on. You are there to entertain to a In the little studio my presence is fi nally
don’t really want to analyse it all tightly acknowledged.
the time, we don’t want to have to
speak about it. We do it…” I implied that at the core of The studio is probably well
heated, but it’s very cold.
The day’s labourer: “Aren’t
individual interpretations from
within the group an important
Bauhaus lay a lump of shit “When you came in,” singer Pete
Murphy shudders later, “it was a
real sick feeling… it was horrible…”
thing, especially having made the decision to certain degree. I have the feeling that you think Who would have thought that a collection
accept the interview situation?” that it is all really worked out, but it isn’t. It’s of words, a pile of images, teased together and
Murphy: “One thing I find really boring is totally spontaneous.” presented in such a trivialised context could
when an artist talks about his work in a really The day’s labourer: “I detected an over- cause such antipathy: but then half a wink in the
over-the-top way. It just really spoils it for me. compensation… you have a particular idea or wrong place can cause murder.
If you like something, it’s there…” image and you’re so eager to make sure that it We move to the studio bar. I try to be

44 NME ORIGINALS
 1982

Bauhaus: (l to r)
Kevin Haskins,
Daniel Ash, Peter
Murphy, David Jay

friendly; they’re content to stay blank. They Excerpts from a conversation: Number Six – there was a certain amount of return. We felt
make it very clear that I have bruised them. let us be friends even if we can’t hold hands. we were putting a lot into things like a job and
All I wanted to do was blast away the sheets of The day’s labourer: “I have a very apathetic getting nothing out of it…”
vagueness that have covered Bauhaus. view of Bauhaus – the dark side of the damp Ash: “I think initially we were fighting for
I turn on my tape recorder. They turn on patch. Do you pay attention to all sorts of something better than the mundane… it’s also
theirs. The conversation will be recorded by two things, messy things and nice things?” to do with gaining respect…”
cassettes. This is serious: it’s surprising. This is Ash: “It’s all in there… it’s just that we seem The day’s labourer: “From who?”
desperate: it’s terrific. to get picked up on the dark things…” Ash: “From people around you. You want to
Drummer Kevin Haskins is prepared to Jay: “It’s not as though we have a whole set make a statement saying, ‘I am worthwhile, I am
thump me: he’s so quiet that at one point of ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’. I think that record has necessary, I’ve got something to do…’ It’s about
Murphy asks him if he’s alright. His brother, cast a backward shadow over everything and it’s saying that you are worthwhile as a person…”
bass player David Jay, consistently looks at me as been hard to move out into the sun.” Murphy: “You’re gaining self-respect as
if to say who is this puddle of drabness and how well… and everybody has potential… everyone’s
FIN COSTELLO/REDFERNS

dare he come along and question our radiance? Excerpts from a conversation: Number Eight wonderful… this is really idealistic… oh shit…
Guitarist Daniel Ash is as reasonable as I am. – creative activity can undoubtedly act as a but…we should all search for ourselves, learn
To Bauhaus I am just another pop journalist. defence against all kinds of threat. to love yourself before you can love others. You


I am just a day’s labourer. Jay: “We all wanted to do something where have to go through shit. Or life…”

NME ORIGINALS 45
 Happy Hunting Ground

Excerpts from a conversation: Number Ten
– what young man is by nature diligent, sober
and regular in his habits?
The day’s labourer: “Was the initial impetus
to escape Northampton? Did you want to be pop
stars or were there greater intentions involved?”
Jay: “Not greater intentions, but not pop stars
either…”
Murphy: “No, but that is part of it. For me…
a part of it, not all of it…”
The day’s labourer: “And that part fits into
the whole?”
Murphy: “No, nothing fits in… it is… I’m not
Bauhaus, he’s not, he’s not, he’s not…” Shivers down
Ash: “It’s always been and always will be your spine:
Bauhaus live
four very disparate views and attitudes… it’s
a mental chicane: all the ideas colliding and
meeting in the middle…”
Murphy: “I think we really respect each
other… well, I hope so. It’s like a real love
relationship… I really miss them when I’m
“Our guitarist is an accident victim.
away from them… It was my first experience
of creating something and when you live with
them on tour and work with them it really
I’m a weed. Our singer is A Mouth”
brings you together, it really brings you close.” Jay: “That is exactly what we think…” powerful – only a certain amount of people are
Jay: “But it’s not all love and peace…” Haskins: “Right from the very start we’ve going to draw from it, and accept it, because
Murphy: “But neither’s marriage, dear… you hated that label of being underground. If you you can’t force anything down people’s throats.
and Ann can’t love each other and be smiling at listen to our singles, any of them could be You only have a certain amount of strength to
each other all the time…” potential hits… we were really pissed off that make a statement. It’s not that potent because it
Jay: “I’m not saying that… I’m trying to give they weren’t hits, any of them. doesn’t last for long and there are hundreds of
a clear view of the situation… there’s a lot of “We want to go on Top Of The Pops. A lot of other groups.”
friction there. It’s central to the whole thing…” people do take it for granted that we wouldn’t The day’s labourer: “So can Bauhaus claim to
The day’s labourer: “How would you describe go on but they couldn’t be more wrong. You can have any distinctive value?”
the four inputs that knot together?” reach more people through that programme Ash: “It is a distinctive value but only to a
Jay: “Our guitarist is an accident victim, I’m than you would doing three or four tours, it certain amount of people. We can’t do anything
a weed, our drummer is a plain Ron and our would be absolutely ridiculous not to…” about that, because people are only going to
singer is A Mouth…” Jay: “In a way it’s to our advantage that it’s draw on something that they want, that they
The day’s labourer: “What is ‘the truth’?” taken this long for us to break through because relate to. Obviously we don’t think that we’re
Jay: “Ah…” now we’re…” just another band lost among hundreds.”
Murphy: “…more determined.”
Excerpts from a conversation: Number 15 – why Ash: “If we’d suddenly catapulted into view Excerpts from a conversation: Number 21 –
are you wasting your time with snowmen when with the second single I think we’d all be drug and then we kissed goodbye.
the basement needs cleaning? addicts by now…” The day’s labourer: “Do you envisage a
Haskins: “…if someone is working in a situation where Bauhaus doesn’t exist?”
factory and they have Radio 1 on… if we came Excerpts from a conversation: Number 13 – Ash: “Well, Bauhaus won’t exist for ever…
on it would make them stop for a moment.” how much applause, after all, has God got for it might not exist next week. It might exist for
Ash: “Oh, I very much doubt it… Pop music his troubles over the years? another five years… you can’t say… We have
is for young people, and they’re pretty mixed The day’s labourer: “Have Bauhaus always other interests. But we seem to be climbing the
up anyway… I’m categorising, putting people been aware of how they could use certain ladder slowly, so we continue…”
in boxes, but it’s like when they get to their aspects of the group, such as Murphy as
thirtieth year they won’t be listening to pop conventional frontman, to attain commercial Additional remarks: Two – do not think I
music, or pop music won’t be influencing their success or has this developed recently?” underestimate your great concern.
lifestyle even if they are listening to it. It will be Ash: “There are various vehicles to be used.” The interview has been tidied, arranged and
part of their past. Murphy: “Although the live show is an honest edited. It fails to evoke the Bauhaus art-ache:
“What I’m trying to say is that pop music isn’t representation of our music, we’re also aware sex or nightmare. It fails because I do not enjoy
really that important, because it only affects of how it will draw people to come and see us their music and so placed a continual emphasis
people when they’re mixed up and young…” because of our reputation as a really good live on pressurising the members to justify their
Murphy: “That’s like one sad fact…” band. And then they might find out about us…” existence and examine their work, and because
Ash: “It’s not necessarily sad…” The day’s labourer: “And once people become the group are reluctant to explain their work.
Murphy: “That space which you can achieve, aware of you and you’re no longer underground, Perhaps Bauhaus are healthy. Perhaps they
it’s potentially a really valuable vehicle and if is that the achievement: Bauhaus become part of are healing people. I wouldn’t like to say. I am
you can, if you use that space, and if you’re able their day, along with the food, the commercials, only the day’s labourer. I get merely a bland,
to enlighten… that is amazing, you’re asking for the radio?” unsensational impression of a group who are
the world, you’re asking for a saviour…” Murphy: “Not their day… once a month…” committed, idealistic and questioning… it’s
The day’s labourer: “I know an avid fan of The day’s labourer: “But is that all you can still very cold… and I can’t wait to see them
the group whose attitude is, ‘Oh they’ll never expect –to make an occasional interruption?” on Top Of The Pops.
be on Top Of The Pops, they’re not that sort of Ash: “I think as far as music is concerned
group,’ yet I feel it can be the only logical, useful that is all you can expect. That’s as powerful Excerpts from a conversation: Number 17 –
SANTOS BASONE/LFI

conclusion for a group like Bauhaus. They have as it can be. For example, PiL, their stuff is the difficult bit to grasp.
got to be in that space, as a cult they’re surely very intimidating, it’s very strong, but it does Ash: “It all boils down to getting that shiver
wasting their time.” make an impact to a certain degree. It isn’t that down your spine.”

46 NME ORIGINALS
 NME, 1 May 1982, p52

Southern Death Cult/

Sex Gang Children
The Clarendon, London

A
ndi Hayward fronts Sex may invoke perverse and braves and how! Southern
Gang Children with a paedophilic images, but they Death Cult come to sacrifice a
pretension to angst that fail to live up to their name. prepared audience. The band
would shake Pete Murphy. This There is no overt or even subtle enter and the war paint daubs
pained face, painted white, sexuality. They are sterile and the fans with fire. Ian is more
fails to convey a warrior than Adam
the feelings so
protractedly
projected – he
This is Crazy Horse coaxing ever was – pushing
the primitive drums,
encouraging the tribal
strikes you as a
howling Marcel
the faithful into his war dance
Marceau lost for words and uncoordinated – warm where
war of sound.
They cross the plain
between Theatre Of Hate’s
NME, 8 May 1982, p31

signalling rejection. This is a they should burn, tepid where energy and the dark, percussive
Sex Gang Child. they should freeze. dance of Joy Division. Strict THE CURE
The name of the band Movement from graves to co-ordination is their essence Pornography
and their strength. (Fiction)

Lyrically the songs vary It won’t improve your

from the polemic ‘Moya’ social life or relieve
to the rampant chant you of your load, and
of ‘Fatman’. The band this music provides
are not great creators or an antidote to
innovators – they are a nothing much at all,
four-piece with all the though it may clear out your
restrictions that implies system. But what ‘Pornography’ does show
– but they are savage, and is that The Cure do have a certain flair for
they blow fresh with that identifying symptoms.
same Western breeze This record portrays and parades its
that whistles through currency of exposed futility and naked fear
‘Westworld’ or ‘Your with so few distractions or adornments, and
Cassette Pet’. so little sense of shame. It really piles it on.
The followers know The Cure have collected the very purest
the signs and read the feelings endemic to their age, and held them
signals, all a perversion right on the spot in their most unpleasantly
of Indian pride, in real form. Here is an album written from
songs like ‘Vivisection’ the knife-edge of despair, and as a piece of
and ‘Today’. All this craftsmanship in expressive sound, it is a
is enhanced by the very big, very harrowing achievement.
shaman-like qualities The drums, guitars, voice and production
of the singer, wearing style are pressed scrupulously together
full war paint; this is in a murderous unity of surging, textured
Crazy Horse coaxing mood. We are better off not picking about
the faithful into his at particular parts of the whole: too close a
war dance. look at the poetic permutations on the lyric
The tribal factor sheet, taken with the occasionally irksome
has been exploited whine of Robert Smith, and he and his
before, but only in a friends can quickly become the tiresomely
fashionable sense – all self-analytical young ‘sensitives’ I’ve always
suede, World’s End feared The Cure might be.
and Kings Road. This ‘Pornography’ was not designed to be
is REAL – Northern probed, but taken en bloc as a dense wash
heart and soul. When of emotional colour, portraying one soul on
Southern Death Cult a leash, fighting the panic in the dark. And,
charge London again as such, it really works. The confessional
it will be for scalps and returns, fragile, frightened, horribly forlorn,
KEVIN CUMMINS/LFI

for the happy hunting and very finely drawn. A killer of its kind.
ground. Don’t have too much fun, now.
Ian Astbury: David Dorrell Dave Hill
a man called
Hoarse
NME ORIGINALS 47
 Raise The Teutonic

The Birthday Party

throw good taste of, their flawed but furious NME, 23 October 1982, p30
and decency on debut, ‘Prayers On Fire’, but
the barbie. Again it also signals the end of a
phase, maybe even the end BAUHAUS
of the band. “Welcome to the The Sky’s Gone Out
car crash/You can’t tell the boys (Beggars Banquet)

from the girls”, can deservedly ‘Dark Entries’ was a wonderful single
claim a premium place in this – a shuddering, wired monolith
hack’s hierarchy of tasteless of implacable ill-intent. Since
punter-baiting, but to what then Bauhaus have consistently
end and at what cost? disappointed, and this half-studio,
‘Prayers’ was a genuine half-live double album does nothing
shock, a flaunting arrogance, to change my view.
a flick-knife slash and a boot Bauhaus’ undeserved popularity
in the groin of last year’s demonstrates rock’s time-hallowed
short-lived trends. ‘Junkyard’ need for Princes of Darkness,
finds the Party but razor-sharp
comfortably cheekbones and a
assimilated into the style that went down
scene as welcomed, with the Teutonic
accomplished does not entitle
shock-rockers; them to the Stones’
a species to be (or Doors’, Velvets’,
studied but no Stooges’…) satanic
longer a startling raiment.
experience. Their fundamental
We’ve outlived fault is the simple-
their aggressively one- minded equation of a lurid,
dimensional examination melodramatic narcissism with
of the atrocious potential of the elegant trappings of terminal
language and sound; we’ve weltschmertz. Pete Murphy comes
moved on while they flounder across like David Bowie imitating
in a seemingly inescapable rut, Jacques Brel declaiming a pastiche
merely shifting the emphasis of Lautréamont backed by the
from the soggy bass mix of early Banshees. As silly as that.
‘Prayers’ to the arid guitar What Bauhaus believe to exude
scratch of ‘Junkyard’. the alluring scent of the forbidden,
Don’t get me wrong: merely stinks of flatulent rhetoric.
But the band that made ‘Dark
Entries’ and romped with such brio
through that camp impersonation
of ‘Ziggy Stardust’ can’t be all bad.
MM, 10 July 1982, p16 ‘The Three Shadows’ and ‘All We
Ever Wanted Was Everything’ faintly
evoke the sinister musical-box of
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY Lou Reed’s ‘Berlin’ or even Bowie’s
Junkyard ‘Kooks’. ‘Exquisite Corpse’ concludes
(4AD) the studio album as Bauhaus’
Three months ago, I’d have given resounding riposte to ‘A Day In The
you this: ‘Junkyard’ is brilliant; Life’, though not half so frightening.
an essential, abrasive album, Side One is more turgid, starting
something to sort out once and for live confrontations, can’t disguise a lyrically, musically, monotonously, with a crude version of Eno’s ‘Third
all the malcontents from the chart- formula struggling and strangled at magnificently, ‘Junkyard’ spews Uncle’, but it recovers on the last two
mesmerised morons. the end of its tether. all over anything you’ll have heard numbers, ‘Swing The Heartache’
Now I’m not so sure. Great rock or pop should act as all year. A harrowing pantomime and ‘Spirit’. The latter sings the
Living with The a springboard, a jolt of the preposterous power of pop, praises of Bauhaus’ communion
Birthday Party is much for your adrenalin, it maliciously delights in exposing with their audience of worshippers.
like living with pain – you a catalyst for your self-inflicted wounds and fertilising It’s set to one of those pounding
numb to the hurt with emotions, a trigger them with gangrenous germs. A anthems of the sort popularised by
the passing of time. for your reflexes skirmish with ‘Big Jesus Trashcan’ the late, lamented Skids. Curious.
Not to say Nick Cave’s to run ruinously should suitably offend. The live set, titled ‘Press The Eject
grotesque parody of apeshit. ‘Junkyard’ But such wanton offence can And Give Me The Tape’, is a brutally
a rock’n’roll messiah finds The Birthday only command brief attention and proficient run-through of their
doesn’t stink as bad Party foreclosing recorded revulsion soon subsides greatest hits, including John Cale’s
as it always did, it’s on interpretation to neglect. Uneasy listening is no ‘Rose Garden Funeral Of Sores’, a
just that a skeletal and demanding longer enough. Almost ironically, rather Blacker Mass than any of their
production and the most cruelly attention like the spoiled brats they this party’s been fun. Pity now it’s own songs. But the album ends on
callous of lyrics liberally battered mercilessly seek to dismember. over. There’ll never be such garbage a cheerful note with ‘Dark Entries’
DAVID CORIO

by primeval grunts can’t hope to ‘Junkyard’ is, without doubt, an in Honey’s sack again. – which is where I came in.
emulate the theatre of the brutal improvement on, and extension Steve Sutherland Mat Snow

48 NME ORIGINALS
 1982

People in A Glass’Haus
Steve Sutherland (Christian) faces up to Bauhaus (Lions) MM, 30 October 1982, p24

a t a pre-arranged whisper and nod from

the wings, Bauhaus’ bassist David Jay cut
the hack stone dead. “There’s very little
spontaneous about Bau…” the hack had been
the bassist staged an animatedly agitated exit,
followed, rather sheepishly, by the rest of the
band. The hack, somewhat stupidly, stood his
ground, dismayed but barely rattled, and waited
In the 4 July 1981 issue of Melody Maker, the
hack had published his conclusions on a weekend
spent on tour with Bauhaus. The piece was
presented as “Anarchy in Aylesbury” and sub-
babbling when David smartly cut in… for the barracking and hailing glasses to cease titled “Steve Sutherland travels in the shadow of
“That’s a load of shit! We’d thought of this before attempting to vindicate the idea of an Bowie with Bauhaus” – nothing new, nothing
literally hours ago so surely that indicates an interview. His efforts were largely lost in catcalls, startlingly original, the article merely sounded
amount of spontaneity. This is all part of it encouraged by Jay’s sarcastic final comment: out opinions already widely expressed by others
anyway. The whole point of this is to show “The journalist always has the last word!” and subsequently echoed many times.
that an interview situation, far from being a “Strange,” thought the hack, swollen with The band had baulked at every word,
comfortable, informative gathering, is totally pride, “that this sentence of prophetic spleen contested every connotation and yet, 14 months
absurd and bizarre so, to put it on stage in front should amount to the only sensible comment later, they seemed to be conceding an odd about-
of an audience, simplifies the abstract nature of that Bauhaus had mustered all evening!” face, putting ‘Ziggy Stardust’ back in the charts.
an interview and, therefore, shows it for what it The hack was intrigued; hadn’t the band
really is… a load of old balls!” Just how the hack found himself on stage at the already publicly chastised his assertions on stage?
(Somewhere, high in the auditorium, the spirit Lyceum and subsequently engaged in a heart- Were Bauhaus perpetrating some perverse con or
of Sir Robin Day guffaws: “If you believe that you’ll to-heart with a band he hoped he’d washed his had they simply gone stark, staring bonkers?
believe anything!”) hands of forever is a rather protracted tale, but The hack decided to check for himself and
TOM SHEEHAN

Satisfied that the tumultuous whooping and one that’s vital to grasp if any sense at all is to be after a phone call to their press officer, Chris

wailing signalled sort of psychological victory, made of this extraordinary encounter. ‘King’ Carr, was informed that Bauhaus would

NME ORIGINALS 49
 Hack In The Spotlight

grant him audience on their own terms about imitation… we’re about humour… um…
– which involved two separate rooms in their DEATH, BLACKNESS… But you’ve been very
native Northampton and an interview conducted brave to accept this offer and we appreciate that.”
over video. Sounded silly but a cracking good Hack: “Why? I see an interview as a situation
story, so the hack unconditionally agreed. where, if you want to read about somebody and
Unfortunately fame, fortune and Top Of The what they think about what they’re doing, it can
Pops put the kibosh on the whole idea as the be quite a revealing thing.”
band were due to mime their hit for the cameras PM: “Well, the fact is, you were on tour in our
the day the interview was supposed to take place. van, under our hospitality, hiding under a cloak
Suddenly Bauhaus were overnight big shots of friendliness and amiability and yet, when
and the liaison was scheduled and rescheduled the article came out, you absolutely turned and
according to their every passing whim. showed yourself to be a very cynical, hypocritical
Eventually it was mooted that the hack should person. It was a very dirty trick to do.”
meet the band between their soundcheck and Hack: “You haven’t answered my question.”
their gig at the Lyceum. Then, in a bewildering Daniel Ash: “Why did we put out ‘Ziggy
flurry of late evening phone calls, King Carr Stardust’? Well, we’ve been tapping away at the
informed the hack that he was “being set up”. door of acceptability and it just seemed that the
Seems the band thought the hack should be door needed a fuckin’ good kick so we kicked it
brought to the Lyceum where, without prior out. Once inside the room we shall attempt to
warning, he would be bundled onto the stage to follow up with original compositions.”
Media circus:

“I don’t think anyone else could do a cover version of ‘Ziggy Melody Maker’s
Steve Sutherland
(centre) on stage

Stardust’ like we’ve done it. It’s so dangerous… so on edge”. with Bauhaus at the
Lyceum, London

conduct the interview in front of the audience, Hack: “So what you’re saying
in place of a pulled-out support act. The hack, is you took the easy way out?”
again, agreed but when King Carr informed PM: “No! I don’t think
the band their scheme had been rumbled, they anyone else could do a cover
“ummed and aahed” for 24 hours, finally giving version of ‘Ziggy’ like we’ve
the go-ahead hours before the event. done it. It’s so dangerous…
(The spirit of Robin Day whispers in the hack’s so on edge…”
ear: “THAT indicates an amount of spontaneity? DA: “And we know the
Tell us another!”) chords!”
And so the stage was set: five microphones and Hack: “OK, it was a brave
a table with glasses of water, all in an elaborate song to tackle, but what have
attempt on the band’s behalf to belittle the hack, you brought to it that wasn’t
conduct the conversation in front of witnesses so there already?”
the little rat couldn’t wilfully misinterpret their PM: “We’ve reincarnated it,
words and to prove, through their theatrical we haven’t attempted to make
mock-up, that all interviews are worthless. it any different. The original
The hack, for his part, was determined to get version was excellent, no way
a good story, to escape the proceedings with life, could we rearrange it. We’ve put our heart into it uses stark, crude images in a dilettante way
limb and self-respect intact, to belittle Bauhaus that song because it’s part of our past, part of our with a little bit of reggae, a little Bowie, a little bit
as Bowie plagiarists and to show that it was interest when we were young. The way we did it of Eno… I mean, who are you and what are you
only an interview situation with Bauhaus that is on Top Of The Pops was also very humorous.” saying? At the end you’re left feeling as empty as
“totally absurd and bizarre”. Hack: “OK, but as I’ve been cast as the cynic, you started…”
The following events and conversations are it seems to me you’ve been releasing a string of DA: “That’s up to the individual.”
documented, as far as space allows, as near as singles which weren’t getting anywhere and so Hack: “That’s a cop-out. What did you want
possible the way they occurred. Any additional you used ‘Ziggy’ to get there.” it to do?
comments – the hack’s own home crowd if you PM: “We did a string of singles which should DA: “Making that album, we had a lot of fun.”
like – are attributed to the spirit of Robin Day. have got somewhere but never did.” Hack: “Everybody says that.”
Those who want the grist without the gripes are Hack: “Everybody says that.” (Spirit: “There ensues an embarrassing series of
therefore advised to ignore his asides. PM: “But we’re different!” squabbles concerning the value of entertainment,
Hack: “OK, lets talk about the new album, captive audiences and references to Des O’Connor,
The Hack: “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. ‘The Sky’s Gone Out’. Isn’t making it a double the hack fielding platitudes, left, right and centre,
I’m Steve from Melody Maker and this is package with an album of old live numbers the hurling them back in at the wicket. Sad to see
Bauhaus, otherwise known as Ziggy Stardust oldest marketing ploy in the business?” a band so sensitive that they resort to the oldest
And The Spiders From Mars. I’m here because David Jay: “Fuck off!” trick in the book, adopting superior, sarcastic
I’ve written stuff about Bauhaus that hasn’t PM: “Of course… we want people to hear our detachment and patronising benevolence as if, in
pleased them, so maybe the first thing we should music.” humiliating one hack, they repudiate all criticism.)
take up is that I accused you of being second-rate Hack: “But what has it achieved that hasn’t Hack (some time later): “What’s the point in
Bowie copyists, which you denied – and yet here’s been achieved before?” being in Bauhaus?”
‘Ziggy Stardust’. What do you think of that?” PM: “It’s up to the audience to interpret it PM: “What d’you mean, what’s the point?
Peter Murphy: “We’re very angry and very in whatever way you want. We feel there’s a We’re excellent and that’s it. We’re a sparkling
pleased as well. This is a really good occasion progression there. Full stop.” cell of activity, we’re really enjoying our work.”
to get him back. In effect it’s changing the Hack: “Progression’s a very easy word to use. Hack: “Why won’t you answer my questions?
whole interview situation into something else; From what I’ve heard, the new album sounds Why are you putting forward all this bullshit?”
it’s using it as performance, something very much the same as your others – melodramatic PM: “What do you mean, not answering your
dangerous, which is what we’re about – nothing but pretty empty. It doesn’t seem to say anything, questions? You’re putting out all these comments

50 NME ORIGINALS
 1983

they frightened me silly and now, after burying

them for years because they’re too painful to
remember, they come out and I write about it.
“It’s like tapping the subconscious, which is
something Bauhaus is very interested in doing.
It’s not giving answers, it’s almost asking,
expressing the pus. I mean the fish symbol was
the original Christian symbol; it wasn’t supposed
to be shocking, it was just an image I used…”
Hack: “That’s exactly why an interview is so
valuable with a band like you. Who would have
guessed in a million years that’s what the fish
image meant? See, I’m prepared to believe you’ve
got something to say, but I still think you’re so
off the mark you go beyond communicating
badly to not communicating at all.”
PM: “Well I’d admit there’s a lot of mask
there. I’ve still got these inhibitions and if I
express them literally… I think I’m afraid of the
comeback from my family or whatever. But I can
read those lyrics like an objective reader and,
although they’re very blacked with mystique and
obscurity, I still find them interesting.”
Hack: “But aren’t they dangerous? You
unleash an awful lot of energy
– live, if not on record – but
so few of your implications
get through that you excite
people, get ’em up, make ’em
angry and what do they do?
Punch each other! I call that
irresponsible…”
DA: “Music of any
particular type, of 1982, can
“You deal in Hammer horrorisms. I mean only reflect the times, how
people think – it doesn’t
lyrics about fishes’ piss – Jesus Christ!”
and opinions which are totally wrong. Why and made them dress
actually say ‘do this, do that’.
Music is only a reflection and
that’s what we are.”
should we bother to argue with them? You’re so a bit differently… so PM: “My view is that
negative, so uninterested in what we’re doing, what?” you should never attempt
you’re not really attempting to understand…” DA: “I get your to be a philosopher until
Hack: “Well shouldn’t you, in that case, be point now totally, you’ve reached a point of
thinking about the way you communicate to but what the hell are “That journalist is understanding. Until that
people if I’ve so obviously missed the point?” you supposed to do? interrupting my point you’re questioning and
PM: “You’re one of the people who shouldn’t Change the world?” meditation. Slay whether people understand
listen to us. Why should you even interview us?” Hack: “No… but him, my pretties” that… that’s the only thing
we can try!” I can do. There’s so much I
Moments later they’d stormed off stage. The DA: “Well we’re haven’t learned yet…”
hack, head reeling, heart thumping, joined them not. We’re not trying to change the world at all, Hack: “But your fans see you as an idol!”
in their dressing room. we’re trying to open people’s minds. We aren’t PM: “That’s a sad result of human need; like
Hack: “Very nicely rehearsed spontaneous interested in politics or political parties because someone to enact one’s fantasies, to take them to
walkout! Very John Lydon 1977! Now that they’re all a fuckin’ waste of time. the edge and experience the edge for them.”
charade’s over, when do I get the real interview?” “I think you can open people’s minds DA: “All we can do is be honest with ourselves.
DJ: “That was it! That’s all!” on a personal level… it’s not about telling If we started considering if what we do was
David storms out and doesn’t return for about other people what to do, it’s about suggesting gonna upset somebody or have an adverse effect,
half an hour. Later he declines to stay for a photo something and it’s up to them to take what they then we wouldn’t be able to do anything. I think
session and leaves after the show. want from the music.” it’s very unfortunate if the public – like you say
Hack: “Surely he doesn’t believe the sham out Hack: “But I don’t think you suggest or open they do – take what we say as gospel. I would
there was serious. Come on! You can’t just leave up anything. The area you delve in is so small never have imagined that to be the case!”
it like that!” and morbid. It’s easy doom for a doomy time. (Spirit: “The hack disappeared to lubricate
DA: “OK. The idea of doing ‘Ziggy Stardust’ You may see humour in it, but I don’t. What you shattered nerves, Bauhaus prepared to dress ‘down’
was partly a reaction to people like you who deal in is Hammer horrorisms. I mean lyrics for the show and I’m left here to have the last say. It
were slagging us off as Bowie rip-offs. It’s like about fishes’ piss – Jesus Christ!” seems Bauhaus may know what they’re on about,
a statement that we’re not ashamed of: liking PM: “Shall I dissect that lyric? It’s not but the fans who think they’re peddling solutions
David Bowie. Instead of running away from it Hammer horror. It’s tapping my own experience and the foes who take them for trumped-up tarts
we’re admiring the guy. Full stop.” of – here we go again – the religious suppression just aren’t catching the clues. Worshipped for almost
Hack: “But I find the whole idea of ‘Ziggy’ so of a lot of people. It’s like a mirror of the reaction all the wrong reasons, Bauhaus’ poor handling of
pathetic because it doesn’t say anything – it just I experienced to the absurd images that my the Lyceum fiasco proved they aren’t up to putting
creates myths for people to escape into. OK, so teachers, for instance, put into me. I was very their plans into practice. For fans, band and hack
Bowie made a few people dress up, moved on impressionable at the time, very young and alike, it must have seemed like a kick in the eye.)

NME ORIGINALS 51
 Let’s Go To Bed

And then there

were two: Lol
Tolhurst and
Robert Smith

incurables The
the people. I mean, people like Culture Club
MM, 18 December 1982, p18 do, but we were trying to reach beyond that
façade, beyond current fashion to actually do

Have The Cure split? Is Robert Smith joining the Banshees? something that was gonna last.”

What virtues
Does anybody care? Steve Sutherland investigates music exhibit?
and values should such lasting

“I can’t say… it’s impossible to verbalise.

w
hatever happened to The Cure? Part- The Bunnymen… there’s very few, but I think Everything we’ve done has been instinctive.
time Banshee Robert Smith sits in the they’ve kept a sort of intensity. You never – well, hardly ever – have pure
lounge of the Kensington Hilton, sips “That’s what I was always striving for insight. There’s really no answers or solutions.”
his ice-cool Perrier and worries whether it’s time with The Cure, but there were far too many That’s a cop-out. Your music is presented in
to write his baby’s obituary. things working against it really; things of such a manner as to suggest significance.
“Do The Cure really exist any more? I’ve our own making like anti-image and all that “But the first line on ‘Pornography’ is ‘It
been pondering that question myself. See, as I rubbish. That was probably a big mistake, not doesn’t matter if we all die’. There could be
wrote 90 per cent of the ‘Pornography’ album, establishing ourselves as personalities earlier.” nothing more throwaway than that. To me,
I couldn’t really leave because it wouldn’t have The Cure always seemed to me to promote that’s a really funny line…”
been The Cure without me. a woolly, unvaried
“But it has got to a point where I really don’t
fancy working in that format again. People
imprecision, refusing to
entertain any conclusions. “‘It doesn’t matter if we all die’.
keep saying, ‘You mustn’t break up, because it’s
become like an institution’ – that almost gives
me an incentive to pack it in anyway. I think
“That was through
apathy more than anything
else. As long as I would have
To me, that’s a really funny line”
it’s really awful seeing bands just disintegrate bought stuff that we were producing, then that Or a really pretentious one…
slowly in a stupid way, don’t you? was reason enough for releasing the records. “No, it’s not pretentious – I really think that!
“Whatever happens, it won’t be me, Laurence “There was never any idea of covering a I’m as convinced by arguments for the end
and Simon together any more. I know that.” certain section of the market or broadening out of the world as I am for saving whales – it’s a
I wonder if you ever did have any idea what and appealing to more people. I’ve never been a completely theoretical area. If I saw someone
The Cure were doing? public face, I wouldn’t ever dare to presume that jumping on a baby, I’d probably go over the try
“I don’t know. It’s impossible to articulate people hold me up a some kind of figure and, to stop them but, at the same time, I can sit here
really. It sounds really horrible but it’s more if they did, they’d be really stupid because I’m and glibly say that it doesn’t matter if we all die.
than words and music. I’ve always aspired to much too horrible to be a model for anybody. “It’s not sixth-form angst or immaturity. It’s
TOM SHEEHAN

be like certain bands who affected me: Joy “You can’t gear your life around presenting a paradox in that what we were doing, to most
Division, New Order, the Banshees, Echo & yourself as something to be consumed by people, seemed really doomy and depressing and

52 NME ORIGINALS
 1982

yet, as a band, we were almost absurdly happy. recorded by Robert and Laurence Tolhurst as What about as far as the Banshees are
“I’ve never really considered that I’ve had a disco experiment. Laurence has packed in concerned?
anything of importance to say on record and drumming and is learning keyboards; Simon “I don’t know, we haven’t really discussed
yet we get hundreds of letters from people who Gallup has formed his own band and Robert has it that much. I thought it would be very
are very concerned about what we’ve done; it’s recorded a “pop” single with Steve Severin. presumptuous to say something like that
almost been like a soundtrack to their crises.” Meanwhile, the guitarist relaxes on tour with but… well, once a Banshee, always a Banshee.
Exactly. The Cure were not a Cure, I don’t think I’ve said anything
they were an ailment, pandering to the
emotional afflictions of their listeners. “The Cure are almost like a in this interview, have I? It’s all so
ambiguous. It just perpetrates the
“No, it’s not like an incentive for
someone to wallow in their own despair.
It’s impossible for me to justify what
soundtrack to people’s crises” wanton obscurity.”
You’ve managed to not clear up the
Cure and Banshees mysteries quite
we’ve done because it only really mirrored the Banshees as a substitute for John McGeogh. successfully.
our experiences, it never really sought to do Rumours abound that the position may prove “Yeah, it’s all just a state of flux at the
anything more than that.” permanent. How ’bout it Robert? moment. There’s nothing clear-cut to say
Fiction have just released a new single, ‘Let’s “As far as I’m concerned, I’m just doing this except… I know what I want for Christmas,
Go To Bed’, credited to The Cure but really tour. Never believe rumours.” Melody Maker readers – a hologram kit.”

NME ORIGINALS 53
 High-Camp Menace

wiping riff of ‘Adrenochrome’

NME, 20 February 1982, p 17 still sounds like the greatest four- MM, 16 October 1982, p23
chord sequence ever invented.
BAUHAUS Look, the Stones, The Kinks, The
Kick In The Eye Byrds, the Pistols, the Stooges, COCTEAU TWINS
(Beggars Banquet) The Clash and all the other morons Lullabies
Bauhaus are a cumbersome, were just testing out a few ideas. (4AD)

archaic as hell, hard rock blurge THIS was the riff they were looking It’s a sad comment on the state of
who owe more to The Stranglers’ for. Put it this way: it’s not bad. Music Today (assumes grandad-
gothic battering ram than the Vocal-wise the lead Sister (a like posture and nestles into
Pistols’ explosive rage. They trade male) sounds like Lux Interior if rocking chair) that there are
in the old high-camp pseudo- he were given a decent group hundreds of groups who make
art menace with their onstage and some proper songs instead days, a decline in standards their livings by impersonating
theatrics and ponderous musical of a collection of musical cripples reinforced by the inclusion of their heroes as accurately as
attack. ‘Kick In The Eye’ is one like The Cramps… or Ian Curtis on the original versions of ‘Killing possible, in much the same way
of their most popular songs, so ‘Transmission’, even. Purchase. An Arab’ and ‘A Forest’ on one as 57 years ago a group called
hopefully all who want it have got Lynden Barber portion of this doublepack. Wild Wally wore out the tarmac
it and we’ll be hearing as little of it It’s just as well that The Cure on the M1 bringing watered down
as possible in the coming weeks. have now jettisoned what was rock’n’roll to the kids. What is
Gavin Martin their finest moment, ‘Boys worse, some people appear to
Don’t Cry’, a song now being accept their liverish dross.
respectfully refurbished in a All you need to know about
Glasgow home by The Bluebells, The Cocteau Twins is that they
who seem to be the sort of people make “Siouxsie & The Banshees”
that appreciate it more. records. OK?
Believe it or not, I was actually Lynden Barber
the first person to write about
The Cure, although it’s not
something I tell anyone but
my closest acquaintances.
NME, 17 April 1982, p22 Adrian Thrills

MM, 15 April 1982, p22

SIOUXSIE &
THE BANSHEES
Fireworks
THE SISTERS (Polydor)

OF MERCY Unfortunately there’s not a

Adrenochrome firework within earshot on this
(CNT) song, which is a pity because side NME, 27 November 1982, p17
Ha! So there’s life in the ould beast two of the Banshees’ ‘Once Upon
yet, the creature in question being
“a form of music characterised
A Time – The Singles Collection’ LP
is a record gourmet’s delight.
THE SISTERS
by a simple repetitive beat and Gary Crowley OF MERCY
extremes of volume, popular MM, 9 October 1982, p23
Alice/Floorshow
among young people during (Merciful Release)
NME, 10 July 1982, p21
the post-war economic boom.” They’re sounding not unlike The
(Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1993 BAUHAUS Psychedelic Furs, this group – he
edition.) Rock, that is. THE CURE Ziggy Stardust said, crushing their chances of a
The Sisters come from Leeds, Hanging Garden (Beggars Banquet) fair hearing in one fell swoop.
wear young rebel trousers and (Fiction) Peter Murphy blows his cool badly No, don’t be put off. This is
make a din so glorious they sound Don’t be fooled by the Banshee- and reveals a hidden yearning dark and powerful stuff from
like they stumbled on rock music esque title, ‘Hanging Garden’ to be Mike Yarwood. Quite good Yorkshire’s Sisters. Maybe a bit
by accident without ever having is a dismal exercise in rolling, facsimile of Bowie’s voice, but too dense for extended listening,
heard a note of it before. tumbling rhythmic textures. The maybe he’d be better off doing but this much I like a lot. And
About six plays after first Cure have drifted disappointingly Robin Day or Dennis Healy next a big improvement on their
digging this from the bottom of and indulgently from the idyllic time. Inexplicable. ‘Adrenochrome’ debut.
the vinyl junkyard, the brain- pop invention of their younger Adam Sweeting Paul Du Noyer

54 NME ORIGINALS
 Chapter 5
1983
DEREK RIDGERS
 Mercy Mercy Me

The
Devil’
s Floorshow Adam Sweeting unravels the stream of consciousness gushing
forth from The Sisters Of Mercy MM, 15 January 1983, p20

o
“ ur problem is that talking usually Chinese was the best. Latin helped me no end playing. Craig is the beer-drinker of the group.
ends up as a very serious affair, – I don’t know whether it helped my brain any, Guitarist Ben Gunn sits quietly in an
which isn’t a true reflection of the but as a linguist it was certainly vital. And I can armchair, boyish and suspiciously innocent,
band as a phenomenon,” said Andy, do crosswords in a zillionth of the time it takes the classroom swot who goes home at night and
singer with The Sisters of Mercy. “It’s very hard anybody else. I can’t do the ordinary ones, but makes explosives in a shed in the back garden.
to convey the non-intellectual aspects of any the cryptic ones are a doddle.” Then there’s Andy, frontman, writer of all
band through talking.” the material so far, dominant theorist and
What the hell, we talked anyway. We talked in The day of our meeting found The Sisters Of mouthpiece. Andy likes logic, order, Motorhead,
Andy’s front room in Leeds, all four Sisters and Mercy unaccountably quiet, possibly the result cats, industrial design, The Birthday Party, The
me. Then I talked to Andy and guitarist Gary of a sordid and thinly attended gig in Bradford Psychedelic Furs, aeroplanes and TS Eliot.
Marx in a Chinese restaurant. Then back to the the night before. Consider these men: guitarist Andy hates Bauhaus, Kid Creole, false
front room. I vetoed the full all-nighter around Gary Marx is tall, lanky, thick white socks spiritualism, numerous groups from the Leeds/
3.30am. Andy probably spent the rest of the of the sort favoured by mountaineers pulled Bradford area, fashion, eating and alcohol.
night talking to himself, because he’d finally got up over the bottoms of his jeans. He watches The Sisters’ use of a drum machine instead of
warmed up, the night creature pacing in his lair. the proceedings with apparent indifference, a drummer makes excellent sense – Andy can
Before he found himself in the spotlight with occasionally throwing in an oblique comment. growl and roar and the others can torment and
The Sisters Of Mercy, Andy studied languages. On stage, he wreaks violence on his guitar. punish their instruments, but the beat will not
Where, I queried. Bassman Craig Adams crimps himself into slacken or surrender.
“Oh, all over the place,” he said guardedly. the corner of the sofa and reads an old Batman Andy, if you do all the writing, how
“I never finished a course because I kept finding annual from cover to cover, pausing only to light important is the rest of the group?
more exciting things to do, like petty vandalism. another cigarette. He only uses three strings “It’s vital. The personal chemistry is very
“I’ve done French and German and Italian on his bass because one of the machine heads important. Craig’s response is just to play the
and Latin and Chinese and a smattering of in broken. His cheerful exterior seems quite at bass like he does, that sort of awesome noise,
Russian and a smattering of Dutch in my time. odds with the grinding, warlike attack of his and that says a lot to me.

56 NME ORIGINALS
 1983

“Sometimes at soundchecks, maybe after It’s the only thing which Reading some of his lyrics
we’ve been in the van all day, he just plugs in separates us from bozos.” on paper, I was surprised by the
and wham! It just knocks me out. Mark provides Do you advocate self- formal attention to detail which
the more lunatic side of things. And Ben’s got a destruction? had gone into them. Generally
much more open mind on things. The balance Andy: “Under certain the voice is used as a strand in
of all these four is what makes it work. circumstances, yes. Nietzsche the group’s overall sound.
“Even minor decisions are ludicrously once said that a man’s greatest “Our sound says a lot about
democratic. That’s one of the reasons why we power is the power to decide me,” Andy explained. “People
never got a drummer, because drummers just the time of his own death, say things like, ‘What’s your
don’t fit into anybody’s personal chemistry.” and that seems perfectly attitude to nuclear war?’ and
You talk a lot about the humour in your reasonable. I wouldn’t hold Andrew Eldritch: I say, ‘Just listen to the sound
your regular
music, but does it communicate to an audience? that suicide is necessarily a Renaissance Man – what the fuck do you think
“Well, basically it involves the dialectics of symptom of unsoundness our attitude to nuclear war is?
cynicism, which is something that takes a long of mind, or being not in “The voice is much more
time to explain,” said Andy. “It’s a personal than the instruments,
very, very, very, dry joke.”
Gary: “I think the gigs are pure “The name’s a nice 50-50 balance so it’s better to mix it down,
because you’re very vulnerable.
slapstick.”
Because you make them that
way or because of the places you
between nuns and prostitution” I think with ‘Anaconda’ we
might include a lyric sheet.
We’d never print the lyrics on
have to play in? possession of all one’s faculties.” the sleeve ’cos that would spoil my artwork.”
Andy: “It starts off OK but by the end of the Gary: “Which is one of the connotations of Andy does the Sisters’ artwork himself, and
gig Gary’s just not in control any more, he’s just the name of the group. It was picked because it typically it’s cold and neat, iced with sharp
destroying things. And it is very slapstick. had several strong images, not just one.” detail, using livid monochrome to index the
“But every band’s got that anyway. It’s just ‘The name’s nice and ironic,” said Andy stark polarities contained inside.
that most of them don’t realise it. And of course with a thin grin, “very corporate. A nice 50-50 ‘Anaconda’ is about the hip games people play
the fact that you’re being serious about it only balance between nuns and prostitution, which with heroin addiction, now worryingly back in
makes it more ironic and the whole thing about seemed like a very suitable metaphor for a rock vogue at prices too many people can afford.
irony is that is compounds itself at every stage.” band. All this pseudo-faith business and high “There’s far too many smack songs which are
Of course, a joke’s no longer a joke once ritual, and yet – prostitution.” a bit too callously irresponsible. Junkie chic is
you’ve picked it apart and explained it. I And Merciful Release? not where it’s at. We do ‘Sister Ray’ because it’s
can only say that the first time I saw them “Suitably pompous,” chortled Gary. just an orgy of self-destruction every time we do
something clicked at once. Perhaps it’s a little “Vincent Price delivered the line very well it. That’s what it’s all about.
like that horrific thrill of driving fast on a once,” said Andy. “And it’s a nicely self- “All of the lyrics are designed to be taken away
motorway in the rain and the car suddenly deprecating way of releasing stuff. When you and used. It’s not just purging myself. I couldn’t
starts to aquaplane, or realising that you’ve gone make a Merciful Release it’s like, ‘Well, that’s go and perform it or make a record of it if I didn’t
over the line this time but wasn’t it worth if for out of the way, the agony is now over.’” think it was generally useful. Besides, the band
the rush? Gamesmanship par excellence. wouldn’t let me and why should they?”
Check, for verification, available Sisters By Andy’s own admission, the Sisters are still
vinyl on their own Merciful Release label: embryonic, but plans have been laid for 1983. Is there anything you’d die for?
the fierce, teeth-clenching bobsleigh runs Depending on trivial little factors like money, “[Long pause] I might die for someone. Not for
of ‘Adrenochrome’ and ‘Body Electric’, the they should have a single called ‘Anaconda’ any cause. Dying when you don’t intend to is not
relentless ‘Alice’. At the moment I’m fi xated by out in February, and an EP is also high on the my idea of an intelligent act.”
the suspended torment of ‘Floorshow’, a roaring agenda. An LP is not envisaged before 1984. What would you be doing if you weren’t in
electric tarantella, the kill-or-cure dance of They’re currently entering a “slower and The Sisters Of Mercy?
death. It’s hard rock without the pomp (though heavier” phase, which Andy feels he has to work “I’d like to do all sorts of things – whether
Andy can and will pose like a good ’un), heavy out of his system forthwith. anybody’d give me the chance is another thing.
metal with keen critical faculties. I wouldn’t mind being your regular Renaissance
Man, but who’s gonna employ me
What do you love about rock? to do that? Not many vacancies for
Andy: “We like a loud noise, we like a them in the Exchange & Mart.”
good tune. We like the relentlessness of How about you, Gary?
classic rock music – heavy metal.” “Working Class Hero. It’s
What do the Sisters do that’s any true, that’s what my name is, it’s
more than a loud physical noise? just sending it up. I’m just a born
“Well, our attitude towards parody is Working Class Hero – deprived
designed to show people how this loud background, almost a footballer.”
noise is ideally to be taken. You can What use are you to anybody?
frighten people and amuse them at the Andy: “You could say, ‘Well look,
same time, and excite them and inspire four million people can’t be wrong
them. Because that’s what it does to us, and that’s how many we’ve sold,’ and
it does all those things.” it wouldn’t justify it. You could say,
Are you offering your audience ‘Well it stopped one person jumping
some kind of faith? off a bridge,’ and that wouldn’t
“Yeah, I mean to us cynicism justify it. Whatever justification you
is very closely linked to faith or had wouldn’t prove the point; you
belief or holding something dear. can only offer an opinion.
It’s the sort of cynicism that comes “That question not only asks ‘What
out of disappointment with one’s The Sisters in ’83: (l to r)
do you do?’ but also ‘Do you regard
environment rather than despair of Ben Gunn, Andrew Eldritch, it as worthwhile?’, and obviously one
it, and that’s a very precious thing. Gary Marx, Craig Adams does or one wouldn’t do it.”

NME ORIGINALS 57
 Redskin Rock

Tunes of glory
MM, 5 March 1983, p20

Adam Sweeting sings the praises and questions the poses of Southern Death Cult
i
met Southern Death Cult in Liverpool the latest in a long line of labelling machines into an interview situation I could explain why
on a cold grey afternoon. I’d wanted (probably unscrupulous). After some nervous I was interested in Indian culture. But I never got
to meet them because they’re one of a false starts, and probably to everybody’s surprise, the opportunity and we were already labelled.
sadly tiny number of groups who have we finally found some common ground. “So I thought it would be better for the four of
some sort of aura, who project more than just a “A lot of people want to accept us for some us if I toned everything down, and now I don’t
chart position or a certain brand of hype. reason,” said Ian, the singer, “so they’ve got to wear those clothes any more. I haven’t packed it
Foolishly, I’d believed what I’d read in the try and understand us. To understand us they’ve in ’cos it’s still in me heart, but I thought if I take
papers about them being the spearhead of got to put a label on us. By putting a label on us the image away and people wanna find out, then
some new movement, and consequently I had a they’re linking us with other people. But it is they can go deeper than that…”
whole clutter of preconceptions. I saw them as dangerous, it’s like the nails going in the coffin.”
potential fakes (probably arrogant), who maybe With their loud declarations of their Meet the Death Cult… there’s guitarist Buzz,
believed what they’d been told about their own absorption with North American Indian culture, blond hair falling bashfully down one side of a
importance. But I hoped they didn’t. the Death Cult were instantly pegged as ‘Redskin face which can only be described as pretty. Buzz
From their side, the view was different. The Rock’, and visions of Adam & The Ants started likes Woody Allen, Mad magazine and George
Death Cult don’t read the papers much, probably to haunt them. But Ian, you must have known Melly, all of which came as a bit of a shock since
because what they’ve read about themselves that would happen? I’d expected him to say something like “Sex
has in general disgusted them. They saw me as “I was aware of it but I thought if I could get Gang Children and grave-robbing”.

58 NME ORIGINALS
 Southern Death Cult:
Ian Lindsay (soon
to be Ian Astbury),
Buzz, Aky and Barry

There’s drummer Aky, who’s Pakistani. “I started babbling on to him, everything I “To a certain extent yeah, but we’re not sorta
He admits to reading Mayfair and likes old could think of to show I wasn’t what he thought like puppets, you know, we do have feelings and
rock’n’roll – “the happy stuff” as he puts it. I was, but he just sort of flopped into the crowd we are sorta reflecting what we see around us
“I’m a really ambitious person,” he confesses. and shrank away. But afterwards I was talking to through our music. I wouldn’t like to see what
On bass, there’s Barry. He looks very serious, him for like two hours, and he said, ‘Please come we do being taken purely as an entertainment
shakes my hand with great solemnity. He speaks back and play again.’ It was good. But that first thing, just a dance band. I’d like to see maybe a
in a wistful tone which sounds like the faintest thing he said sort of knocked me on the head for bit of thought going into it.
breath of wind could carry it away. Barry reads a the rest of the evening, it really cracked me up.” But isn’t it an entertainment industry?
lot of books. Aky says: “I can never understand Having been elected as baby Messiahs, you “I think it was.”
the questions when we get interviewed, so if they have to expect problems like these. Meeting the You mean it’s changed?
ask me I refer them to Barry.” Death Cult, I was startled by how unprepared “Before, people had a choice of what they
And finally Ian, frontman and performer, they were for the kind of status which has been wanted to be into. Now they’ve got it forced upon
chief talker of the group but them, like Kajagoogoo and
not necessarily the last word on all that shit. I think that’s
what they do or why. Ian does
like Sex Gang Children – “I’m
‘Moya’ is a near-classic deployment of simple rock pretty wrong.
“We’re not forcing
pretty much obsessed with them
now. They’re about the only new
components, adding up to an aura of eerie suggestion ourselves upon anyone
– if people want us we’re
group that I really like.” thrust their way. I thought their ‘Fatman’/‘Moya’ there, but if they don’t want us then fair enough.
Ian is emotional, an extrovert in an intense single was fine stuff, moody and evocative, but We’re not sort of on every fucking kids’ TV
sort of way, and has a penchant for self- I’d been disappointed by a thoroughly drab programme, trying to push our product to them.
dramatisation. Useful credentials for a singer session they recorded for John Peel. We’re just where we are.”
with a rock band, but he needs more realistic At the moment they’re still probing their There has to be an element of ‘performance’,
qualities of the other three to prevent him from own weaknesses and strengths, which is why though. You have to pose to some extent to be
flying out of control. songs like ‘The Girl’ can end up sounding like the frontman with Southern Death Cult.
Ian started to tell the story of an incident a raw tangle of noise, while newer stuff like ‘All “No I don’t,” said Ian hotly. “I just do what
which had taken place at Friars in Aylesbury the Glory?’ begins to resonate with a dawning sense I want. Sometimes I’ve just got to control meself,
night before. Ian had been on stage at the time. of power. ‘Moya’ is still their best song – a near- like when that kid said that thing to me at
“There was this little Asian kid and he sort of classic deployment of simple rock components Aylesbury I just felt like getting a microphone
looked up and motioned me over, and he said, which adds up to an aura of eerie suggestion. stand and shoving it down his throat. But you
‘You’re fuckin’ in love with yerself, aren’t yer?’ So Ian, are you aiming for the group to work just don’t take your frustrations out on people.”
I thought, ‘You little bastard, you don’t fucking on that basic level of just being something for “What Ian does on stage isn’t a pose, it’s from


know how I feel.’ people to dance to? the heart,” added Barry seriously.

NME ORIGINALS 59
 Creature Discomforts

Ian: “It just reflects the way I see
things… things that may have happened to
me through my life that have made me the
way I am. I’ve got it all built up inside me.
“When I get on stage I can hit some
levels where I just open my heart
completely. Like last night before I went on
it was really strange, ’cos I closed me eyes
NME, 12 February 1983 and I could see me own face looking at me.
I wasn’t scared, but something like that
had never happened to me before.”
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
The Bad Seed What are the things that have happened
4AD to Ian to make him the way he is? He’s
The Birthday Party have lived in Canada, Belfast and Liverpool,
always seemed more an and spent a month in the army before
exercise in exhausting deciding that wasn’t for him. He’ll talk
self-parody than the about some of it, but then infuriatingly
gothic Beefheart stops just when the subject sounds like it’s
claimed by their rabid getting weird. Such as: “The subjects you “Did we really just
supporters. They may could talk about, I’m too scared to, so I’d admit to liking
have come to bury rather not talk about it. It’s something Supertramp?”
rock’n’roll, but the I’m aware of within meself, so that’s why
trouble is they keep digging the I control meself. Like
grave over and over again. I know certain people who
And after listening to this four-song EP, it think they’d like to fuck “Last night, before I went on stage, I closed my
seems that it won’t be long before Nick Cave off to Nicaragua, pick up
and his performing troupe of deviants fall into a gun and fight there, ’cos eyes and saw my own face looking back at me”
their purpose-built tomb. they’re too scared to fight
It’s impossible to avoid the obvious when in this country. It depends what you’re into…” inspirational – to go out and make whatever you
you’re talking about The Birthday Party simply Look, you’re hardly the first band to sing do a bit better, you know? You can shut things
because they are so ludicrously larger than about jingoism (‘Patriot’ or ‘All Glory?’) Or out around you, make yourself feel good.”
life: sex, smack and death are all over into this genocide (‘Moya’). I think the Death Cult could fall into the same
unctuous assault. “Oh no, certainly not,” said Ian. traps as The Clash, of promising more than you
The playing sounds tired and overwrought, So isn’t there a danger of just turning these can deliver.
any tension lost in a barrage of clichés. The rusty topics into clichés? “We don’t base everything on image and we do
stabs of bass, drums and guitar are used more as “I don’t think human feelings can be clichéd a lot of things on feeling,” said Ian. “I suppose to
a means of colouring Cave’s schlock accounts of – it’s not a little trend or fashion, it is a feeling. a very very small extent we do things for effect,
love gone awry than as a force in their own right You can’t cliché feeling. You get psychologists I think everyone does. I’ve got a hell of a lot of
– which places the emphasis on lyrics that are saying a certain condition is schizophrenia or respect for The Clash; I think they’ve still kept
no longer disturbing or genuinely dark. something – that’s garbage. How can you sort of their integrity. Maybe they’re past their peak.”
‘Deep In The Woods’ is a swing love song for put somebody’s frame of mind into a category so It’s in your favour that you draw on a very
psychotic misogynists – “Tonight we sleep in you can understand them?” basic, traditional kind of rock power – it has a
separate ditches”, croons Cave. ‘Sonny’s Burning’ Are you offering people faith, or… weight of history behind it.
is a black account of energy-saving. ‘Fears Of “I don’t think I’m offering anything. I’m just “Oh yeah, it goes a long way back. Back to,
Gun’ boasts a chorus that runs “Fingers down myself, stating the way I feel about things. I’m not I suppose, when people were banging sticks
the throat of love” and ‘Wild World’ is a plea for a preacher. At one time I thought I was supposed and stones together.”
protection and little more. to be a preacher ’cos I thought I had to say things Well, I dunno about that…
This is a flight into miserable fantasy; a to get people to look at me in a certain way, or to “People are always looking to the future for
diversion that offers hardly any insights into the look at us and say, ‘Well, Southern Death Cult answers – that’s why everything’s falling apart.
sometimes poignant state of the truly wretched. are about being free or fucking the system,’ or If you go back to the past, you know what you
The Birthday Party pretend to be crucified whatever. But now I think no, that’s not the way. are and where you’re going.
for the consequences of irrepressible extremes. “I don’t wish to become a leader or anything “Even us, looking back into the ’60s for
Yet, like most of their supposed obsessions, this like that, I don’t think any of us do, because of inspiration… Before the Sex Pistols I was
record is another plaything. They’ve probably the responsibilities that we’d have.” listening to stuff like Supertramp and Genesis –
forgotten it already and if you’ve any sense In the end, aren’t you just one more rock I used to pass off The Who and that as dinosaurs.
you’ll do the same. group out of thousands of rock groups? “It’s only been in about the past year that
Ian Pye “I dunno,” sighed Ian. I’ve been doing a hell of a lot of listening to ’60s
“Within ourselves I guess not,” said Barry. “As stuff, like Jimi Hendrix, The Who and The Small
regarded by other people, probably yes.” Faces, and it’s fucking mind-blowing.”
Ian, isn’t the problem with music that
anything you want to say is simultaneously an 1983 looks like being a good year for rock groups,
escape or a social occasion for your audience? and Southern Death Cult will become one of the
“Yeah, I would say that. Um… I think music is best of them. How much does this matter, Aky?
one of the only things people have got left where “The whole thing about the band and all
everyone can express themselves the way they is that sometimes when we do gigs it shatters
want to, through dancing. A lot of people can’t that whole image thing. Ian will just say or do
paint or draw or write and they don’t even care something that shatters people’s image of us, like
Nick Cave: “Sex, about stuff like that, but when people come to a ‘Oh, Southern Death Cult, they’re just another
smack and death? concert they can do what they want. Haircut One Hundred’ – which is really good.
Mmm, yes please”
“You can use the concert as a focal point. It is There is something more than just a band.”

60 NME ORIGINALS
 1983

questions to be asked about Hawaii, as a lash-up, though “a mess” is

but The Creatures’ sub-Campari probably closer. It’s been botched
ad gushings – “Good ’ere, innit?” together from a couple of Radio 1
– answer none of them. sessions, some unreleased demo
Julie Burchill versions and a live recording made
at Rafters in Manchester, and on
MM, 11 June 1983, p27 the whole does the chaps little
justice. It’s a painful irony that

SOUTHERN Southern Death Cult, of all people,

should have got themselves
DEATH CULT lumbered with a contractual
Southern Death Cult obligation album of the
NME, 28 May 1983, p26 Hawaiians featured seem totally (Beggars Banquet) most transparent sort.
superfluous and show-offy. The sudden implosion The three live
Siouxsie will hate to face the fact, of Southern Death Cult tracks, ‘Crow’, ‘Faith’
THE CREATURES but what she does is very ’60s, very a couple of months and ‘Vivisection’,
Feast hippy, very Bad Acid. ago, when they seemed are probably best
(Polydor) Her voice often sounds to be on the crest of a forgotten. ‘Crow’ is
For one brief, like Julie Driscoll’s, and wave, was a rude shock a mere fragment,
wonderful winter when her songs could be to the numerous pundits while the other two
I was 11, three of my Arthur Brown or Edgar who’d been touting them suffer badly from the
friends and I formed a Broughton, or even as everything from The shrill, dry quality of the recording.
small theatre company Donovan. Meaning Of Life to The Best Rock ‘Faith’ merely demonstrates that
and showed off to the The key words of Group Since… guitarist Buzz has been listening
rest of the school with the record are (in The very model of to Jimi Hendrix.
plays that we wrote, order of popularity) untogetherness, the Death Cult There are versions of the Cult’s
produced and performed FLOWERS, COLOURS, made their hasty exit leaving loose dynamic duo, ‘Fatman’ and ‘Moya’,
ourselves. We’d write a certain scene FIRE and DANCING – very Bad Acid. ends everywhere. This posthumous engineered by Mike Hedges at the
time and time again – a Rising From And the lyrical content throughout LP doesn’t really tidy them up, it Playground studio. ‘Moya’ is slower
The Grave scene, effected by the is as florid as Denis Healey’s face. just collects them together in one and altogether less sinister than
application of talcum powder to the There are doubtless many place. It can charitably be described the “official” single version cut with
face and getting up slowly off Mick Glossop at the helm,
one’s back with a glazed look The Creatures: while ‘Fatman’ displays a few
in one’s eyes and hands out in the Sonny and minor differences in tone
Cher of the
front like a sleepwalker. and balance. Um… so what?
psychiatric ward
Eventually some squealer On the more positive side,
spilled the beans and we you get versions of the fine
were hauled up in front of the ‘All Glory’ and the passionate
head – words like “unhealthy” ‘False Faces’. ‘Apache’, too, is
and “morbid” were thrown a useful addition to available
around. Morbid! We were only Cult material.
HAVING FUN. ‘Today’ is a dramatic
Siouxsie is stuck in the sort non-song, all breast-beating
of adolescence in which the vocal from Ian Lindsay and
stuff dreams are made of is thundering drums from
séances, car crashes, ketchup Aky, demonstrating that
and the house of Hammer – I SDC were regularly strong
could never take her seriously on atmosphere but short of
with the Banshees, and The decent pegs to hang it on.
Creatures – the Sonny and Finally there’s ‘The
Cher of the psychiatric ward Crypt’, which is decked
– are even more transparent. out with moody piano and
They’re not evil incarnate, some weird studio effects
they’re comedians. – promising, but like the
If you take a girl from rest of this stuff a mere
Chislehurst and drop her on a blueprint for what might
paradise island – Hawaii in the have happened if Southern
case of The Creatures’ ‘Feast’ Death Cult had been able to
– obviously she’s going to put time and effort into a
be impressed; but Siouxsie’s full scale album.
instant impressions leave a lot I can’t imagine the group
to be desired. The sounds of are particularly proud of
the sea and the jungle, what this tatty compilation,
with Siouxsie’s complaining, which should really have the
droning voice imposed phrase “Don’t remember
over them, give the record me this way” displayed
the flavour of a travelogue prominently on the sleeve.
STEVE RAPPORT

narrated by someone Meanwhile, we await their

recovering from a nervous various next moves…
breakdown; the voices of the Adam Sweeting

NME ORIGINALS 61
 Glove Story

MM, 9 April 1983, p3 MM, 16 April 1983, p4

Party weary
treats us in a very different way. It’s
like they wait for some sort of signal
from the group as to what way we
want them to behave.”
The group return to their much-
hated outpost of London this month
NME, 18 June 1983, p14 – supposedly to complete a double
EP which was begun in Berlin before
Following months of rumour, The Birthday Party have announced that they are splitting up. the tour.
And that, says Nick, will be “the
Drummer and co-founder Mick Harvey attributed the decision to lack of artistic direction, last project for quite a long time for

and audience inflexibility. Brett Wright reports from the band’s home town of Melbourne on The Birthday Party”.
Cave’s next project is the staging

their ffi inalfifi dates in Australia, and talks to Nick Cave about his own plans for the future… of 50 or so one-minute plays he’s
written with Lydia Lunch. He
doesn’t have too many details about

T
he tour was a debacle. They called The Shuffling Hungarians. this project, but he does have a
were reasonably well-received Both said they liked Nick a lot. philosophical position on it.
in Sydney, but flopped in Perth Back in Melbourne a week later, “I find theatre the most awkward,
and flopped in one of two concerts Nick Cave was convalescing at home restricting medium which you
in home town Melbourne. The other in his mother’s place in the affluent, can work in. Which is primarily the
Melbourne show was a qualified tree-lined surrounds of Malvern reason I’m working in it and why
success, but many felt cheated by East. He looked carefully wrecked: these plays are going to be put on
the group’s unwillingness to play dark lines under the eyes; a weary, under the banner of traditional
any more than “eight lousy songs”, dismissive manner, drainpipe jeans, theatre rather than performance art
as several patrons put it. a swastika belt buckle… or fringe theatre. Or at least, it will
At the Perth show, the absurdity “I have tried to make it clear to be presented under that guise. Once
came to a head. Cave was bitten on the audience that despite what the audience are trapped within
PETER ANDERSON

the leg by a hospital clerk named they think, I don’t like being pulled the doings of the plays it will be no
Sarah and knocked to the ground under a crowd… stomping feet and longer remain respectable.”
by the former lead singer of a band so forth. Now the British audience I bet it won’t.

62 NME ORIGINALS
The Glove
The further adventures of Steve Severin and Robert Smith, by Steve Sutherland
MM, 3 September 1983, p20

t he comely young wife with her hands in

the sink smiles as her hubby strolls into
the kitchen of her Los Angeles dream
home. Just back from the office and starving for
This, or thereabouts anyway (it’s a long time
since I’ve seen it) is a scene from Blue Sunshine,
a superbly harrowing B-movie that did the
rounds to little acclaim towards the end of
Some people out there would do well to start
checking their diaries smartish.
‘Blue Sunshine’ is also the name of the
first and only album by The Glove. This is no
his dinner, he skirts the table and folds his arms the disillusioned ’70s. Taking its name from a coincidence. After all, The Glove – that’s Robert
around her ample waist, twisting her into an reputedly super-potent strain of LSD, its plot Smith, Steve Severin and Zoo, aka dancer-
affectionate embrace. was lip-smackingly simple: anybody who had turned-singer Jeanette – took their name from
She tilts her head back to receive his kiss, and sampled a certain contaminated batch of the the Blue Meanies’ giant fist-cum-executioner in
suddenly tufts of her hair drift gently to the said hallucinogenic would, without warning, go Yellow Submarine. The same glove that turned
tiles. As he recoils in horror a carving knife arcs bald 10 years to the day that they dropped their back into LOVE when the power of music
up out of the suds and strikes and strikes and trip and then turn into a homicidal maniac. The overcame bad with good. There’s either message
strikes again… revenge on or of the love generation? or madness in these mindgames.

NME ORIGINALS 63
 Kitchen sink drama

Of course, both the Banshees their fame. Where others make commercial
and The Cure have always mucked success the be-all of their existence, the
about with the romantic notion of Banshees contingent want to use it as a
love, happiest with a relationship weapon. Hence the splintering of the band
to dissect or an emotion to torture into its offshoots – experiments with the
into screaming confessions of guilt, attraction of reputation.
so it should come as no surprise “It’s basically an album and that’s where it’s
that when Smith and Severin’s plan gonna stop,” says Severin of The Glove. “And
for a single called ‘Punish Me With that’s what The Creatures is, just one album.
Kisses’ expanded into a feverishly The more time The Creatures are seen to be
claustrophobic album project, love around, the more people think, ‘Have the
should end up on the rack. Banshees split up?’ And all sorts of nonsense.
It does come as something of a So we’re just gonna do the minimal amount,
shock, however, when Smith sits cross- then concentrate on other things.”
legged on the floor and says: “It’s quite “To me, it seems perfectly natural to
a happy album really. It’s good that it’s be involved in so many different areas,”
gonna be a summer release.” says Smith. “But it still seems odd to other
My mind swiftly retracks in panic… people, Funny that…”
the nightmare-in-a-nursery of ‘Mr
Alphabet’… the brooding cacophony of The trap is , of course, that ensuring your
‘Orgy’… the séance tension of ‘Blues In own working environment remains vibrant
Drag’? I catch a hint of a smile. doesn’t mean that what you produce will
I should have known: once a Banshee Severin and be valid to anybody else. Just because
always a… Smith: Evil Dead Robert Smith plays a lot more keyboards
“We haven’t got together to do this meets the Blue than guitar on The Glove album doesn’t
because there’s anything trapping us Meanies necessarily mean the album’s any good.
within the music that we already do,” Severin is acutely aware of the problem.
Severin insists in a whisper. “I know “The idea that The Glove could get away
that I’m quite free to do whatever I like with anything vanished very quickly because
within the Banshees and always have.
“The main reason the whole thing started
The Glove’s‘ Blue it became a real responsibility to get it to
sound not indulgent. What I wanted was for it
was because, when I listened to The Cure, I
could understand why Robert was putting a Sunshine’ sounds like a to have more of a specific personality than the
Banshees or The Cure.

journey into the tunnel

certain thing in a certain place; the sense of “I think we’ve nearly got to an idea of
dynamics and melody was fairly similar to what me and Robert are like as people, our
what I was doing with the Banshees. relationship. Songs like ‘Blues In Drag’ are the
“The main thing now though is it’s a
completely different situation, a completely oflove that took a wrong kind of thing I’m most pleased about because,
if the Banshees had approached that from
different way of working…”
Smith agrees: “It was a real attack on
the senses when we were doing it. We were
turn into the horrors the beginning, it wouldn’t have ended up like
that. I just wanted to do something a bit…
softer, a bit more… introverted, probably.
coming out of the studio at six in the morning, spent on idiot magazines and stuff like that! We That’s what I wanted to achieve, the kind of
watching all these really mental films and then were making big murals of all these cuttings and things that are exclusive to our friendship.
going to sleep and having really demented pictures and stuff, big day-glo posters.” “Everybody I’ve played this to has almost
dreams and then, as soon as we woke up, we’d And the films? immediately said it sounds really fresh and
go virtually straight back into the studio, so it “Oh, The Brood, Evil Dead, Helicopter Spies, added to that by saying that everything else
was a bit like a mental assault course towards Inferno… I dunno, what else? Some Divine that’s coming out now is really horrible.
the end. stuff… Yellow Submarine…” “Last year, ‘Fireworks’ being in the charts was
“When we were writing the words, we were Ah, but what purpose these days to such unusual and this year, when a Banshees single
picking up on things we’d experienced within perversions of love? Can they act as anything gets into the charts, it’ll be even more unusual
the time of doing the album. I mean, God, we beyond kitsch, choreographed titillation? because the climate’s just horrific!”
must have watched about 600 videos at the time! “Chartwise, so much of it’s down to melody,”
There’d be like all these after-images of the films The love-peace vision of the ’60s has long been Smith intrudes. “You find yourself humming
we’d watched cropping up in the songs. reduced to a fashionable quirk and ridiculed most of the Glove songs but, at the same time,
“It wasn’t deliberate, but after a while, they for its naivety. We tend to dismiss the whole they’re not pop songs. I like that about it.”
were chosen, I think, almost as influences. ethos as stoned-out lunacy and look instead The Banshees coterie are more vulnerable
When we were waking up, in the half-hour or so to cut-throat private enterprise as a means of now than ever because, in a musical climate that
that we were just like in a coma, I’d put on a fi lm personal, rather than global, salvation. So much encourages safety and contrition, being different
or a piece of music that was completely different for Sergeant Pepper and Blue Sunshine. for being different’s sake is one hell of a virtue.
to what we’d been doing the night before, so that And even the promise of promiscuity and The Banshees/Glove/Creatures’ particular
it would influence the day. We’d set ourselves dark fantasies fulfilled – inherent in Severin’s genius is that not only do they advocate constant
the task of writing two songs a day, so it was the chosen pseudonym and Smith’s psychotic change but they remain fertile and unbridled
only way we could refresh ourselves.” imagery – are a confusion, a wry comment on rather than cynical or calculated.
“We just kept going at it,” Severin confirms. society’s sordidly accepted double standards. “We haven’t got a clue what the next Banshees
“We had to make it sound complete. At the On the surface, ‘Blue Sunshine’ sounds like album is gonna be like,” Severin chuckles. “If
beginning, it was just like a dozen, 15 songs a journey into the tunnel of love that took a you stuck the Creatures album and The Glove
completely different from each other.” wrong turn into the horrors. But underneath, together, I don’t think anybody could know
“Songs?” laughs Smith. “It sounded like there beats a subliminal pulse, a frantic desire to what is coming next from the Banshees. There’s
15 different groups! The other thing that test out ways of working within the confines of a certain amount of glee involved in that but it’s
influenced it, talking about snippets, was the pop without contributing to its malaise. not contrived at all.”
amount of junk we were reading, the amount we Severin and Smith want to do something with “No,” Smith agrees, smiling. “Just manic.”

64 NME ORIGINALS
 1983

Twindrops Keep
Falling On NME, 10 DECEMBER 1983, p26

My Head Robin and Elizabeth are

The Cocteau Twins – but
they don’t like to brag about
it. Paul Morley attempts to
discover more about this
obscure couple
R obin and Elizabeth, two friends, are sat,
drinking tea from cheap mugs, in the
kitchen of their flat. It is a Wednesday.
The flat, in Muswell Hill, London N10, they
share with some people I do not meet. Robin
and Elizabeth have their own room where they
sleep and which they tidy. In the kitchen they
make the tea and plan the day.
The kitchen looks just like a kitchen that a
few people share – well used. You almost want
to pat it on the back and say well done for all it’s
been through. Robin and Elizabeth sit on small
wooden chairs at a skinny table. Calm, I burst
in, noisy, with a carrier bag of strong lagers and
a plastic case containing a mono Sony recorder
and two TDK C90 cassettes. Storm.
The couple in the kitchen are soft, and quiet,
and remote, and only really smile for each other.
Robin eyes me suspiciously. Elizabeth grips her
mug as though it contains wonderful secrets.
“So what do you want to talk to us about?”
asks Robin, using a soft Scottish voice that is
quite at home in this cold, shared kitchen fi lled
with old, used utensils. He places a careful,
deprecating emphasis on the ‘us’ and at the
same time he challenges me.
TONY MOTTRAM

Oh, vague things, I say.

The couple consider this reply. Vaguely.
The three of us get used to our positions in


 Mere Mortals

the kitchen, defending in our own ways the who found, somehow, that she could sing. A
almost handsome silence. I open a bottle of technician and a voice.
strong lager. Robin, at a distance, mixes a gin “That’s a bit hollow,” Robin snorts.
and tonic and adds a slice of lemon. Elizabeth, to Well, tell me more, I implore.
my surprise, frantically rubs her fingers together, “Oh, we’ve been spilling our bloody life stories
in a state of true anguish. I thought I’d been out to you…” he sneers.
invited, but it appears I am an intruder. I could Spilling? This was an exaggeration.
kill them, because they make me feel so ugly. Dripping, more like.
But I had a feeling this would be indulgent, so A couple of drops.
I gently enquired if we would have to talk in the Twin drops were falling on my head.
open wilds of the kitchen. It was torture.
They invite me into their room. Traffic
turns right outside the windows in this room, I asked Elizabeth if she was excited about being a
which doesn’t smell of anything, and a clock Cocteau Twin. I thought it might be interesting
ticks proudly by their bed. You can hardly hear if she could explain whether being a Twin
Robin defending his virtue and describing had taken her anywhere exciting, disturbing,
his disappointments, and even he seems to be stimulating, and I didn’t mean on a bus. Are you
bawling compared to Elizabeth. The loudest noise excited about being a Cocteau Twin?
she made was the first noise she made during the “Yes and no.” Drip and drop.
conversation, after many meandering minutes. In what ways yes and no…
She sneezed, startling me, Robin and herself. “Er…” A pause as long as your grandmother’s
At one point Robin will pull a hair from life. Or death. “Oh…” A pause as long as a
Elizabeth’s throat: the length of the hair shocks sleepless night. The clock ticks. The traffic turns.
us all, but don’t worry, it wasn’t growing out of “Oh God…” C’mon woman. “I’m going to say
her throat. It must have fallen there somehow. sorry again…”
Records in the room are stacked very neatly. “What are you trying to provoke us into ideas in the music business… the selling… the
The room is dustless, there isn’t really a hair saying?” demands Robin. competing… the music is there, it represents a
out of place. Or at least, if there is, it is removed Tell me some stories, tell me where you are, particular time for us, and there it is… If I was
with some drama, and it finds its proper place. tell me where you might have been… tell me someone else I wouldn’t want to know about
Oblivion, or something. They’re from Falkirk. something. Unfair, decides Robin. me, all those little personal details, my opinions,
“I don’t think we should have to explain that’s all to do with packaging, a packaging I
Robin softly complains: “Everybody at our record anything. I would have thought that the music don’t want to know about…”
company tells us how popular and important explains everything really…” Is this purity possible in such a rough, raucous
The Cocteau Twins are, but I can’t comprehend You feel that the music is the end, not the world?
any of that. All we have to go on is our record beginning. You won’t accept that your music, “Well, it’s a nice thought to have with you…”
sales, and we don’t really sell that many records.” something you feel very close to and involved But it means that you’re completely defensive
That was something to think about. with and therefore special to you, will attract all the time, even towards people who are, so to
We needed something to laugh about. I asked attention and questioning… you don’t seem to speak, on your side.
Elizabeth if she considered herself a writer: by want to acknowledge all the complications that “On the whole in interviews I am defensive
this time she was talking to me, not sneezing or must go with making pop music. because generally the first question is, ‘Oh,
staring down past her knees at the clean carpet. “It all comes from a rejection I have of certain why do you copy Siouxsie & The Banshees?’
Something like that.

“People would come along to interview us and they’d go, “In the days of ‘Garlands’, especially, people
had these notions that we would be clad in
leather, with make-up all over, and po-faced.
‘Oh God, we thought you at least looked good!”
Are you a writer?
People would actually come along to interview
us and they’d ask us where The Cocteau Twins
were. They’d go, ‘Oh God, we thought you at
“No.” least looked good!’”
Do you call yourself a singer? Robin smirks out of a kind of triumph
“No.” – he cannot hide it, although he tries – at this
So what do you call yourself? memory. Elizabeth shivers a little, as if this
She turns to Robin, touches his leg. memory, like most others, was a cold wind.
“Oh, you’ve got a lot of names that you call
me, haven’t you…” Will enters our time together. Will and Robin
Robin smiles at her: “You’re a wee bastard, wanted to make some music together, there
that’s what you are…” in Scotland, and found Elizabeth dancing in a
That made us laugh. club. If she could dance that well, it was decided,
Robin looks into a corner of the room: “I get surely she will sing superbly.
a funny feeling up my nose and my back when I look at Elizabeth sat on the bed, as perplexed
people go on about having to label yourself.” to be involved in a conversation about pop
He looked as if he was in some sort of pain. music as your grandmother would be, dead or
Robin and Elizabeth are The Cocteau Twins. alive, and I find it hard to think that she has ever
If you wondered why we were all brought danced. She rubs her fingers.
together, it was to talk about The Cocteau Twins, At that time, had you nothing planned, did
or not talk, or try to talk. At the end of our you know where you were going, or where you
talk-not-talk I tell Robin that I have a conclusion would be pushed? Elizabeth cannot quite flick
The species cocteaus
about The Coctwins. this memory into play. Robin answers.
geminus emerges
I conclude that The Cocteau Twins are “I think this is probably the last place she
TOM SHEEHAN

from its burrow. Liz

one detached Scottish boy who wants to be a and Robin with Will thought she’d end up.”
record producer, and one distant Scottish girl Heggie (left) It’s Elizabeth’s regretful, exultant voice that

66 NME ORIGINALS
 1983

Will leaves the time we have together. He played

bass in the group until a long European tour
supporting OMD: this tour hit them flat with the
impact of routine and the greyness of repetition
and only the two lovers could survive.
“As much as I’d like to be able to say I’ve not
spoken to Will since we split out of choice, I can’t.
I’d love to speak to him, I just can’t bring myself NME, 5 November 1983, p35
to talk to him. I’m sort of frightened. He was like
my best friend for eight years or whatever and
suddenly he’s not here.” COCTEAU TWINS
How can this be? Head Over Heels
“I don’t want to talk about it.” (4AD)

From sight, from mind. Loss, and gain. The Cocteau Twins’
new record suggests
Talking to Elizabeth, she makes me so frustrated infinite distance, or
I could hit her over the head with a lager bottle. at least a massive
Hearing her sing, she just leaves me moved. space. Its first boom
When did you realise you could sing? is like an avalanche.
Robin answers: “It was a Cocteau Twins From there they
Liz and Robin: rehearsal. When we first started she would never wing a course over
“You’re a wee
bastard, you are” sing until Will went home for his tea.” soundscapes that
Elizabeth boldly interferes: “He fucking told hypothesise Phil Spector producing
Will he’d heard me sing and ‘Spellbound’. Till I heard this, I considered
he hadn’t.” Liz and Rob a Banshees for the bedsit: Liz

“I think about cooking the tea and So Elizabeth having this

supernatural voice was… fate.
Fraser, I thought, a Siouxsie-as-Sandie-
Shaw; Rob Guthrie as a doughboy McGeoch.

Elizabeth about hoovering the carpet” “Fate’s a rather romantic word

for it,” says Robin, “Luck was
more like it. I suppose fate will
I still say there’s something hollow and
vaporous at work here, but when Liz is
singing cosmic Chrissie Hynde and Rob is
has over the last 18 months, between the two look better in print.” striating these ice-floes with crystal shards
LPs ‘Garlands’ and ‘Head Over Heels’, made The Was it a kind of liberation, Elizabeth, when you of guitar and huge splashes of percussion
Cocteau Twins just that little bit better, a little discovered you could sing? and carrying the girl away in a swirling,
bitter brilliance, a little brittle beauty. A light at the Elizabeth flutters… Robin answers. “It started swooshing mist of sound, I’m not going to
beginning of the tunnel. off wonderfully, I thought.” quibble. It’s probably a good thing, too,
Elizabeth declares war on established language, Can you remember the moment? that we can’t hear Liz’s words, if the sleeve’s
and the songs allow a kind of orbit or cluster “I can…” smiles Robin. “I burst out laughing. snippets – “Fig up my love paramount/Ooze
of possible responses, tangential readings and I was just amazed.” out and away onehow” – are any indication
splintered echoes. The songs pivot inwards and we What did you sing? of their general quality. Better to think of
follow as best we can. “I can’t remember… OH!” she squeals, this extraordinary voice as being just an
The Twins’ music has a magic that has cut delightedly, unexpectedly. “I remember! Four exotic sort of instrument.
through everything that should have destroyed it: lines, I’d written four lines… I had to squeeze Were the sound more thistled, more
their innocence and insolence, which in the cold them out… they were awful…” The memory thorny, Liz would be a proper Mavis of the
plight of the pop interview sometimes just seems a rapidly burns itself out. “I can’t remember them.” moors, but the warp’n’woof of the lass’s
stupid modesty or a hopeless purity, has somehow Was it a liberation for you to sing? warble is not one of dulcet heather purity
worked, and a standard success has come to them. “I didn’t keep at it…” Elizabeth fades away. but of, how can I say it, dry ice. That is its
They are baffled by this. Robin: “She wanted to be a singer, then she mysterious charm. In her elementally naïve
“The more successful we become,” says Robin, didn’t, then she did…” universe, sheets and flesh don’t figure
“the more it will get cocked up, the more we will When did you want to be a singer – why? This much. Everything is sugar, tinderboxes,
have to do things that are nothing to do with the question seemed important, considering the glass and candles. It is empty of sex; empty,
music… and we’ll probably feel shitty about it.” uncanny power Elizabeth discovers when she sings. too, of fear and joy. You flow to pure space,
Isn’t the attention you are receiving a kind of “Oh, I don’t know what to say… I never think soar to endless ice-capped peaks: an alien
reward?” about these things… it’s all very natural… we don’t child-world.
“The idealist in me says, ‘No, fuck that, it doesn’t force ourselves in any way…” The record, this wreath of epic innocence,
matter about people’s attention’… the realist in me Is this beauty? This rare, precious belief in only comes undone when The Cocteau
says it’s quite nice for eating and things like that. ‘the natural’? Are you scared that you might lose Twins get too cocooned, too gloved – in
You have to survive.” something if you analyse it? Banshees. Then they are weak. ‘Multifoiled’
Do you feel that maybe The Cocteau Twins can Robin: “Well, if we just made records to make is their poor ‘Cocoon’, in fact; ‘Tinderbox Of
encourage other people because out of nowhere, everybody else happy, we’d make shitty records.” A Heart’ is just too morbidly deadpan. Other
you have shown that it is possible to establish an In your lyrics, Elizabeth, are you trying to parts of Side Two suffer from the languor of
audience in this deadening joyless world, making compile your own logic, make up your own sense, ‘A Kiss In The Dreamhouse’.
something unique and unclouded? create your own reality? But then, of course, the record goes
Robin lets this soak in. Elizabeth doesn’t let it “No… no… I don’t think that’s right at all…” out on its most exultant, unabashed
touch her. “I would say we’re the biggest shits, no Do you know what you do? passionade, ‘Musette And Drums’, an
example to anyone. We’re such a mess… we never “No… but I don’t think that’s right at all…” impossibly cavernous finale to the free
think about those kind of things…” flight we have enjoyed across such
You don’t think about yourself at all? Elizabeth sneezes. It’s a very loud sneeze. “I’m spectacular surfaces.
Robin: “Not on that sort of level… I think about sorry,” she whispers. It’s OK, I say. But she’s gone. Did I mention escapism? These are
cooking the tea and Elizabeth about hoovering the Maybe she’s in the kitchen. Robin tries to join her. garlands where I feel secure.
carpet… like mere mortals you could say…” There’s time for me to go. Barney Hoskyns

NME ORIGINALS 67
 Feverish concoctions

Tobe Hooper to direct a series

of Jeeves, ‘The Lovecats’ is a
post-modernist’s dream of a
nightmare, a purrrfect example of
the past purrrceived impurrfectly,
then put to use on this purposeful
madness, the last of The Cure’s
“fun” single trilogy.
‘The Lovecats’ is Smith’s
masterpiece of disorientation,
a mental collage of history
unhinged. Herman Munster takes
spiked tea with Jean Cocteau
NME, 29 January 1983, p15
while a taxidermist twitches the
net curtains in anticipation of a
BAUHAUS cannibal feast. But how to praise
Lagartija Nick something so zany? Well, at a
(Beggars Banquet) pinch it’s psychedelic cocktail
Now that they’ve broken down jazz, a strychnined nursery rhyme
the doors of the music biz with where every allusion (illusion!)
their inch-perfect ‘Ziggy Stardust’ triggers off a tunnel of flashbacks,
(that was their plan, you dig), but it’s so much sillier than that.
Bauhaus offer us… revolution? Sing the slap-dash chorus,
Salvation? Anarchy? Actually no. swoon to that devil-may-care
Just another lifeless, predictable decadent swing. Single of the
MM, 13 August 1983, p22
rock song with all the usual NME, 17 September 1983, p19 week? Single of the year(s)!
trappings of pompous vocals, Steve Sutherland
forgettable riffs and numbskull THE GLOVE SIOUXSIE & THE
drums and bass. What catalysts Like An Animal
you turned out to be boys, eh? (Polydor) BANSHEES
Paulo Hewitt The Severin-Smith axis of the Dear Prudence
Banshees finally break cover (Polydor)

with a vivacious confection. A beautiful sleeve and a less than

Eminently preferable to the astonishing cover. As Siouxsie’s
Gothic big band swing of The pop standing dissolves from
Creatures’ ‘Right Now’, this is a light to dark and back again
feverish concoction: ignore the the records of her group are
lyric, the words are nonsense; getting fogged and indecisive.
just listen to the noise. ‘Like An Whirlybird guitars and even some
Animal’ sparkles. Whooshing nostalgic phasing scarcely paper
swathes of synthesizer and over a cracking and under-fed
MM, 3 December 1983, p27
keyboards erupt colourfully and treatment of a dried-out chestnut.
continuously; jangling guitars And it goes on, and on. What will
peel away, mostly on the lip of they do next – ‘The Continuing COCTEAU TWINS
MM, 9 July 1983, p22
the main action; the percussion Story of Bungalow Bill’? Sunburst And Snowblind
clatters with a nervy rattle that Richard Cook (4AD)

recalls Wall Of Voodoo, while the When The Cocteau Twins

THE CREATURES bass simply hums through the perfected their impersonation of
Right Now mix, playing a melody adapted Joy Division nobody liked them
(Polydor) from the final vocal cascades of much; now they’ve learnt another
No one else had a hope this The Go-Betweens’ ‘Cattle And act – The Banshees’ gothic wall of
week. The Creatures slipped in, Cane’, providing a challenging sound – it seems suddenly they’re
ransacked the place and left with counterpoint to Jeanette’s keenly very desirable. Yet this four-track
the best ideas in a fast car. pitched but rather thin vocal. EP only serves to underline that
From the earliest seconds of ‘Like An Animal’ provides the the Twins still prefer artifice to
‘Right Now’ you know you’re on same kind of spacious rush as substance. Everything about
shifting ground. Siouxsie baba- The Byrds’ ‘Eight Miles High’ and their music appears to have been
da-babing to the noise of her races along with the exhausting chosen because of its superficial
own fingers clicking until Budgie momentum of the thunderclap immediacy: the grandiose guitar
barges in with congas on speed. climax of Love’s ‘Seven And lines, the fake majesty of the
MM, 29 October 1983, p22
Christ, which way is this going? Seven Is’. Are The Glove the new frequently incomprehensible
The one direction you don’t West Coast experimental pop lyrics, even the fatuous song
expect is a vagrant big band art ensemble? Whatever: like THE CURE titles: ‘Sugar Hiccup’ and ‘Because
coughing out drunken bursts of all good pop records, ‘Like An The Lovecats Of Whirl-Jack’! This is music for
brass in a Starlight Room of its Animal’ sounds like it’s always (Fiction) people who want to play at being
own making. There’s no telling been there. As if some macabre folly cast serious young persons but lack
where their feet are going to fall The Glove may yet prove to Vincent Price instead of Jeremy the resolve to see it through to
next. Probably on your head. be a real handful. Irons in Brideshead Revisited, the bitter/positive end.
Paul Colbert Allan Jones or some sinister senility chose Ian Pye

68 NME ORIGINALS
 Chapter 6
1984
DEREK RIDGERS
 Look At My Squalor!

If this
to the extraordinarily twisted bottleneck
guitar and harmonica at the end, ‘Well Of
Misery’ exemplifies the range and logic of
Nick’s songwriting and the staggering musical
imagination that has gone into its realisation.
‘Wings Off Flies’ is a malevolent word-
association game on the themes of life, loss

I’m
and retribution. Wickedly funny, it’s also worth
mentioning that when Mick Harvey’s drums
NME, 19 May 1984, p33 thunder to a crescendo during the
first chorus, I nearly fainted with

NICK CAVE & their crushing force.

Back to the central concern, the
THE BAD SEEDS oldest and saddest story of them
From Her To Eternity all, three versions of which fall
(Mute) either side of the spine and right
‘From Her to Eternity’ is one of the at the very end of the LP. They
greatest rock albums ever made. are the title track, ‘Saint Huck’,
Patti Smith’s ‘Horses’ is, I think, and ‘A Box For Black Paul’ – epic
the last album to achieve such tragedies, ‘rock psychodramas’
extremity of feeling, scope of as they used to be called. We’re talking ‘ Land’,
reference to animate it, and theatrical panache we’re talking ‘The End’, we’re talking ‘Heroin’,
to bind it all together. Dynamic, subtly layered, we’re talking ‘Desolation Row’…
funny and obsessive, ‘From Her To Eternity’ is These three songs aspire to an ambition
the work of a visionary unfettered by worship greater still than ‘Mutiny In Heaven’, Cave’s
of the romantic rock’n’roll mythology, and who masterpiece thus far. A whole welter of
thus reaches peaks hitherto unscaled. referential detail has been plundered from
Like ‘Horses’, ‘From Her To Eternity’ starts cliché-dom to be restored to its original force,
with a cover. Leonard Cohen’s ‘Avalanche’ looms though not perhaps a force of quite the same
ominously for a few seconds, then explodes into meaning as when first coined.
a melodramatic demon-showman snarl not far “Achtung!” : in ‘Saint Huck’ you will be
removed from one of Nick’s heroes, Alex Harvey. crushed by a relentlessly stormtrooping
That gap-toothed stage pirate was a master of drive from claustrophobia to lebensraum;
sinister disguise and distorted self-projection, Robert Mitchum’s fake Southern preacher
and so too is Nick. ‘Avalanche’ has as its out of Charles Laughton’s Night Of The Hunter,
protagonist a vengeful hybrid of Caliban, Christ ‘LOVE’ and ‘HATE’ tattooed on clenched white
and Nietzsche’s Superman. knuckles, an Amerikan Gothic knell tolling
Whether you like your savage messiahs well- across the turgid Mississippi. Melodramatic
read or not, you can’t escape the, er, avalanche yes, but overwrought no.
of ‘Avalanche’: you will hear no more slashing, ‘From Her to Eternity’, the song, is an epic,
grinding, throbbing, wrenchingly physical starring the most icy scalpel of a piano motif
rock’n’roll ever. The Bad Seeds are drummer ever to cut to the heart of trauma. And backing
Mick Harvey (ex-Birthday Party), bassist Barry it up is an arsenal of breakdown, electrocution
Adamson (ex-Magazine), guitarists Hugo Race and massacre that rises and rises in the multiple
(ex-Play With Marionettes) and Blixa Bargeld orgasm of a man torturing himself to death.
(Einstürzende Neubauten). These men storm And finally the funeral oration of ‘A Box For
the ramparts of sound, these men will make you Black Paul’. A piano maudlin with moonshine
sweat. When was the last time that happened? melancholy drifts over a steaming swamp,
To continue: surveying the
‘Cabin Fever!’ is a aftermath of
sister song to ‘83’s
‘Mutiny In Heaven’,
You wil hear no more slashing, the lynching
of Black Paul.
another tale of
Nick the crazed
grinding, throbbing, wrenchingly (BP also stands
for Birthday
mariner adrift on
the boiling seas
of soul’s torment.
physical rock’n’roll ever Party, and
that inquest’s
verdict must
Wheels clank and your mind’s rope is stretched thus stand as murder, not suicide.) Death has
to quivering tautness. Never has a keel-hauling reared up again, and so this elegy wends it way
and a hanging been so much fun. to the broken heart of Elvis’ ‘Heartbreak Hotel’,
And that rope recurs in ‘Well Of Misery’, rewritten as the testament of a man whose
and from it “dangles the bucket of sorrow loved one has not survived her leaving him.
which swings slow like a bell and its toll is dead And thus Nick’s girl finally fades away in the
and hollow”. Note the smooth procession of coda, leaving just the echo of the sound that’s
imagery united in the single theme of death, dominated this record, the mutated electric
for Nick’s little girl floats at the bottom of that blues collage of a man as much in the tradition
well. Two favourite songs of Nick’s are ‘Hey Joe’ of Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Moanin’ At Midnight’ as he is
and Neil Young’s ‘Down By The River’: his motto of Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov…
could be “You always kill the one you love”. As I said, this is one of the greatest rock
From the mordantly stalking bassline albums ever made.
through the chain-gang rhythm and chorus Mat Snow

70 NME ORIGINALS
 1984

is heaven t he enigma of The Birthday Party, like that

of Werner Herzog’s saintly idiot Kaspar
Hauser, begins with grunts in the darkness
and ends in murder.
Slithering between irony and tragedy last year,
The Birthday Party slug finally sliced itself open
on that razor’s edge, but instead of the unsightly

bailing out
mess you might have expected, it left behind the
finest examples of its art in ‘The Bad Seed’ and
‘Mutiny’ – two four-track EPs that shone through
the amorphous mass of transparent mediocrity
released in 1983. Both are testaments of romantic
daring and sick obsessiveness, full of feverish
images of guilt, pictures of murder that are
simultaneously horrendous and secretly attractive.
It was at that point that it first became clear
that Nick Cave’s songwriting was departing from
every mode known to rock and developing into
some new, iridescent form, by turns trenchant
and direct, epic and overblown. Meanwhile,
the music was hurling itself into a state of wild,
epileptic disorder.
And yet in the midst of the crash, Nick
captured the mood of modern Britain with an
acute perception that the desperate, depressing
worthiness of a Weller could never have
approached: “At night my body blushed to the
whistle on the birch”, he raved. “With a little
practise I learned to use it on myself ”.
With that line, ostensibly referring to religion, he
encapsulated the masochism of a nation that seems
to be yielding any notion of individual power to
a higher authority. It was a reaction against the
dulling of the imagination. It ended The Birthday
Party in the only way possible – violently.

From the wreckage of ‘Mutiny’, Cave has now

emerged with a solo LP, ‘From Her To Eternity’.
Released from all controls, Cave’s songwriting
has spiralled into a wild and wheeling poetry of
cruelty, pursuing the most nightmarish strands
of The Birthday Party’s fascinations. It’s not
constructed without a certain humour, but it’s
dark, even by the standards of The Birthday Party.
‘From Her To Eternity’ is a statement of romantic
irrationalism stretched to the very limits.
Talk to Nick Cave and you’re talking to a
variety of characters. Like JG Ballard he views
external reality as a sinister novel, and he seeks
to play more parts: the irresponsible artist, the
wounded romantic, the hunched grotesque,
the Nietzschean individualist. He plays with
the cartoon personae of Nick Cave in the same
manner that he manipulates the images of Elvis
Presley or Iggy Pop.
Right now he’s playing a character very close to
the consumptive hag displaying her blood spots in
Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment, as he indicates
the cramped surroundings of his current living
conditions. Look at my squalor!
“Nice, isn’t it?” he asks with ironic relish as we
NME, 12 May 1984, p28
enter the single room he shares with Bad Seeds
Blixa Bargeld (also of Einstürzende Neubauten)
and Hugo Race. At the moment, though, Blixa has
Who is the real Nick Cave and will he ever emerge from his fled to Berlin and Hugo to Oxford, leaving Nick
to share the room with a handful of telephone
gallery of masks borrowed from classical fiction and the messages, a copy of Moby Dick and a treasured
portrait of GI period Elvis Presley.
hallowed museums of rock’n’roll? Don Watson goes in search of He runs nicotine-stained fingers through his
DEREK RIDGERS

back-combed nest of hair, an amused glance

old Nick as he releases his debut solo LP, ‘From Her to Eternity’ reflected in the bathroom mirror as he watches

NME ORIGINALS 71
 In The Ghetto

the latest voyeurs stumbling around in search form at all, but he has some method of tuning external factors are basically quite superficial.
of standing space amid the dirty laundry. the instrument that can produce the most I would like to consider myself totally alone
“I always think it’s important to show people amazing noises without the use of any effects and above those influences, which is to do
where you live,” he continues. whatsoever. He would regard using footpedals with developing a character that is sufficiently
So what are the chances that Nick Cave will or whatever as a hopelessly middle class, public strong not to be influenced by the way that other
give himself away? Show us the bleeding heart he school form of playing.” people think, but to develop a moral code that
delights in setting against the swastika? Where the music is simple and direct, though, is not under the influence of ordinary laws and
Well, first we’d have to distinguish just which the lyrics have developed a new complexity. The religious laws – and be able to live under that
one of the many faces on show, both here and images are direct and violent, but there’s always without a nagging conscience.”
elsewhere, precisely is Nick Cave. His art is one of something deeper and darker than the surface
dramatic fakery, executed with a wicked delight indicates. It makes demands on the listener that Murder, of course, looms large in Cave’s scheme
in defying expectation. Nick describes with a typical arrogance. of things.
Of course there’s the Wild Man Of Rock/ “I see it in same the way as a tight, tense drama “My songs are fairly harmless vehicles for
Thinking Man Of The Modern Age dichotomy in the cinema – my songs require you to listen to expressing what I might entertain within my
between the most readily recognisable Nick Cave the storyline from beginning to end, to listen to mind,” Cave says. “The things that I write
stage personae and the calm and contemplative and understand each line. Otherwise you get lost about are things that, outside of the obvious
demeanour of Nick Cave the interviewee. But his in the same way as you would if you decided to difficulties, I would like to witness. I don’t dwell
gallery of masks contains less easily classifiable visit the toilet in the final scenes of Taxi Driver on these themes in order to be controversial.
characters than that – some borrowed from and expect to know what the film is about.” There are things that I do for those reasons but
history, some from classical fiction, some from As he proclaims, he has abandoned any they’re very deliberate and obvious things that
the most hallowed museums of rock’n’roll. careerist notions that he might have entertained. are making a comment on the idea of being
In his songs fiction merges into reality: the It’s a brave attempt to escape the tyrannies of controversial, and how ridiculous and shallow
shadow of Raskolnikov mingles with Hamlet; commercial punishment and reward. such a way of life is.’’
Cave’s own creations – Gun, King Ink, The Dim “I would like to escape defining my own You mean the vacuity of the good-old
Locator – mix with hybrids like Saint Huck. reality in terms of punishment and reward, in fashioned shock value?
All of them are partly, but never entirely, Cave preference to what I consider to be good and bad. “Well… In the case of the swastika I’ve always
himself. His latest fascination stares down at us “Those lines in ‘Mutiny’ referring to used it in the most deliberately moronic fashion.
from the wall. punishment and reward were intended to point I’ll also do that in the writing, by inserting a line
“I’ve just joined the Elvis Presley Fan Club,” he the finger at religion, and why people believed that is deliberately shocking or irresponsible. It’s
grins. “They’re sending me some posters; can’t in the conventional concepts of good and bad, finding those symbols and thoughts that are far
imagine I’ll go to many of the meetings though.” which are based on greed and fear. more shocking in certain contexts than they are
The Presley infatuation is reflected in a vocal “I’m very interested in discovering something in others. As I’ve said, certain clichés in the right
inflection at the end of ‘Box For Black Paul’; within myself that is not affected by other forces. context can still be reasonably effective…”
more specifically there’s the next single, a version I have very strong feelings that the way I am is As the conversation continues in a local pub,
of ‘In The Ghetto’. not due to the influence of my parents or my an old man leans across to our table, and fi xes
“There’s very little in it to suggest that it’s environment that I was brought up in – any Nick with a stare.
recorded with anything other than the ‘’You’re an arrogant fellow,’’ the
greatest respect and admiration,” he
says with a certain bemusement. “I’ve got a right to be arrogant. old man accuses.
‘’I’ve got a right to be, I’m a
“I love it – but I can imagine a
Birthday Party fan might have some
difficulty knowing what to make of it.”
I’m famous. I’m Napoleon” famous person,’’ Nick replies. “I’ve
just done a European tour.’’
“Oh yeah, what’s your name?’’
As with most of Cave’s fascinations, his “I’m Napoleon,’’ answers Nick, with
interest in Presley is in his decline, in the a twinkle.
artifice rather than the art. Yes, the role of the irresponsible artist
“The influence that I get from any fictional as provocateur, as enemy of the tidy world
character,” he says, “is from their cartoon of liberal moralists has been in existence
selves, the point at which they themselves for some time now, long enough now to
become clichés. In that sense, all of my own qualify for cliché status.
characters are cartoons of themselves as well, All the same, some of us are grateful
in that they begin with a stock cliché that that the rich tapestry of rock’n’roll has
people can latch on to, that will trigger off been splattered with the pus and gore of
the desired initial impression. The Velvet Undergrounds, the Iggy Pops,
“You have to remember what a cliché the Foetuses and the Nick Caves, figures
is – which is something that was formerly who will play with fire and seek to scorch
powerful, but through overuse has become the glossy package of the shiny pop fantasy.
meaningless. You can restore its meaning by Nick Cave is an ardent irrationalist, too
putting it in a different setting.” complex a creature to plod the straight
line of the liberal path. His images are a
Musically, ‘From Her to Eternity’ is a perpetual provocation contrived to throw
sparse sound, snagged with Blixa Bargeld’s even his admirers into a state of crisis.
corruption of the blues guitar. As a
longstanding friend of Nick’s, Blixa was “I would like to define this irrationalism as
the natural choice – not only because the ultimate principle of infinity in our art…
Neubauten’s philosophy is in accord with the yearning for meaning in madness… the
Cave’s “search for a simpler, more directly continuation of life by other means, including
violent” form of expression, but because as the issues of guilt, the work of mourning as
a non-musician he is incapable of seeing the reflection of this loneliness of infinity. At
things in a conventional manner. its start suffering; and at its end morality.’’
DEREK RIDGERS

“As far as I can work out, Blixa can’t – Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, taken from Hitler:
actually play the guitar in the conventional A Film From Germany.

72 NME ORIGINALS
 1984

MM, 9 June 1984, p32

SIOUXSIE &
THE BANSHEES
Hyaena
(Wonderland)

The laughing dog. The scavenger.

The survivor, picking over the bones
of the past to nourish the present.
At times ignoble, essentially alive.
This is the Banshees.
Their prey may have varied
over the years, but it’s still the
same old carrion carry-on. At their
transcendental best, the Banshees
are a million times more than the
sum of their parts. That arrogantly
independent attitude, those
embarrassing excursions into the
occult, the creeping spell and the
sudden rush of blood is so unique
that it takes on a life of its own.
There are many such moments
on ‘Hyaena’, moments where
the Banshees are caught up in
the revelry of their own creations.
Parts of it are so wistfully carefree
that it’s impossible not to credit
Robert Smith: Robert Smith as the talisman
tipped for
‘The Top’ – his irreverence seems to course
through everything.
‘Take Me Back’ is the Banshees
think any more – he’s not the guitar rollicking like some primitive jazz
hero in black with a head stuffed combo drunk on the Good Lord’s
with Camus, but he could be next wine. On ‘Belladonna’, Smith’s
Wednesday if he felt like it. He just liquid guitar relaxes Sioux to the
doesn’t give two hoots. extent that she drops a few masks
Smith’s voice is all over the place: to reveal her vulnerability. When the
mock-passionate, whining, daft as siren sings “daylight devours your
Steve Harley, devious as Devoto. unguarded hours”, she’s illuminating
Where his head’s at is something her own predicament so acutely it
else; most of the lyrics sound like surely can’t be coincidence.
MM, 5 May 1984, p24 ‘The Top’ is psychedelia that video cues to egg on Tim Pope to ‘Dazzle’, too, is naively daring:
can’t be dated, the sounds and weirder excesses. Siouxsie’s voice, framed alone
shapes of somebody revelling in Could it be drugs? ‘The Wailing against the firmament of strings.
THE CURE an identity crisis. It recognises no Wall’ could be an acid trip in Israel. It could be Lloyd Webber’s Cats or
The Top values but its own existence; no Could it be The Banshees? ‘The Top’ something by Vaughn Williams.
(Fiction) rules, no precedents, no itself worms around similar tunnels. You can get impressed, wrapped up
Trying to get to the preconceptions. ‘The Could Smith be a hippy? ‘Dressing and lost in this. That’s the beauty
bottom of ‘The Top’ Top’ is perfect freedom. Up’ is a gorgeous acoustic ditty, but then there’s the complacency.
is a bit like trying to I’ve yet to meet yawning and stretching like vintage ‘Running Town’ tries to sound eerie
decide whether a happy anyone who can tell String Band. Could it be cunning? but instead of evoking the awful
lunatic would be better me why The Cure are Oh, very. There are clues to Smith’s truth behind the clown’s
off sane. It’s silly and having hits now of inspiration: the cheery mask, it just sounds
sinister, like Syd Barrett. all times. Have we flutey feedback giddy and silly. And
It’s selfish, irresponsible, discovered something of ‘Wailing Wall’ is ‘Hunger For This’ and
perfectly amoral and in Smith’s busy Hendrix’s ‘If Six Were ‘Pointing Bone’ are just
completely incompatible lethargy (two bands Nine’; ‘Give Me It’ the Banshees being
with anything else and still dreaming all day!), and if so, echoes Nick Cave’s the Banshees.
happening now or, indeed, anything what? Or has Smith uncovered some ‘Mutiny In Heaven’. I doubt ‘Hyaena’
that’s probably ever happened. twitching nerve near our funny Still, accounting could be any other way.
It’s playing practical jokes where bone that reacts instinctively to for ‘The Top’ is like It urges itself to the
the victim dies. It’s Vincent Price in his whimsical tortures? Whatever’s accounting for a dream turning point where we
Theatre Of Blood – plotting, sawing going on, Smith has done what all – you add it all up and stop assuming what the Banshees
the head off another nice song. the Wellers have been bleating on there’s still something missing. should be and start accepting that
In a way it’s as carefree and cocky about – he’s escaped his past and I reckon either Smith’s gone mad or they can do anything they like.
as the ‘White Album’ but it never wriggled out of the cul-de-sac that we have. Maybe both. Who knows? ‘Hyaena’ is an immaculate
TOM SHEEHAN

sounds wilfully disorganised. Its we knew and loved to death as Who cares? Love it! conception. Again.
logic is strict, just unhinged. The Cure. He doesn’t care what we Steve Sutherland Steve Sutherland

NME ORIGINALS 73
 The Last Great Rock Band

‘Horse Nation’ onwards. Gritty and

MM, 25 August 1984, p29
noisy (‘Spiritwalker’) with finesse
and calamity (‘83rd Dream’), The
THE CULT Cult take great strides to ease
Dreamtime the emotions home. ‘Flower In
(Beggars Banquet) The Desert’ and ‘Bad Medicine
“Only connect.” (EM Forster) Waltz’ are not merely hypnotic but
Instinctively coveted but strangely uplifting and reassuring.
words still unclear. So it is with Try it, dumbo.
The Cult. Something magnificent The Stones, eh? Hmm. The
glows within these songs, ideas trouble is that people are no longer
and lyrics as emotions swirl, crash inclined to be shaken awake,
and dance… particularly since the introduction
…and connect of course, while of those spectacular video
the over-the-top press release nightgowns. But The Cult are on a
makes much, with tongue piercing precipice. Not since the Ants have Cocteau Twin
Liz Fraser: the
cheek, of their Rolling Stones there been clandestine guards voice of God
similarities (in terms of “the future”). meeting commercial success,
It’s not far from the truth. The without excess. The Ants, of course,
Cult, almost accidentally, could made that unexpected shift into MM, 10 November 1984, p34
board and examine its translucent
be the last great rock band. With pantomime, so the crown is there wings and it’s an anatomical marvel.
their rhythmic ferocity, their guitar if The Cult want it. They could really Simon Raymonde’s sturdy, haunting
predominance and purely unique do something. COCTEAU TWINS bass forms a vertebrae, the drum
vocals, membership is open to that Musically they are spruce and Treasure machine drops heartbeats like
club of U2, Big Country, The Clash hard-hitting. Nigel Preston, man (4AD) bombs and Robin Guthrie’s guitar
and Simple Minds, but there is an of a thousand arms, is a rhythmical Trust true brilliance to arrive by congeals into a pale, perfect skin.
important difference: lynch-pin of some accident. With ‘Treasure’ echoing The creature thus far is grubbing
The Cult don’t come versatility. all around my head, it all seems so in the dark, begging for sight. It’s
out of a packet. His partner, Jamie obvious. Only something this naive the voice that leads it from sweet
There’s an ethereal Stewart (retired from could shake the shame from all ambience to poignant emotion. Liz
fire burning in their acting), is a shade less categories we worry about. Fraser must be schizophrenic, she
songs (although the assertive, although the Relax. ‘Treasure’ sounds like speaks in so many tongues. During
title track seems rather live album (given away nothing you’ve ever heard and ‘Lorelei’ she’s a panting orgasm,
crass), which could have free with the first everything you’ve ever wished for. a celestial turn-on. As ‘Pandora’
quite an effect when 10,000 copies) shows Most people change; The she’s The Angel From Ipanema;
they bite deep into the him in ruthless form. Cocteau Twins blossom. The break as ‘Otterly’ she’s the spectral
charts, as they clearly will. Billy Duffy (currently from the hellish Gothic shackles confessor; as ‘Amelia’, the lady with
And the beneficiaries of that will keeping clear of swimming pools) of the awkward ‘Garlands’ to the the lamp.
are us. Hooked and pampered by exhibits true mastery, the notes heavenly scorpion It would be easy
falling in viscous ringlets. And of cocktail jazz of ‘Head to point out that The
course there’s Ian Astbury. A Over Heels’ was Cocteau Twins use
telescopic voice, rearing up in a metamorphosis Liz’s voice as an
front and then nipping round beyond the imagining. instrument rather than
the back for a bit of well- But how were we to a narrative, but that’s
groomed gargling. know that the chrysalis like reducing flight to
And this live album, where had only just cracked, the motion of muscles.
Ian harangues the sleeping that the colours we were Liz isn’t accomplished,
characters at the back, catches devouring were just a she’s inspired.
them in explosive form: “We dazzling secretion? It’s weird. The Cocteaus barely
played our fucking hearts out for Without meaning to, without seem to exist off record. They work
your tonight. The least you could caring, ‘Treasure’ is what so many like receivers; something plays
do is show some appreciation!” strive for – a new pop music. Anyone itself through them and reaches
Get stuck in. All of you. can listen to this and feel enriched. us untainted and pure. There are
And before I go lads, a piece of It’s stirring, sensual, stately, subtle. dimensions to ‘Treasure’ which
The Cult: (l to r) advice in case, on your travels, It’s bubblegum spiked with acid. It’s strike me as spiritual – it invades the
Billy Duffy,
Jamie Stewart, you should come to a town candy-coloured, it’s timeless. body, intoxicates the imagination
Ian Astbury, called Altamont. Crack its sugary shell and you and succours the soul. Surely this
TOM SHEEHAN

Nigel Preston Keep driving. read the name right through. Pin band is the voice of God.
Mick Mercer its plump, squirming body to a Steve Sutherland

74 NME ORIGINALS
 U2DEVIL DANCING
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 Hooked On Classics

pretentious, three traps which

most previous classical/rock
experimenters have fallen into
headfirst. In fact, the power of a
classical orchestra is the perfect
foil for the band’s grindingly
insistent sounds and there’s
something about Siouxsie’s
voice which benefits from such
a combination of chaos and
formality. ‘Overground’ is the
undoubted highlight, with the
NME, 17 March 1984, p21
Singles orchestra churning away at a
sort of spaghetti western

SIOUXSIE & backing full of castanets and

snare drums while the guitars
THE BANSHEES snarl angrily between them.
Swimming Horses A little reminiscent of Deep
(Polydor) Purple’s ‘Concerto For Group
Siouxsie! Listen to me! It is And Orchestra’… but let’s not
obvious by now that your career go into that.
will be at its most pungent if it Mark Jenkins
is composed solely of covers,
the Cilla Black of the Blackheart
Set – nothing wrong with that, MM, 12 May 1984, p30 MM, 25 August 1984, p30
someone’s got to do it – so may
I recommend ‘Martha My Dear’,
the crooner Paul McCartney’s THE CULT THE CULT
love song to his late sheepdog – Spiritwalker Go West
it is a Beatles song from ‘The (Situation 2) (Crazy Spinning Circles)
White Album’ (ring a bell?), a If they keep this up, The Cult soon (Beggars Banquet)

song about an animal (you go won’t have a name at all. Still, Exuberant youths become
for our furry friends, don’t you?) they can be relied on to deliver strapping lads, the rebel
and ripe for reproduction. So a bit of clout, and this bristles yell controlled but
may I recommend it to you as with hostile voice and scorched- not calm. There is
a wise career move? earth guitar. Not much of a song, smooth cloud cover,
Oh, sod you, then. unfortunately. but you can’t hide
Julie Burchill Adam Sweeting the lightning storm
within.
Mick Mercer

Sioux: the Cilla

Black of the
Blackheart Set

NME, 21 April 1984, p21 NME, 4 August 1984, p16

COCTEAU TWINS THE SISTERS NME, 25 October 1984, p20

Pearly Dewdrops’ Drops OF MERCY SIOUXSIE &

(4AD) Body And Soul
In The Cocteau Twins scheme (Merciful Release/WEA) THE BANSHEES
of things, putting on a black Here’s a nugget to start with. The Thorn
dress and looked pained = a As I write, ‘Body And Soul’ (Polydor)

cosmic Piaf! A plodding tortuous has crashed into the Hot 100 at Remixed and remodelled
dirge = a mark of sensitivity! – let’s see, now – number 100. with strings, choirs and all the
Screeching like a doolally fishwife Oh well, it’s magnificent all production of a ‘Hooked On
= passion! These precious little the same: a gorgeous swell of Classics’ effort, ‘Overground’,
people are one of the finest sensurrounding warmth. ‘Voices’, ‘Placebo Effect’ and ‘Red
arguments I have ever heard for Where will the indie charts Over White’ do The Banshees
STEVE RAPPOST

bringing back National Service. be without them? … credit – it doesn’t sound in

Tony Parsons Paul Du Noyer the least bit silly, clichéd or

76 NME ORIGINALS
 Chapter 7
1985
DEREK RIDGERS
 Amphetamine Logic

MM, 16 March 1985, p30

CARELE SS
WHI SPERS
Steve Sutherland swaps badinage with Andy Eldritch of
The Sisters Of Mercy. Eldritch reveals little about his
new LP, but we learn that he intends to eat lemons on tour

t
he self-styled Mr Eldritch drags on his fag and takes
another of those long, practised, meditative pauses. I’ve
just asked him how come he wasn’t asked to sing on the
Band Aid single. Almost a minute elapses.
He exhales audibly: “That’s a tough one, isn’t it?”
This self-same Mr Eldritch, stubble-chinned and bone-dry
behind shades in a Leeds living room, is explaining why The
Sisters Of Mercy’s debut album, ‘First And Last And Always’,
has taken so damn long to crawl into the light of day. He
confirms the rumours of illness, revelling in revealing just
what he wants and no more. Just like his songs.
“I’ve got the scars to prove it. I think I just started working
too hard and, at the end of last summer, my body said, ‘No
thank you. This has gone far enough. It’ll end in tears.’ So
I’ve calmed down a bit… I enjoy it so much, being strung out
for a very long time… I’m told you can’t do it for that long.”
This is, of course, the only possible reaction from a man
associated with the doomier side of existence.
“Doomy is a housewives’ word for realistic. It’s a
dangerous world.”
Now this Mr Eldritch is a man of starchy intelligence,
the sort of fellow you can say words like “art” to and not feel

78 NME ORIGINALS
 1985

like a dickhead. And so it was that I asked him “You have to laugh at it because you have to
whether his art informed his life or vice versa. see it for what it might do to the nation’s youth
And, naturally enough, this was exactly the sort and, God forbid, to the nation’s housewives to
of question he loves. hear ‘Amphetamine Logic’.”
“After so much practice, it’s very difficult not This Mr Eldritch, as you’ll have doubtless
to live it so, yeah, the lifestyle informs the art. surmised, is one wry customer, a bit of a master
I keep putting myself in this godawful position when it comes to a wind-up and I, too, have had
quite deliberately. It’s possible to get out of it but my moments so we joust a bit and I ask him what
MM, 16 March 1985, p28
I’ve chosen not to. he’d say to somebody who considered his antics
“The next question is, ‘Will there come a point pathetic because some people really are ill while
where you can’t? And then what will you do?’ his maladies are generally self-induced? THE SISTERS OF MERCY
And the answer is, ‘I don’t know’. I shall probably “I’d probably tell them to fuck off.” He rasps First And Last And Always
just keel over.” and I take it to be laughter. “Telling people to (Merciful Release/WEA)

I tell this Mr Eldritch that I think he’s a damn fuck off, that sense of glorious vindication, is a James Dean is alive!
good actor, creating for himself the classic role primary, motivating factor, I think.” He’s living in a flat
of romantic victim. Rock’n’roll in Leeds disguised
He rather likes this outlaws, eh? as Andrew Eldritch
notion too.
“I’ve spent so long
“Telling people to fuck off, “Aren’t we just! No!
We have appetites!
– a 24-hours-a-day
enigma, complete
doing this that I can’t
distance the two. And
that glorious vindication, is a We’re human! We
have needs! It’s
with permanently
affixed shades.
it’s more interesting
than what I was
primary motivating factor” about time we were
pandered to.”
Last year it
seemed that
before. I was so shot Such as? success had eluded the Sisters once and
when I wrote the lyrics on the album that there’s “Such as the 12 fresh lemons I have to have for all. But their new album is packed with
no distancing of persons at all. It’s not a problem every night on the next tour.” glistening gems, and just as Andy’s beat-up
to live up to it, it’s just a problem to live, period. This is exactly the stuff of which legends are crow hat appears to be riveted to his head,
The way I seem to end up living these days, I’m made and, of course, Mr Eldritch forever keeps so his lugubrious baritone-drone rivets
very aware of how fast the blood’s going round an eye on legend. But I wonder, can someone the attention – in turns commanding, then
and how high the sugar level is because I’ve been so cryptic with such an advanced, nay, chronic, inviting, following a path wrought with morbid
forced to be aware of it.” sense of irony ever attain that status? depression and reeking of misery.
I now decide it’s time Mr Eldritch and I “No, because I always let people know just that “I have heard a million conversations going
stopped beating around the bush and started bit too much. It disturbs them.” where they’ve been before/I don’t care for words
talking serious drugs so I inform him that, in my Mr Eldritch’s favourite word is “oblique” and that don’t belong”. Ah, music to hum over the
humble opinion, the second side of ‘First And yet his followers tend to be the new Goths, the three-minute warning. Yet the doom-ridden,
Last And Always’ is about being wasted, finding it ersatz Siouxsies. Strange. Mr Eldritch’s fantasy gloom-trodden world of the Sisters is but half
hard to cope and relishing every agonised second. is much more subversive. He likes to flirt with their appeal. Delicacy showers the spheres of
He smirks: “It would be clichés. He likes twisting his ‘Black Planet’ as Wayne’s infectious guitaring
dishonest to write anything sources. Goddamn, he even slopes and spirals around words cradled with
more homely. I don’t think acknowledges his sources! dark innuendo, rhymes invested with sparks
the band’s particular
pleasures are destructive.
Ten things you The Sisters once recorded
‘Gimme Shelter’.
of aggression, and a chorus that once heard, is
never to be forgotten.
It’s horses for courses. At
our age, you generally know
didn’t want to know “Everybody’s doing
exactly the same thing to
The Sisters supplement the intensity of
‘Walk Away’ with the bittersweet tang of ‘No
what’s good for you and
what isn’t and, most of the
about Mr Eldritch a greater or lesser degree.
We’re just rather shameless
Time to Cry’, while ‘A Rock And A Hard Place’
breathes life into the ossified remains of
time, you stick to what’s 1. His favourite film is The Blues about it. People don’t like to post-punk using Eldritch’s dulcet tones to bind
good for you. None of the Brothers be reminded of it. They’d together the ornaments of instrumentation as
songs on the album are 2. He supports Manchester much rather we went out they dance on the grave of circumstance.
about being a victim of one’s United there like messiahs from The second side unveils Celtic guitars that
own pleasures except in the 3.̀ He is currently courting Josie another planet who’d never career through arid wastelands until they’re
case of getting emotionally from Vicious Pink heard of Chuck Berry swept up by the blistering chorus of ‘First
involved with people who 4. He owns a spiffing collection or…” – he whispers this bit And Last And Always’. The surge of drums
aren’t very good for you.” of Likely Lads videos – “…Led Zeppelin.” finally yields to a sustaining piano note that
So what sort of 5. He idolises Jake Thackeray If it’s only rock’n’roll, is stretches suspense to a point only dreamt of
irresponsible hero is this 6. He’s currently launching a this Mr Eldritch really happy by Hitchcock. God forbid, but these songs are
man in black who stalks campaign to get Reg Varney as being a Sister? almost explosive enough to launch a goth
the streets of Leeds 4 in a the next Dr Who and, failing that, “Smug might be a better revival (the third this year?).
battered cowboy hat? Eleanor Bron word. We’re in a good Have Mercy! And pass the razor blades.
“The sort of irresponsible 7. He studied French and German position. We can step in Andrew’s sense of humour rattles with such
hero who makes it very at St Johns, Oxford and then and out of the mainstream ominous overtones that laughter takes fright
clear that certain things Chinese at Leeds University and the band decide what’s and takes flight. His prowling voice veers
are irresponsible. There’s 8. His black coat/cloak was given required, not someone else.” dangerously close to pastiche, but the songs
no actual propagation of to him by The Gun Club Is there anyone else, I ask, are so striped with splinters of power and pain,
irresponsibility on the 9. He owns the 12-inch of who Mr Eldritch reckons is his words remain dangerous.
records and that’s why you ‘Careless Whisper’ although he doing anything worthwhile? Here, all past promises have been fulfilled:
need detachment, irony with doesn’t own a record player. “It’s He pauses that pause: the Sisters have successfully accumulated a
a capital I. You have to be important to have the artefact if “Roy Kinnear, always.” startling array of timeless jewels.
clinical about certain aspects the record’s that good.” My, he is a smug bastard It can only be a matter of time before they
DEREK RIDGERS

of portraying any persona, 10. There’s a picture of Jimmy isn’t he? accumulate success.
even if it’s your genuine self. White above his fireplace “Well, yeah. Why not?” Ted Mico

NME ORIGINALS 79
 Southern
No More Mad
DeAth
BobCult

claustrophobia of ‘Pornography’,
MM, 8 June 1985, p34 checked himself out of the funny
farm where he turned out ‘The

NICK CAVE & Top’, and now roams among us,

a harmless eccentric. I can’t help
THE BAD SEEDS wondering if the magnificent liberty
The Firstborn Is Dead that fashioned ‘The Head On The
(Mute) Door’ won’t cement into another
Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds image, comfortably digested and
continue their excursion into a easily dismissed.
nightmare world where perdition Certainly, this album is as
will never lead to wilfully enigmatic as ever. The
salvation, and pain a startling grasp on beat of a ritual drum at a sacrifice only difference is it’s determinedly
and horror are not the John Lee Hooker as Barry Adamson’s bass hauls the languorous, nowhere near as
fleeting agonies, and Screaming Jay lumbering beast across landscapes tortured or tense as its predecessor.
but the only true Hawkins world of blues. of mock hell. Cave’s voice aches with So ‘The Head…’ is a collection
religion. Thunderclaps and the persecution, but his stories of woe of pop songs, it’s as simple(?) as
Despite the acid rain of futility drench are tinted with the blackest humour. that. Bursting with potential hits,
obvious drawbacks the sparse Bo Diddley- It’s not clear if ‘Say Goodbye To The it staggers under its influences,
of coming from style guitar of opener Little Girl Tree’ is a joke pretending rescued from dilettantism solely
Australia (and not ‘Tupelo’, which quickly to be funny, or a man pretending to by Smith’s steady presence. Some
the Deep South), sets this album far above be a joke, but either way it succeeds! stuff, like ‘The Baby Screams’ – a
being white (and not black), and the standard post-junkie blues ‘Black Crow King’: Blixa’s lone six- classic Cure concoction of mixed
looking like a cadaver (and not epics that are dampened by crass string scrapes the crypt floor while metaphors and creeping guitar
having a dead grandfather who sentiment and self-pity. Nick recounts the tale of a King who – will satisfy the Faithful. Others, like
was a slave) Cave has achieved ‘Knocking On Joe’ chimes to the is set up for worship only to find ‘Close To Me’ – a squirming, sobbing,
his former authority turns to pleading disco thing complete with
parody. Sound familiar? handclaps – will seduce just about
Nothing like as familiar as any Tom, Dick or Vanessa.
‘Wanted Man’ – which sounds ‘The Head…’ makes a mockery
remarkably like Dr Feelgood! not only of the accepted parameters
The album’s lugubrious of what the radio will play and the
chain-gang beat marches public accept, but also of what The
on – arid and remorseless, Cure are supposed to be about.
punctuating Nick’s hollow There’s nothing obscure or sinister
and morbid about ‘A Night Like
chant. Halfway This’ – it deals with
through the love and despair in
murderous desperate balance,
‘Train Long toys with a joyously
Suffering’ incongruous singalong
you wish and accommodates a
someone sax break more at home
would hand with Hall & Oates.
Nick a razor- It’s a neat ragbag of
blade and the arbitrary, each song
put us all out of our misery. a separate piece from a different
It’s sordid, it’s predictable, jigsaw. Some shapes bear the
it’s sickening, and it’s quite imprint of exotic scenes – ‘Kyoto
indispensable! Song’ sounds Japanese while ‘The
Ted Mico Blood’ stamps through its paces to
a flamenco guitar. Others suggest
there are more strident, less fickle
MM, 31 August 1985, p27 things ahead. ‘Push’, for example,
is stronger, less whimsical than
THE CURE anything on ‘The Top’, and ‘Sinking’
The Head On The Door is more majestic, more honest
Fiction perhaps than anything Smith’s done
No more Mad Bob? Maybe. since ‘All Cats Are Grey’.
Maybe not. Robert Smith As a compilation of possibilities,
has wormed himself into ‘The Head On The Door’ is
an enviable but precarious perfection of sorts – a romp more
position over the past 18 than a rage through the closet,
months. We don’t know trying things on, not tearing them
what to expect any more. up. This Cure is boisterous but
But, then again, we know relaxed and reliably unreliable.
Black crow king: to expect nothing. He’s I’m used to it now and I use it with
Nick Cave in his slipped the straitjacket pleasure.
BLEDDYN BUTCHER

Berlin bolthole of brooding depression So, no more Mad Bob. Next time,
that shaped ‘Faith’, something else. Again.
cleaved through the Steve Sutherland

80 NME ORIGINALS
 1985

MM, 17 August 1985, p24

n o more Mad Bob.”

Pardon?
“No more Mad Bob.”
Oh, I see. Robert Smith is happy.
Deliriously happy. Think about that
for a moment.
Doctor Doom. Mr Miserable.
The Prince Of Paranoia. Happy.
Happy with life. Happy with death.
Happy to wind us up. Happy to let us
down. And happy to talk his head off
about ‘The Head On The Door’,
the new Cure album and another
departure from what we might expect.
So what’s he got to tell us, this
smudge of lipstick in a lion’s mane?
Will he spin us a yarn to match the one
he foisted on Smash Hits – you know,
the one about the album title referring
to a nightmare childhood vision
engendered by a chicken-pox fever?
“Oh, did I tell him about that one?”
Robert grins sheepishly as he attacks
an onion bhaji. “Well… it’s sort of true.
Do you want me to give you a different
version?”
Oh, yes please.
“Alright then.” (Are you sitting
comfortably?) “When I was little, I used
to sleep in the same room as my little
sister and we used to have one of those
Noddyland scenes, quite a big event,
made out of felt.”
Oh really.
“Look, this is deadly serious. I couldn’t
make something up like this, now could
I? Right. You had all these particular
characters who existed in Noddy’s particular
brand of reality, which is basically Big Ears
and his family – hundreds of ’em – oh, and
a policeman. That was about it.

A Suitable
“Anyway, my big sister was going to art
school at the time and she used to make us
toys out of felt, nice things to put in this two-
foot window into Noddyland, and my brother
got the idea that it would be really good fun to
introduce a sort of Texas Chainsaw Massacre
element. So there I was, sitting up in my

CaseFor
bunk-bed before I went to sleep and suddenly
I noticed he’d cut Noddy’s head off, and it
really, really scared me.
“I went really mental – Noddy had such
a sweet face, he was always Mr Happy, and
I remember thinking at the time that it was
a really evil thing to do. Even now it seems
pretty awful. Uh… d’you know, the biggest

Treatment
evil I could imagine then was Catwoman.
Remember they used to have bubblegum cards?
Well, I used to have Catwoman under my pillow.
I used to think that was pretty dangerous, my
first stirrings of lust.
“But cutting Noddy’s head off… I was in
trauma! And at the same time, Father Christmas
arrived in our street on a lorry. What a pile of
cack! It destroyed my faith in things like that.
Has Robert Smith taken the cure? He says yes. Still, I don’t suppose people of my generation
keep that kind of thing going for their kids. I
TOM SHEEHAN

Steve Sutherland isn’t convinced. Now read on… mean, how can you possibly believe in the tooth
fairy with a Conservative government? You

NME ORIGINALS 81
 Sick Boy

don’t get something for nothing any more.
“There are a lot of references to dreams in my
songs. It seems to bother other people but it’s
never really worried me that I have vivid dreams.
I find it very reassuring. It’s not always nice to
wake up with your whole body vibrating like an
engine – it sometimes takes three minutes to get
back to normal – but that’s OK.”

Does Smith the visionary rise, I wonder, from his

bed onto some imaginary psychoanalyst’s couch,
combing his slumber for secrets and signs?
“No! I think the whole concept of interpreting
dreams is the biggest wank really. Freud’s
obviously the most well-known exponent of
delving into your subconscious and examining
it but the idea that you can have secrets from
yourself is such a paradox, it’s unreal.
“I can understand it if you suppress things but
you know, you’re suppressing them. The idea of
tricking yourself is one of those imponderables
– it’s impossible. Who are you to trick yourself?
“My dreams are very straightforward, very
much like my life. I murder in my dreams, much
as I murder in real life. I’ve always really wanted
to kill someone but it’s wearing off now. Y’know,
just a casual murder.”
I think I understand. I’ve always thought if I
was gonna go crazy, I’d do it creatively, riding
in the passenger seat of a monstrously fast car,
blasting oncoming cruisers with a shotgun. That
way you get the bullet impact and the crash.
“No, no. Much more physical. If you use a
gun, you might as well shoot a bird really. I used
to murder a great deal in my dreams – people
that I’ve never even met and who, no doubt, hope
I never will. But I wouldn’t murder any more,
I’m sure of it.”
Has this Smith, lately labelled a nouveau hippy Robert Smith:
because of his beads and baggy bits and pieces, doesn’t look at all
mental ,does he?
ever hated anyone enough to kill them?
“Oh yeah, of course. I know there’s one that if

“I’ve always really wanted to kill someone. “Everything.”

Isn’t that hard?

You know, just a casual murder” “No, not at all. I just decided one night. I
was doing absolutely nothing, y’know? It got
to the point when cleaning your teeth seemed
I ever met him, I’d kill him. Every fight I’ve ever you’d probably end up confessing anyway. But too much bother. It’s cack when you get to that
been in, I’ve thought I’m fighting that person but it’s not that big a step, not really. We’re gonna be stage, so I tried to learn to water-ski and things
I’ve never met him. Not through want of trying.” rotting in 50 years’ time anyway so why not rot like that – the other extreme. It actually shocked
What on earth did the blackguard do? now and give someone some pleasure from it? my body back into a happy status quo. I didn’t
“Ah, that’s the story that will remain forever If someone dies naturally, everyone cries. There get fit but, at the same time, I didn’t keel over
secret. He once did something – not actually to may as well be someone dancing round the grave and spend a month in a rest home which is what
me, but I always vowed to avenge it. It was quite – and it may as well be me.” everyone said I should do.
an awful thing that I witnessed. “I thought that idea was bollocks – you know
“See, I’m still very moral, I still have the same As I said, Robert Smith is happy, even when your own body… or you should do. The older
ethics I always had but I don’t really think that, he’s contemplating the inevitable. Can you get, the more you know it. I’m afraid I can
if I did kill someone casually, there would be any this metamorphosis from gloom to glee be no longer wake up in the morning and boast that
retribution if I didn’t get caught. I’d just like to permanent or is it just another of his infamous I haven’t got a hangover.”
do it as an experience. I wouldn’t like to torture emotional see-saws? Me neither. Never. Wonder how this affects
somebody or anything like that.” “Well, I’m very aware of my periods of Boy Smith’s public image?
I’ve decided this “No More Mad Bob” instability and I’ve tried to think, ‘If it’s going “I’d be hard-pressed to imagine what my
business might be a little premature, but I press to happen to me, I may as well use it for some public image is, to be honest. Indifferent. It
on regardless, wondering if Smith thinks he’d benefit,’ but last year all it succeeded in doing varies, actually, from place to place. Here it’s
feel like a different person burdened with the was getting in the way. I couldn’t really do very obvious from the general media myth that’s
knowledge that he’s taken a life? anything at all whereas now I generally feel perpetuated – character assassination, that’s the
“Yeah. The thing that always put me off is that much better. I’ve cut down on my vices – I’ve phrase I’m after. But in America I’m considered
it’s not really the sort of thing you can mend.” only kept drinking, everything else has gone a really radical bloke, a really dangerous person,
TOM SHEEHAN

And what if you grow to like it? out of the window.” on the Wanted list, because they filter through
“Well, there is that. And if you don’t like it, Everything? the more sordid elements from England and

82 NNMMEE OORRIIGGIINNAALLSS
??
 1985

then they also invent their own… oh, and also, “I was getting a bit too close to falling into is, though, despite all this gaiety, Robert’s
when I’m in America, I misbehave more than I Mad Bob and people were saying that to me, beginning to act as if he’s old. He recently told
do in England because it’s far away from home. jokingly – mainly inspired by what you wrote some other hack that he’d always anticipated
“In Japan, it’s teenybop hysteria. We went about ‘The Top’ actually. People picked up on being dead by 25 but here he is, no grey hairs in
mega there – we were on television arriving at what you wrote and decided that I was going sight and fitter than ever.
the station. But in New Zealand we’re still doom mental. Well, for a while I was a bit unstable but “I feel old because of what people have been
and gloom, so when we go there, we only smile I think it’s horrible when people make a career saying to me. I’ve consciously done interviews
behind closed doors.” out of being something.” with Just 17 just because it’s pap. All these
What, professional loonies, like professional 17-year-olds are coming along saying, “Well,
I think you deserve an update on this Cockneys? as an established band… As a famous…’ and
schizophrenic Smith character, just to help you “Yeah, it’s cack. The last thing I wanted to do eventually it gets to you.
make up your own mind. He’s writing a book on was drive my jeep into a swimming pool. “But I defy all these people to name me
The Cure in conjunction with a French lady. The “I don’t think this record heralds us doing someone we are comparably old to. I look at the
book, he claims, will be far more honest than anything. I know I’m supposed to be selling five of us in a metaphysical mirror and we’re still
anything I could cook up. He speeds around in a it but I never see it like that. ‘Pornography’ or 100 years younger than all these people who are
four-wheel-drive jeep which his friends consider ‘Faith’ are peculiar in that quite a lot of people physically younger because they’re so fucking
“a post-nuclear vehicle or what?” probably think ‘If I could only listen to one worried about nothing.
He owns a flat in Maida Vale with a album for ever and ever, it would be this album.’ “I mean, when I was young I didn’t feel young
soundproofed bedroom to shield him from But I don’t think this one’s like that because it but I still feel younger than any new group…
the professional writer of musicals who lives doesn’t inspire that kind of emotion. except The Jesus And Mary Chain.”
upstairs. He’s decided to holiday in London this “It’s the same as when The Human League I feel a story coming on.
year to catch up on all the movies he’s missed brought out ‘Dare’ – I thought it was a really “The occasion was me being more drunk than
He saw Ghostbusters three times at the Marble good collection of songs. It didn’t send shivers I had been all year, my one night out in London
Arch ABC, because he enjoyed watching the 300 down my spine but I’ve got drunk to it and clubland. Seriously, I can’t risk more than one
teenies punching the air during the theme tune danced to it a lot over the years. night out. See, we were doing Top Of The Pops,
– “It reminded me of a David Cassidy concert. “I tried to make this album really obvious and we usually drink loads and loads of vodka
Not that I ever went to one, you understand, but because I was aware that people thought I was in the bar beforehand, which explains our
it’s the sort of thing, looking back, that I wish getting too obscure for anyone’s good. I suppose frighteningly exciting performances.
I had done.” they are still obscure in a way but they’re as plain “But this time we went to the bar afterwards
He never drinks on planes – “You can’t as I can be. That’s why I find most songs in the and we stayed there until we got thrown out,
drink on an eight-hour flight, pass out then Top 20 at the moment really boring, because by which time we were pretty hot so we decided
go on stage… Well, you can, but then you’re they’re like ‘end of conversation’ – you don’t to go to eat, but I had to go to this studio first,
Spandau Ballet.” really need to bother. supposedly to do backing vocals on the new
His back garden is a football single and listen to the brass section,
pitch-cum-dog’s toilet – “I haven’t
plucked up the courage to play
in the team yet but I think, in my
“I was being sick in the ladies’ y’know, to give ’em the Pope’s seal
of approval.

toilet. Then I proceeded to pick up

“So we went to the studio and
current state, I’d probably play a I couldn’t even make out what the
sort of Glenn Hoddle role – fading song was, so I was helped out and
away for 80 minutes then a killer 10
minutes towards the end.”
His band, The Cure, is now a
my sick and throw it on the floor” we weaved our way mysteriously
down to the Sun Luck Restaurant
where I proceeded to eat a washing-
quintet, with Simon Gallup, the original bassist, “Some of the songs are a bit wayward but ‘In up bowl of prawns – heads and feet and tails,
welcomed back to the fold. Robert’s ecstatic Between Days’ is probably the simplest thing y’know – not thinking, talking rapidly and
about this line-up – “it’s a group again” – and the I’ve written since ‘Boys Don’t Cry’. I did it on just eating. And then me and Lol staggered
pair of them reckon they’re pretty hot at pool. In purpose. I thought, ‘Right, I might as well prove outside and someone grabbed hold of Lol and
fact, Ex-Mad Bob had a table installed in his flat, all those bastards wrong.’ I know it’s big-headed said, ‘Excuse me, you’re The Cure. My friend
a slate bed six-by-three, but he was “a bit mental” but you couldn’t really make a record if you wants to meet you, we’re drinking in this
when he measured it up, so the fit was a mite didn’t think it was good and there’s very few bar.’ Well, the next thing I knew we were
cosy – no room to make shots – and the table albums that I’ve listened to this year that people descending the steps to this really dingy
now resides at a local youth club. have recommended to me that are comparable. place and I was thrust in from of William
Smith the sportsman warms to the subject. “Lol told me to listen to New Order’s album from The Jesus And Mary Chain.
“Me and Simon, we’re known as The Hackers, and I thought, ‘This is a really dull record for “All these people gathered around expecting a
that’s the name of our pool team – as in what they can do.’ For me, their record is 100 confrontation or something but actually it ended
Computer Hackers, because we’re both Luddites times safer than ours. up that I did a little bit of pogoing and I ended up
and the rest of the band are very pro whatever’s “‘The Head On The Door’ is just me being throwing up, I think, in the ladies’ toilet.
new. Boris and Porl, who reckon they’re the gloriously happy, probably. After we’d finished “I was actually being sick in the sink because
best but we hammer them, are called The Bros, touring, I had a sudden surge of thinking that I someone was in the toilet and someone else
because they both have this fantasy that they’re wouldn’t have to do anything forever and ever came in and said, ‘You can’t do that mate, you’re
constantly driving about on huge throbbing if I didn’t want to because we’d reached the end blocking up the sink and I want to have a wash,’
motorbikes.” of our contracts and things like that. I had this so I then proceeded to pick up all my sick in
sudden sense of being able to do anything.” my hands and throw it on the floor. It was all
There’s more you should know about this Robert perfectly formed prawns – in fact, had I picked
Smith and ‘The Head On The Door’. Smith’s new sense of freedom apparently up my meal initially and thrown it on the floor,
“I think it’s the most entertaining album we’ve extends to all matters concerning The Cure, a it would have been the same but I’d have had a
ever done in the sense that it doesn’t require very radical reversal from his involvement with the really good night.
much from the listener for it to be enjoyable, claustrophobically secretive Banshees. Why, it “As it was, Lol ended up carrying me home
mainly because it’s very simple, intentionally even extends to videoing the recording of The which is why I know it was my last night out in
simple. It’s as much a reaction against us as a Head, a home movie of daft drunkenness and London. Because when you get to the stage when
reaction against anything else that’s going on corny jokes which he hopes to release soon to Lawrence puts you in a taxi and takes you home,
because I didn’t want to get too precious again. “really take the myth apart”. The funny thing you’re in fucking big trouble.”

NME ORIGINALS 83
 Heavy Heavy Heavy

MM, 26 October 1985, p28

Thisain’tthesummeroflove
Hippies, hippies… everywhere. Or are they punks? Or are they
punks down the King’s Road.’”
“It’s that guy in the NatWest advert,” says Ian.
“The one with the mohican haircut who spits at

psychedelic hard rockers? Steve Sutherland comes face to face people and head-butts walls.”
Ian’s dead proud of having missed punk. He

with The Cult and fifinds they’re all these things and less was in Canada at that time, in the army, and
when he heard the Pistols, of course, it changed
his life. He picked up on the vibe after the event.

i
“ ’m a naïve, romantic kid. I’m supposed this band are and I suppose it’s a paradox. We’re “I think it’s really nice, what’s happening
to be some middle-class drop-out who’s a rock band – that wasn’t too acceptable a year now, because it’s unquantifiable. Because so
quite well-educated, but I’ve got me ’ead and a half ago, it was like putting your head in a many things have gone in the past, I think what
up me ass and I just walk around going, guillotine. The times have changed a bit now.” we do is an amalgamation of all those different
‘Everything’s beautiful’.” I think we’d better start again…. influences and it’s gonna be a lot longer lasting.”
I think we’d better start again… “A lot of things have been in the negative,”
“Kids take us on a more serious level than they The Cult are a rock band with accoutrements. A
do a lot of other bands and a lot of journalists swagger away from Black Sabbath. Something so
seem to find that very annoying. They seem to old that they’re new. The rock of ages.
think that what we do is shrouded in a mysticism “Everything in this world right now is fast,
that we create in order to hide a basic lack of fast, fast,” Ian informs me, fiddling with his Led
understanding, but we’re not that clever. We’re Zeppelin badge. “Fast food, fast TV, fast sex, fast
just two lads from the north, right? We’re doing everything. And people just skim on the surface
what comes naturally – ’e makes a noise with ’is all the time and I think a lot of journalists look at
mouth and I play guitar. That’s what we do.” us on the surface and pick up on certain things.
I think we’d better start again… Like the North American Indian thing – but that
Ian Astbury’s one of those people who’s didn’t just happen to me overnight, that was an
embroidered his pretty uneventful youth into experience that happened to me over five or six
a diary of momentous incidents and traumatic years. And hippies…”
turning points and told it to so many people so Ah, hippies. Glad he brought it up. The new
many times that he probably now believes it. Cult album’s called ‘Love’ and there are some
“The first gig I ever done was filmed for TV, out there who will tell you it’s all you need. Not
my fifth ever gig with Southern Death Cult me. When MM branded Ian as a spitter for Neil
was reviewed by the press. Anything I’ve done, The Hippy, I wasn’t exactly blameless. And now
people have wanted to know what it’s all about. here’s this man who claims he’s a boy, with hair
I just find it so amusing that all these people keep halfway down his back, wearing a cowboy hat
slagging us off and I couldn’t give a shit about it. with an owl’s feather in it, snakeskin cowboy
People have tried to pound us into the ground boots with gold points and a Cure badge,
but they just can’t get a hold of it.” staring into middle space and asking…
When Ian Astbury talks, he reminds me “What’s a hippy? A lot of kids who come
of Nick Rhodes – thick but
authoritative, intoning the
most commonplace truism or
embarrassing drivel with such
“We ’re not that clever. We ’re just
haughtiness that you’d believe he
believes he’s imparting some real lads from the north, right? We ’re
pearl of wisdom.
Billy Duffy’s different but the
same – he’s confident but sharper,
doing what comes naturally”
he listens whereas Ian, for all the community to see us haven’t even got any conception of
spiel he’s about to unleash, exhibits, in his own what a hippy is except for maybe a teacher at
favoured condemnation of others, “a very closed school with long hair and a beard. I got called
mind”. For someone so intent on learning, Ian a hippy by some 14-year-old kids the other
never listens, he just stares away into a more day – I wonder where they got it from?”
important world of his own and sometimes I wonder…
deigns to descend to my level to say his peace “Look, what the fuck is a hippy? I think
piece. I’d say he was stoned but… people see a hippy as some guy with long hair
“The funniest thing about the music business and glasses with a peace sign and flared trousers
is that the people who are most into the – it’s just an image, like punk.”
rock’n’roll cliché lifestyle are the ones whose “What does punk mean now?” asks Billy, a
TOM SHEEHAN

public image is the least like that. We don’t take less bolshie Idol. Here comes the answer: “It’s
drugs, we never have. That’s just a personal way a deprecating term. ‘Let’s go and laugh at the

84 NME ORIGINALS
 1985

says Billy. “Maybe now is the time for… well, sees that Duran Duran aren’t really saying
the positive. That’s been a terrible word for a few what they feel so they go onto something else,
years, almost frightening, but maybe what we’re something a little bit heavier, something that
involved with is the first thing that’s positive. makes a statement. And then they become bored
Every other fashion – hippies, acid rock, punk with that and they end up with us.”
– seemed to be against something. Well, we’re What Ian’s pitching for is progressive rock, the
not necessarily ‘against’ in that obvious way.” notion of something more deep and meaningful
I think we’d better start again… than something else. That way self-indulgence
lies. And worse… MM, 19th October 1985, p38
The Cult, live and on record, are the most “We’re skimming the surface of something
po-faced, humourless group it’s possible to quite spiritual…” THE CULT
contemplate. They deny the brighter side of See what I mean? Love
existence for the sake of their precious image, “We don’t really want to quantify it. I find Beggars Banquet

complete with pseudo-religious trimmings. it very, very rare to bump into people who are The only thing
“There’s no religion in this country,” mourns communicating on the same level because more deplorable
poor Ian. “Christianity, the spiritual side, is a they’re so hung up on looking cool or hanging than half-baked
very special part of people’s lives, it gives them round with the right people. It’s so hard to meet dogma is barely
strength just to live and the only thing for kids to people who are tuned in to something more than understood half-
look to is the music. the rational world. We’re called hippies because baked dogma
“Music matters. A 14-year old kid buys a we’re into life, right? pilfered from a
Duran Duran record, grows up a little bit, and “Look, there’s certain things we just can’t culture 6,000 miles and 200 years away.
talk about because there’s an incredible danger With ‘Love’, The Cult’s second album,
of being misinterpreted. It’s really sad and they continue to propagate a half-chewed
unfortunate but that’s the way it is.” bubblegum wrapper of redskin info for people
I think we’d better start again… who think that a Voodoo Chile is a Mexican
Hotpot. They continue to celebrate the ways
of the old people with clamour and cliché
– wigwams, squaws, moccasins, and ritual
fire-branding. The Cult dribble a lot.
If nothing else, ‘Love’ will prove that the
band have done for rock tribalism what
General Amherst did for the Sioux nation. The
benign general offered the Indians blankets
to keep them warm in winter – blankets
impregnated with smallpox bacilli. The
Hippy Cult:
images, lyrics and titles are mainly elemental
Ian Astbury, – the usual earth, fire, water piffle – but the
Mark Brzezicki, surprise comes from the cover, which bears a
Billy Duffy and striking likeness to an old Love cover after a
Jamie Stewart
tortuous journey through an alimentary canal.
‘Nirvana’ plunges into a barrage of metal
guitars where risible pastiche masquerades
as rousing chorus. The Indians believed in life
after death – not before it!
With each successive funereal beat and
onslaught of Duffy’s unchained guitar, the Cult
sound more and more like Led Zeppelin.
The chords of ‘Revolution’ descend, and
their songs go down faster than a lead balloon.
The Cult used to offer excitement – not ashes
scraped from yesterday’s joss stick. Now they
simply continue to continue.
‘Hollow Man’ and ‘Brother Wolf, Sister
Moon’ (oh brother!) both employ the same
bluesy thump as they stomp through old
hunting grounds like buffalo on Mogadon.
It sounds like a 45 playing at 33. In fact
it’s ’69 playing in ’85. All this may sound as
if I detest The Cult … but I don’t. ‘She Sells
Sanctuary’ was one of the few pinnacles of this
summer’s charts but its appearance among
this clutch of witless, listless and soulless
twaddle serves only as a painful reminder of
what The Cult could, and should, be doing.
We deserve more than pathetic hippies
reliving their dream and our nightmare.
Forget Big Country. Forget ‘God’s Zoo’. Forget
U2. And most of all forget Bury My Heart At
Wounded Knee.
The Cult should bury their head in shame.
Ted Mico

NME ORIGINALS 85
The Cocteau Twins:
Simon Raymonde,
Liz Frazer and
Robin Guthrie
 1985

Worlds
apart How do you interview The Cocteau Twins? Steve
Sutherland, who considers them to be something like
the voice of God, doesn’t know. Well, he sat down and MM, 16 November 1985, p24

talked to them for a bit, and this is what happened

The End all wonderfully lyrical about the new Cocteau
Twins stuff. I was going to construct some The unmentionable
“In the best of all possible worlds,” said Robin,
“this wouldn’t be happening.” Hold it right
elaborate review of ‘Tiny Dynamite’ (‘Pink
Orange Red’, ‘Ribbed and Veined’, ‘Plain Tiger’ mentioned
there. I’ve read this before. and ‘Sultitan Itan’), some glowing testimony The Cocteau Twins don’t exactly scream at
“But…” to ‘Echoes In A Shallow Bay’ (‘Great Spangled you to ask them about their sex lives or the
No buts. I’m determined that this will not be Fritillary’, ‘Melonella’, ‘Pale Clouded White’ colour of their socks, so it all comes down to
another Cocteau Twins interview about how and ‘Eggs And Their Shells’) but I realised self-justification and that nebulous area where
The Cocteau Twins hate interviews because that all I’d be doing would be conjuring you’ve no idea what you’re talking about or what
that, after all, after hours of agonised silence fantasies, evolving mythologies and warping will come out and the smallest detail assumes
and blank incomprehension, is all that anyone’s expectations. the stature of enigma. Or…
ever gleaned from this lot on paper. I won’t sit So, at the risk of encouraging accusations Robin: “I’m still completely at a loss to
down and discuss this again. I won’t attempt of lethargy and cop-out, I say this: buy these understand what people want to know. I’ll
to defend the rigmarole of the rock’n’roll records, I think they’re brilliant. They exist. tell all. We do tell all, that’s the thing I can’t
interview, nor will I perpetrate it further. Why am I squirming? Here’s my problem: understand. What more can I say?”
So what shall I do Robin? What shall I do? The Cocteau Twins can’t talk about their music
And what will I get? Will I get anything? Or is
there nothing there to get? Nothing at all?
because there’s nothing to say and I can’t write
about it because, as it’s instrumental with vocal The big question
“Well, we’re not divs but people make us out impressions, all I can produce is mind’s-eye Why? Why do you sound like The Cocteau
to be… we come over like…” gibberish. And believe you me, I’ve said some Twins?
Yes I understand that I don’t understand. pretty embarrassing stuff about this lot in the

Some justification
past. Stuff, incidentally, that I stick by.
“The things you’re allowed to write!” Robin’s big answer
Robin’s smiling. “You went and wrote “Why not?”
The Cocteau Twins make my favourite music something about God in one of our reviews.
in the whole wide world ever and, on 16 and
22 November, they release two four-track EPs.
You said we were the voice of God or something.
I hated that. It gives people the wrong They confess
I want to talk about them but I know it’s no impression. It gives people your impression. Robin: “It almost gets to the stage where you
good. They want them well-treated because If I read that, I’d think, ‘No fucking way am just want to turn round to somebody and say,
they envisage a Cocteau Twins backlash on I buying that!’ ‘Yeah, I’m really magical and mysterious,
the horizon and they don’t think it’s fair. Just “And another time you said I hadn’t that’s what I think about myself. I’m weird and
because they don’t fit in, folks think they refuse developed much further than some Banshees obscure and it rubs off on the music…”
to fit in, but it’s not the same thing at all. album and that we were too loud. That was Simon: “Yeah, we’re religious, spiritual…”
There’s nothing wilful about the Cocteaus’ insulting. The idea of three people totally Liz: “Would you like some tea or coffee just
refusal to play along, they just do what they do, stationary on stage with no affi liation at all to now?”
that’s all. rock’n’roll making the loudest fucking noise Robin: “There’s some tins aren’t there? I’ll
Hey, they live on our planet, believe it or you’ve every heard kind of appeals.” have another beer.”
not. They eat, they drink, they see what we see “And that thing you said to Robert Smith Liz: “You’ll want a fuckin’ straw with it next
and hear what we hear. It’s just that what they about his lipstick!” Liz is trembling. – get you pissed quicker.”
create when they’re locked away somewhere has What? Robin: “Got any gin?”
no bearing on any of this whatsoever. My task, “You said Liz Frazer wants to know why Liz: “Um… er… NO! I distinctly remember
I suppose, is to reconcile this into some sort you wear your lipstick like that. That was very you finishing it off last night. Don’t drink…”
of sense but all I can come up with is intricate naughty of you Steve, very, very naughty. I was Robin: “But I’m getting my hair cut tonight.”
babble which, even in the act of praising, seems so embarrassed.” Liz: “Yes, I know. You’ll fall asleep and wake
TOM SHEEHAN

to tarnish their pure simplicity. Contrary to common belief, The Cocteau up with a skinhead – that’ll fuckin’ sort you out.
I’ll admit at this point that I was going to wax Twins care. A lot. You’ll never drink again.”

NME ORIGINALS 87
 My method before it floated away’.”
Liz: “Oh, that’s fucking disgusting…
Well, what was there left? disgusting. They must think we’re a bunch o’
The personality angle wasn’t perverts or something.”
paying dividends because, as Robin: “‘Take this fish/Harder than roe/
the antithesis of all they are, Who sauntered away’.”
it couldn’t. The enormous Liz: “Jesus!”
review wasn’t on either Robin: “‘Julianne was first called a genius/
– all that verbiage trying to Julianne a genius too/Our song is framed by a
describe something defiantly genius/Suddenly she got up and turned it on’.”
inarticulate. No. I was left Liz: “Definitely a drug-induced hysteria.”
with flotsam, with various Simon: “‘I’m a prisoner of the fence’.”
meets in various places, with Robin: “‘I don’t mend no fence’. Look at the
circumstantial evidence. sleeve notes. It says here that The Cocteau Twins
Whether it comes any closer to are three girls, right? And that I sing all the
anything, whether it helps, backing vocals on the LP and that my backing
I don’t know. But anyway… vocals are ‘psychedelic but never freaky’.”
Meet one: Liz and Robin’s Liz: “Bloody hell!”
flat in Chiswick. Ground floor.
Clean and bare with a Siamese
kitten called Otto (after the Mere mortal concerns
“Can I go now?” punk in Repo Man) who bites Self-parody?
Liz thoroughly
enjoys another
and scratches and has never Robin: “It happened to us about a year and a
photo session heard of house-training. No half ago. It happens to everybody. You can’t do
books about so no clues there. anything about it…”
A record player. A video. Lots

Liz Frazer of videos. A photo of Lillian Gish in the toilet.
The door handle comes off in your hand and I confess
Small, very funny and very, very shy. you have to keep the lid down or the cat might If the process of this interview is to ascertain
At the photo studio, Liz is being made up, fall into the bowl. some truth, to nudge some reality, to realise
having her face and hair done. By her side, by Meet two: Riverside, for That Petrol Emotion. there aren’t any answers then I’ve failed. If the
the mirror, is a note pad into which she jots Meet three: the photo session in Covent essence of the piece is to avoid an obsessive
every layer of foundation, every tint of eye Garden. A small studio and a pint or two in the autopsy of The Cocteau Twins’ problematic
shadow for further reference. pub. (Liz is on cider and Babycham, fact-fiends). relationship to the interview, I’ve let you
“That’s typical,” says Robin. “Did you notice Meet four: Simon sees the Banshees at down badly. It’s here, it’s inescapable and I’m
at home by the record player, there’s a piece of Hammersmith Odeon. circling, searching for something I can’t define,
paper with instructions on it about how the Meet five: the 4AD night at Croydon struggling to discover is the big factor or the
stereo works, step by step. And by the video Underground – they’re very much the visiting conveniently mystical cop-out.
there’s another list of how to work it. And she stars. Robin hates it. Certainly the people I met and the records
wants to learn to drive – can you imagine that?” I hear don’t match up too well, don’t fit. I’m
Oh yes, a very Liz thing to do.
Temptation speaking of what stubbornly won’t be spoken
of and it’s the best I can do to tell you that of all
Robin Guthrie If anybody around pop today is enjoying the
fact that language obscures as much (and as
the outfits I’ve ever met the characters of The
Cocteau Twins are the least informative when
Fat, funny, delightfully sarcastic, he crimps his well) as it reveals its intentions, it’s Liz Frazer. applied to their music.
hair to stop it looking pubic. Her lyrics are noise games, not nonsense And naturally, in saying that, I open two
This thin guy with glasses comes up to him but emotion liberated from cliché. When she options, each equally inappropriate: they’re not
in the Croydon Underground, brandishing a sings, my world moves and it means something fakers, they wear no masks, they hide nowhere,
poster advertising the 4AD night and asking for beyond and without all the blasted, blighted nor are they recipients for some mysterious
an autograph. Robin looks him up and down, baggage of linguistic nostalgia. muse. They don’t act as ciphers for some
snorts his disapproval and begins to read it out. She uses words but the words never matter, spiritual genius descending from the either.
“Xymox. Is that us?” their sounds carry the fullest impact, her voice The Cocteau Twins just go and do it – and if
No. – the most desolate ever recorded – cuts the crap they don’t know, why the hell should I?
“Wolfgang Press. Is that us?” but can’t avoid it. We can’t handle The Cocteau
Uh… no.
“Dif Juz. Is that us?”
Twins, we don’t possess the critical apparatus to
do them justice. It’s no big deal on their behalf, In the beginning was
No.
“Well then, shouldn’t you be going to get
no deliberate setting themselves apart from
the mainstream, no arrogant isolationism. It’s the word
their autographs?” simply that the channels we stomp down to beat “That was the shittiest interview we’ve ever
The bloke slinks off, bemused. Robin turns to pop to a pulp and render it comfortable and done…”
me and says: “It’s bad enough when they want comprehensible don’t lead us anywhere near It’s OK.
you to sign Cocteau Twins stuff.” The Cocteau Twins. “But we said nothing, we talked about
That’s a very Robin thing to do. We don’t touch them and yet still we try. nothing…”
In Japan, for instance, they’ve published lyric It’s OK.
Simon Raymonde sheets with all the albums, even renaming
‘Treasure’ at whim ‘The Woman Who The
“But what are you gonna write about?”
Oh, I’ll make it up. I’ll write about you. I’ll
Simon was “disgusted” by the Banshees at Gods Loved’. think of something.
Hammersmith Odeon. He considered them Robin: “Tell me if any of these words are what “But that means we’re in your hands, we’re at
“heavy metal”. Worst of all, though, he Liz is singing, right? I’m not joking. ‘Let us rock your mercy…”
TOM SHEEHAN

considered the encores “dishonest”. you so/Rock you so good’. ‘The wave of the earth Aha, well the hack always has the last word.
That’s a very Simon thing to say. has got me all fooled now’. ‘Should have fixed it This is it…

88 NME ORIGINALS
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 Morphine Paradise

recaptures the wondrous

hypnotic pop of the Banshees’
greatest singles era, that between
‘Kaleidoscope’ and ‘A Kiss In the
Dreamhouse’.
David Quantick

MM, 16 March 1985, p27 psychedelic Killing Joke shorn

of the ton of bricks. By the way,
SISTERS OF MERCY this is infinitely preferable to the
No Time To Cry B-side ‘No.13’ which attempts to
(WEA) bring Led Zeppelin into the 1980s.
First Killing Joke, now Andrew Silly Cult.
and his wonderful Sisters. Martin Aston
Whether it’s a remarkable and
strangely coincidental coming NME, 16 November 1985, p17
together of the untouchables
and the pop marketplace or COCTEAU TWINS
something a lot more contrived Tiny Dynamine
is hard to say, but who really gives MM, 3 August 1985, p34 (4AD)

a tinker’s diddly one way or the Inside a cover that looks like a
other? What counts now is that NICK CAVE cross between the trip sequence
this is the Sisters’ best ever slice Tupelo from 2001 and a camel’s
of slime, with Andrew down in (Mute) afterbirth, those fun-loving
his boots as always but the rest There are those who would have Cocteau Twins bring you a four-
of the band delivering an edge you believe that this decrepit track selection of dead clever
that must make this a monster hit scuzzball and his infrequent Liz Fraser vocal gymnastics, a
with the previously uncommitted NME, 27 July 1985, p14 record releases represent the chorused 12-string guitar sound
housewife. Laugh if you want, but zenith of the alternative pop that’s so rich it could kill a diabetic
far better Crazy Andrew than 100 THE CURE scene. For years I tried to convince at 40 paces and some rather
cuddly toys. In Between Days myself that I didn’t loathe the indifferent lyrics. The closing
Barry McIlheney (Fiction) entire catalogue of this corrupter ‘Sultitan Itan’ is a treat for the very
Three thoughts occur. One: how of small goths, but I am older tired to hallucinate to just before
does he do it? How on earth does and less charitable now. Boppy bedtime.
Smithy keep that face straight backbeat, though. Charles Shaar Murray
as he unloads these records? Caroline Sullivan
‘The Top’ was a schoolboyishly
cruel – legs torn slowly from
helpless insects – companion to
the Bunnymen’s contemporary
and equally silly-sod-psychedelic
‘Ocean Rain’, while his butter-
wouldn’t-melt ‘Love Cats’ routine
was sublime, media-mocking TV.
The man is a comic to be rated
with Keaton.
MM, 1 June 1985, p27 Two: if I didn’t believe New
Order to be as rich as Tsars, I’d
THE CULT advise them to grab this record
MM, 1 June 1985, p27
MM, 23 November 1985, p30
She Sells Sanctuary and their own ‘Temptation’ and
(Beggars Banquet) ‘Power, Corruption And Lies’ and
SIOUXSIE & COCTEAU TWINS
She sells sanctuary, but will The to hotfoot it to the nearest court Echoes In A Shallow Bay
Cult sell any more records? Their of law. The monstrous scale, THE BANSHEES (4AD)

record sleeves may be getting nerve and cynicism of Smith’s Cities In Dust ‘The Great Spangled Fritillary’
more graphically adventurous plagiarism, in a world where most (Wonderland) takes its name from a butterfly;
– and their name can’t get any claim unique creative genius, has, I rather lost interest in this lot ‘Melonella’ is more upbeat than
shorter – but the swirling density oddly, to be admired. after ‘Hyaena’ yielded one good the Cocteaus’ usual music, noisy
of their pulse-beat stays locked Three: either because of, or in single and little else. But ‘Cities In almost; ‘Pale Clouded White’
inside the same blurred groove. spite of one and two, ‘In Between Dust’, a great rush of sound and feels like you’re caught in a warm
Boy Duffy’s guitar is edgily set for Days’ – a sneeringly off-hand a massively confident burst of snowstorm; and ‘Eggs And Their
the heart of the sun – great sitar debunking of all that Factory’s pop, suggests a return to form. Shells’ is making love on a clifftop
impersonations! – but The Cult finest seek so assiduously to Perhaps a bit intense for the with seabirds flying overhead. Am
are struggling. Still, the gothic mystify, is a good 45, easily the airwaves, and lacking the great I alone in finding them a complete
millstone might be slipping; best of the week’s pop crop. melody of the slightly similar and utter turn-on?
imagine a more sprightly, Danny Kelly ‘Fireworks’, ‘Cities’ nevertheless Kris Kirk

90 NME ORIGINALS
 Chapter 8
1986
DEREK RIDGERS
 Mission Accomplished

the battle but we didn’t see it as a battle as

such – more of a publicity stunt.”
On hearing of the split and the newly-
named Mission’s intentions for the future,
WEA promptly showed Wayne and co the
quickest way out of the building.
“WEA didn’t think I could sing. They
gave us this list of singers they thought
would be good for us – Andi Sex Gang,
Gavin from the Virgin Prunes and Sal
Solo. They just didn’t have a clue.”
“We were open to constructive criticism
but Sal bloody Solo is not constructive
criticism,” Mick states.
They seem to be playing a different

Snake
game to Eldritch – taking it out on the
road as opposed to sticking in the studio.
Wayne: “I’m a very different person
to Eldritch. First and foremost I’m more
sociable. The feeling of comradeship
in The Mission is very similar to the
one I had when I was in Dead Or Alive.
Andrew was very hard to work with.
You never got any credit. I mean, he was
a real headfucker.”
Don’t you ever wish The Mission
were starting out tomorrow just like

charmers
every other band, with none of the
expectations and exploits of the past
hanging around your shoulders?
The Mission: (l to r) Wayne: “No, ’cos then we’d be playing
Mick Brown, Craig the fucking dives of the world. In some
Adams, Wayne ways it’s a bit of an albatross but it does
Hussey and Simon
Hinkler guarantee us an audience. Initially,
it’ll probably be very similar to that
of the Sisters, but, in time, I think it
MM, 10 May 1986, p14 will widen. Our songs are a lot more
accessible than the Sisters’ ever were.”

Rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the Sisters, The Mission Would you say you’re writing for others now
then, rather than yourself?

“
watch the dawn come up with a wide-eyed Mat Smith “I never used to write for myself. It was always
for Andrew. The criteria we use in The Mission
is that if it sounds good when we play it on an

t
hey don’t make songs like that any more.” Do you feel more comfortable in The Mission? acoustic guitar in my living room then it’s a good
Wayne Hussey lurches towards the “Nah,” he sighs. “Some people can feel song. That’s how our single ‘Serpent’s Kiss’ was
stereo, pulls off ‘Roll Away The Stone’ and comfortable in a five-star hotel but I can’t. I’d written. The majority of the songs we’ve been
replaces it with ‘Like A Hurricane’. Next door rather be in a hovel ’cos you can trash it and not doing in the set so far are my songs that Andrew
the neighbours pull the bedsheets over their do much damage. It’s the same thing with The rejected for the second Sisters album. It’s ironic
heads. In an hour their alarm clocks will ring, Mission. I can trash it and not do much damage ’cos he actually saw us in Birmingham and told
signalling the end to another long night. whereas, with the Sisters, there was a certain us how good he thought the songs were.”
“They came round with an axe the other reverence even when I joined the group.” Was he being sarcastic? Or was it from the
night,” Wayne chuckles wide-eyed. “But I think bottom of his heart?
we should be safe now.” The Elvis Presleys From Hell took shape towards Wayne: “I don’t think he has a bottom of his
Before The Mission there were the Sisters, and the end of the Sisters’ reign – Wayne and Craig heart. Bottom of his hat perhaps.”
there are still a lot of puzzled
Sisters fans. What went wrong?
“It was going wrong in the Sisters even when The cat comes down from his
“It was going wrong even perch. The sun flickers in and
when I joined. I mean, we did
the album hardly talking to I joined. Eldritch was very hard to work with. You TV-am’s Gyles seems even more
irritating with the sound turned
each other. We were rehearsing down. Jumbled thoughts and
the new stuff – his new stuff, he never got any credit. He was a real headfucker” jumbled talk. How can you face
wouldn’t touch any of my songs your mother Wayne?
– and it was just crap. Craig had had enough and playing various benefit gigs in their native Leeds “My mum knows what I get up to. I had a
walked out. As the studio door slammed Eldritch with Red Lorry Yellow Lorry drummer Mick really bad relationship with my parents for a
clapped his hands together and said ‘Ha! We’ve Brown. However, it wasn’t until they added while. They’re both devout Mormons. Seriously!
got rid of the driftwood.’ I thought, ‘You bastard’ ex-Artery guitarist Simon Hinkler and changed It’s stood me in good stead but it doesn’t stop me
and left the next day. their name to The Sisterhood that the fun and doing drugs. I like speed – my mother knows
“It’s sad but we really had no choice. I still games really began. that. She knows I like girls and she knows about
respect him. He probably thinks I’m a bastard Wayne: “It was a brilliant trick. I knew it my homosexuality. She knows all about it.”
– well I hope he does anyway, but I know he would antagonise Andrew and WEA and we also Understanding lady, that Mrs Hussey. But
CORBIS

respects me as a musician.” got a lot of press out of it. I always knew we’d lose then she’d have to be wouldn’t she?

92 NME ORIGINALS
 1986

thumbprints before you’ve even singing-into-my-boots What the hell

got the record out. It all looked like from Andrew Eldritch is this? Check the
an attempt to carry on precisely that always made the credits. Ah, Alan
where The Sisters Of Mercy left off. Sisters slightly comical. Vega from Suicide.
So we’re barely into the first And when he does It fits. It’s the kind
track, ‘Jihad’, when I think I hear sing, on the version of music you’d call
MM, 26 July 1986, p28 a Mantronix-style handclap. of the single ‘Giving industrial if there was
Surely not. Must’ve put the wrong Ground’, it sounds any industry left in
THE SISTERHOOD record on. No, there it is again, like Peter Murphy this country. The kind
Gift (Merciful Release) and over a stomping Eurobeat having a dark moment. of music you’ll hear
It all looked so obvious. Minimalist that would make the boys from Eventually I’m ground under by on a train travelling through the
packaging and one of those glossy DAF proud. Things, I think, could a relentless synth beat that crushes Frankfurt conurbation.
black sleeves that’s covered with be looking up. None of that silly all colour in its path. Phil DC

NME ORIGINALS 93
 Southern
A SensitiveDeAth
Guy Cult

If you prick me,

do I not bleed?
“I believe you have a song about the British music press entitled ‘Scum’.” “I didn’t write it
about the press; I wrote it about you.” Nick Cave does not take kindly to criticism, as Mat Snow
discovered when he went along to discuss Cave’s new album, ‘Kicking Against The Pricks’

a
mong Nick Cave’s most prized What, however, constitutes that instinctive whose thoughts in abandoned desolation turn
possessions is a hard-cover green recognition of a song’s worth is not so simple. from regret to grief to vengeance. That the end of
book stuffed with press cuttings and On his new album there are self-confessed his relationship with his girlfriend of seven years,
private observations written in his tributes, like his version of ‘The Hammer Song’, Anita Lane, in 1983 has inspired so much of his
painstakingly spidery hand. originally by his schoolboy hero Alex Harvey, the subsequent work has never been denied.
“Rather than living out the extremes of our piratical Glaswegian rocker whose Jacques Brel- From that point, Cave has turned his life’s big
particular fantasies, most of us rid ourselves of derived theatricality anticipated punk. wound into art, and he has also plunged into
these desires in other ways – beating the wife, Missing from ‘Pricks’, however, are songs that art as a safety-valve. Not for a long time
the normal day-to day things. In this particular Cave loves which have already been fully realised has a more poignantly tragic figure – one whose
book I indulge myself to the limits. I don’t have elsewhere, offering no avenues for further downfall springs from an unbalancing ruling
to show this to anyone; I don’t have to worry exploration. Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’ LP is passion – starred in rock’s obsessively scrutinised
about whether my mother’s going to read it…” a case in point, though Cave reviles all his other zone where private life and public image overlap.
I believe it includes a song about the British records. Likewise damned is Jimi Hendrix, whose His gravity of demeanour and much-trailed
music press entitled ‘Scum’. rendition of ‘Hey Joe’ Cave regards as an easily affinity with serious literary endeavour not only
“I didn’t write it about the press; I wrote it surpassable high point in an unappealing career. mark him out from the frivolities of the pop
about you…” Nick Cave’s ‘Hey Joe’ invokes a brooding cosmic industry, but also bestow on him a tradition in
He flicks through the pages, his pink-rimmed wrath surrounding Joe’s crime passionel which which his torment may find a home.
eyes not looking up once to meet mine. echoes the heavenly portents which attended the Not for Nick Cave the battlements of Elsinore
“I write hate lyrics really well. It’s not every birth of the Presley twins in ‘Tupelo’. – he stalks instead America’s deep South, a
day you can use them really…” ‘Kicking Against The Pricks’ is a richly exciting larger-than-life corrupted Eden of hot blood,
This interview is not turning out at primitive religion, swamplands, scarlet
all as I’d hoped.
I had hoped for an interview which
“I’m inconsistent, illogical, women, quack sawbones, whisky
preachers, riverboat gamblers, white
would amplify how Nick Cave’s
preoccupations have been revealingly
side-lit by his new album of cover
irrational. So fuckin’ what? ” trash, slaves and the lynch-mob.
This mythical deep South serves
not only as the landscape for some of
versions. Called ‘Kicking Against The Pricks’, its record, not only for the choice of songs and their Cave’s favourite music, but also as a backdrop
very title alludes not only to the verse from the singing, but also for the revitalising aplomb and, sufficiently wild to project his tragic image onto
Acts of the Apostles but perhaps also to Samuel where needs be, restraint of their performance – an Oedipus wreck in winklepickers.
Beckett’s borrowing of the phrase; certainly, a by the Bad Seeds, whose highly talented maestro
pun of Cave’s own devising is intended. And I Mick Harvey is too little recognised. “I just think Mat Snow is an arsehole who said
suspect I might be one of the pricks. ‘Pricks’ is, in addition, a further instalment in this, and it’s not true. I find it hard to sit down
As he explains in his measured, dictation- the remoulding of Nick Cave into one of rock’s and talk to someone who gave us a bad review.”
speed sigh of a voice, “There’s not a great deal most striking and multi-levelled leading players. Tragic figures are usually proud – it goes with
of intellectualisation of the reasons why we did For a start, Nick Cave hates the ‘rock world’. the territory. Petty-mindedness, however, tends
these particular songs. We’re musicians and feel He is highly literate about rock and its many to be comic. So why are neither of us laughing?
music more from the heart than the head. I’m sources, but inclines towards its most earthy What had I done to poison this whole encounter?
not sure whether you can understand that.” poets of passion, the balladeers and story-tellers. In March last year I wrote of an Einstürzende
Ouch. Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison – like him, men Neubauten single that it “musters the psycho-
“When I listen to a song, it strikes my in black – figure large in his taste, as do Elvis logical edge disappointingly absent from Nick
heart whether it’s worthwhile or not. There’s Presley and Bob Dylan. Cave has sought among Cave’s forthcoming LP…” That I have also
something so basic and so simple it shouldn’t this canon those themes which most closely heaped extravagant praise upon his work cuts
even need to be said.” resemble his preoccupation – that of a jilted lover no ice at all.

94 NME ORIGINALS
 Nick Cave: declined
to appear in the
new series of How
Clean Is Your House

“If someone says something good about me, If, with few exceptions, Cave has scant regard of our shows and screams out, ‘You’re a fucking
they’re doing their job; I have no complaints. for we back-stabbing scribblers, he “doesn’t give arsehole!’ Pays every night to scream that at the
They get no medal, they get their wage. That’s a flying fuck” for the other four-fifths of his group, and, if he gets a chance, to punch me. He’s
all. But if they say something bad, then that audience, most of whom by my reckoning are not there to pick up a girl, that’s for sure.”
really gets on my tits. full-time goths, part-time slummers, wallowers Sometimes during this supremely painful
“I’m inconsistent, I’m illogical, I’m irrational and weirdoes who are there to be fucked up the interview Nick Cave forgets himself and speaks
about it. So fuckin’ what?” dirt-track, metaphorically speaking. eloquently and animatedly about something
Cave’s voice barely rises. He’s as laboriously “I’ve got less and less inclined towards being outside his immediate concerns; the prison
patient as an iceberg. some sort of colourful food for a lot of other system, for instance, which he’s been researching
“Everything that’s said against me offends people to consume. Writing allows me to be for a film project in Australia. When I ask about
me, whether it’s true or not. I can’t fathom myself and not have to perform this filthy God and the afterlife, he becomes more guarded.
these people who flunked their arts courses and function which, no matter what I do, is inherent All he’ll say is that he believes evil will not go
became rock journalists and are too ignorant in being lead singer for some freak group. unpunished, even if it’s rewarded on earth.
about music or academic about their thoughts “I don’t know what the people who come and But soon he reverts to being the sod with a
BLEDDYN BUTCHER

or have so many hang-ups that they can’t bring see me are like. I don’t know what their reasons grudge and thin veneer of forced politeness.
themselves to perform. Yet it is these people for doing anything are. I don’t know the reason “I’m just a sensitive guy,” he smiles inwardly.
whose opinions are lauded as being gospel.” for the boy down the front who comes to each Very inwardly.

NME ORIGINALS 95
 Purple Prose

MM, 12 April 1986, p27 as ornate as ‘Tiny Dynamine’, its

jewels glisten in a sensual languor

NICK CAVE & of intrigue that outstrips its

predecessors.
THE BAD SEEDS Spikes of Robin Guthrie’s
Kicking Against The Pricks crystalline guitar stake out a fecund
(Mute) landscape where Liz Fraser’s
This record is a kind of essay about beatific voice is free to swirl and
pop. By covering these obscure entwine stroking chords before all
pop, country and blues songs, Nick dissolve in the cascading chant of
Cave admits them to his canon and, ‘Lazy Calm’. As usual, the Cocteaus’
in effect, claims that titles swing between the abstract
they’re inhabited by the been drawn to the limbo – playing in the and the absurd with
same extremes melodrama of country isolated peace and songs such as ‘Fluffy
of obsession, love songs, their secret splendour of Tufts’ heralding the
possession and imagery of religious, ‘Victorialand’. nursery rhyme stroll
abjection that absolute passion. Nothing is as it of ‘Oomangmak’.
characterise his These songs – stories seems. The cover’s The songs chime with
own work. of calamity, betrayal, weathered and innocence not incense
Cave is writing out guilt and revenge – are slightly distressed and it all almost makes
a lineage in which he fuel for dissent against style conceals the sense. Almost.
is the sole heir, the the current mainstream haunting umbrella of But what does it
only one who still remains close representation of love perfection that lies within. all mean?
to the heart of rock’n’roll. as health and fulfilment. Cave has This time the Cocteaus’ quest What does it matter – the guiding
‘Kicking Against The Pricks’ always seen love as problematic and for that perfect ethereal serenade hand of true genius is at work
is critical in another sense too, mysterious, an affliction. has even meant the album must here. No clatter of percussion, no
marking a key shift in his career. The music here is absolutely be played at 45rpm. The slower Simon Raymonde, no clutter, and
Cave’s sense of his own stature has brilliant – an unhinged, eerie the speed, the coarser the quality, gargoyles of replica. It’s so simple,
swollen to the point where he feels simulation of bygone pop on and the twins’ flawless production and simply unique. From the first
he can reduce his own creative ‘Sleeping Anleah’ and ‘Long has no room for mistakes – only breathless and elemental touch
role to choosing other people’s Black Veil’, a swollen tide of mystery. Though ‘Victorialand’ is of ‘Throughout The Dark Months
material and arranging it: such is the clangorous, corrugated sound on not as immediate as ‘Treasure’, nor Of April And May’ the duo conjure
corrosive originality of his style that ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’, almost wistful spectres of serenity and
he need only sing a song to make it perfect pop on ‘Something’s Gotten submission that cast no shadow.
his own, to catalyse its latent tragic Hold Of My Heart’, with only Cave’s The balalaika-like refrains of ‘Little
qualities. So there’s a shift from burnt-out husk of a voice giving Spacey’ – wings spread wide,
poet-visionary of sex and death to away that this is really 1986 and the eyes alert, scything thought the
interpreter, from Jim Morrison to ‘alternative scene’. depths of dreamtime, the vocal
Scott Walker, from bayou howl to a There’s enough almost casual hieroglyphics of ‘Whales Tails’
kind of croon, from self-immolation brilliance on ‘Kicking Against – triggering a stampede of a heart
to fatigue. The Pricks’ to totally justify Nick that beats in unison with the very
When Cave addresses his own Cave’s bloated sense of his own stirrings of the soul.
‘legend’ in song the result is some importance. For a full half-hour, the lush and
of his most hilarious work. Like Simon Reynolds the barren thread through the
‘Avalanche’ and ‘A Box For Black amorous caress of ‘How To Bring A
Paul’, ‘The Folksinger’ is a fantastical Blush To The Snow’ and the brittle
MM, 16 August 1986, p27
dramatisation of Cave’s contempt cataracts of ‘Feel Like Fins’ before
for his audience of goths and rock culminating in the wavering cries of
critics; a Johnny Cash song about THE COCTEAU TWINS ‘The Thinner Air’.
a singer abandoned by his fickle Victorialand
public, who muses, “All the truths (4AD)
Nick Cave: the
I tried to tell you were as distant to How time flies when time is time thinking goth’s
you as the moon/Born 200 years and again. Another Cocteau Twins Cliff Richard
too late and 200 years too soon”. album, another gilded pillar of
A masterstroke that induces real excellence, another review of
shame for my having forgotten waxing lyrical ballads.
about Nick Cave, filed him away. Nothing is new, but
Not withstanding the the news is good – the
ethnomusicological sleevenotes progression is complete.
on ‘The Firstborn Is Dead’, a pastiche Time marches on, and
of the kind you’d find on a boxed passes by the elusive
Harry Belafonte record, this music Twins whose work is
isn’t really modern folk music. It’s neither updated, nor
art rock masquerading as folk’s outdated, but sieves
tradition, using folk’s textures of through another
bitter, broken lives and ghost town calendar in another
desolation as a contemporary place. Once more
metaphor for our rootless, faithless they are left
existence. out on a limb
Like many others, Cave has – playing in

96 NME ORIGINALS
 1986

How time flies in the face of Bargeld’s barbed-wire strings

beauty. And the music stops, the wrapping around wood blocks
clock starts, and all that remains are and the galleon drum.
fragments of beauty torn from the In darkness the sinister
paradise of the Gods. chimes of the fantasy
Nothing is new. mannequins of desolation strut
All good is renewal. and clutch at the outrages of
Ted Mico ‘Stranger Than Kindness’, with
the same mesmeric chain-gang
beat that binds the entrails of
MM, 15 November 1986, p29
‘Sad Waters’ to Cave’s ferris

NICK CAVE & wheel of fire.

The daylight finally fractures
THE BAD SEEDS the cortege of ‘Jack’s Shadow’,
Your Funeral… My Trial but the upbeat joy and relief is
(Mute) short-lived. The sun blinds love,
There is no land, there is no hope, casts a haunting shadow and
there is no glory. There is only the emasculates truth.
sight of helpless and hapless people It also causes skin cancer
being dragged screaming into the but Cave is not concerned with
cave of perdition to experience the such mundane matters – not
thrill of horror. when there’s dead women to
Nick Cave, the patron saint of sing about.
burials, is there to make sure there He is probably the only man
is no escape from the more openly religious
quicksand. than Cliff Richard,
Once more he is demanding and
heard suffering for demeaning belief
his art and displaying by hollering
the art of suffering savage psalms,
– twitching with empty words
pain and scratching from Leviticus
his arts. Many have and dismembered
tried to facsimile St sermons from
Nicholas’ infernal the OT gone OTT. The Cocteau Twins:
making journalists
inferno but only a man who is Nick Cave, hallowed be thy swoon since 1982
reputed to have spent half his name. In this gospel love
life unconscious, face down in a can only exist in the solstice
public urinal, could convince of self-deprivation, the ritual of in the midst of the most ungodly With Me’, a nursery rhyme which
people that hell on earth is real. self-sacrifice, and the accidents of activities, revelling, quaffing and insists on masquerading as a song.
Only a man sustained by a wincing self-indulgence. throwing up all around town as he Elsewhere the material is riveting,
self-mutilation could make this It’s a small wonder he found the rampages ever onwards in search of colourful and extraordinarily varied.
skeleton-strewn underworld a borrowed time to make his ‘Funeral’. the next likely boiler. The bright pop-rock of ‘Severina’
tantalising sauna. It’s nothing short of Wayne, it must be and the infectious up-tempos of
The funeral procession crackles, a miracle that this said, is not a man to ‘Sacrilege’ and ‘And The Dance Goes
stumbles and ruptures as if led by barren and polluted hide his libido under On’ contrast satisfyingly with the
the three blind mice pretending underworld is so a bushel, and one string-laden, lascivious ‘Garden Of
to be the three wise men carrying enticing, forcing a can only admire the Delight (Hereafter)’ or the smoky
smouldering gifts of rampant parody of beauty recklessness of his ‘Love Me To Death’.
paranoia. from the grotesque. lyrical enthusiasm for But The Mission are at their most
Throughout ‘The Trial’, Cave’s There is no sex, even if he does, now brilliant when they’re at their most
vision of women as either the chaste salvation, there is and then, get a trifle too over-the-top. ‘Bridges Burning’, with
or the chased – the Virgin Mary, or no redemption, affectionate. I mean, if its shrieks and screams and wails, is
a lascivious whore (the two inner there is only delirium anybody ever dared call the masterpiece of the album, and
sleeve illustrations) is antiquated, – a mirage that mistakes hell for me “my blossom” or “my precious”, the slower ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Die’
facile and repellent. Only a man paradise. I’d break their neck. But Wayne is is not far behind in terms of
whose heart and mind have been Yet this paradise in one hell of nothing if not impulsive, and this, dramatic impact.
severely jilted would devote so a place. coupled with the sprightly musical The first time I was really
many tortured words to Beatrice, Ted Mico imagination of The Mission, makes impressed with The Mission was the
the unapproachable dream of for a remarkably entertaining LP. night they became the only Top 30
womanhood, or Doreen, a cheap I hadn’t expected this. In my band in the universe to be turned
and moist gap to fill up the time. MM, 15 November 1986, p29 previous ignorance, I’d think away from the Limelight for not
Yet in Cave’s purgatory The Mission, and I’d think goth being famous enough.
everything is black and white THE MISSION – dark and broody and boring, The second time I was really
– without the white. Unlike ‘The God’s Own Medicine boring, boring. In reality, this is a impressed by The Mission was
PETER ANDERSON/TOM SHEEHAN

Firstborn…’ and ‘Kicking Against (Mercury) predominantly dynamic album last week, when I finally started to
The Pricks’, the Bad Seeds have “I still believe in God, but God no which comes to grief on only two listen to their music. So Wayne, my
stretched and scattered their longer believes in me.” counts – the tedious ‘Dance On blossom – do I qualify for a free
lugubrious hacksaw shrapnel so far Frankly I’m not surprised. Wayne Glass’, all pattering drums and non- pint now?
it no longer resembles the blues, Hussey is invariably to be found events, and the infuriating ‘Stay Carol Clerk

NME ORIGINALS 97
 Sweet Nothings

of their wailings have driven me

MM, 1 February 1986, p26 to drink, and I never once fancied NME, 11 October 1986, p12
that I heard through their albums
THE SISTERHOOD the veritable Voice Of God. This THE COCTEAU TWINS
Giving Ground single, however, is thrilling, my Love’s Easy Tears (4AD)
(Merciful Releases) favourite since ‘Playground Twist’. A blood-curdling 50 seconds of
Can’t quite understand what’s Big and brash and clashing, its whip-cracking, saddlesore Tex
going on here. ‘Giving Ground’ many parts combine to form Mexabilly. This bucking bronco of
was apparently written and one spirited, unpredictable yet a single shows itself no mercy and
produced by Sister Of Mercy wholly co-ordinated outburst finally runs itself into the ground
Andrew Eldritch along with the while Siouxsie’s voice, in confident with a sparkling accordion solo in
hideously old Lucas Fox, whom control, bounces up and down the final furlong. There are many
hairier readers may remember and around the repeating Prickly music delivered in a coolly ways to describe The Cocteau
from the original 1902 Motorhead motifs and unexpected twists of assured manner. On the one Twins, aren’t there, kids?
line-up. The great man doesn’t arrangement. hand, the simple, dreamlike title Cath Carroll
actually appear on the track, Carol Clerk track, on the other a purple ‘End
however, and it’s up to someone Of The Day’ built along satellite
called James Ray to inflict terror principles, intermingling classy
via the tonsils. It doesn’t quite phases that keep you indoors
work and sounds at times a little for hours. There are pop hernias
like the tune to Lytton’s Diary aching to burst in All About Eve,
– that is until those Banshees this is only the swelling.
baselines creep in, then it sounds Mick Mercer
like something you get pissed
to in dodgy German discos. The
instrumental version on the B-side
fares a little better and is probably
nice background music for those
nights you have to stay in and NME, 18 October 1986, p17
wash the blood off the walls.
Mat Smith MM, 24 May 1986, p31 THE MISSION
Stay With Me (Mercury)
THE MISSION Pomp rock for night people in
Serpent’s Kiss which Wayne Hussey croons
(Chapter 22) seductive sweet nothings to the
Born from the jetsam of The virgin of his choice. I’d sooner
Sisters Of Mercy, The Mission’s cuddle up to a bag of chisels.
signature is all too familiar – a MM, 26 July 1986, p26 Mat Snow
spider’s scrawl on the tabernacle
wall. Cosy guitar arpeggios coil THE MISSION The Mission:
around Wayne Hussey’s low- Garden Of Delight lacking in humour
slung drone, until suddenly the (Chapter 22)
apparently.
darkness shatters and the spectre Predictable stuff from these ex- Apart from their
of Andrew Eldritch’s shades rises Sisters Of Mercy, though entirely hats of course
out of the black. The ghost smiles, lacking in the humour that set
shakes his head and slopes off into the originals apart, and full of
MM, 1 March 1986, p31
oblivion, muttering, “The horror… enough jangly guitar and doom-

SIOUXSIE & the horror.”

Ted Mico
laden vocals to build upon their
recent ‘Serpent’s Kiss’ success.
THE BANSHEES Far more interesting though is
Candyman NME, 31 May 1986, p30 their cover of Neil Young’s ‘Like
(Wonderland) A Hurricane’, also included here,
If I had a penny for every would-be ALL ABOUT EVE with Hussey and co taking the old
Siouxsie I’ve ever seen on a stage, In The Clouds redneck’s classic and camping it
I’d have enough money to write to (Eden) up to a quite outrageous degree.
PETER ANDERSON

you all personally and tell you to Goosebumps a go-go on the 12- I can hardly wait to see Adam
buy this record. Not that I’ve ever inch version – from the fruit cellar Sweeting’s face.
been much of a Banshees fan: a lot to the crow’s nest and back again. Barry McIlheney

98 NME ORIGINALS
 Chapter 9
1987
DEREK RIDGERS
 Wayne’s WorlD

100 NME ORIGINALS

 1987

NME ORIGINALS 101

 Metal Machine Music

But rather than try for the high-wire

tension of the original, they’ve
reheated it in a supper-lounge suit,
and it’s charming enough.
‘You’re Lost Little Girl’ needs
its Morrison to convince but
John Cale’s ‘Gun’ stomps along
righteously and the horns puff it up
for a welcome reincarnation.
Even allowing for the flat ‘This
Wheel’s On Fire’ and the token of
their glam adolescence (Roxy’s
‘Sea Breezes’), the Banshees have
here made their first good LP in five
years. Whatever that’s worth today.
David Swift

NME, 11 April 1987, p35

THE CULT
Electric
(Beggars Banquet)
The Mish: billowing
hair and bilious One of the most fascinating things
pretension about the development of music
over the last two years has been the
myriad ways in which heavy metal,
once an idiot in-breed feeding off
its own faeces, has reinvented itself.
NME, 11 July 1987, p33 Most spectacular is Run DMC’s
achievement in selling re-usable
THE MISSION Aerosmith riffs to the hipsters of
The First Chapter the soul patrol, messing up all the
(Phonogram) ten-year old cultural boundaries.
Just how serious can The Mission But on the traditional side there’s
possibly be? Anyone who can name been a swing towards a New York
songs ‘Naked And Savage’ and Dolls-ish sense of glam, while on the
‘Serpent’s Kiss’ has either got punk, tribal side bands like The Cult
a severe cliché problem have slipped into the biker/killing
or they’re laughing all By far the most the Disney soundtrack but fares machine imagery of traditional
the way to the bank. entertaining aspect badly when compared with that heavy metal.
This bunch quite of this pompously python’s creepy delivery. No one knows the marketing
clearly derive from a titled collection is the It’s been a long time since the potential of the various strains of
post-punk culture, and sleeve notes, which Banshees have been hypnotic, but new rock better than Rick Rubin
yet take a perverse refer to “blowing this has its moments. Sadly it’s not – the man who turned the Beastie
delight in flirting brains out”, “searing half the LP that Nick Boys from brash punk to brat
with that bête noir white-hot guitar noise”, Cave produced with metal, the man behind
of their generation, “various illegal states of ‘Kicking Against The Slayer’s speed metal
mid-’70s rock. The Mission quite mind”, and, best of all, Pricks’, because here thrash, producer of Run
self-consciously break all the rules. “a gorgeous happening rock’n’roll the Banshees are DMC and now producer
Deciding to cover a Neil Young song, relationship”, whatever that may mostly too respectful of The Cult. Yes, it is a
for instance, The Mission have to be. After reading that lot, the most – except on ‘Strange conspiracy.
choose his single example of that amusing thought came to mind. Fruit’, which is a Rubin seems to have
great dodo, the ‘rock anthem’ – ‘Like Hey! What if they mean it, man? wobbling disaster. a perfect grasp on what
A Hurricane’, delivered with a po- John Munro Iggy Pop’s ‘The the masses of middle
faced, blustering sincerity. Passenger’ is one America want, which is,
The problem is that if it’s of the few rock records that could in fact, not very much,
NME, 7 March 1987, p26
intended to be a joke, it’s not really start a barndance anywhere in the just something very noisy and
very funny. The clichés they use
rarely aspire to being anything
SIOUXSIE & world. It’s a legend, and at least
Siouxsie knows that if you’re gonna
unpretentious. And if mid-America
wants it, it wants it in large enough
other than clichés, and at their THE BANSHEES mess with this one, mess with it or numbers to allow you to forget
best they’re like consolation prize Through The Looking Glass leave well alone. So as all concerned about the rest of the world.
winners in a Jim Morrison sound- (Polydor) take a ride to see what’s theirs, the The question is whether they
alike competition. At their worst, Look deep into my eyes, little one… horns swoop and it swings along will want The Cult, and the answer
TONY MOTTRAM/RETNA/PATRICK QUIGLY/RETNA

they can be a veritable vomitbag trussssssssst me! Yesss, trussst me famously. On ‘Hall of Mirrors’, is almost certainly yes. ‘Electric’ is
full of bilious pretension. A version when I say – this is OK, actually. the Banshees and Kraftwerk are a perfectly accomplished heavy
of Patti Smith’s ‘Dancing Barefoot’ Who wouldn’t love that sssublime well-matched because each has a metal record, from the bladed
misses the point altogether, sssnake from The Jungle Book? trademark pulse, and the tune is lettering of the cover right down
sounding like little boys playing Even he gets a chance on this, the made to measure. to the version of ‘Born To Be Wild’,
with naughty drug references, Banshees’ ‘collection of favourites Anyone attempting to play out while the tawdry glamour displayed
where the original sounds like a from Ten Years In A Tour Bus’. Television’s seldom-heard debut in the inner sleeve shots is perfectly
scarecrow playing with fire. Siouxsie croons ‘Trust In Me’ from ‘Little Johnny Jewel’ is asking for it. designed to meet Bon Jovi halfway.

102 NME ORIGINALS

 1987

Musically it sounds like a trip The Cure’s intangibility fades into staggeringly original “never give in”.
MM, 30 May 1987, p30
through the styles of the ’70s, from flesh here and bloodletting is rife. Not until several minutes’ silence
sub-T.Rex catchphrasing through We have 17 songs, we have two after the event (for that’s what
acid-scrambled nonsense (“Sitting THE CURE themes – ‘if only’ and ‘come over this subversive saintly saccharine
on a mountain looking at the sun/ Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me here’ – we have tortured memories is, really) do we realise that the
Plastic fantastic lobster telephone”) (Fiction) and, believe it or not, we have some answers have all been romanced.
to full blown Led Zeppelin bombast. Kiss kiss bang bang! Just as Rodin’s current fun. We take one more quick glance at
We might wonder just lovers will forever hold palms to When Warhol made The Kiss the clothing strewn on the floor.
how serious this can thighs and the only – another great arrogant accident Crimson lips. If that was a picture of
be when we hear lines good lips will be red – the beauty of each entrails, we’d find it revolting. But it
like: “Zany antics of lips, this is a perfect rendezvous could’ve isn’t. It’s lips, so we
a beat generation/In objective blur, a been spoiled by think it’s chic. The eye
their wild search for subjective sublime. saturation. Just as on of the beholder is yet
kicks”. But the kids You find yourself The Cure’s magnetic again the sole arbiter.
with the dollars in swaying, instinctively, magnum opus, the They’ll be howling
their pockets and to most of it: echoes of pert flirtations or this into the wind 10
the college radio the known. “All I want is self-flagellations of years from now, and
station on their to hold you like a dog”: each mini-masterpiece if it wasn’t a double
portables won’t . too furry to be rock, too should negate each album I’d have no
There’s gold in this here swill. tearful to be pop, too reliant on other till it’s just all too hesitation in calling it
Don Watson ice-skating strings to be soul, much. But somehow, somewhere, album of the year. But
there’s a place in your heart for each. I’m hesitating. Which leaves me
When Marilyn coos “simply no more or less lost than anyone
elegant” in The Seven Year Itch, who irrationally loves the nebulous
that’s fine too, because she has no aspirations, camp angst and lack of
The Neph’s Carl
McCoy: sponsored name. Robert Smith is only called definition of The Cure. A panacea or
by Homepride Robert Smith, but perhaps this is Pantheism? Think ‘I’m In Love With A
why we let him get away with it. We German Film Star’ and be damned.
sympathise, because he’s clever Chris Roberts
enough not to get too clever. “I wish
you were dead” and “You want to
MM, 30 May 1987, p34
know why I hate you?” he groans.
This is creative visualisation, for
Smith is undoubtedly enjoying life.
FIELDS OF THE
So not only can we mope along, NEPHILIM
if we wish, we can boogie with Dawnrazor
reverential and self-referential (Situation 2)

delight to such exquisite Detractors of the Nephilim are often

squeals as, “That girl was always more inclined towards artier shite
falling/Again and again/ And I used and thereby choose to spare three
to sometimes try to catch her/But I seconds peering at the hats and six
never even caught her name”. months ignoring the music. This is
So it’s won, it’s won from the how people come to miss out on the
extended lung twirling intro to rumbling sprees we call ‘Slowkill’
‘The Kiss’ – such anticipation! or ‘Volcane’, ominous preludes to
Like unwrapping chocolate! power both, gnashing teeth hard
The consistent death and enough to desecrate gums, but with
pain imagery keeps an undeniable grace.
us brewing coyly till Epiglottal rumpus aside, it is
‘How Beautiful You the guitars which arrest attention
Are’ sends everything most, sneering and snapping their
Venus-wards. ‘The way through torrential mixtures of
Snakepit’ slithers ridiculously sublime multi-textured
with atmosphere sounds and song. Nephilim stride
but is usurped by the out of a gloom of their own setting,
strings which to throttle your record
underline ‘Like deck. You want
Cockatoos’. whipcord choruses,
And if ‘Hot Hot tensile passages of
Hot’ is flimsy anti-inertia? All here.
funk, ‘Just Like This band
Heaven’ is ribald have constructed
pop, as delicious something quite
as a fling behind a magnificent in a
screen. This record dismal time, when
lacks the punch of everyone tends to ape
‘The Head On The Door’ but has things of indescribable putrescence.
twice the suction. Unlike hip slop like Swans or Young
Still, the search goes on Gods, some rattlesnakes wag their
for ‘The Perfect Girl’, and tails ’cos they’re pleased to see you.
the conclusion of it all is a Mick Mercer

NME ORIGINALS 103

 h Andy?
ello?
“Thin White Duck here.”
Who?
“Andy.”
certain to choke goth on its own bittersweet
excesses. ‘First And Last And Always’, the album
out on Merciful Release through Warners,
and nights sat up in hotels with Eldritch in his
manky leather cowboy hat doing wilful bodily
“Eldritch.” harm to our fragile metabolisms and rattling
Oh… uh… hi, Eldritch. on at mutual cross-purposes; me about love ’n’
“Come for drinks.” life ’n’ that; Eldritch, of course, about fencing
When? and self-defence and the iron bar he carried
“Now.” up the sleeve of his coat for dextrous use in the
I can’t, I’m asleep. It’s seven in the morning. eventuality of attack.
“Is it? Oh, coffee then.” The world was spinning at Eldritch’s pace
Later. and it was spinning very, very fast. There were
“Sure. Kensington. My hotel. At 10.” great conspiracies and greater paranoia. He even
OK… Uh, you haven’t been to sleep yet have offered to take someone out of my life by giving
you? them a job on the Sisters’ road crew for a US
“When… this week? This month?” tour – a job he could hardly refuse and which he
After the gig. might well not survive. Some friend. Some hero.
“Uh… no. Went to Dingwalls with Lemmy And then… well, those postcards. One from
and these Hell’s Angels and…” Mexico which read: “ELVIS IS DEAD. I know
Save it, Eldritch. Save it. See you later. because he told me. Sorry to break it to you so
bluntly, but you had it coming, hippie. Feed
Ah, those were the days. Cryptic phone calls at your head – when you can find it. Von Eldritch
all hours. The Sisters Of Mercy at The Albert X.” There was a PS: “Peyote girls go round the
Hall, a heavy dark nectar of irony that looked outside, round the outside.”

HIS MASTER’S
VOICE
Andrew Eldritch, the godfather of goth, is back to lead
his children form the hippy wilderness and to prove
The Sisters of Mercy are first and last and always.
Steve Sutherland gets the message
MM, 5 september 1987, p14

104N MN EM EO ROIRGIIGNIANLASL S
??
 1987

There were others from Hamburg, the last of Where have you been since you last appeared in Was it frustrating to see The Mission become
which was written in Chinese, and I wasn’t the the hallowed pages of the Maker? successful in the mean time?
only one who feared for the great man’s sanity. “Well, we went through the corporate wars in “No… I mean, they took the interest and
Rumour had it a combination of devastated my familiar Jonathan E type role and we did OK. capitalised on that but, musically, not. It was
health, legal binds and sheer disappointment A lot of untruths have been bandied about, but noticeable for about a year that they couldn’t
that his ex-henchmen had made a go of The unfortunately, the way we won makes it tricky get press unless they mentioned my name. I saw
Mission had laid Eldritch near-fatally low. We for us to explain how we won and, therefore, interviews with myself so many times by proxy
presumed the world and Eldritch, to all extents prove that we did. It was basically over the name – that got irritating because… well, Wayne has a
and purposes, had parted company. Such – the people that are now The Mission and REMARKABLE way with the truth.”
miserable unbelievers! myself had an agreement no one would use the Is there bitterness between you then?
name when the band went its separate ways. But, “Yeah. Yeah, there is.”
Eldritch is in a photographic studio, glistening after they’d been touting their demos round Personal or corporate?
with baby-oil and draped all over Patricia, getting nowhere under all sorts of other names, “Personal.”
formerly of The Gun Club and You suggest there’s a
now his “right-hand man”. He’s
here to pose with cigarettes and Rumour had it that devastated health, legal fundamental difference in
ATTITUDE between The Sisters
prove The Sisters Of Mercy are Of Mercy and The Mission.
still a force to get wrecked with.
He doesn’t talk of resurrection,
binds and sheer disappointment had laid Eldritch “Yeah, their ability to bend
over forwards in order to make
but of continuation and, as if
to insist megalomania is alive
near-fatally low. Such miserable unbelievers! progress appals me. The way
they’ve bent over contracts and
and well and ready to pistol-whip pop, his new they began to claim rights to it, which patently been appropriately assaulted for it which, again,
single is called ‘This Corrosion’, lasts 11 minutes, had to be stopped. And, when they wanted to be is something they’ve not really been prepared to
features a 40-piece choir multi-tracked 10 times called The Sisterhood, there was nothing I could let on about.
and was produced by Meat Loaf’s old buddy do but be The Sisterhood before them – the only “Musically, too. I never sang a lyric of
and master of the Wagnerian, Jim Steinman. way to kill that name was to use it, then kill it. Wayne’s. I never found one I COULD sing.”
I’m about to ask him why but I’m laughing too I think that reflected rather badly on the name History has proved that, when The Sisters
much. The Bad News mondo-metal version of The Sisters Of Mercy and it’s probably due for disappeared from public view, was EXACTLY
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ has just come on the radio reinstatement for that reason if no other. the time you should have been reaping your
and Patricia thinks it’s The Cult! “Then there was a little disagreement with greatest rewards. What, other than legalities,
the publishers, RCA Music, over what would prompted your inaction?
Let’s talk over eats Eldritch. Where d’you fancy? happen to the money. Effectively it all kept us “Well, I wasn’t well. I’d done three tours that
“Oh, anywhere but Indian.” out of action.” year and I thought we’d come to the end of a
Really? I thought you’d be a man for a ruby. logical course. I titled that Albert Hall gig ‘Wake’
“No, I refuse to eat anywhere they beat us at about four months before it actually happened,
cricket.” and the band are probably still wondering why.
Italian then? I mean, I thought it should still have gone on but
“Italian.” I knew it wasn’t going to.
“The last time we actually spent any time
together, at the end of the tour before the Albert
Hall, we had some time playing in America and
then we had a week off in Los Angeles.
“I went to Mexico for the day and the other
two couldn’t think of anything better to do than
go to Disneyland. And when I came back from
Mexico a WEEK later, having got somewhat…
uh… distracted, I just thought, ‘God, what are
those people whinging about, really?’ They just
got so feeble.
“Then they said, ‘Well, OK, what are we
gonna do for new songs?’ And I said, ‘How
about this, this and this,’ and unfortunately,
the first ‘this’ I cited had too many chords per
minute and Craig said, ‘If that’s the guitar line,
I’m not playing it,’ and walked out. That was
really that.
“But Wayne had already become a problem
because he wanted to do more of his songs and
I thought they were particularly vacuous.
“I used to have to fight with him to get the
songs to make any sort of grammatical sense,
let alone be sharp with it. I mean, you’ve gotta
know grammar before you can work away from
it. The guy didn’t have a clue – he’d just string
buzzwords together.”
Strangely enough, someone from the Maker
was around Wayne while he was writing recently
and he had a book of aphorisms with all the
mystical-type ones underlined in red.
TOM SHEEHAN

“That’s how most people do it. I can’t bring

myself to work that way. That’s what passes

NME ORIGINALS 105

 A New Era Of Cynicism

for revolution these days. I’m glad I wasn’t In a sense, your attitude was a precursor to I hope history proves you right.
around in ’86 because it wasn’t just The Mission, sampling. You were acknowledging Led Zeppelin “I hope so too because I don’t think this irony
it was a bad year all over and anybody who broke before The Beastie Boys USED them. Is their compounds itself properly unless you do add
then will be tainted with it for a long time.” literal approach even more honest than yours? an extra layer on the top, unless you do stick
But surely you’re responsible. You introduced “I think that’s a lower level, a very vulgar something worthwhile in.”
a generation of synth-pop fashion fops to the interpretation. The Beastie Boys aren’t familiar Don’t we need a new era of innocence? Don’t
thrill of anti-fashion, ‘When The Levee Breaks’, territory to me. In about two years, I’ll cover we need to UNLEARN progress?
outlaw biker chic and drug innuendo and guitars ‘When The Levee Breaks’ and wipe the floor with “No, we need a new era of cynicism. The
and ripped jeans and dry ice. Without the Sisters The Beastie Boys and wipe the floor with The reason the NME, for instance, can’t comprehend
and the vacuum you created when you went to Cult because they haven’t got a grip on what is this sort of thinking is that they don’t have that
ground, there could scarcely have been grebo great about Led Zeppelin. It’s like The Mission cynicism. They still believe that rock’n’roll is
and Zodiac Mindwarp. going out and covering Sisters music – they make supposed to be naive and wonderful and, if
“I dispute that. That’s like saying Christ is it sound like bad Echo & The Bunnymen.
responsible for the Mormons – it’s really not on. “I remember I went to see The Alarm when
I don’t know what you lot were left with. they were knee-high to Big Country and I
“So what’s grebo rock?” thought, ‘These people have COMPLETELY
You really haven’t heard of it? misunderstood Mott The Hoople,’ and it’s
“No, is it like Led Zeppelin?” been happening ever since. I’m now used
Well… yeah… fake… fantasy stuff. to people misunderstanding me, though
“Oh, without the grunge. Maybe I SHOULD it’s weird when you get all these Eldritch
have taught them outrageousness.” clones out there treading the boards.”
You sound like The Godfather of Goth. You’ve never seen Fields Of The
“Ha! When we were trying to sell ‘This Nephilim?
Corrosion’ to Steinman, we said it was like the “No, I’m told we played with
high point of a Borgia disco evening and he them once in San Francisco but
went for it. Nobody makes gloriously stupid I wasn’t actually there when they
records any more.” played.”
Queen? Patricia: “They knew I was there
“No, they’re embarrassing. Steinman and I are and, afterwards, they came up and
the only two who share this glorious stupidity. started talking to people next to me.
Don’t tell him though. He just thinks ‘Corrosion’ I just left. I wasn’t even going to speak
is perfectly normal. Other bands have no to them. I mean, for a moment when
perspective on the stupidity of it at all. They say they were on, I turned and thought,
things like, ‘Oh well, we never claimed we were ‘This is familiar, what’s THIS?’”
original,’ or, ‘Well, of course rock’s stupid,’ but “The only reason that people like
it’s just spiel, just Eldritch lines misunderstood.” that embarrass me so much is that,
This is where the attitude comes in. The if they’re really that hooked on me,
difference between the Sisters and the pretenders they must be tasteless. It gets to the
to the throne is an irony-in-overdrive that takes stage where you think, ‘I’m not THAT
the piss out of AND celebrates its role models. good and anybody who thinks I am

“I always go away thinking I haven’t said enough

about post-war dramatic theory, fencing or Chinese
philology, which are the things I really care about”
“If you do it right, it compounds itself at every must be an idiot’.
level. ‘Corrosion’ is an indictment of bombast “There’s an inner integrity and
– there was no other way to do it.” authority in ‘Corrosion’ which comes of
A lot of old Sisters fans are gonna say, “He’s pain, grief and suffering. I couldn’t do
taking the piss.” what The Cult are singing, I couldn’t do
“Of course I’m taking the piss – it’s the only what The Beastie Boys are doing, I couldn’t
way to be serious about it. Same as it ever was.” do what Madonna is doing. I could do what
So this is crap AND fantastic. It’s time we Alice Cooper did but then I’m not extrovert
redefined the difference between man and beast. enough. I would have no scruples about
It’s nothing to do with how many legs you walk doing it if I were able to.
on; it’s everything to do with the possession of “And if it takes a year fighting
irony. I know people who are animals. corporate wars in order to be able to do it
“And I had a cat that had a very highly with integrity, then I’ll do it… or not at
developed sense of irony.” all. I don’t HAVE to do this.”
‘Corrosion’ is already being compared to
some pretty God-like things. One of them is the Don’t you have a touching belief that
Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. the role of a recording artist is to be
“That’s cool.” intelligent and communicative, and isn’t
So it’s pop about pop. that belief extraordinarily old-fashioned?
“That’s a very important element, yeah. You “Yeah, and self-destructive.” Well-oiled sisters:
have to acknowledge the medium in the message, So you’re fighting a rearguard action. Andrew Eldritch
I think, otherwise you’re stupid… dishonest… “Or vanguard, depending on how you and Patricia
or just very naive.” look at it.” Morrison

106 NME ORIGINALS

 1987

you give them irony, they say, ‘Oh dear, that’s the expectations. It’s a long war but ‘Corrosion’ Nixon and asked him how to survive it.”
distasteful. Let’s forget about it. Let’s pretend it’s might win one battle and, after all, it’s the only Eldritch is supposed to be a pretty ruthless
not humorous.’ That’s very primitive cynicism war worth fighting.” character himself.
born out of a very vulgar and naive ideology.” How much is revenge the motive? “Not really, I’m a counter-attacker by nature.
Has pop music let you down? “‘The Gift’ was the revenge, a weapon very I’m not a pre-emptive strike man.”
“No. I know what it’s capable of because, when specifically pointed. This is the gloating, much Most people in your position, if they’re
I grew up, it was blatantly capable of it and it more widespread, more general.” interested in maintaining control, tend to
was delivering. Expectations have been lowered Why did you go to live in Hamburg? make a point of confounding (Robert Smith)
since and deliveries have been faltering. It’s just “It’s the largest city in the Federal Republic or confirming (John Lydon) their public image.
a question of raising people’s expectations again. which is the most powerful country in Europe. You do neither.
We can do it. I’ll make the records if you raise It’s just such a wonderfully cool place because it’s “That’s where the hardship comes in. It’s
not populated by cool people like Berlin.” a lot of extra work and a lot of extra worry.
Do you feel badly done by in Britain then? Anecdotes? I just don’t have them.”
“Yeah. Not so much these days because I’ve Will ‘Corrosion’ chart?
got a reasonable amount of goodwill stored up “I’m told it will. I don’t care. It’s a good record
but one knows it’s only goodwill as long as you now, it’ll be a good record in five years. I don’t
don’t start talking about aesthetics when they ask care when people buy it though I think it’s more
you what your favourite colour is.” accessible to people, it has a more accessible top
layer than the records we’ve had out in the past.
Have you, in your time away, seen anything That’s just a function of the way it’s recorded,
encouraging? I don’t think it’s a function of the song.”
“What, to do with music?” So the song’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Or…
To do with anything. uh… a wolf in what? Brontosaurus’s clothing?
Twenty seconds silence. Then: “No. I dunno, I’ll cheat and put in something really

“Of course I’m taking the piss. It’s the only way
to be serious about it. Same as it ever was”
But nothing discouraging either. witty and apposite when I write this.
Life went on and I expect it to go on. “Ha! I think it’s a shark in wolf’s clothing.
I’d find it pretty weird, in fact, if I That was a pretty duff metaphor to start with
had seen any light… or darkness.” though. Forget about that one…”
Control seems important to But it’s devious.
you while, all around, others are “Not deceitfully so. It’s just crafty. I hope it
relinquishing theirs. makes sense. I mean, I’d like people to go for
“Yeah. But although I put my everything they can get out of it and all at once
sole existence into making – that’s what symbolism and obscurism are all
records, I don’t need to make about – but I don’t expect that. It’s the only thing
records. I mean, if I hadn’t I get off on though. It’s the only thing that would
gone off and been a little make me wanna sing the same song two nights
degenerate in the mean time, running. It’s gotta have that overwhelming
I dare say I’d have joined the panoply of effects.”
Diplomatic Corps – that’s what What do you read now?
I’m trained for. Or MI6.” “Der Spiegel and The Times – I’ve started doing
So what d’you think of the crossword again. Last month I read Pilgrim’s
Spycatcher? Progress and Beowulf.”
“That’s pretty damn irrelevant Films?
– that’s really all to do with the “I don’t have a television in Hamburg. That’s
Home Office isn’t it? I haven’t read one of the reasons for not writing in Leeds
it but I can’t see what the surprise is because there I’d spend 24 hours – well, 25
all about. Like Nixon – what the hell hours a day by the time I’d taken some medicine
did they expect? It’s just politics.” – watching TV. I was very pleased to be forced
So was Nixon hard done by or to catch the Rutger Hauer season while we were
was he just dumb to get caught? in the studio. Patricia was renting anything
“I thought Nixon was a great with Rutger Hauer in it. Some of them are real
president. He got the Americans stinkers but he’s so funny in The Hitcher – it’s a
out of Vietnam, he made friends, to brilliant comic performance. You’ll love it.
some extent, with the Russians and “It really makes you wanna go out and do it.
he certainly made friends with the There’s not a lot of films where the character is
Chinese. He was the best president so obviously deranged but, at the same time,
in terms of foreign policy that makes it look like such fun that even the sanest
nation had in a long time person could imagine doing it. I mean, to go out
and I thought they were and wanna be The Terminator, you’ve gotta be
very stupid to get rid of a moron basically – it’s great to watch but you’d
him. He was very stupid to make a mess never do it yourself. This is different.”
of covering up Watergate up – I mean So what makes you happy Eldritch?
Reagan survived Irangate.” “Cats still make me ludicrously happy.”
TOM SHEEHAN

Patricia: “I was over there when that What makes you sad?
happened and, you know, Reagan called “Nothing makes me sad because I think

NME ORIGINALS 107

 Four Minute WArnings

there has to be some element of surprise in “I never know. I always go away thinking,
order to feel sad.” ‘Well, I haven’t said enough about post-
What else? war dramatic theory or fencing, or Chinese
“Well, I’m thinking of learning to drive. The philology,’ which are the things that I really care
thing is, whenever I go abroad, I invariably end about. And then someone says, ‘Well? Did you
up driving and I don’t have a licence or anything tell them how great the record is?’ And I go, ‘Oh,
which is probably not the thing to do. Then, actually that never occurred to me.’
you see, what happens after that is I buy a car. “The only conversations I quite get off on
I don’t particularly like cars for their own sake these days are the ones where we discuss how
and I don’t particularly like driving. I get these crap conversation is. I’m not socially honed and
MM, 21 November 1987, p31 urges. I see these things and I think, ‘What if…?’ I don’t feel the need to be. Once you convince
That’s why I don’t really enjoy it; because I’m yourself you’re the all-time best at it, where d’you
THE SISTERS OF MERCY responsible enough not to do what I feel the urge go from there?”
Floodland to do. I don’t get the urge to drive fast, I just get How enigmatic.
(Merciful Release) the urge to drive off the road, especially when “I don’t feel enigmatic. Enigmatic is being
Facing up to the fact that there’s nothing on either side of me. deliberately obscure and I’m not. I might
nothing is new tends “It’s got nothing to do with suicide; it’s just be oblique but that’s only because, to me,
to separate the mice about driving a car off the edge of a cliff.” obliqueness is a clearer way of expressing
from the men. Some, something in its entirety.”
like George Michael, How would you kill someone? Could this be the Oxford University training
plagiarise. Others, “It would depend whether it was someone – the art of leaving oneself least open to attack
Like The Cult, feign I liked or someone I didn’t like.” – or are we talking about truth here?
ignorance. Eldritch OK, someone you like. “Truth. I can do the other as well but I’m too
mocks, uses choirs and “It depends whether I think they’d appreciate out of training – and when I was really good at it,
Coleridge, taunts pop with its elders and something spectacular or something just very I began to despise myself for it.”
betters. sedate. I think if it was someone I really, really So you’re talking about a search for
‘Floodland” is more and less the same liked and they’d appreciate the spectacular, it communication?
album as ‘First And Last And Always’. It’s would have to involve an expanse of scenery and “I really don’t know but, apart from the bit
more in that Eldritch’s awareness of mortality an extraordinarily fast car.” about Roy Kinnear, I stand by everything I’ve
has spread from the knowledge that And those you don’t like? ever said to you.”

PETER ANDERSON
nothing is new to the opinion that nothing “I’d always want it take longer. It’s best to kill Even the stuff about Norman Wisdom?
is worthwhile; and it’s less in that being someone they really like, I think.” “Yeah.”
incapable of contemplating nothing, it reacts You suggest in what you just said that you like Gods will be gods.
to time running out by amputating all the and dislike but not love and hate.
curlicues of guitar and replacing them with “I’m very wary of it. I have to be very careful
stark, essential foundations. because I think I’m probably a bit obsessive by
‘Floodland’ is an edifice to decay in nature. I had to TOTALLY stop drinking in order
which Eldritch unleashes all his paranoia to be able to maintain any business whatever.
and obsession. The gargantuan ‘Dominion/ I don’t gamble. I don’t do smack.”
Mother Russia’ finds our hero forsaking that And love?
job in the diplomatic corps and pleading “Absolutely not. I only ever really did it once
with Mother Russia to “rain down”, while and I don’t think I’m likely to do it again.”
the magnificently minimal ‘This Corrosion’ Because you don’t like losing your personality
cleaves through its own pompous austerity in someone else or because you don’t like
to admit “I got nothing to say I ain’t said inflicting it?
before”, a revelation which, far from “Both. We were just dreadful for each other.
suggesting a lack of imagination, indicates It didn’t stop it being brilliant but it’s
a surfeit of it. That admission, alongside marginally better that it doesn’t happen any
the metallic Luftwaffe slap of ‘Lucretia My more. That’s tough. It still hangs over to the
Reflection’, the breakdown of language extent that I couldn’t do it again.”
during ‘Floodland II’ or the (surely) sampled What would induce you to lose your self
nuclear depth charge drums from Led control, to endanger yourself in passion?
Zeppelin’s ‘When The Levee Breaks’ on “I’ve only ever done that when I wasn’t
‘Neverland’, is a mark of shocking honesty. quite… on stage I’ve done things that
When Eldritch sings “Seconds to the drop afterwards I’ve thought, ‘No! That
but it feels like hours…” the red light starts was just beyond the pale.’”
winking on the dashboard and we realise Because you were out
that ‘Driven Like The Snow’ is ‘Nine While of it?
Nine’ revisited because he can do nothing “Because I could,
else –we’re all waiting. Dying on record’s a because I was out
dicey business, especially when it’s world of it and because
destruction that nags your every waking I had to. If you’re
minute because there’s nowhere to go in front of a crowd, you’re in a
artistically. Facing up to that, ‘Floodland’ position of responsibility and, if they’re waiting
is a triumph of sorts, neither optimistic for you to sort out one moron, you have to do it.
enough to suggest there’s a Noah’s Ark I mean, the last time it happened, I spent half an
nor pessimistic enough to accuse us all of hour trying to talk the crowd into sorting out
navigating a ship of fools. It simply says rust their own problem and then, eventually, I just
never sleeps and this is what it sounds like. dived. It was really sad. I felt very ashamed on
Great. their behalf that they let me do it.”
Steve Sutherland OK, that’s it. Was it good for you?

108 NME ORIGINALS

 1987

Hippy hippy shake:

Julianne Regan of
All About Eve and
The Mission’s Wayne
Hussey

All About Eve/

The Mission
The Marquee, London MM, 5 September 1987, p19

W ith no rock giants, such

as Tommy Steele or
Charlie Drake, to kiss, poor Painey
Eve. “I don’t know why. Must be
the wanker in me coming to the
surface.” The alcoholics. The Hippy-
Wayney turns to his band for his Hippy Shake! Glorious pop songs,
kicks and everyone goes CRAZY, bloody pop songs. All About Eve.
except for the beleagured reviewer “Imagine you’re around a
and his girlfriend, anxiously timing campfire, my friends,” Julianne
the guards’ patrols around the suggests, dodging my flaming
perimeter fence. (Any moment arrows, “because this is ‘Gipsy
now…) Then, bugger me, it isn’t as Love’!” And unfortunately it is.
bad as I’d feared. The new songs But never mind, there was still a
may simply be the old songs
(‘Sacrilege’?), may simply be jovial Sweetness and light. Peace and love,
noise without much in the way of
tungsten tunes, but this tiny tussle
Sweetness and light. Peace and love. with a crowd scrap thrown in for
good measure. Some people have
was enjoyable! Standards are
slipping, ‘1969’ is slipped in and the With a crowd scrap thrown in for good no manners.
Warmed up for Reading Festival,

measure. Some people have no manners

JOHN-CHRISTIAN JACQUES/RETNA/TOM SHEEHAN

trivial pursuit is over. The Mish. In sweating in their delirium, sordid

one era and out the other. and sentimental, All About Eve wet
The Igloos love it. Then they bay themselves tonight. The crowd
for the band who can currently prickly ‘What Kind Of Fool’, plus cutting in and out of the commercial soak it up. “I don’t know about
charm anyone. To protect the rampant versions of ‘Our Summer’ splendour. For ‘Shelter From The you,” Julianne gasps, rebellious
innocent I can even reveal that and ‘Flowers In Our Hair’, with Rain’, Wayney accidently stumbles banter flying, “but this is all a bit too
one of the Stud Brothers recently the real live human drummer a onto the stage, discovers it isn’t the exciting for me!”
confessed a liking for All About torrential pulsebeat, the guitars toilet so has a sing-song. Moving. Mick Mercer

NME ORIGINALS 109

Kissing
To Be
Clever
 1987

This week, The Cure complete a triumphant European tour by playing HE NEVER HAS AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT!
three nights at Wembley. Chris Roberts caught up with them on the eve The words to ‘How Beautiful You Are’ are of
interest to me…
“The lyric-sheet’s wrong, innit?”
of their homecoming to discuss lips, hands, legs and boomps-a-daisy Who proof-read it?
“Me.”
It suggests that “no one ever knows or loves
MM, 5 December 1987, p25 and “Hello, I’m a plank” (if you are Simon). another”. That’s a bit of a rum do, isn’t it?
Asking the manager to reveal his wedding “Ah, that’s literary theft, from a Baudelaire

t
“ he kiss originated when the first male tackle. Requesting ‘Thinking Of You’ by Sister short story. I wrote a song round the time of
reptile licked the first female reptile, Sledge from a disc jockey who looks like Roscoe the ‘Faith’ album with the idea that, even if
implying in a subtle, complimentary way Tanner. Being staggered that Roberts knows you thought you were very close to someone,
that she was as succulent as the small ‘Born To Be Alive’ and ‘Let’s All Chant’ were by you never really were. That you’d always be
reptile he had for dinner the night before.” Patrick Hernandez and The Michael Zager Band disappointed in people. Then someone gave me a
– F Scott Fitzgerald: The Crack-Up respectively. Not going out of the hotel because book of Baudelaire, Verlaine and Rimbaud.
that would mean instant lethal mobbing. “I read this story and his narrative idea put it
HE KISSES VARIOUS PEOPLE, HE SUPPOSES! Getting up late. Going back to bed. Feeling a so much better. Just goes to show – I never have
“The only person I really kiss is Mary,” says bit awkward when little girls burst into tears an original thought!”
Robert Smith. “I kiss Simon from time to time. upon touching their hair. Drinking. Lol-baiting. But is your view of communication between
Oh, I kiss various people, I suppose. It’s just Talking about gore movies. Being chuffed that people really that bleak?
spontaneous. But there’s a history of treacherous Barry Gibb is a Cure fan. Having chewing-gum “Mmm. Still is. I wish it wasn’t. But I expect
kisses. And lecherous kisses are vile. A drunken on the rider. Drinking some more. Mercilessly, less of fewer people now. There’s just one or two
kiss can be one of the worst things in the world. relentlessly, savagely, baiting Lol. Not dancing. people who I rely on not to change. Maybe three.
I used to say my hobbies were drinking and Tittering. Not having some grand idea about It’s very difficult writing songs which people say
kissing, in that order, but it wasn’t true. I don’t themselves. Watching shirts shrink. Miming to help them and not feeling like you’re the centre
know. I dislike kissing as much as I like it. Status Quo records. Being gods in France. of the universe. It’s nice to read something that
Seeing other people kissing is… ugh… Why are The Cure so big, Robert? stirs you to think you’re on the periphery. Or
“At one point I almost got phobic about the “I think a lot of it is songs, I really do. Just that you don’t even exist.
mouth being an orifice, about actually travelling having the right song at the right time.” “I once met somebody who’d interviewed
into someone’s mouth. I just liked putting the Why are The Cure so big, Simon? Patrick White and I felt very peripheral then.
mouth on the cover ’cos it’s so close-up it’s kind “I think it’s probably… Robert.” I wished I’d met him. But then I was invited
of obscene and lewd. It was a to lunch with Ray Bradbury
reaction to the way we’re often
interpreted – I’m seen as being “I’m seen as being cuddly. This isn’t and I didn’t go: at the last minute
I got scared I’d be so useless in
really cuddly, and my mouth
and lipstick are supposed to be
so nice. This isn’t true; I’m as
true; I’m as horrible as anyone ” the conversation.”
Recommended reading for
incurable Curophiles?
horrible as anyone. Probably more so than most. “Patrick White’s autobiography, which tells
“What comes out of people’s mouths is pretty THEY LOOK LIKE ANGELS! me how an old person feels when he’s old. And
vile most of the time. “I worry about our attitude because I have to gay. I’m terrified of old people. And in Ireland
“And breath. Breath is revolting. Especially live with it. I’m sure a lot of people don’t care I set myself this reading course to try and
in Germany.” at all what attitude we have, but I have to keep re-educate myself, ’cos I felt I was becoming
thinking it’s important because, if I let that go, very dull. So I read Beyond Good And Evil
IF HE WAS AT HOME, HE’D BE IN THE PUB! I may as well become a member of Spandau again, and The Myth Of Sisyphus. And Sartre’s
We, however, are in Brussels, the capital of Ballet or something. Road To Freedom trilogy, which I’d never read
Europe. It is the capital of Europe because “You have to keep a sense of… just being before. That was brilliant. Really good. And
nobody – not Rome, not Madrid, not Liverpool, human. I’m wearing black for the first time in Confucius…”
not nobody – could possibly be jealous of years today. We wear white on stage. We look Isn’t this all a little naively heavy-going?
Brussels. Thus peace is assured. Being jealous like angels.” “No, surprisingly enough – you know most of
of Brussels would be like being jealous of a We talk about mouths, then I suggest that what’s in them. You find you just know.”
watering-can with scaffolding around it. Robert might feel his audience is too young to
“We’re sitting here and it’s Sunday. But it appreciate the complex mesh of love and hate in HE ALWAYS FEELS LIKE THEY’RE NOT HIS HANDS!
could be Tuesday as much as anything. That’s the songs… If Robert wasn’t a compulsive liar, I’d ask him if
what’s so good about doing this. I’d be at the “I never feel patronising towards anyone of 15; he was a compulsive liar.
pub if I was at home anyway, so going on stage I remember still how I experienced things then. What hypnotises you? Mesmerises you?
is a bonus.” I could never write them down as well as I could “Koyaanisqatsi. The rain on bus journeys.
The Cure on tour is a fascinating at 25, I didn’t have the same grasp of language, Through the window. And snow, snow’s the best
phenomenon – it goes through all the rock’n’roll but I felt the same emotions, just as strong, in a thing in the world. When you’re driving through
motions while somehow maintaining a slight much rougher form. Between 15 and 18 is when snow at night and the headlights are on and it
filmy forcefield between amusing itself and you develop your personality. You go out with looks like you’re going through star tunnels…
plummeting into all those Spinal Tap clichés. people. You make contact with jealousy and all Oh, lots of things mesmerise me. Good dancers.
Drinking. Saying someone “has never touched the other horrible emotions which I no longer I suppose that’s the opposite to how I feel
a drink in his life”. Watching old videos of suffer from. – seeing people who are really fluid, who look
Dr Who. Lol-baiting. Arguing about the “The songs aren’t that complicated; only one like they don’t exist.”
merits of compact discs, and how the Luddites or two. And they’re probably so convoluted that Do you wish you could disown the physical?
would smash them up. Crimping. Lol-baiting. they only really refer to me. Most of the recent Lose your body?
Drinking. Phoning home. Anyone-baiting. songs have been fairly obvious.” “Yeah, a trade-in would be quite good.
Signing autographs. Trying to avoid Michael “Get it out get it out get it out/Get your fucking Actually no – a lot of my experience derived
TOM SHEEHAN

Jackson, Marvin Gaye and Van Morrison. Lol- voice out of my head/I never wanted any of this/I from how uncomfortable I feel within my own

baiting. Saying, “Come on, just one more drink” wish you were dead/Dead dead dead” – ‘The Kiss’. body anyway, so if I was a disembodied mind,

NME ORIGINALS 111

 Messiah Of Angst

it’d take all that away from me. Of Angst, welcome home Messiah, we’ve killed Ah. Yes. No.
“I always feel like they’re not my hands. I’ve the fatted calf.’ I’ve never spent much time with “That’s what touring does to me as well. It’s
always felt like it – my body – is a third person. people who look up at me, or think I’m somehow television, tapes, reading, thinking, sitting. And I
If I cut my hand – I think the band has been different. So when I read these things I either know at the start of the chain of actions that I’m
cut, not me. I suppose it’s an irrational desire laugh or just go, ‘Oh, nutty bastards.’ How could gonna feel nothing for, like, the next five hours.
to escape from it – to feel that, even if my heart I have stayed one thing for years anyway? That’d I’m resigned to it till I go to sleep.
stopped, I would still be here.” be ludicrous. I’m not aware of being the ‘me’ that “‘Close To Me’ was about that. Some days you
Surely you forget yourself sometimes? does this – it’s weird – I can’t really grasp hold of just know nothing’s gonna happen. Nothing’s to
“Yeah, after about the seventeenth pint of it. Ah, I suppose I’ll have to now, won’t I?” be felt. It’s another day gone.”
Guinness.” Does he ever tap himself and find the hollow Is it worth being alive on those days?
Oh, boring – what about the “sexual act”? resonance alarming? And is this emptiness, this “No…” He looks up with a puzzled
“Yeah I suppose. That’s pretty mental as well still life in mobile homes (thank you, Sylvian), expression. “Not really.”
though. Um… late night swimming in dark sadder than any angst? As for that ‘Fight’ song, all that “never give up”
waters is a good way. And sleep! And waking up
in the morning when you don’t have to get up
immediately – I feel comfortable with my body “I stare into a mirror… I hypnotise myself
then, it’s just a big lump.
“This is why I find it strange that I can go on
stage in front of people and jump about. People
to see the devil in my face and skull”
say, ‘Why do you always look down?’ I’m looking tosh… in the light of what you’ve just said,
at my feet. They don’t do what I want. I don’t HE ACTUALLY FELT… REALLY… DEAD! why bother?
know how it is I can play football, really.” “Yes I do – in fact I feel it to a worrying degree “It’s about trying to force yourself into some
What frightens you? now. When I went to the South Dublin coast for kind of action, which could lead to experience.
“Flying, now. I’ve suddenly decided against two weeks, just before we came on this tour, I’d Because there isn’t really anything else but
it; I’ve realised how silly it is. Willingly agreeing go out by the sea each morning, and sit down experience. Whether it’s passive or active.
to subject yourself to that torture of throwing by the rocks. When I was younger it used to feel “I used to be able to rely passively on my
yourself on the mercy of a machine and another really… I don’t know, I used to feel… inspired. environment and the people around me. Now I
person. Also, I can always see through the floor And this time I actually felt… really… dead. think I have got to – not necessarily manufacture
on planes. Lack of control I don’t like; that “Back then, I’d feel a sense of infinity, I’d experience, but… look for things. I’m addicted
makes me angry. And I’m scared of growing old. feel really small, and helpless, but a part of to feeling extremes.”
And I’m scared at my continuing lack of faith in something. I’d be filled with overwhelming Taking risks?
anything. And I’m scared of going blind, ’cos my despair or I’d feel deliriously happy, just sitting “Yeah, mental ones.”
eyesight’s failing rapidly.” looking at the sea. But this time, I didn’t feel
What sights would you miss most? anything. I’d just sit. And it’d just be the sea. HE’S GOT A WEIRD COMPOSITE GIRL!
“Everything. Except the colour brown There’s be no communion… oh, this isn’t What’s this penchant you’ve got for “stupidly
– I could live without that. Most, I’d miss the sounding how I mean it…” gorgeous” girls?
reflection of my own eyes. Y’know when you It’s sounding like the old grey man on the “Ah yes, I have got a weird composite girl
stare really close into a mirror?” ‘Standing On A Beach’ photographs. Uh… in mind sometimes, when I’m struggling for
Is that how you check you’re still there? ain’t that something? ways to eulogise femininity. It’s a kind of cross
“Yeah. I hypnotise myself to see the devil in “It’s just… knowing how much I can feel between Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn
my face and skull. I try not to do that so much something – no more than anyone else, but and Betty Boop.”
now. It affects my mental stability.” I can be so overwhelmed by things – I find this Must there be a dumbness?
worrying. Not to feel anything when I know I “Naivete. A naive, trusting quality, I suppose.
HE’S LOSING HIS CYNICISM! ought to. I’m not shocked any more. I just look.” And innocence that isn’t really innocence,
That’s devils and angels you’ve mentioned… When? because they usually end up getting their own
“Most people’s devil is far more pronounced “When someone gets knocked over. Or way. And obviously there’s a lot of Mary in there
than their angel. I think the angel probably Christmas. Because you remember how you as well. That’s what I like about her.”
visits, while he devil lives there. Although I’m used to get excited and you no longer do, and it’s Does she ever get jealous?
turning around a bit. I used to only be surprised worrying because it’s like you’re losing yourself “No! Why should she? There’s no room for
if people were nice. Now I’m surprised if people somehow. You’re becoming thinner. Or maybe jealousy in the relationship: it’d be very tiring.
are horrible. I’m losing my cynicism as I get hollower.” She may be jealous of the time other people get
older! It’s generally easier to be affable and non- And this upsets you? from me, with the group existing. I’ve known
committal than it is to be aggressive and angry. “It doesn’t make me feel anything, does it?” her since before the group started, so she’s always
Although I’m very argumentative. seen it as an obstacle, whereas usually ‘being in
I never think I’m wrong. I have a a group’ takes on a much more
very strong sense of morality and romantic aspect.
a well-defined code of ethics I’ve “She probably does get jealous
adhered to through the years. from time to time but just doesn’t
This derives from my survival tell me ’cos she knows I’d hit her.”
instincts.” Apart from QPR finishing (at
Robert has in his time been best) eighth in the league, what
described as “walking a thin line does the future hold?
between agitation and boredom”, “Sometimes I see myself staring
and, among many less abstractly at the sea, writing music for Stanley
complimentary things, “The Kubrick’s next film or something.
Messiah Of Angst”. Other times I think I’ll just be
“I never thought those surrounded by books, reading.
descriptions referred to me; Other times I see myself in…
so I didn’t have to live with it. a blank space. Enjoying blankness.
TOM SHEEHAN

I didn’t go home and find my The Cure: Doing nothing.”

mum saying, ‘Hello, Messiah myrmidons of Mmm, sounds good.
miserablism

112 NME ORIGINALS

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 Too Many Truffles

mellow. ‘Flowers’ is Glastonbury

1967 and I hate it.
Sam King

NME, 3 January 1987, p30

question then turns up sheathed
in some revolting medieval

SIOUXSIE & spectacular! Oh God…

Consequently the only thing to
THE BANSHEES do is get your doublet and hose in
This Wheel’s On Fire a speedy twist over the luscious NME, 26 September 1987, p19
(Wonderland) malignance within, containing as
As one whose pre-pubescent it does that greatest of all reliefs, SISTERS OF MERCY
ardour was first aroused by The a chorus. It’s a circular temptation This Corrosion
Trinity’s kohl-eyed and feather-cut with a smooth guitar sliding shyly (Merciful Release)

Julie Driscoll and whose fashion up against the coolest vocals. Yes, the King of Goth is back!
sense was first alerted by Brian Produced by those awfully Heeeeeeere’s SPIGGY!!!! Andy
Auger’s Regency cuffs as they NME, 18 April 1987, p23 nice Mission people it has just ‘Drac’ Eldritch (real name – Stan
flounced over his Hammond enough thumping power and Sunshine) has made a record and
organ on Top Of The Pops, I can THE CURE glistening strength to fill a nation’s it’s the lamest thing to crawl out of
only applaud Siouxsie’s latest Why Can’t I Be You? jaded ears, syringing out all Leeds since Norman Hunter’s last
excavation of the 1968 songbook. (Fiction) that Curiosity Killed The Cat and sparring partner quit town.
Far more liberty-taking though Still sounding like a haunted Erasure bilge. A well-delineated Steven Wells
less crystal-ball mysterious than hippie singing through a helium giant of a song.
their reverential ‘Dear Prudence’, bubble, Robert Smith’s voice The heat is on…
I’ll be disappointed if this terrific is the only facet of The Cure Mick Mercer
record doesn’t blast Siouxsie and which doesn’t shout “Teen
co up the chart pronto. FUN”. Of course Robert’s trying
Mat Snow determinedly to sound skittish
and frivolous but, because he
can’t even cut it as a bathroom
singer, his voice is still little more
than a reedy, angst-ridden whine.
Otherwise, The Cure are as frothy
as white pop gets these days.
Shameless and cheap enough to
steal Wham’s ‘Young Guns’ riff,
this ditty will soon be another Top MM, 10 October 1987, p33
Of The Pops cracker.
Donald McRae THE CURE
MM, 11 July 1987, p26 Just Like Heaven
(Fiction)

MM, 10 January 1987, p27 ALL ABOUT EVE I’m at a loss as how to greet
Flowers In Our Hair and chronicle this important
THE MISSION (Eden) event, knowing full well that
Wasteland “Where have all the glowers gone, one facetious crack out of line
(Phonogram) Sun Children?” cries Julianne. could see my Assistant Editor
Preposterous mysticism and Sun Children! What planet did taking a sudden interest in The
loopy obsession I can just about she escape from? Us deprived Edgar Broughton Band and
take if accompanied by sufficient city types haven’t seen the sun dispatching me with strange zeal
bombastic power – I’m thinking for many a long year. And, in to review their gig at the Crewe
of Black Sabbath, Killing Joke, the depths of our subterranean Corn Exchange on Saturday
Earth, Wind & Fire. The Mission, pleasure palaces, strapped to night. What can I say? Well, at
however, sound thin as mist. MM, 18 April 1987, p26 our typewriters, the very last least it doesn’t sound like Dexy’s
There’s too much wisp, not thing we need is sanctimonious Midnight Runners like the one
enough bottom to their sound. ALL ABOUT EVE hippy children fouling up the before last did. It’s a colourful,
This record is embarrassingly Our Summer carefully controlled atmosphere fluffy, fluttery, fussy thing, a
similar to ‘Porcupine’ – something (Eden) of unpalatable nastiness brought mere transcription of the Down
which does not make me think When I saw the sleeve of this on by too much Swans, Young With Skool! graphic on the front
more highly of the Mission, but single I almost wept. You button Gods and hip hop. ‘Flowers’ brings cover. Unimpeachable, really, but
rubs off to the detriment of the down people’s ears with tales of to mind days of contented zither- turns my face green, as if having
Bunnymen. Funny that. glorious contemporary beauty playing and complacent middle consumed too many truffles.
Simon Reynolds and the glowing disc of delight in class twats sitting in fields being David Stubbs

114 NME ORIGINALS

 Chapter 10
1988
DEREK RIDGERS
Fields Of The
Nephilim: flour
in the desert
 1988

A Fistful Of
DYNAMITE
They rode into town from the wastelands of Stevenage, ffi ive mean hombres with a burning thirst,
preaching the prairie gospel of Goth. They called themselves Fields Of The Nephilim and the folks
locked up their wives and daughters and got on down. Steve Sutherland joined the posse in Spain
to discover why these dudes are wanted, dead or alive
R ight, in 1988 there’s “that chart
crap”, there’s MM’s hip alternatives
to “that chart crap” and now, out
of nowhere, out of the wastelands, unheralded,
uncelebrated in print or occasionally ridiculed,
through it. Their debut album,
‘Dawnrazor’, topped the 1987
indie chart and yet everything
you or I have ever read about
Fields Of The Nephilim has
NME, 28 May 1988, p3

there’s alternatives to alternatives. These people’s found them on the defensive,

champions, these great unwashed have become denying preconceptions,
popular, even adored, without hype or help from defying their many critics
any aspect of the industry. These outsiders have with a dull resolution. This
entered our awareness uninvited; they’ve gained will not do.
access the hard way, the old-fashioned way. Consequently we took a
They’ve played to people and people have repaid red-eye to the sleepy one-
them with astonishing allegiance. horse town of Zaragoza,
Where have they come from, why have they Spain, caught them on the
come, these hillbillies, these embarrassments, job in Spaghetti Western
these blights on the great pop plots and plans? country and approached
We writers don’t know. We shrink and shudder with caution on our bellies
at our own unimportance in the whole damn bearing gifts. We decided
thing. But you, the readers, you know. You voted it was time to unburden
for All About Eve in our Readers’ Poll and most ourselves of pretty prejudice
of us hacks looked at each other aghast. And you and attempt to get close
voted for Fields Of The Nephilim too and we hid enough to brand this critter
our fright behind our snobbery and one or two through trust and affection
scoffed and a few said, “Fields Of Who?” rather than bludgeoning
So term came to an end and we broke up for brute force.
Christmas and, when we came back, the clever
ones had arrived at a theory to explain away this It’s three in the morning
troublesome phenomenon. They said the Eves and everyone’s pissed.
and the Nephs were mere security blankets, “We lie nowhere,” says
something for the mascara hairies to suck while Tony Pettit, the big-boned, cheerful bass player the joy is qualitative and discriminating? Does
the true monsters/masters of Goth indulged with the gormless, friendly grin who wishes they enjoying what they’re doing imply a critique of
themselves. They said Eldritch won’t tour and hadn’t once joked to a journo that what they play their contemporaries?
The Cult have sold their souls to the States, so it’s is Spaghetti Metal. “We don’t fit in with any of “I dunno,” says Carl McCoy, the bellow-
little wonder the deserted masses have flocked to your things. I think we are just Fields Of The throated singer who wears translucent lenses,
these substitutes. Nephilim, I really do.” once took a pig’s head on tour until it started
The Neph… Sisters clones, Midnight The Nephs reckon they do what they do to sweat and stink in the carrier bag under the
Cowboys, surely comedians. Dung-punchers primarily because they enjoy it – that’s the top seat in the van and who has just had his bullets
TOM SHEEHAN

from Stevenage with shaded eyes on the main and bottom of the whole damn thing. confiscated at the airport. “Since we’ve been in
chance. See that gap and stampede straight What we want to know, then, is whether or not this band we’ve not been in touch with any

NME ORIGINALS 117

 Spaghetti Metal

other new music at all so it “I imagine it wide and

must fulfil something in our saturated with atmosphere,”
lives which is needed.” says Carl. “When I think of
Commitment and work is epic, I think of something
readily used as an excuse for really massive…”
their lack of inclination to assess “Like the pyramids of
their surroundings. Perhaps Egypt,” says Paul.
these blinkers are purely “Something awe-
instinctive. Perhaps, though, inspiring,” says Carl.
their insularity runs deeper. Aha, attaining something
We should investigate the beyond what you’d imagine
live phenomenon. Why, in an could attain.
era when live music is patently “Yeah,” says Carl. “It’s
dying, are the Nephs such a live gotta have some mystery
attraction? What is it about the behind it.”
live situation which suits them? So, instead of being grease-
“You can get a feeling off Baking with the monkeys or dole-boys, the
one live gig which you’ll never Nephs: they supply Nephs, through music, can be
ever get again. And it’s the the flour while the anything they want to be. And
same being in a band as being critics throw eggs they have chosen their certain
in the audience,” says Pete Wright, type of music. Why?
the skinny guitarist with a bad bout of
flu. Earlier I gave him my bottle of cough
“There’s a lot of rebellion in our music. “That makes it sound
deliberate, but it’s not really like that,”
medicine, good and speedy Do Dos, and he
poured it into a jug of Sangria and quaffed We’ve never been accepted, we’ve says Nod, to our unbounded surprise.
“It’s just evolved, we haven’t aimed at it.”
the lot. Good stuff.
“I’ve so often heard a good record and never been hip, we’ve never fitted in” So what do the Nephs write about?
“Everyone’s got different ideas in this
then been disappointed because the band band,” says Carl. “I write the lyrics and a
couldn’t pull it off live,” says Paul Wright, and cement mixers. I think we have quite an lot of them are my feelings towards my life. It’s a
the other guitarist who likes the drink, has original sound, but one that’s natural.” hard thing to talk about.”
cultivated a sort of Bobby Charlton over-sweep “I think it’s honest,” says Tony. “It’s an honest Try.
without the bald bit and apparently has a mole sound because everyone’s playing exactly what “Well, I don’t sit around for ages with my
on his ass like a hairy map of Australia. we wanna play.” thinking cap on. The songs just come really fast.”
“And that’s only been recently. Going back a The Nephs’ insistence on naturalness leads us Where from?
few years, bands used to play live,” says Carl. into an elephant’s graveyard of opinion – it’s too “My underpants!” This is Paul. Witty bastard.
flip, too easy. Surely they must have some verbal “I dunno… I don’t write love songs as such.
Earlier in the day, the band are supposed to be notion of what makes a good record? I sing about things that really fascinate me,” says
soundchecking at the En Bruto Club, Zaragoza “An atmosphere,” says Tony. Another big, Carl. “Some of them are really odd and bizarre.
– a neat little mini-Marquee that holds about 500 meaningless, all-encompassing word. If people saw it written down, they’d probably
(80 eventually turn up) where the bands have to We’ve tried empiricism and failed. Time to think, ‘Shit, the geezer’s on acid,’ or something.
be off stage by 10pm because an old couple live in get stupid. The Nephs are goths, or they appeal “I don’t really want people to know what they
the flat upstairs – but the equipment, such as it is, to goths. Given 10 minutes with a new song to mean to me. A lot of our songs are written so
isn’t ready, so we drive out to the hills in search write, they veer towards the darkness rather that people can get their own picture in their
of some desert photo locations. Winding up a than the light. mind. It doesn’t bother me whether people know
precarious track we discover an ancient mission “I don’t find our music particularly dreary,” what I’m singing about or not, really, but I’m sure
church and a ruin. The sun makes a bid to sink says Paul. “We can see we appeal to a gothic they can sense the feeling of the song.
behind the horizon before the photographer audience…” says Carl. Yes, but I’m here talking “There’s quite a lot of rebellion in our music,”
gets snapping and… where are the boys? I peer to five funny geezers who adore Steve Martin Carl continues. “We’ve always been against the
around the other side of the van and there they and tell some dodgy jokes and yet on record, up grain. We’ve never been accepted, we’ve never
are, covering each other in flour. there on stage, they become something other, been hip, we’ve never fitted in.”
“You didn’t see that,” says Tony. something else. How? Why? So what are the Nephs’ ambitions?
I didn’t see that. “It’s a different language,” says Carl. “It’s Carl: “I’d like us to go sown in history, to be
fluent to us and, between us all, we create this put on a level with some of the older bands that
Coming from Stevenage and dressing as cowboys sound and this atmosphere.” I admire, like Roxy Music and the Doors. Them
must surely detract from any attempt on their Yes, but is it important that pop is something bands are lasting, they still create a feeling.”
part to be taken seriously. other? Is that what it’s for ? Paul: “On my 34th birthday, I’d like to dress
“It makes us easy targets, yeah,” says Nod. “I don’t think Joe Public wants to come and up as a nun.”
“People probably look at us and think straight see Joe Public on stage, if that’s what you mean,” Tony: “Success on our own terms.”
away that we’re just another indie band with says Tony. “They want a bit of escapism.” Pete: “We all want success but I don’t think
an image,” says Carl. “And, to be honest, bands Yes, but the Nephs go beyond this – with their we’ll cop out for it. We don’t do the fucking
with images have always put me off. But, looking Morricone worship and their sound symbolic crappy Cult syndrome.”
at us, I can see we’ve got this image and yet we of wide open spaces, they surely suggest pop What would be the worst thing that could
feel like it’s different. Every band will probably can attain the heroic and that, through pop, the happen to the Nephs?
tell you the same – that they feel comfortable in human can become superhuman. Paul: “To know exactly what the LP’s gonna be
those clothes and that’s why they wear them. “Yeah, it’s approaching epic,” says Nod. in another year’s time, because that wouldn’t be
I really do though.” Why do they aspire to that? inspired, it would be thought out.”
Is it important for the Nephs to be different, “Once Upon A Time In The West is epic,” Carl: “I think if one person left the band, that
to sound original? Indeed, with their deliberately says Paul. would be it. I don’t think we could play with any
traditional rock line-up, is it even possible? “Epic, to me, is like a feeling,” says Pete. “It’s other musicians.”
“We don’t go out of our way to be original,” not something you can put into words.” Paul: “The second worst would be meeting
says Carl, “because if we did we’d play chainsaws Cheers. you again, I reckon. Want some of this vodka?”

118N MN EM EO ROIRGIIGNI ANLASL S

??
 1988

MM, 13 February 1988, p27 embroidering its myth.

It’s therefore no surprise that
ALL ABOUT EVE ‘Children’ is produced by John Paul
All About Eve Jones and happens to be buoyed
(Phonogram) around the Led Zeppelin myth
Like modern Pre-Raphaelites, All – a legend only revered by those
About Eve get history wonderfully who can’t remember just how
wrong, ingenuously ignoring the excruciatingly tedious Page and co
cause and effect of past recordings could be. It’s even less surprising
and accepting the song as an that ‘Tower Of Strength’ is a sketchy
isolated artefact, unblighted by facsimile of ‘Kashmir’, that ‘Heat’
any of its author’s stomps around the hemline of
stylistic or political while ye may, you’ll MM, 5 March 1988, p41 Heart, while the bilious ‘Child’s
misdemeanours. They surely recognise a Play’ sounds like an Anglicised,
are reclaiming pop for great chorus when THE MISSION lobotomised Toto. In short, the
the young through you hear one and Children album is every Eskimo’s wet dream.
rose-coloured specs ‘All About Eve’ is (Phonogram) The concept behind ‘Children’
rather than cynicism, blooming with them. It’s so easy to laugh at The Mission. is the usual guff about a quest for
blissful ignorance Personal favourites The mere mention of ‘Wasteland’ instinct and innocence – hence
rather than hip are ‘Martha’s Harbour’, is enough to send depressives into snatches of playground screams and
knowledge. where Julianne is a raging guffaws. They are the nursery rhymes. Footsteps echo in
Consequently galley slave to her Dr Feelgood of goth, a poor man’s the memory as Wayne and his merry
All About Eve’s debut album lover’s wave crashing Sisters, a rich man’s Cult, a blind men plough safe pastures with the
sometimes gets it almost too wrong on the bow, and ‘Never Promise’, man’s Nephilim. usual flourishing arpeggios on the
to bear. ‘Every Angel’, for instance, where the real world for once chafes At their best, The melodramatic ‘Beyond
tarnishes epic echoes of ‘Stairway against their fantasy and threatens Mission are laughable The Pale’. From here,
To Heaven’ and Ennio Morricone to expose their hopes as lies. buffoons, playful the full, glutinous sound
with the melodramatic lilt from With so many alternatives and rogues. At worst, the oscillates between
‘Knights In White Satin’; ‘Gypsy alternatives to alternatives bustling band are the seismic the pomp and glory of
Dance’ fiddles around its picaresque for predominance, All About Eve belch emitted after ‘Kingdom Come’ and
folly like a blissed-out Barbara have achieved the impossible and pop’s banquet. At the tranquil 30-second
Dickson; and the latest single, ‘Wild wedded attitude to accessibility. Fall all times, however, harpsichord lullaby of
Hearted Woman’, is twee enough into their dream and you’ll awaken they are museum ‘Breath’.
to sidle unnoticed onto any recent convinced that your innocence can curators, restoring The Mission create an
Fleetwood Mac LP. be retrieved after all. the dilapidated foundations of insulated community,
But, miraculously, these are the Steve Sutherland rock, preserving its heritage, immune to the feckless whims
only errors of judgement on an of pop. They may make the
otherwise exemplary album. occasional stab at relevance
It would do the Eves discredit Wayne Hussey – the accelerated tumbling
of the Mish: the
to persist in source-spotting Dr Feelgood of goth chord slam of ‘Hymn For
– suffice to say they’ve listened America’ is The Mission’s
a lot to the Cocteaus and the answer to U2’s ‘Bullet The Blue
winnowing version of ‘She Sky’ – but the band are at their
Moves Through The Fair’, a most effective when at their
spooky old Fairport Convention most meaningless.
ballad, boldly resembles This Despite all the dungeons
Mortal Coil’s ‘Song To The Siren’. and dragons imagery, the only
Julianne’s vocals are a triumph real mystery is how Wayne can
throughout, so touching that we sing this po-faced, pompous
accept, without irony, the bilge with a straight face.
wide-eyed sentiments of Their epic vision is limited to
‘Flowers In Our Hair’. myopic gestures pilfered from
It’s possible, I suppose, to the archives – those halcyon
view All About Eve as a symptom days when people judged
rather than a cure, to consider the stature of a band by the
the emotional journey from the length of the drum solo. Only
“just a kiss away” of ’70s Stones once on the whole album
to the “just a breath away” of (the astonishingly affecting
‘In The Clouds’ as a Pavlovian ‘Heaven On Earth’) do the
reaction to AIDS. And it’s true grandiose sweeps of guitar
that there’s plenty of yearning actually sound heroic.
here but no consummation. Using relics to create new
But it’s a measure of their relics, The Mission have
achievement that we’re wholly probably made the finest
spellbound by the Eves’ longing Zeppelin record Led Zeppelin
for a return to life the way it was never made, but one man’s
“before the fall”. memory lane is another man’s
And even if you’re the type blind alley. It’s surely time to
TOM SHEEHAN

who finds it difficult getting into detonate the ruins.

the swing gathering rosebuds Ted Mico

NNMMEE OORRI IGGI INNAALLSS 119

??
 The Garden
With a debut album and a national tour about to explode,
dream lovers All About Eve teach Chris Roberts about
Liz Cocteau, Cilla Black, Pandora’s Box, feminism and
anything connected with clouds
b
“ eauty And The Beast, about a scheming starlet who lusts for fame.
definitely. If it didn’t have “No, it doesn’t fit at all. We should’ve chosen
such bad implications Camille, perhaps.”
– which one’s which? – that could All About Eve are a contemporary pop-folk-
easily have been the name of the rock group, all the more contemporary for
band. I love… the feel of it, yes. having rejected all the consumerist trappings
It can still move me to tears if of “nowness”. Their apparently reactionary
I’m in a certain frame of mind. passivity is proving to be the most effective
It encapsulates everything that resistance imaginable to the Reich-like stomp
matters in life. I’m a sucker for (not flood, not surge, not sweep) of hip hop,
romance, so I want the beauty technology, computers, word processors (what
to love the beast. Then when he are they writing? Ready-cooked chickens?) Eddie
turns into a handsome prince at Murphy, Oliver Stone, Linda Lusardi, and Lady
the end I’m very disappointed. Di of The Grinning Walkman.
I prefer him as the beast because The Primitives go timeless, The Sugarcubes
he’s more hopeless. It’s too much go left-handed, while All About Eve go dream
of a happy ending.” dreamy dream, and suddenly we have a viable
“That Melody Maker new pop vanguard which isn’t exactly what any
cartoon about me sitting of us had in mind, but for which I at least am
outside my house while it very grateful because I’m sure as hell going to
was burning down and I was pretend it was. I won’t waste time now debating
looking at the clouds – it’s about Eve as a sub-cultural phenomenon.
not a representation of the way I run my life Innovative they’re not, disarmingly incongruous
but I do get phases of it. And they are what they are. Besides, when The Stud Brothers wrote
keeps me sane. It’s not insanity. You need after Thomas Wolfe that the group strive not
those moments and I won’t apologise for them. to escape from life but to prevent life escaping
And I know it makes for fruitcake accusations, them, they netted, shall we say, a big one, the
but they can only be from people who don’t pre-emptive bastards.
know what it’s like. I recommend it! The only thing that’s disappointed me about
“It is the kind of thing you can switch on All About Eve’s rise to prominence since the days
and off. You don’t have to be through the I would see them churning out ‘White Horses’
gates of madness and trapped in Fairyland down the 100 Club (not so long ago really, but
and never come out. You can step in and out then a minute is a century in pop, of course),
of that little world, and I enjoy being there. It’s has been the restraint of their innate mysticism
just that I used to live there, and now it’s an (for want of a less devalued word). For All About
occasional holiday. Eve to really be All About Eve there must be
“I’m capable of depth and shallowness, more haze, enigma, and poeticism, less Mission-
and recently I’ve been living on a shallow, style high jinks, less “rock lives ’n’ how’s your
pleasure-seeking level. My last stint of shallow father”, less jovial deflation of the beguiling and
has lasted a long time. It never seeps into the the bedazzling.
music, that is deep. So I stress I’m going to go Julianne, a friend with aesthetic gumption,
through a hermit-hood for a while soon, and used to send me roses and pictures of angels
come out renewed. Tim always worries when I and birthday cards with Andrew Marvell poems
say this: he thinks I’m going to get the blanket on (usually because I’d asked her to) and that’s
out and read Nietzsche again. That doesn’t work, the kind of star we need in these charisma-
that’s too much. Don’t worry, it’s not going to be shunning days.
one of those grey ones again. Really.” “I never said I was Liz Cocteau. I’m not Cilla
Black either. Perhaps I should blush and look at
All About Eve took their name from the sharp, the floor more to please reviewers. But a fault of
epigrammatic film, dominated by Bette Davis, mine is that is nine people say you’re great and
 1988

Of Eden
I think of the ‘gutsy’ ones like Madonna, who
seem to use and abuse men with all the abandon
of a packet of tissues. Er, that isn’t me at all. The
kind of woman I like is one of the lads without
being butch. Like Sandy Denny. Keeping her
femininity, but not a barrier. Using it in the
MM, 20 February 1988, p28 songwriting rather than the press shots. Which is
using it in a pure way, not a manipulative one.”

All About Eve have taken more risks than their

critics tend to realise. What could’ve been more
one says it’s shit, and it’s the one who says it’s shit which would either be received as beautiful or perverse than ‘Flowers In Our Hair’ (although
that I focus on and try to convert. I think, ‘I’ve namby-pamby. Without vanity, I think some of it included 1987’s prime piece of pungent
got the nine, I want the tenth.’” the things we do now are so beautiful I feel in philosophy in pop: “We only dare to say please
This is determination, old-fashioned awe of them. Sometimes I just smile to myself. love me/At the seventh glass of wine”)? What
conviction, rather than greed. Faith. If you do believe that any creativity comes from could’ve been more quietly confident than
“I never thought it wouldn’t happen. It within, it surprised us that that was what we revamping ‘In The Clouds’ (still their finest
wasn’t ego, it was that I never let it cross my were like inside. cascade of moments) as their first “major”
mind for fear of what on earth I would think “You know you’re ordinary, but you’re release? And what in the name of Lorraine
about then. Now things are a lot easier thanks doing something that’s out of the ordinary,” Ellison is ‘Wild Hearted Woman’ doing in
to the good fairy Phonogram, but we’ll never adds Julianne. “I can stand our music being between Johnny Hates Jazz and Was Not Was?
become complacent. We’re staying firmly in worshipped, but not us. It’s a scary responsibility. I take great delight in their trembly pauses and
obsessive perfectionist mode.” You often feel you’re letting people down if sensurround choruses, emotion recollected in
you’re not quite as goddess-like as they expect tranquillity, in Julianne’s unerringly silver and
“Remember that the most beautiful things in you to be.” blue voice, in the way they make Triffids and
the world are the most useless: peacocks and Are you a “tough” woman? LL Cool J fans snort belligerently, in the astral
lilies, for instance.” So said John Ruskin, in “I suppose so. No. No I don’t like the idea of connection between the tantalising halt in ‘In
The Stones Of Venice in 1851. Given a choice being thought of as a hard person.” The Clouds’ and the way my right leg itches every
between a peacock, a lily, and a digital Where do feminism and you meet? time I cross the road ever since it was bashed by a
synchronised oscillator, I’d have no need for “I don’t like it. I really surprised myself when car, and in seeing a nuance of dawn, and of dusk,
batteries. Unless the peacock wanted to carry I ‘fell in love’ – sorry about this, but this is breathe over the hastily arranged lunchtime of
a torch. important. I surprised myself because I thought our popular charts.
What about Eve? What sort of person do I was quite a strong-minded individual – but, I also grasp a link between All About Eve’s
you think she was? erm, I became ‘the girl’. I could’ve quite easily evocations of childhood and nostalgia and the
“Not this scheming temptress she was sat with a posy in my hand for the entirety of the works of Proust, a stodgily styled but ultimately
supposed to be; I think she probably offered relationship. Somebody once said something wildly romantic visionary. (Though this is
Adam the apple just out of kindness, as a nice to this effect: a man falls in love with a woman possibly just me going a bit daft.) And isn’t there
gesture, and she’s been slagged off for it for because of the strange mysteries about her, and something gloriously bizarre happening when
centuries. I don’t think she’s evil, nor do I hold then the very fact that he has got her means she Julianne waffles on about “positive magic” and
to the idea that all women are intrinsically evil. loses those things. I’m not talking about the Carl Jung on Blue Peter, like the mad Lorelei
Maybe I’m biased because I am one! I know what chase and the kill; she actually becomes quite in of Cherbourg or something? Isn’t that just
I’m like; I’ve got an evil streak just like anybody awe of the person just because he’s a man. fine? “And for our next guest, Dante Gabriel
else, regardless of sex.” “I haven’t though this out well enough to Rosetti…” Isn’t that great? Well?
You always wanted it to sound more relate it, but I think I only discovered a while I hope All About Eve don’t become just
“beautiful”. That’s the word. ago that I was a woman! And as to a Woman In another commodity. Fleetwood Mac are already
“Yes, so we found the courage to do things Rock, er, no. When I think of Women In Rock booked into the top shelf for another few
decades; you know how the tune goes. (“Futility:
playing the harp before the buffalo” – old
Burmese proverb.) What I hope, as ever, is that
All About Eve will be all about mermaids and
emeralds and autumn and bleeding hearts and
sunflowers and Pegasus and ghosts and falling
for the wicked witch instead of Snow White
and arms that come through walls holding
candlesticks. Plus the peacocks and the lilies.
The subliminal wants the sublime. Fables, please.
“They’re attractive to me, as I’m not very keen
on reality or confrontation. My favourites are
the romantic ones where the prince does get
the girl with the very long hair out of the tower.
But also less girlish ones – I do like stories about
enormous great Vikings raping and pillaging
and murdering. Perhaps I’m a frustrated Viking!
“And even the totally unfeasible – Pandora’s
Box. You know, you’re attracted to myths
because you role-play them subconsciously
in your life. The spiky hedgehog thing, that’s
“Frustrated Vikings”
All About Eve recover one. That can keep it all wrapped up in a nice
from another bout of little box that gets so full up that when the link
TOM SHEEHAN

burning, shooting, comes open one day it’s just going to be too
raping and looting
devastating for words.”

NME ORIGINALS 121

 Pop Valhalla

NME, 3 September 1988, p31

FIELDS OF
THE NEPHILIM
The Nephilim
(Situation Two)

Bob Harris, The Mission, Tottenham

Hotspur – surely there is more to
ridicule than Fields Of The Nephilim.
Yet the consensus reaction to this
treasure chest will doubtless be the Of The Lost’, the colossal climax.
same as preceding Neph records: It swirls, creating a melodramatic clarifying chaos by paying it
“You must be mad!” I am, in fact, haze, the real McCoy being replaced lip service with that gloss. The
horribly inflamed. by the Sinatra version, a Banshees remain coolly dependent
Gladly accepting a mixture of growling on the slyest of feminine touches.
Fields record is looked and crooning. ‘Peepshow’ is hesitantly
upon, in many circles, as A shock, but hypnotic. It seduces you back.
the equivalent of asking more reassuringly They’ve not come up with any
for a contagious disease. ‘The Nephilim’ is smashing new tunes, but the
But this from dolts too their assertion that click and tut of Siouxsie’s tongue
soft to listen to their beneath the muck is more intimate, forsaking
bloody records first. and the dust there are aloofness for sincerity.
I’ve been guilty aspirations to beauty. More than ever, the
of it myself, but Steve Lamacq composition credits go to Sioux
strangely my ears have been or Severin individually. Sioux’s
bleeding all night to this. If this LP’s ‘Turn To Stone’ and ‘Rawhead
MM, 10 September 1988, p37
not at least good, then my body is And Bloodybones’ are simply
malfunctioning more than I feared.
You have to appreciate how far this
SIOUXSIE & disquieting, ‘Burn-Up’ is flushed
with Eros. Severin’s ‘Rhapsody’
murky bunch of desperadoes have THE BANSHEES allows some stirring
come in the past four years. Peepshow melodrama but the infinite
From rags to more rags, from (Polydor) pinnacle is
supporting Chelsea to headlining It’s still pretty vague. their one
tours. The Neph have grafted Pretty and vague. joint effort,
without complaint. They’ve won It’s not about love or the bravura
their spurs and now here they sit annihilation. Siouxsie hymn ‘The
rubbing them clean, polishing their & The Banshees Last Beat Of
gritty melodies into a perversely avoid meaning like My Heart’.
haunting collection of songs. the plague, and this As Martin
It is less Spaghetti Western and feline wisdom has McCarrick’s
more ‘movie mystery’, shivering always served them accordion
and spine-tingling with some tricky well. Grace, they understand. and Budgie’s
guitar that fiddles round while Carl If ‘Peek-A-Boo’ is hip hop, I’m LL directly intelligent
McCoy’s throat burns. The gruff Cool J. The Banshees are strolling rhythms underline its
vocals, rather than grating, have a further away than ever from force, pathos, this elegy is
haunting and eerie edge. from brutality. Their eleventh album translated by Sioux
They’ve maintained a brooding doesn’t set fire to my palms, but is with capital beatitude.
power, but dispensed with quivers with psalms and it knows It’s the Banshees’ most
gratuitous ‘gothy’ anthems. Only how to breathe while kissing. courageous arabesque
‘Phobia’, like Motorhead’s ‘Ace Of As voyeurs, they are more in some time. If they
Spades’ in drag, sees their elbows discreet. They’ve recognised have enough
flying into a frenetic dance routine. which floorboards creak and don’t majesty in their
Elsewhere the rumbling condemn idiosyncrasy. Still the guts to put it
rhythms have an almost sublime words are nursery rhymes (nursery out as a single
style. ‘Endemoniada’ has a lightly rhymes always involve insidious we really will
atmospheric build-up before violence and strategic cruelty), but be witnessing
branching out into an excitable sonically, the blue angels of punk a renaissance.
climax while ‘The Watchman’ – are sending out splendid sonorous The lady is
possibly the best track on the album rafts, touching new glittering too vaporous
– simmers with tiny explosions banisters with soluble fingernails. to vanish. In this
going off in the form of fire-cracking There’s a kind of gentlemen’s Valhalla, her valour
guitar and heated vocals. agreement to gloss over the nest of derides prattle and
Side Two has a mere three difficulties any careful reflections subtly strives for
songs on it, but they’re epic in might unearth. The imaginative scintillation. You can
length. Trampling on incessantly, sophistry and romanticism of The see the woods because
‘Celebrate’ leads into ‘Love Under Banshees can therefore mean all of a warm breeze. The ice Siouxsie:
doesn’t do
Will’ with its scything beauty, which things to anybody, embarrassing field is melting.
hip hop
in turn opens the door for ‘Last Exit the gospel of rationality and Chris Roberts

122 NME ORIGINALS

 1988

NME, 17 September 1988, p37 void that goes on here. Cave sounds
lonelier than a dodo.
COCTEAU TWINS Nowhere is this more effective
Blue Bell Knoll than on the fractious stateliness
(4AD) of ‘The Mercy Seat’, a matrix so
There’s a bit in Trains, Planes And unbelievably staggering that when
Automobiles where Steve Martin it first came out I had to allocate
and John Candy, thwarted on certain times of night at which it
their tortuous journey home could be played. I mean, you can’t
for Thanksgiving, are holed up have a peak experience between
together in yet another seedy getting out of the shower and
motel. They have reached a kind running for the bus, it’s just not on.
of truce, formed a warm affection ‘The Mercy Seat’ is both hypnotic
for one another bred from mutual and jarring, rhythmic and loose,
adversity and they’re slobbering demonic and devout. It’s as near to
around in their room, the mini humming the executioner’s song as
bar open, travelling the world via anyone will ever get.
miniatures – rum takes them to I love the blind joy and accidental
Jamaica, vodka to Russia, that sort Nick Cave beauty of cheap pop jamborees
of thing. They’re transported from at his most because Staring Death In The Eye
lovable
their crisis by these little nips of is so very rarely done with any true
intoxication. Momentarily, they’re courage. ‘Tender Prey’ finds Cave
gone. ‘Blue Bell Knoll’ reminds me of in arrogantly romantic top form. By
this bit over and over. Each sip takes beauty with a cr-r-risp, cherubic Surely this band is the voice of Harry if he doesn’t force the grim
you someplace utterly else. twitter and an unintentional nod Cliff Michelmore. (Is that better reaper to extra time – and then
It was two and a half years in to Brotherhood Of Man’s ‘Angelo’. Robin, huh?) penalties!
the making, two and a half years in ‘Ella Megalast Burls Forever’ (please Steve Sutherland ‘Up Jumped The Devil’ begins
which Robin, Liz and Simon have don’t let the titles put you off) is like like a Gaelic pub singalong but rises
MM, 24 September 1988, p41
made their peace with pop, listened praying in Bermuda shorts and the through smoke then flames – “O
to a lot of Prince and Madonna
and let themselves go a little. And
chorus goes “Tear tear tear tear tear
tear tear tear”. Sheer bliss.
NICK CAVE & My O My what a wretched life /I was
born on the day that my poor mother
they’ve inadvertently rediscovered There is nothing cold on ‘Blue THE BAD SEEDS died/I was cut from her belly with
a path that leads them back into our Bell Knoll’, nothing stark or dark, Tender Prey Stanley knife/While my daddy did
consciousness. All of a sudden they save, perhaps, the start of ‘The Itchy (Mute) a jig with the drunk midwife” – to a
count. Again. Glowbo Blow’, which whisks us into As Nick Cave goes further and transcendent eddying. New single
With ‘Blue Bell Knoll’, without a labyrinth of potholes but pretty further out, his ‘Deanna’ cracks the whip,
wishing to suggest anything so swiftly hurls us, breathless, up over music comes more The Bad Seeds giving it
stupid as the Cocteaus adopting the downs like a kite caught up by confidently in. Nothing that extra jolt.
anything as gauche as a strategy, the wind. This is a holiday record, a on ‘Tender Prey’ is ‘Watching Alice’ is a
they have, to use the modern promise of pleasures unknown. especially esoteric or more restrained piano
terminology, arrived right in our ‘Suckling The Mender’ sends me inaccessible, but most sigh, Cave eulogising
face. Not since the exalted ‘Head shrieking to Spain where Liz, fully of it bristles with vain his voyeurism as the
Over Heels’ have they so brazenly adorned in black lace, is performing beauty and power lady in question dons
toyed with our affections, delighting a clicking flamenco with the most and pride. fetish gear. He sing this
in astonishing us by touching pop sensual speech impediment in Singing from with uncharacteristic
base every so often, only to soar the world. It’s as if her tongue is a comfortable compassion.
immediately and coquettishly into glued to the roof of her mouth with position halfway down the Now we’re running through
earth, air, fire, water, any element honey while she spins, ankle deep lion’s throat (ah, home at last!), gutters of blood to the ‘City Of
they choose, achieving the giddy in a shallow pool, her toes and lace Cave has created easily his most Refuge’, hooks like claws and
heights of pop Valhalla most of us caressed by Robin’s tiger-fish until lovable record to date. It boasts imaginations riotous; this is
had given up dreaming about. he unleashes mosquitoes and she an astonishing diversity and spits another barnstormer. ‘Slowly Goes
Oh, the places it takes us to! scampers ashore. And ‘A Kissed Out in the face of most known deities. The Night’ shuffles in on a mock
It’s like a brochure of ecstasies, a Red Floatboat’ has me on a hill over Profane, passionate, poignant, vaudeville vamp; if you’re not
travelogue of possibilities. ‘Athol- a beach, Robin’s jets scoring the the masochistic leper has given us sold on this remarkable record’s
Brose’ is French, a baby sky with sonic vapour one of the landmark albums of the bloodshot commitment by now
doll bruised nursery trails. decade. Nick Cave’s abused muse you’re an accountant in Telford. As
rhyme with a cutting If we weren’t is beginning to sprinkle something I’ve just used my two-hundredth
edge that climbs a stair, already aware of the important on his 100 per cent proof superlative adjective of the night I’ll
wobbles on a diving Cocteaus’ brilliance, breakfast… simply wave you towards ‘Sunday’s
board, and launches we would proclaim Those of you divorced from your Slave’, ‘Sugar Sugar Sugar’ and
itself, beautifully, into ‘Blue Bell Knoll’ one of spirit for so long that you haven’t ‘New Morning’ with a note saying
the ozone above the the greatest records yet absorbed Wim Wenders’ Wings they’re an esplanade after a maze of
Riviera. Suddenly we’ve ever heard. Well, Of Desire will not be aware of the eschatological escalators…
we’re tripping at the we shouldn’t let their expression that overtakes Solveig If you or I retained any doubts
cinema, experiencing unearthly standards Sommartin’s supernaturally pale about Nick Cave’s artistry, they
one of those lush early ’70s Martini blind us or deafen us to how utterly face as she listens to ‘The Carny’. should be banished forthwith.
ads, our heartbeats thrumming in unique they are. This is a triumphant It would be hackneyed if she was ‘Tender Prey’ is a classic, a tour
BLEDDYN BUTCHER

our ears. ‘Cico Buff’ is like surfing return. As I think Liz sings over the shivering by any other torch, but de force. Canonise this resolute
over Herculean orchestration, coconut shuffle of ‘Spooning Good Cave’s voice is somehow bitter mortal now.
‘Carolyn’s Fingers’ is a Benidorm Singing Gum’, “Happy Again!” enough to match the homage to the Chris Roberts

NME ORIGINALS 123

 Black Eyes And Bruises

beginnings or ends, with truth,

Jesus, death, all eventually up
each others’ arses.
Neither behind nor ahead
of the times, ‘The Mercy Seat’
is a magnificent, disgusted,
imaginative leap outside the
times. You need this.
David Stubbs

tragedy of trench foot; soggy old

NME, 6 February 1988, p9 boots exercising to a hoof-like
jauntiness. Even I know he’s better
THE MISSION stuff hidden in that mop of his.
Tower Of Strength Steve Lamacq
(Phonogram)

Poor Wayne Hussey. All that

time spent waiting his turn in
the Looks Dept and all they gave
him was a mouth like a monkey’s
bum. Let’s face it, fellow beautiful
people, nobody looks uglier than NME, 23 July 1988, p12
Wayne Hussey. On good days he Eldritch and his reflection essay
resembles an unhappy walnut. the bare bones of a furious, ALL ABOUT EVE
At other, sadder, more poignant curious passion. Torment, terror, Martha’s Harbour
moments, Wayne stands accused tears; black eyes, bruises, some (Phonogram)

of indecent exposure every time blood; reckless driving, one way Dogshit. This drivel was done
the wind blows his hair off his face. or another. Isn’t it all about this? better the first time around, and
NME, 20 February 1988, p19
The Mish are bland, loud, I’ll never stop listening. it wasn’t worth listening to then
as old and friendly as your Carmen Keats either. How a goth band can
dad; and unable to count past SISTERS OF MERCY become sentimental MOR is no
five. Needless to say ‘Tower Of Dominion mystery; a rootless and brainless
Strength’ is as pompous and facile (WEA) music is bound to float about like
as everything else The Mission And from the eagle has landed a homeless leech until it finds
have produced since having their to the ego has landed and here something to clamp onto. The
fingers prised away from Eldritch’s we go with Andrew Eldritch and fraudulent fag-end of the hippy
infinitely more stylish skirts. Patricia Morrison and The Sisters era is therefore a perfect resting
Mind you, Wayne’s tribe of blind Of Mercy, who are probably the place for the equally brainless All
groupies will LUUURRRVE it. most enigmatic post-goth group About Eve.
Barbara Ellen in Britain. It’s not mere accident David Quantick
that Eldritch has shifted his base
to Hamburg. It’s a move that taps
into a vein so deep we could even
MM, 11 June 1988, p32
suggest that the thin white spook
is to contemporary pop what
Wagner was to the composers of
NICK CAVE &
his day. Such a claim would at least THE BAD SEEDS
be within the same boundaries The Mercy Seat
of camp satire that flit in and (Mute)

out of the ‘Floodlands’ LP and A timeless, watery swirl of organs,

indeed most of the Sisters’ work. a guitar chasing its own tail and
Throughout ‘Dominion’, Eldritch’s Nick Cave presenting us not
vocals and music roar with with a moral dilemma, but with
NME, 23 July 1988, p12
NME, 13 February 1988, p15 enough confident pomp to silence a moral maelstrom. ‘The Mercy

THE CURE
any critic’s whinge in seconds.
If Alvin Stardust had ever read
Seat’ is the electric chair, and
Cave’s protagonist is caught in
SIOUXSIE &
Hot Hot Hot Byron then he would have cut it to that mortal coil that links the base THE BANSHEES
(Fiction) this day like the Sisters do. with God, by which spiralling logic Peek-A-Boo
Ye olde Smith’s antics are James Brown every condemned man is a martyr, (Polydor)

reminiscent in many ways to the nailed up alongside Christ. Oriental marching band hip hop
MM, 4 June 1988, p32
curious ramblings of Adam Ant. This song rotates in your head, with farting horns and catchy
He treads some desperate, lone especially as it moves towards accordion. If we were served by
path through inspiration and mire SISTERS OF MERCY its crescendo as the moment of a decent pop radio station, ‘Peek-
alike, but occasionally sticks his Lucretia, My Reflection truth arrives, heralded by Blixa A-Boo’ would be a huge hit. This
head out of a pothole to proclaim (WEA) Bargeld’s shock electric bolt of record was made by people with a
the discovery of gold. The dance Like a shrouded owl and a tattered guitar. This cyclical construction sense of humour. It was not made
mix of ‘Hot Hot Hot’ is spuriously pussycat sitting claw in paw in a is a masterstroke as Cave’s own by Goths: phew.
welcoming, but basically a barge made of weeds, Andrew value-system is a circuit, without David Quantick

124 NME ORIGINALS

 Chapter 11
1989
DEREK RIDGERS
Bad Medicine
By the end of 1987 The Cult had achieved enormous success but were on
the verge of splitting up. Two years on, they return with a new single,
‘Fire Woman’, and a new album, ‘Sonic Temple’. Carol Clerk reports on
how Ian Astbury and co survived alcoholism and nervous breakdowns
and rediscovered rock’n’roll religion
MM, 18 March 1989, p28
 1989

d o you know the one about the bulls?”

asked Billy Duffy, stretching out along
the sofa, cigarette hand trailing on the
carpet beside the ashtray.
The bulls?
‘Sonic Temple’, the album title, is intended to tell
us something about its entire musical content,
namely that The Cult have effected a marriage of
their two favourite qualities.
tambourines, percussion and a bit of help on the
lyrical arrangements.
“Steve Jones went to the States and people
said, ‘What a sell-out’,” said Ian. “They wanted
him to rot in England so they could pick pieces
“There are two bulls sitting on top of a hill, From their collaborations with Rick Rubin off the corpse. Build ’em up and knock ’em
one old wizened bison and a young bull full on ‘Electric’, they’ve adopted the policy that it’s down. But why? It’s kinda sad.”
of exuberance. The young bull says, ‘Let’s run no sin for a rock band to be heard to be a rock Britain has been something of a culture
down that hill and fuck a couple of those cows.’ band. At the same time, they’ve built on the bare shock for The Cult, who are horrified anew by
And the old bison says, ‘Oh no, let’s walk down bones of Rubin’s direct approach, rediscovering its emphasis on all things hip, on its eagerness
the hill and fuck all of them.’” the idea of texture and layering, subtlety and yes, to follow, its snobbery towards rock music, its
He smiled significantly. The Cult, of course, even mysticism, things which date back to their charts, its “amorphous Euro-pop diarrhoea”,
are the old wizened bison, walking down that earlier ‘Love’ era. its cynicism and its “old boy network” – the
hill with a confidence born of sometimes “‘Sonic’ represents the blatant rock side and Claptons, Collins, Dire Straits and Stings.
bitter experience, sure at last of their place in ‘Temple’ the more cerebral, spiritual overtones,” “It’s bringing out the worst in us already,” said
the present and future, proud to have learned agreed Astbury. Astbury. “We come home and we slag things off
from the mistakes and traumatic upsets which ‘Sonic Temple’ also stands for one of his wider and people get really up in arms – ‘You’re bloody
accompanied the international success of their notions. “It comes from the second line of one of living over there, and you come back here and
last album, ‘Electric’. the tracks, ‘Medicine Train’. It goes, “All fired up, you slag it all off.’ I’m just in a position to be able
While the world may well assume that The a desolation angel shootin’ from the hip in the sonic to travel. One of my concerns is that the general
Cult have spent the last couple of years basking temple”. I just had this vision in my mind’s eye public of Britain do not get peeved at The Cult.
in the glory of the sudden upturn in their of the way, especially in the States, the venue has I’m trying desperately hard to fly the flag in the
fortunes, soaking up the adulation of audiences become more like a temple. States, defending British music.”
on the world tour that followed ‘Electric’, the “I don’t think a lot of young people have “All we did was go where we felt we could do
reality was rather different. got focused religious beliefs. A rock concert our thing,” said Billy. “We’re the only ones that
The gigs were great, by all accounts, but is one place where people go to relate to other are looking out for us. It’s self-preservation.”
The Cult, as individuals, were going right off people, to relate to a band. It’s a kind of spiritual The Cult are equally enamoured of New York,
the rails. For the whole of ’87 there were drink experience. We’re not setting ourselves up, immortalised on ‘Sonic Temple’ with ‘New York
problems, money matters, line-up difficulties, saying we’re some sort of deity to be revered. City’, brash and up-tempo as befits its subject.
business worries and trouble with the police. But there’s a certain point in the show where This is one of Astbury’s more straightforward
And there was a cloud around the whole sorry everybody forgets, the rational barriers go down documentaries, an account of his first
set-up, an all-encompassing numbness induced and it’s total communication. That religious memorable visit to the Apple.
by tour-lag. aspect is there. “It was incredible,” he enthused. “I was totally
When they finally woke up sober in 1988, The “It’s flattering when people use me and The flabbergasted. I was an English kid, 22 years of
Cult were faced with a age, and I got out of the cab,
damned fine mess to sort
out. That they did so to “A rock concert is the place people go to dumped my things at the
hotel, ran down the street

relate to other people. It’s a kind of spiritual

their own satisfaction and banged into this guy
and went on to record the and knocked him flying. As I
LP they describe as “the helped him up, his sunglasses
definitive Cult album” is
the source of their new-
found self-assurance.
experience. The rational barriers go down” fell off and it was Tony Curtis.
The first American guy I met
in America, Tony Curtis, and
“We lost our virginity,” announced Ian Cult as a backdrop for a lifestyle. I went through I knocked him flying.
Astbury. “We really got broken. We got fucked by a period when every experience I had each day “I went into this delicatessen round the corner
an elephant. That ’87 tour was like our exorcism. could be related to a Rolling Stones song. That’s and Alan Whicker was in there. I met several
If you can go through that and still be together kinda cool for The Cult to become that now. celebrities in the first 10 minutes.
and strong as a group and as a songwriting team, It’s really exciting we’re in the situation to be “There was nothing I could really focus on in
you can go through everything.” ambassadors. that town. I remember I got into a cab and the
“I live my life and I have experiences and write fare was $3.75. I gave him four dollars. I said, ‘It’s
Jamie Stewart , Duffy and Astbury – wearing a about them, not just ‘boy-meets-girl’ but more alright, don’t worry about the change.’ He took
disconcerting amount of hair on his face – were undefined things that people don’t talk about the quarter and threw it at me – ‘I don’t need
in a suite at the Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn every day – sensitive, spiritual subjects. I see your fucking charity, asshole.’ I didn’t realise you
discussing their latest recordings. sensitivity as a strength. Other people see it as have to tip them well.
First release is the new single, the wild and a weakness. “I remember seeing a New York cop with
bouncy ‘Fire Woman’, which is the bearer of “People are so much more concerned with a New York Yankees baseball cap on, with a
all sorts of glad tidings, very typically The superficial values these days, rather than cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and his
Cult but, at the same time, a handsome stride experiencing life and talking about it and police uniform on. I remember when I first saw
onwards from the deliberately simple aggression sharing it. I like to conjure up images that the size of the buildings, Times Square…”
of ‘Electric’. The Beggars Banquet press release provoke people to use their imagination.” America, as the band’s adopted home, is a
informs us that it’s all about Ian’s “’67 crazed recurring theme in the lyrical content of the new
firehorse lady”. It is? The band are now based full-time in LA. album. ‘Sweet Soul Sister’, a steady, insistent
“It’s about my girlfriend and her fiery spirit Despite their disregard for its superficiality headbanger laced with a mutation of the
and our relationship,” he explained. “’67 is when – “Los Angeles could be put in a plastic bag ‘Paranoid’ riff, explores the Americanisation of
she was born. Also, in the oriental Japanese/ and taken away” – The Cult are inspired by its the French in particular and Europe in general.
Chinese astrological calendar, she’s a horse. cosmopolitan character, its relaxation, its open- “It’s kinda strange,” mused Astbury. “We
Firehorse only comes up every 30 years or so, mindedness towards all forms of rock music. gave America more kind of spiritual things like
and when it comes up, the orientals go and kill They also enjoy the “like-minded people” depth, experience, culture. And they’re giving
all their children. There are a lot of abortions in they meet there, people like Steve Jones, who back a hamburger. A hamburger, Guns N’Roses,
TOM SHEEHAN

firehorse year. It’s kinda weird…” recently invited Astbury to be an “odd-job man” Budweiser, American football, skateboards and


on his new album, contributing harmonies, baseball caps turned backwards.”

NME ORIGINALS 127

 Creepies From Crawley

When Bon Jovi/Aerosmith engineer Bob angel, but she gradually lost her power to fly. She
Rock was called in to produce the new Cult lost her freedom through drugs and the abuse
album, his brief was to “take a sonic photograph and people using her like a fucking fashion
of the group”. And the photograph he took is accessory. She fell from grace. She died.
memorable for its lights, its shades, its colours “I felt there was a parallel between her life and
and its space, enough to accommodate Billy my life. I was a victim. From the day I decided
Duffy’s increasingly accomplished guitar and I wanted to be a punk rocker until I got my
some occasionally extravagant arrangements. band together, I was having things consistently
NME, 8 APRIL 1989, P32 There’s the dramatic sweep of the big slow thrown in my face. I was very self-destructive
number, ‘Edie’, with its eight cellists; the ’cos I couldn’t deal with rejection. I was nearly
THE CULT powerful, emphatic ‘Soul Asylum’, complete with murdered in Glasgow. Kids who decided to
Sonic Temple its shades of ‘Kashmir’. dress and express themselves that way had a lot
(Beggars Banquet) “Everything with that kind of excellent of guts, ’cos they had to confront violence every
Sonic temple: The drum sound and beat is going to be accused day. There were people always waiting outside of
Cult as sensitive of sounding like Led Zeppelin,” huffed Duffy, concerts to beat other people up.”
all-seeing rock clearly anticipating the reference, but still not too
legends. No, willing to like it. The Cult are watching the progress of British
Gods. ‘Stairway To “The tempo was dictated by the way we’d artists in America and Yankee reaction to them.
Heaven’ without already written the song, the chords “In America, they’re mildly bemused by the
a niff of devil and the melody. I’m perfectly names that are springing forth out
worship or hint of willing to defend it as long as of Britain into popular American
demonic inspiration. But The necessary. Is it in the same consciousness,” said Billy Duffy.
Cult’s triangle of souls – Duffy, Astbury, Stewart key? No. Same chords? “The Pet Shop Boys, Rick
– wouldn’t illuminate Jimmy Page’s left eye. Very few. The song itself Astley, Samantha Fox – and
‘Sonic Temple’ is the way they’d like to see is so good that if it’s these from the country that
themselves, but the music in reality is little gonna get compared to produced the greatest
more than a pastiche. Still, ‘Sonic Temple’ is a one of Led Zeppelin’s rock music ever.”
noble attempt to pair the ‘cerebral’ side of the best tunes, I can’t “And then you’ve
‘Love’ album, its feminine nature and haunting really complain.” got bands who are
spirituality, with the parched, fleshless bones of “It was regarded as almost
‘Electric’. Like Mary Shelley they’re attempting completely gods in Britain,”
to recharge an emaciated corpse. uncontrived,” said Ian. “The
The spirited ‘Fire Woman’ has already burnt added Astbury. Sugarcubes, The
a hole in the Top 40, Astbury’s neighing vocals “It’s probably the Mission, The Nephilim,
calling out in tribute to his girlfriend, born in most romantic song who come to LA and realise
the Chinese year of the firehorse. A love song on the record, even they’re only starting off.”
that’s as aggressive as you can get before you though we took the “You get the feeling that
run towards the battered wives’ home. opening line from a all of those bands think that
‘American Horse’ is the nearest they’ve piece in The Times. The all they’ve gotta do it is put a
come to perfection since ‘Sanctuary’. The song editor wrote this article record out and they’re gonna
stands, slides and slithers to the conclusion about the Stones when be megastars in America,”
that the subtle, sensitive spirit which possesses they got arrested in said Duffy. “And the reality
Astbury’s lyrics has to overspill into the music, ’67. He was saying, hits them like a ton of bricks. If
before the nectar can become as spellbinding ‘How dare the they had a struggle in Britain,
as this. The Cult at their most haunted. establishment use it’s 10-fold in America.”
On ‘Edie (Ciao Baby)’, Astbury sings to the Stones as the “You have to go on the road,”
an angel with broken wings with a gothic focal point for the said Ian. “We’ve been on the
reverberance that carries her from freedom drug problems of road since 1984. We’ve had
to drug abuse without glorifying her self- the country?’ And guns pointed at us, all the way
destructive traits. It’s as fragile as life itself. the headline was to playing Long Beach Arena in
HM compromise leers through the lacy ‘Who Would Break front of 12,000 people.”
underskirts of ‘Sweet Soul Sister’ and reveals A Butterfly On A “We’ve just got our foot in
a twisted version of the ‘Paranoid’ riff. It’s still Wheel?’” the door,” said Duffy. “It’s a big
beautiful though. A spacey pulsing heartbeat The conversation drifted mountain to climb, and we’re just beginning to
hangs on a single ethereal note, until pierced by around fragile things which are need oxygen at the moment.”
Duffy’s guitar and drawn out of its body like the easily destroyed,
blood of a vampire’s victim. Perfect.
The focus of ‘Sonic Temple’ is summed up
“un-macho”
things, “spiritual” “I was a victim from the The bang on the door
was an interruption, a
in a line from ‘Medicine Train’, with the image
of a worshipped artist performing in a venue,
a latter day temple: “All fired up, a desolation
things, and rested
on the topic of the
vulnerable artist.
day I became a punk” hint, a nuisance.
“Do you know,” said
Jamie as we vacated the
angel shootin’ from the hip in the sonic temple”. “It’s amazing how a lot of beautifully creative suite, “my dad was a violinist with the London
In The Cult’s sonic temple they sing of angels, people at some point confront the flak,” Symphony Orchestra? He played on a whole
Gods and fire, purifying images of goodness. remarked Ian. “A lot of them falter by the wayside series of ‘Classic Rock’ albums, and the first
All the little ol’ devils that inhabited ‘Electric’ and die in really horrible circumstances, used up one included ‘Paint It Black’ and ‘Whole Lotta
have been exorcised. Now the only thing that and spat out so the machine can continue. That’s Love’. At the time I was thrashing around in a
is haunting and holding them back is a lack of what ‘Edie’ is about – and that’s Edie Sedgwick, garage trying to be a punk rocker. I didn’t have
self-confidence in some of their older wisdoms. the definitive poor little rich girl. the connection then. Punk rock was a rebellion
Why continue plagiarising when they can do “She was one of Andy Warhol’s things, and she against everything including Led Zeppelin and
TOM SHEEHAN

so much better on their own? was a victim. She was extremely naïve and she classical music. Now I can see the relevance of all
Helen Mead went along with it. I perceived her as a desolation rock music, from when it started to now.”

128 NME ORIGINALS

 1989

TEN YEARS
INLIPSTICK
AND POWDER
NME, 8 April 1989, p15 The Cure (l to r): Boris
Williams, Robert Smith,
Roger O’Donnell, Porl
Thomson, Simon Gallup

he Spiderman is recounting
Lock up your lipstick, The Cure are back.
t his favourite tale of horror
and woe. It’s a long and strange
and infamous story, and I have heard it
many times before, but never like tonight, and
With a brilliant new single ‘Lullaby’ and
never from the Spiderman himself.
It begins in Blackpool three decades ago
an LP ‘Disintegration’ to follow, they’re
and ends in Baker Street in three hours’
time, and that’s as much truth as you need on their best form in years. In James
to know. A bizarre stew of lies and dreams,
and as compelling as hypnosis, it has the
most fantastic soundtrack you could want.
Brown’s interview, Robert Smith reveals
And the plot? That’s up to you.
Robert James Smith of The Cure stretches
why he sacked Lol and why The Cure will
his eight long great black arms around me and
we begin.
“I wanted something like the really bad
never play live again after the next tour
Marvel characters with really stupid powers. tension and fear and dread and treats them to changes than the England squad, but who hasn’t?
Like The Candy Striped Man, who could turn a coat of musical finery. Cloaked in Eastern The Banshees, The Fall and Joy Division/New
everything into candy stripes.” string arrangements and rattlesnake percussion, Order all have. And as our interview came to
Smith is describing The Spiderman and The ‘Lullaby’ will do for bedtime stories what ‘Close an end Smith told me he had recently asked Lol
Spiderman is describing Smith. Both appear, To Me’ did for furniture care. The creepies from Tolhurst, the only other original Cure member
as monster and victim, in The Cure’s haunting Crawley are well and truly back. remaining, not to bother being involved any
new single ‘Lullaby’. Whispered from the more – but more of that later. With the release of
depths of Smith’s most tortured memories and The ’80shave been a memorable lifetime for The ‘Disintegration’, their eleventh LP, next month,
DEREK RIDGERS

set in the heart of nightmare land, ‘Lullaby’, Cure, one of the few interesting bands to start you’ll discover that The Cure are being as regal
like all The Cure’s best works, takes nervous and finish the decade. They’ve had more line-up and chilling as ever.

NME ORIGINALS 129

 Shambling Monster

Developing their ability to demolish people’s popularity of the videos on the fledgling MTV. Strangely Smith is just as likely to discuss the
expectations, The Cure have spent the last The United States have fallen for The Cure in end of The Cure as an actuality.
decade changing from a dark and intense such a way that of the two million sales of their “Each time I think it’s the last time we’ll do
underground band into a glam but imaginative last LP ‘Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me’, half of them something it’s obviously closer to the last time I
Top Of The Pops accessory. Their singles have were American, and Spin magazine recently will do something. Also things that bother me
been as unpredictable as their LPs are solid, and included them twice in their Hundred Best seem to crystallise rather than go away.
Smith himself has become the thinking man’s Singles of All Time. “I think I’m back where I started from – very
Sixth Former’s crumpet. “We met a girl in America who was at college normal,” he says. “And that’s why I think the
Strangely this metamorphosis happened doing her thesis on us,” says Smith. “She group will stop. This tour has become a huge
while Britain experienced the biggest teeny-bop did things like counted all the references to tour because I wanted to go to places like
explosion since the early ’70s. The band’s web of drowning in our songs and said, ‘Did you know Hungary and Bulgaria before we stop. I know
success has spread throughout the world. There you’ve died 74 times in your songs?’” we’ll never do another tour again, I’m not even
have been over eight million sure if we’ll play live again. If I
album sales, tours that have
stretched from Australasia to the “I resent people you grew up admiring turning even leave it as an opening we
would turn into The Troggs.
Middle East to South America
and back, and there’s an ever- out to be tossers – like David Bowie. I just wish I don’t want to turn into a
shambling monster.
growing mass of US support that “From an observer’s point of
was built almost entirely on the he’d been killed in a car accident after ‘Low’” view I can understand why this
will look like an ‘end’ because
I’m so intrinsically linked to The Cure, but in
real life I’m not. I don’t carry it round with me
during the months away. I don’t think, ‘I’d better
get The Cure out of the cupboard it’ll be getting
lonely or rusty.’
“I resent people who have a patronising
attitude to their audience, keep feeding the same
old shit. I resent people you grow up admiring
who turn out to be the biggest tossers, like
David Bowie. I just wish he’d been killed in a car
accident after he’d finished ‘Low’. No, I shouldn’t
say that about anyone.”

Maybe Smith has a thing about motorway

fatalities: the day before we spoke he had told a
Japanese magazine that Lawrence Tolhurst had
died in a road accident. Robert Smith has never
been one to worry about changing his line-up
but he had also been heard to say that without
Lawrence The Cure wouldn’t be The Cure.
Obviously it came as a shock all round when
Smith told the one musician that had stood by
him all the way that it was time to sling his hook.
“His position as the victim had become
ludicrous,” confesses Smith. “He had always
been the safety valve of the group, whenever rows
broke out we’d pick on Lol, but it had become
really depressing that the focal point had become
this constant harassment.
“I said to him at the start of the recording
that if he didn’t assert himself and get involved
then there was no way I could carry on seeing
everyone using him. Also, he was drinking
so much, he was the only one who couldn’t
moderate it to any degree. He was out of step
with everything. It had just become detrimental
to everything we’d do.
“I don’t know if you’d call it amicable. I think
he was shocked by it, everyone was shocked
that I actually meant it. When we go away he’s
not coming with us because it’s just become so
predictable and detrimental. It would be stupid
to be all jokey two minutes before going on stage
and then go on and try to manufacture that kind
of emotion.
“It will be a different tour, more draining
Smith is jubilant as I should think. There’ll probably be a lot of
he plays ‘A Forest’ rowing going on; I’m looking forward to it. He’ll
on stage for the probably be back by Christmas. He’s getting
14,763rd time
married, maybe that’s his comeback. I don’t
know what he’s doing now – he’s gone all quiet.”

130N MN EM EO ROIRGIIGNIANLASL S
??
 1989

but before then? From high-waisters to

jumpsuits to lipsticks to kimonos,
Leigh Bowery must have been groaning
with jealousy.
Today, with his hair teased vertically and
scrawled lipstick, the man has a settled and
identifiable image. Stability within insanity,
if such is possible. And the appeal of The
Cure is balanced between their musical
originality and Smith’s mystique. Initially MM, 6 May 1989, p34
inspired, according to one of the old press
releases, by “punk and Penguin Modern THE CURE
Classics” Smith created a sort of English Disintegration
Literature for Music Lovers and has never (Fiction)

looked back. Nowadays he has few worries Robert Smith

about the role of his band. reckons
“The group is there to escape the ‘Disintegration’
oppressiveness, it’s a way of screaming,” isn’t a miserable
he says. “The reason we formed the group record at all.
wasn’t for all those usual reasons like ‘being Right. Meanwhile
bored’. It was so we didn’t have to get up at Van Gogh says
nine in the morning. So we didn’t have to Starry Night was
work for other people. Whereas now I try a cartoon, Francis Bacon claims he’s a disco
hard for The Cure never to be seen to be king and Joan of Arc announces she was only
involved with banality. cutting down on heating costs.
“I don’t give a shit if Bros sell 20 million ‘Disintegration’ is about as much fun as
LPs next year; I know that I won’t be buying losing a limb. How can a group this distressing
them so why should I care? I don’t really and disturbing be so popular? Surely it’s not
Smith’s relationship with his wife Mary is clearly listen to us, I find it too difficult. I’m still inside allowed! ‘Lullaby’ is much too intricate and
the most important thing in his life. No matter ‘Disintegration’. There are songs that I really like interesting to loll about in the Top Five. Yet
how diverse a topic it might be, be it Hendrix, by the group, but it’s like a diary. It makes me there it is. Inexplicable. Robert’s not that
or Rushdie, or JD Salinger or Midweek Sports upset to think it’s gone.” steamily erotic, is he? Is he? Oh.
Special, Smith inevitably steers the conversation Despite seeing The Cure as part of “the You’ll be lucky to find a tune on here. Or a
around to his marriage. coloured zone where people go to escape”, gag. But when you think about it, that last one,
“No one knew the venue,” he tells me of his Smith has regularly used the group to help raise that one about snogging, that was bloody long
wedding in a Benedictine monastery. “Everyone money for political and socially concerned and mostly forlorn too. The Cure have almost
had to get on a coach and be taken there in organisations but has never attempted to fuse the invisibly stopped making pop records. This is
secret. Some people thought we’d gone a bit over two creatively. The band have performed benefits exactly what Smith denies it is – a return to the
the top but the wedding had nothing to do with for Greenpeace, mental health, victimised bleak inner landscapes of ‘Pornography’ and
the group and I wanted it emphasised that it was homosexuals and CND, yet such causes have ‘Faith’. The first line? “I think it’s dark and looks
just about me and Mary. If just one journalist or never screamed from the lyric sheets of their LPs. like rain”. The last line? “I’ll never lose this pain”.
one bunch of fans had been there it would have “I like music that has a lack of reality to Here comes summer.
ruined it for both of us and both sets of parents.” its musical content,” he admits. “The Cure’s The words which lumber to mind as you hear
Unsurprisingly, when the wedding photos music doesn’t reflect the material world in a The Cure bottling out of topping themselves
were released The Cure looked like Honey very obvious way, which I think is its strength. are all the words now devalued and used only
Monsters in suits – all collars, creases and I almost feel embarrassed by music that has a to mock goths: doom, gloom, barren, despair.
enormous white training shoes. social and political edge because it always seems It’s an utter refusal to fight, to take the bull by
“We had to wait until marriage wouldn’t so diluted that it’s utterly pointless. the horns. They have nothing to say except:
change anything before we would wed. It was an “I suppose it is of some worth if you decided a please help me I don’t understand a thing
old-fashioned romantic thing really. I’d always certain percentage of your audience are complete about the world oh actually it’s not important
promised Mary that one day we’d get married morons and they need to be told certain don’t trouble yourself go back to sleep.
properly. She hasn’t changed her name and we elementary things about the world. I don’t really Most of the tracks float sorrowfully into
don’t intend to have meet that many each other. ‘Pictures Of You’ is as jaunty as
any children, in fact
I often still think of “The group is there to escape people that I could
illuminate on certain
it ever gets, ‘Prayers For Rain’ as aggressive,
the title track as witty. Listless rhythms and
her as my girlfriend
rather than wife. the oppressiveness – so we don’t key issues. I’ve never
been in touch with
rhymes abound, glissando guitars whisper,
Robert mumbles and wonders whether he can
“The choice a lot of the normal be bothered to plead. The closer, ‘Untitled’,
about children,” he
continues, “is more
have to work for other people” world.
“I still know a lot
decides: “And now the time has gone, another
time undone/Hopelessly fighting the devil
up to the girl, I think. I’m glad we haven’t had of the people I used to know before The Cure and futility/Feeling the monster climb deeper inside
children. I couldn’t face up to the responsibility. they’re doctors and bank officials and they like of me gnawing my heart away…” Pluck it out
You lose that freedom of being able to say, Dire Straits and I think they feel sorry for me.” boy! Smith mopes. He’ll never send a letter-
‘C’mon, we’re going away for a week tomorrow.’ bomb when his wounds are easier to lick than
You can’t even do that with a pet. It’s hard Even though he’s about to roll The Cure out an envelope. He’s a touchstone for millions.
enough having to think about two people, never around the world – “Going to Budapest might It’s decent of him to share all this with us.
STEPHEN SWEET/DEREK RIDGERS

mind three. The songs are my children and the be a really liberating event” – Smith discusses It’s challenging and claustrophobic, often
group are my pets.” it with a finality. He is also currently pondering poignant, often tedious. It’s nearly surprising.
what to do with the solo LP he has recorded, You’ve heard of the cowardly lion. Meet the
Smith was born in Blackpool, which explains the ready to release.

hesitant dinosaurs.
more recent lust for day-glo glamour and tack, “Each time I do another LP I wonder Chris Roberts

NME ORIGINALS 131



whether it’s worth releasing it always find out what they think and quite often
because I could just do it at home they don’t like the songs.” If you’re going to be a pop star and wear lipstick
and keep it for myself. I have the and tarantula crops then it’s important for the
tapes of the material I was going A solitary character who claims to have made public image to be seen to be deep, mystical
to do as a solo record that I’ve had few real friends since he’s been in the band, and attractive. Whether or not he will admit to
for two and a half years now. It Robert Smith’s past slide into alcohol-orientated having cultivated The Robert Smith Persona
becomes more and more ridiculous decadence has been well charted. His “I’m and all the deadly nightshade, suicide notes and
as to why I should go out and do it almost an alcoholic now. I haven’t had one butterfly wings that go with it, that image is there
for other people to listen to. night this year when I haven’t been drunk” and Robert Smith of The Cure appears to now
“Mind you, when I am singing has become legendary. Describing that time as cope with it very well.
in my own studio I invent people “hollow” and “unmemorable”, Smith still drinks Detached but addicted, “becoming more
listening, an audience. but his excesses are kept “more normal now. sponge-like as I grow older”, he’s just as ready to
“They’re not a set list of More celebratory than a lifestyle.” live within a warm and stable set-up as he used
characters – some of them are “I wanted to get away from myself as this to be ready to live within a wine bottle.
real – and when I’m singing morose and deeply tortured person, I found that For the future, Robert Smith suggests, like
I have them in mind. really stressful. I was never really very bothered every other bored musician, that film scores
For certain types of with that image. What’s frightening is that I find might lie ahead. More interestingly he also
song I always have it so unimportant and yet people are writing claims he would like to divorce himself from
the same person virtual suicide notes to me. That’s something music and go and work in a mental hospital.
in mind. I’ve never been able to grasp and I think it would For the moment he sees no new bands
jamming a spur up his backside, attempting to

“I wanted to get away from myself as replace The Cure. This he finds both remarkable
and disappointing.
“My stuff has always come from lack of faith
a morose and deeply tortured person” in anything,” he reckons, yet he takes pleasure
in cooking, the works of Denton Welsh and
“I know that have upset me if I had come to terms with it. Dylan Thomas and his ever-increasing catalogue
they eventually “I think a lot of people around me at the time of old records.
listen to the of ‘Pornography’ seemed to enjoy seeing me in Is it really possible to be both a pop star and
records, but that state. It’s so much easier and more enjoyable normal? Or do we have to presume a basic lack
they don’t know now than it was five years ago. I know now that of sanity is required for both?
I’m thinking about I could turn round and tell them all to fuck off. Robert Smith of The Cure – one of the few
them listening to it I could do that before but I used to worry about remaining everyday nutters capable of crooning
when I’m recording it. I what we’d do next.” a decent tune.

MM, 19 August 1989, p15

AndThe Ass
SawThe Angel
A
nd The Ass Saw The Angel, out. Eucrow survives
Nick Cave’s debut novel, has to tell us the tale “Could you sign it:
consumed a large part of his of the swamp, a ‘To Yummy Bunnikins,
love from Nicky-Poo’?
last four years. He drags us feet-first dark and menacing Er, it’s for my sister”
into a dimly-lit ghost town in the parable that screams
American South, territory previously from the page. Cave’s His characters are vile and spectacle and, once again this
excavated by William Faulkner, anti-hero believes in misshapen. They cannot becomes a disturbing experience
Cormac McCarthy and Flannery angels but his soul win our sympathy. Yet, Once more, it seems Cave has
O’Connor. Here, amid the festering is “one big fuckin’ somehow, one suspects that taken his obsessions as far as they
swamps, grim phantoms and rolling black twisty knot compassion lurks among will go. This reads like four years
thunder, we find Euchrid Eucrow planted in the backest these grim phantoms. And of madness. Every last thought is
relating his tale of murder, incest, backwoods”. He lies The Ass… returns to haunt thrown down to shrivel and perish.
betrayal, vengeance and love in on his deathbed and documents his most remarkable album, 1985’s Cave’s dissenters will dismiss it as a
stark jumbled burst of recall. the grim atrocities of his life with an ‘The Firstborn Is Dead’. There’s a grand folly. But if you take a morose
DEREK RIDGERS/ STEVE DOUBLE

At the beginning we find Eucrow unfailing eye. Every last abominable similar sense of desolation, and, pleasure in seeing this edge-of-
being ripped from his mother’s act is recorded, and relished. like the album, at times it gets so the-frame man scribbling his own
womb with a broken liquor bottle, Cave is no Cormac McCarthy, but insufferable you want to howl with prescription for the blues, you’ll find
watching his twin brother die. His his pose has a raw-boned quality laughter. Then, all of a sudden, some delight in here somewhere.
brother is the lucky one, as it turns to it that’s surprisingly effective. you are drawn back to the awful Jonh Wilde

132 NME ORIGINALS

 1989

new holistic, health-conscious,

“gyn-ecological” concerns within
her established, predatory persona.
‘Standing There’ is a feminist
tirade against the ghoulish males
who voyeuristically revel in the
carnage of the bullfight; Budgie’s
stampeding rhythms gloss over
some rather ungainly phrased
polemic (“How funny to see/How
path-et-ic/Some grown men/Can
be”). ‘Fruitman’ tries to imagine a
nurturing, kindly, Green-fingered
masculinity that’s in touch with
“the rhythms of nature’s ticking”.
Even ‘Pluto Drive’ conceals, within
its asteroid-funk swirl and images
of “oceans of methane and petrified
grass”, a distinctly Green sentiment
(Pluto is “an unleaded dream”).
Musically, Budgie is the star.
‘Manchild’ has Siouxsie’s voice
swooping through canopies of
chimes and tintinnabulation. ‘You’
churns and seethes like the low-
riding funk undercarriage of ‘Pull
All About Eve:
tra-la-la and Up To The Bumper’, and ‘Pity’
fol-de-rol even sees Budgie reinventing the
Jamaican steel drums.
But sometimes the duo veer
MM, 21 October 1989, p38 dangerously close to camp. I can
do without the Porgy And Bess
ALL ABOUT EVE pastiche of ‘Killing Time’ and
Scarlet And Other Stories ‘Willow’. But happily, ‘Boomerang’
(Mercury) ends with two songs as lulling
Twelve months ago All About and lovely as ‘Pity’. ‘Venus Sands’
Eve seemed happy to travel the describes itself perfectly, Siouxsie’s
hippy road to salvation, but voice abandoned and unhinged in
they’ve consulted the map since vast empty space. And ‘Morrina’ is a
then and aborted the journey. shimmering carpet of dew, a Milky
It’s almost impossible Way awning for Siouxsie’s reveries.
to dream your way romancing her MM, 11 November 1989, p40 It’s the most serene she’s ever
out of trouble these memories but can’t sounded.
days and Julianne’s bring itself to chide THE CREATURES ‘Boomerang’ abounds with
discovered that the her as so many people Boomerang scarcely anticipated brilliance.
twin foundations of the end up alone. (Polydor) Simon Reynolds
Aquarian ethic – mind- ‘Scarlet’ declares When an established group takes
expanding drugs with poignant time off for extra-curricular
and the rural retreat purity that lust is an activity, it’s usually an attempt
from Mammon – are unsatisfying exercise to flee the creative inertia that
hopelessly nostalgic means in self-deception while sets in mid-career. So when
to a peaceful end. ‘Hard Spaniard’ is an embarrassingly Siouxsie and Budgie chose to
In recording this album, All frank catalogue of the events revive an earlier alter ego/escape
About Eve found they had no way that befall a girl so desperate for route, The Creatures, you could
forward and no way back. The Kate company she submits to the abuse be forgiven for taking it as a
Greenaway/Laura Ashley idyll they of the one-night-stand. sign that the Banshees had
seemed to inhabit is ravaged during Musically, though, the band are succumbed to an irreversible
‘Tuesday’s Child’, which reveals the content to rummage among the enervation. But listening to
darker side of nursery rhymes and roots of rock. ‘Scarlet…’ sounds ‘Boomerang’, my yawn turned
the hidden threat of fairy tales. standard, gently melancholy and quickly to a jaw dropping in
Julianne appears to have found occasionally twee astonishment.
the notion of maturity as fallible (there’s a cute fiddle fol- This is Siouxsie’s
as retracing the umbilical cord, de-rol in ‘More Than The most inventive and
and the sprightly ‘More Than The Blues’) when it’s really invigorated music
Blues’ concludes: “Are we getting a very harsh album since ‘A Kiss In The
TOM SHEEHAN/DEREK RIDGERS

wiser/Or just getting older/ When we indeed. It’s ironic that Dreamhouse’.
know the shoulder/We’d most like their coltish beauty What’s interesting
to cry on”. Love offers little hope betrays their darker, about ‘Boomerang’
– the gorgeously tender rock ballad deeper intent. is how Siouxsie has Siouxsie and
Budgie:
‘December’ pictures a woman Steve Sutherland incorporated her “gyn-ecologists”

NME ORIGINALS 133

Merrie England

everything else I’ve heard in this

genre of music over the past 15
years so I’m afraid I don’t quite
understand it. The Cult have
never been dangerous enough to
cross my path, except I remember
once when I was compering The
Tube and they were desperately
pleading for wine back at the
hotel. I thought it was odd how
such big, blustering rock’n’rollers
his lil’ honey, his lil’ sister, his lil’ should want wine. How poetic – as
MM, 18 March 1989, p32 baby and a cat on a hot tin shack. is, I suppose, this idea of writing a
Take your pick. The words are song about Edie, whose entire life
THE CULT howled, growled and barked, was a romantic tragedy.
Fire Woman each gullible syllable given the full Barbara Ellen & Malcolm McLaren
(Beggar’s Banquet) wolverine works; the beat is bull-
Ian Astbury reckons that ‘Fire headed and Billy Duffy’s guitar
Woman’ is about his “67 crazed playing is typically opulent if not
firehorse lady”. Just what the fuck intricate, ever on the brink of FX-
that means is anybody’s guess, exaggerated extravagances.
but there are references to Despite being The Cult’s
first release for 18 months,
NME, 15 April 1989, 19
‘Fire Woman’ does not mark
anything of a departure in
approach or execution and it THE CURE
slips neatly into the pattern Lullaby
initiated with the ‘Love’ LP. The (Fiction)

fact that the producer, Bob BE: At the first play of ‘Lullaby’
Rock, has previously Guy’s suspicion visibly withers. MM, 9 December 1989, p32
worked with Aerosmith It’s a terrific single. Sexy, scary,
and Bon Jovi is the fascinating, murky and just casual ALL ABOUT EVE
best indication of their enough to enjoy its own sense of December
overriding caution, but this, ridiculousness. Is Guy a Love-Cat? (Mercury)

however, is not to suggest that GC: “When they first started Cast splendidly adrift in their
it lacks numerous strengths. It’s they were my favourite group. ambivalent emotional hayloft, the
certainly their finest effort since I’ve always like The Cure, I’ve Eves, abrim with mordant passion,
‘She Sells Sanctuary’. always like the idea of them. And ridicule all other festive filth, and,
It’s also worth noting that while listening to ‘Lullaby’ is brilliant. as usual, the listener immediately
‘Automatic Blues’, the seven-inch The strings are exquisite. Just feels at home in the song, even
B-side, sounds exactly like Led beautiful. Utterly beautiful. if miffed by the décor, knowing
Zep’s archaic interpretation of Success has affected their music in the video has to be a treat. Andy
the blues, ‘Messing The Blues’, the best possible way…” in the workhouse, hanging up his
the additional track on the Barbara Ellen & Guy Chadwick stocking, Mark in the outhouse
12-inch, is somewhat (The House Of Love) (luxury), kissing Santa under
refreshing. The music the mistletoe, Julianne beaming
is entirely acoustic inside her speeding sleigh, and
– double bass, slide the wretched Tiny Tim, getting
guitar, harmonica it all horribly wrong, earnestly
and the swipe of setting off to complete his bob-
brushes against the a-job errands.
snare – and Chuck “Remem-BURR, Decem-
Berry, Bo Diddley, BURR”. A brilliant, almost oafish
Big Joe Turner chorus, flowers on Julianne’s
and even Billy strident trellis-work, deep bass
Idol are given thumbprints abound on the
supposedly crisp drum slabs, and the song
improvised ends abruptly after the sort of
namechecks. NME, 1 July 1989, p10 gratuitously violent guitar solo
If they’d been you’d expect from a man who
so bold as to THE CULT habitually crosses the Astoria
select this song Edie (Ciao Baby) threshold, accompanied by an
for the A-side, (Beggars Banquet) “18-stone friend”, specifically to
they’d have BE: First it was American Indians, make rude remarks to security
made Single then Led Zep, now Ian Astbury staff. Rude, Tim?? He has to go
Of The Week. has read a Ladybird book on Edie confessional after reading one
Of course Sedgwick and this – bless him – is page of Viz.
TOM SHEEHAN

I’m lying. the surprisingly tender result. Merrie England everybody!

Push MMc: “It’s an amalgam of Mick Mercer
 Chapter 12
1990-92
DEREK RIDGERS
 Love Missiles

NME, 3 February 1990, p31

THE MISSION
Carved In Sand
(Phonogram )

‘Carved In Sand’
catches The Mish
on the crest of
another wave
of phenomenal
ordinariness.
Hung with all the
usual accessories
– junk shop
mysticism, Sesame Street metaphor and
finger-dancing chintziness – this ten-strong
mountain-mover is a prime cut indeed.
For all the glib criticism flung gaily (and
daily) at The Mish, their noise remains both
graceful and rugged; a well-worn, in-bred
hybrid of pomp rock and Avalon nursery
rhyme. Divorced from Hussey’s parabolic
prose, yer average Mish song has a tea-and-
slippers familiarity to it.
‘Butterfly On A Wheel’ is a superior love
Tony James and
song – true, its title is nicked from an old Andrew Eldritch:
editorial in The Times, and yes, the idea of 21st Century boys
love being as fragile as a butterfly wing is
nothing if not shite – but Wayne sings it
with such an unflinching honesty only a
professional whinge merchant could fail to
be touched by it.
Elsewhere, ‘Grapes Of Wrath’ pushes its
luck a bit, with its lyric about toiling on the
land and reaping the harvest, but a modest
pearl like ‘Sea Of Love’ ultimately wins you
over with its beautiful ‘Dear Prudence’ guitar
upholstery. ‘Deliverance’ is the album’s
Sister Sputnik
he Sisters Of Mercy have recruited a new bass
MM, 3 February 1990, p3

Sisters’ record company, WEA, have been trying to

obvious keystone – a purpose-built epic that
starts like a John Carpenter soundtrack and
ends up delivering the stuff that nation-
wide Mish-understanding is based on: “Give
t player: Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s Tony James.
And the announcement of a full Sisters
line-up has fuelled speculation this week
that a long-awaited tour may be in the offing.
persuade the band to tour. Eldritch has consistently
refused, with the excuse that too much touring is
bad for your health! There have been no live dates
since the original Sisters line-up split, leaving
me/Give me/ Give me/Deliverance”. The surprise news came in a statement from the Eldritch and Morrison as the nucleus of the band.
But ‘Amelia’ ought to make even the most Sisters’ management. It stated simply: “Andreas Eldritch spent most of last year writing material
ardent Mish-fit choke. Attacking the delicate Bruhn has joined The Sisters Of Mercy. Andreas in Hamburg and The Only Ones’ John Perry played
subject of child abuse with a mallet, Wayne Bruhn plays electric guitar on the demos.
sings, quite clearly, “Daddy says come and sit guitar. Tony James has The recruitment
on my knee/Daddy loves his little girl”. Now
it is obviously a passionate diatribe against
joined The Sisters Of
Mercy. Tony James
Eldritch has consistently of Tony James would
apparently spell the
‘Daddy’, but it is also the most ham-fisted
attempt at writing a wrong I’ve ever heard.
plays bass guitar.”
Any further enquiries refused to tour, with the excuse end of Sigue Sigue
Sputnik, although their
Stick to the farmyard noises in future. The
final track, ‘Lovely’, is an acoustic ramble
recorded in a field (true!) in which we learn
were met with a tight-
lipped silence, and no one
will discuss bass player
that it’s bad for his health spokesperson this week
responded with a curt,
“No comment.”
that Wayne believes in colours, sunshine, Patricia Morrison’s role within the new band. Except for Ray Matthews’ recent appearance in
laughter, crying, magic and dreams. Extraordinary though the collaboration the national press, where he complained of being
That’s more like it! between Andrew Eldritch and Tony James may broke and working on a building site, the rest of
‘Carved In Sand’ then, is a vast oasis appear, the pair have been friends for a long time Sigue Sigue Sputnik have been lying low lately.
with a little desert in the middle of it, if and Eldritch was once asked to front Sigue Sigue Vocalist Martin Degville said this week: “I’ve
you’ll forgive the duff metaphor. And Sputnik. They are now believed to be in Norway been so busy on a solo project that I cannot
STEVE DOUBLE

if you’re a top Mish fan, you will. working on material for the next Sisters LP. comment on Tony James’ latest activities.”
Andrew Collins Ever since the success of ‘This Corrosion’, the Watch this space…

136 NME ORIGINALS

 1990-1992

NME, 14 April 1990, p33

NICK CAVE AND

THE BAD SEEDS
The Good Son
(Mute)

So this is the new, narcotic-free

Nick Cave. Novelist, poet, film
star, all cleaned up
with somewhere to
go. In a sense, this is Song’ allows the Seeds
NME, 15 September 1990, p39
his very own tribute a rare opportunity
album, a nod and a to let loose, Cave Nick Cave:
wink towards that sprawled across distant THE COCTEAU still the
great chemical dump twangs while discord TWINS black sheep

in the sky. Where takes a hair-raising hold. Heaven Or Las Vegas experimentally minded pop
Hendrix and Joplin The orchestration is (4AD) scientists who make white mice
so miserably failed, lush and the songs are Let’s get one thing straight. of their listeners, forcing them
Cave somehow immaculately crafted. I am not a ‘fan’ of The into The Subjective
succeeded, although ‘The Good There is hardly a single Cocteau Twins. Music Corner when
Son’ is predictably devoid of self- bow tie askew throughout the entire can be a passionate, communication, not
congratulatory adulation. performance. And yes, ‘The Good terrifying, mysterious inscrutability, has
This is where Cave anoints the Son’ does threaten self-parody, but thing and still feel always been the axis
sleeve, glaring at a grand piano with if this is showbiz, Cave is still lurking cold to the touch but for true genius.
an audience of four enraptured in the shadowlands. The Cocteau Twins I cannot be so
young girls in a perverse translation It’s still more gritty than glitzy have always struck presumptuous as to
of the Abbey National advert. This – smooth surfaces have a sandpaper me as being the very tell you what ‘Heaven
is where the Bad Seeds succumb underlay. And the likes of ‘Lucy’ are antithesis of musical Or Las Vegas’ is like,
to strings and Cave’s desire for too floored by honesty to fall victim truehearts. Like vinyl but I can tell you what
tradition over idiosyncratic to contrived campness. Marie Antoinettes, they have I think. Definitely their best since
experimentation. And where Memories fade, but Cave’s scars spent their entire career believing ‘Treasure’, occasionally a hairy
‘Kicking Against The Pricks’ was still linger. Rest (un)easy – the good – rather stupidly – that your sweet (outsider’s?) fist does try to thump
a timeless covers paradise, this is son is still the black sheep. tooth houses your entire digestive long-overdue clarity into the lyrics.
where Cave turns the tables and Simon Williams system and that the fat, squashy But these moments are few and
creates his own potential hand-me- cakes they bake, flavoured with rich, far between – the rest is standard
down classics. dark chocolate to hide the taste Cocteaus fare. Giant steps forward,
In ‘Lament’, he has created quite of bromide, are enough to keep fairy steps back, cruelty and passion
possibly the finest pop song of you going. homogenised for consumption
the year, wherein false Furthermore, after inside plastic bubble psyches, and
jaunts swing into a quite trivialising life’s absolutes – of course, Frazer dribbling party
gorgeous chorus: “So pain, fear, the death of love streamers, fog and razor-blades
dry your eyes/And – into sprays of Frazer’s out of her ever-versatile facial
turn your head hieroglyphic warble- orifice. The title track, ‘Cherry
away”, croons Cave, baubles, the Twins’ next Coloured Funk’, ‘Frou Frou Foxes
wandering over step is always to stand In The Midsummer Fires’ and the
Scott Walker’s back from the pretty single ‘Iceblink Luck’ benefit hugely
memory and wreckage, refusing to from having rock hearts with pop
losing himself clear up or explain the arteries, and ‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’
in his own mess they’ve made. is a beautiful sounding album. But
massive, Our minds are supposed it’s spoilt for me by what I interpret
magnificent to do all the talking, as a stench of pomp and dishonesty.
melody. ‘The Ship and while it is right and So, listen and enjoy by all means,
Song’ is similarly good that music should be but play the naughty twins at their
dramatic, one breath away left open to interpretation, let’s own game. Remain detached, do
from being overblown. not fool ourselves that anything not be duped into believing their
Cave, unembarrassed by his other than our own sense of music means anything. At the end of
frankness, is floating proudly on melodramatic self-importance the day The Cocteau Twins are little
the swelling sophistication. is connecting with the self- more than cold-eyed midwives who
And tragedy taints every important melodrama in them. make music for people who wish
tear: the family-aimed fury of Worse, it’s all quite they’d never been born.
the title track is wracked and intentional. Exactly the This mortal coil is not a cosmic
sneering; ‘The Weeping opposite of their contraceptive device. It is life itself.
Song’ is noise torture, an affectedly queer, When The Cocteau Twins realise
STEVE DOUBLE/CHRISTINA BIRRER

unforced document ethereal media this, they will scream their first
of a dispirited ‘image’, The honest breath. Then the birth rate
community; Liz Frazer: Cocteau Twins – for which some already hold them
while ‘The hieroglyphic are actually partly responsible – will really soar.
Hammer warble-baubles Barbara Ellen

NME ORIGINALS 137

 Southern DeAth
Existential Elvis Cult

t
‘ he Sisters Of Mercy, Mark Three I guess, merits of Sigue Sigue (“the first to do this, the 1959 (a vintage year) and adores cats, women,
are back, and facing up to reality like first to do that, we invented sampling, Prince drugs, and old Bowie records, we get along like a
goth always did. The highly confusing said hello to me”), he comes round to today. fairly warm house. After a few minutes he even
new line-up is Andrew Eldritch, Tony I tell him I came here as a Sisters person. takes his shades off.
James (formerly of Generation X and Sigue I thought that was the game. He agrees to Eldo is fantastically, magnificently, withered,
Sigue Sputnik), Tim Bricheno (formerly of All agree. He reckons the difference between him and talks like Michael Caine. So, where’s he been
About Eve), and Andreas Bruhn. There’s a new and Eldritch is that he reads GQ magazine and since the ‘Floodland’ album?
single called ‘More’, co-written by Eldritch and Eldritch doesn’t, though they both respect “Hamburg. I like the people. I like the
Jim Steinman, and an imminent album, ‘Vision the erotic potential of gas masks. James’ guest list cigarette machines that work. Where I live
Thing’. And a tour. The previous ones have been for the Wembley show was so big that another everything’s open all night, but not dangerously
legendary; one recalls the “farewell” fog-fest at night was added. This may or may not be a joke. so, just civilised. With a little bit of an edge.”
the Royal Albert Hall in 1985. And anyone that Tony is actually quite funny. He makes us all Would you get bored if there wasn’t an edge?”
covers Hot Chocolate’s ‘Emma’ deadpan is cool laugh. I just worry that laughing is not entirely “Yeah, I would. I couldn’t live in Holland or
as fuck, let’s face it. what The Sisters Of Mercy are all about. Sweden or any of those places where everybody’s
The records are pretty much what you’d “What do I do in this band?”
expect, ‘More’ being a shameless rewrite of James asks. “I’m in charge of
Bowie’s ‘Cat People’, and the album setting going out. You see, you can
streets of suitably dark and decadent imagery have the misery and the
to every Bowie/Iggy trick in the book. pain – that’s him – and the
The Sisters’ vinyl return is not bad at all – in fun too. That’s my side;
fact it’s probably about one-twentieth as good the two co-exist. We’ve
as Eldritch thinks it is. known each other years.
It can work.”
His attitudes and motives are wholly
commendable. Eldritch plays The Star from Tim Bricheno reckons he
dusk to dawn. To interview he’s a dream – smart, was always leaning towards
wry, laconic, erudite, deluded but not deluded, the rockier side of All About
and just a little bit nasty. He may, however, have Eve, used to be a Sisters fan,
underestimated popular antipathy towards his and “never dreamed I’d end
new collaborator Mr James. To most, he’s that up being one of them”. Tim
bloke from the Sputniks who hung out with is sweet and ingenuous. Or
Janet Street-Porter. maybe he’s just as jet-lagged
It’s difficult to picture Tony James ascending as everyone else, their plane
enigmatically on a black cloud above Hades, back from an LA video
a veritable horseman of the apocalypse. The shoot for ‘More’ having
forthcoming shows will require large quantities landed this same day.
of dry ice to make that one wash – enough Eldritch doesn’t know the
smoke to hide the portable phone, anyway. meaning of fatigue. Or
As if to hang himself, Tony James starts on at rather he possesses such
me about my review of the last Sputnik album, an abundance of willpower
tells me Martin Degville is after my blood, all that he can conquer it with
that sort of stuff. I gaze at him in disbelief – how ease. He soon relaxes his
could any grown man defend that tosh? – so innate superiority complex.
after a 20-minute lecture on the life-affirming As the man was born in

EXCESS ALL
It’s been two years since ‘Floodland’ reinstated Eldritch
as the Godfather of Goth. Now he’s back with a new
single, a new band and a new album. Chris Roberts
discovers why he’s the last great rock’n’roll star
MM, 6 October 1990, p32

138 NME ORIGINALS

 1990-1992

sensible and knows what they’re doing.” always taken the view that what I want to give When did you first think it was ludicrous?
What preoccupies you? them is what they need. What they want is “When they first put me at the front. When
“Same as everybody else really. Women. neither here nor there. I know what’s best. That’s I was the drummer I thought, ‘This is all
Drugs. Newspapers. My attitudes have shifted my job. And my brief. To do what I want.” right’. And then I found myself at the front,
a little. I’m drinking again now. I spent a long Is that the role of ‘the rock star’? probably because I was one of the world’s worst
time not drinking as a reaction. By the time we “It’s the role of a great one. That’s not to say drummers, and I thought, ‘Oh dear, this is
finished touring last time I was doing almost a that anybody that does it is great.” pretty uncool’. And, er, it’s still pretty uncool.”
litre of gin a day. I’m keeping an eye on it this Do you set out to enlighten, or pervert? You seem to have taken to it like a duck to
time ’cos alcohol’s not very good for me. It doesn’t “I’ve never taken the view that any form of water.
turn me into a better person; it just makes me fall art is really to tell anybody anything they didn’t “No, it terrifies me. And the more people turn
asleep in public more. Or fall over.” know. Particularly in a medium as wonderfully up the more terrified I get. I still go out there
ludicrous as rock’n’roll, I don’t think you can terrified. And preferably out of my skull.”
Are you giving the punters what they want? convince anybody of anything they didn’t think But you seem… immobile in your calm.
“Oh, I hadn’t really thought about that. I’ve or know already.” “It’s like a rabbit in the headlights. Well…

Sisters Mark Three:

(l to r) Tony James,
“Last time we toured I was doing almost
Andreas Bruhn,
Andrew Eldritch,
a litre of gin a day. Alcohol doesn’t make
Tim Bricheno
me a better person, it just makes me
fall asleep in public more”
rabbits probably move, don’t they? I don’t know
much about nature…”
Rabbits do freeze in headlights, apparently.
“Yeah? OK, like a rabbit in the headlights.
Only thing is, I’ve got a steel core and when the
car hits it comes off worse.
“This sounds outrageous, but I truly believe
that you can tell how intelligent a woman is by
the ways she moves her hips. I really do think
you can. And I hope there’s something about my
hips that screams intelligence at 10,000 people
every time I take the stage.”
Like an end of the millennium Elvis?
“Uh-huh. Elvis meets Kierkegaard.”

What’s your ideal of beauty?

“Do you know, the record company is still
keeping me apart from Ofra Haza. I suspect Ofra
Haza is probably it, Joanna Lumley having made
it past her sell-by date.”
Aren’t women the most beautiful things on

AREAS
this earth?
“No.”
Oh. Then what is? (Thinks: if he says cats, I’ll
say the album’s great.)
“I find cats the most beautiful thing.”
The album’s great.
“You can tell the intelligence of a cat also by
the way it moves. It’s the same kind of flowing
grace when it’s just right, but with a kind of
slyness in the great cats.”
So does beauty fade with age for you?
“Yes but you can still tell it in the eyes. Beauty
changes. It gets rechannelled. I mean if Joanna
Lumley walked through the door now, you’d be
outta here in a flash, I can tell you.”
I ask the by now immensely likeable Eldritch
if he realises he’s missing a Manchester United
game on telly as we speak and he grumbles,
“Yeah, thanks to you.” His is an innovative and
charming way of winning one over.
Can you have a good time without drugs?
“Oh yeah. I have to.”
What’s perfect contentment for you?
“A quiet room, four blank walls, and a cat.
TOM SHEEHAN

I could sit happily in that room for a very

long time.”

NME ORIGINALS 139

 Dogs On Heat

The album is mid-priced, and

NME, 27 OCTOBER 1990, p40
made up of outtakes from the

THE SISTERS original ‘Carved In Sand’ sessions.

Several of its tracks have already
OF MERCY been released as B-sides.
Vision Thing ‘Grains Of Sand’ really does
(Merciful Release) expose The Mission’s most hopeless
There was nowhere to go after and hilarious moments that the
‘Floodland’. Eldritch stood on the band have been quite careful to sift
brink of the void, posing an ever from all previous album releases.
more crushing question: what to It is, however, worth a bluey
do when you’ve simply on the strength of Track Five,
grasped the glory of Cut to the perv a fragile masterpiece of Side One – written
the global death kick parlour game staged suffering. “I’ve in brass and ivory for
and the holocaust just – ‘Ribbons’, in which seen the best of men a music hall chorus
don’t come? ‘ Eldritch, a victim go past”, he sings in a line, ‘Mr Pleasant’ is
So Eldritch did a of his own desires, pained contradiction the Mission’s most
whole lot of nothing. is taunted for his of resignation and magnificently ludicrous
He hung around weakness by the god melodrama, “I don’t moment ever.
Hamburg and of his disgust. “Love is a wanna be the last”. Another priceless
laughed his hollow many splintered thing”, It’s harrowing and track is ‘Heaven Sends
self hoarse at the he puns, smug bastard, hilarious and, behind You’ in which we find
black joke he’d played upon himself and men with more the theatricality, more honest Wayne pontificating
until, well, finally he had to do sin than sense nod knowingly. If than he ever hopes we’ll know. over the female orgasm: “I’ll run
something. So he did what the rest ‘Detonation Boulevard’ is more Billy Steve Sutherland my tongue between your legs/I’ll
of us do. He plunged headlong into Idol napalm thrill than Iggy Pop kiss you, kiss you, kiss you on your
life’s little pleasures – sex, drugs and art nihilism, ‘When You Don’t See sex/And I’ll take, take, take you in my
NME, 27 OCTOBER 1990, p36
rock’n’roll – all the sideshows that, Me’ is a wicked conceit. “Get real”, mouth/I’ll kiss you until heaven sends
whether we care to admit it or not, he advises the babe he’s using, you”. Phew! Erm, shuddering stuff,
we employ to distract us from our “Get another”. This macho Eldritch THE MISSION readers, honestly!
inevitable end. is one wounded beast and, when Grains Of Sand The lows are Wayne’s crap
And guess what? When the he makes emotional demands in (Mercury) acoustic Lennonism ‘Love’ and the
smoke cleared and the sweat dried ‘More’, the single Steinman spiced Much as I love Wayne Hussey dour, pompous ‘Sweet Smile Of A
and Eldritch stood there blasted up with wailing chicks, it’s as if his because he is perhaps the very Mystery’, featuring what appears to
and brazen and sore to his soul, spite is leading some poor stray last great rock’n’roll romantic, it’s be a London Philharmonic wheel-
he realised something that raised into committed suffering. If I can’t only fair to advise the discerning through. Both tracks should never
a pulse in his dead creativity. He escape the pain, he seems to be consumer that ‘Grains Of Sand’ have been allowed any form of
realised that all our little pleasures saying, it amuses me to pass it on. is neither a fluent nor cohesive public access.
fuck us up too. My favourite fantasy Mr E is Mission release. Mary Anne Hobbs
At last Eldritch had stumbled ‘Doctor Jeep’, where, across a riff
upon the rudimentary impulses like an accelerating Harley, our
of rock, something his intelligence wretched matinee idol St Vitus
had shielded him from before dances through a rush of TVOD,
– betrayal and revenge in all their the inanity, the corruption, the
devious guises. hypocrisy, the lies all embraced
So ‘Vision Thing’ is a beauty of as evidence amassed in his case
vindictive bile, a self-inflicted bruise. against the world. It’s ridiculously
It’s a paradigm of self-delusion, petulant, of course, puerile even,
Eldritch apparently under the but what great rock’n’roll ain’t?
impression that, if he adopts a cruel, Eldritch wants us to think he’s
devil-may-care attitude, that bitter beyond worrying – it’s his greatest
power will serve as a temporary con yet. He’s calling the trials
salvation, a vacation from the and tribulations down upon his
doubts that gnaw at his vanity. It’s head because it makes him feel
probably the best he could hope for. alive. That’s why he’s hauled out
I think it is quite magnificent. Tony James, a figure unfairly but
With a truly epic petulance, hopelessly ridiculed by many. It’s
Eldritch has cast himself in a series of Andy’s big ‘Fuck you’.
imaginary movies so audacious, one Even when he gets vulnerable
can do nothing but crack a grin and in ‘I Was Wrong’ and ushers us
salute him. “Twenty-five whores in into a bar-room confessional, he
the room next door” – that’s the way draws us in just close enough to
it starts! The Sisters’ characteristic slip a metaphoric blade down his
brooding is blasted to shreds by sleeve and deliver devastation. “I
a riff ransacked from Eldritch’s can love my fellow man”, he says in
favourite comic book heroes, The an awful whisper, “But I’m damned The Cult: Ian Astbury
rocks the gay Native
Screaming Blue Messiahs, and if I’ll love yours”. His quick wit even American Nazi ‘look’.
kamikaze driven into a collision of betrays the crisis of heartbreak and Again
sweet ass and brutal assassination ‘Something Fast’, a melancholy
by ex-Only One John Perry. anthem to the elixir of hedonism, is

140 NME ORIGINALS

 1990-1992

bonkers. The light and

NME, 21 September 1991, p32
shade is provided by Ian’s
autobiographical ‘Heart Of
THE CULT Soul’, and ‘Indian’ even has
Ceremony a cello part, preparing the
(Beggars Banquet) way for the unexpectedly
It’s comforting to know that here we gossamer territory of
are, it’s 1991 and The Cult still aren’t ‘Sweet Salvation’ (Ian’s
afraid to rock. There are no shifting tribute to his latest flame)
sands of ambiguity with these guys and the restrained finale,
– you know where you stand with ‘Wonderland’.
Duffy and Astbury, and it’s on very Despite the fact that
solid ground. They’re very, very Astbury does sound
good indeed at being a rock’n’roll unnervingly like Freddie
band (and hey – don’t forget, it’s just Mercury in his more ridiculous
a job). Unlike Guns N’Roses, they moments, ‘Ceremony’ delivers
don’t let it get out of control. The what it promises – riffs, noise,
Cult play it straight by the rules. hollering, but also deftness,
“Ceremony/Rock’n’roll music got delicacy, a haunting quality.
you good now people” just about The important thing is that it is
says it all. And that’s Track One, Side not bombastic or portentous
One. Cue Astbury giving it plenty – it has a sense of humour
of “yaayah” and “baybee”, Duffy without spilling over into
carving up the fretboard, and you parody, and they are pleased
can rest assured that to be haunted by the
you ain’t gonna get ghost of Led Zep.
lumbered with any The Cult are a
dodgy covers of old very, very good
Wings tunes here. rock band indeed.
You get all the Red They are also
Indian vibe of course very, very funny.
– but we can live with Cue Ian: “This hip
that, eh, me braves? young dude stood
Because this might passionately/
seem piss-easy, but Succumbing to the
it’s a craft, this Cult thing. Astbury’s he-dog sound of the mystifying
The Mish: keep
impossible dreamer on the wild beat combo/That breaks down the masks on
plains where the eagle flies is your door” (‘Wonderland’). in future, if you
tethered to Planet Earth by Duffy’s Hilarious yes, but this dog, he don’t mind
driving riffs, harnessing him to the is on heat.
rock beast that earns them a living Betty Page which unite whole tribes of people is The Mish at an OAP’s tea dance,
before he floats into Navajo heaven. into a happy mass of sweating attempting the goff cha-cha. It is
Non-rock fans like The Cult apathy. This time around, they’ve cute and very frightening.
NME, 13 June 1992, p31
because their noise is what they released ‘Masque’, their alleged Which is different, but many small
imagine rock should sound like “dance” album. The Mission’s idea things are different about ‘Masque’.
– bad motor-scooter guitar frenzy THE MISSION of a dance album is not like yours Everything may be infused with the
tempered with nifty picking, full- Masque or mine, largely because you can’t patent Hussey screaming passion
throated wails, alternating with (Phonogram) dance to half of it at all and the about anything that comes into his
touches of melodic delicacy and Ah, The Mission. The goth’s goths. other half consists of stomping goth head, but ‘Masque’ is imaginative
quasi-mystical lyrical tosh. Just What in the name of God are The anthems with drums, which you in a Mish kind of way. And at least
like in ‘Wild Hearted Son’, in fact. Mission for? Like, in a world where can dance to, but not in the popular one song is cracking; the charming
The best rawk doesn’t experiment the bands who are supposed to be techno sense of the word. Which is ‘Like A Child Again’, in which
or venture into self-indulgence. It good at pomp rock – step up to the fine, but strange. Wayne loses his fear of the dark and
constantly reinvents itself, even mic, U2 – are shite at it, what hope ‘Masque’ opens with ‘Never gambols like a spring lamb through
if it dances on the knife-edge of is there for The Mish, who have Again’ and ‘Shades Of Green’, both fields of melody.
pastiche. It’s a gut centred, visceral never been good at anything other thumping dance-rock things that So perhaps ‘Masque’ is the sound
thing. And Billy and Ian know that. than operating dry ice machines sound a little like an elephantine of The Mission lightening up and
The endless bleak vistas of and wearing hats? The EMF. It goes on to crash throwing open the curtains in the
the epic ‘White’ lend themselves middle ground below through horror Cure dusty ballrooms of their soul.
immediately to extended work- the Bono space station goth waltzes like ‘The In three albums’ time, The
outs, false endings, tempo changes of loud but mysterious Spider And The Fly’ Mission will be dressed as clowns,
and all, Astbury (almost) rapping toss and somewhere and classy Wayne-isms fighting a beaming war against
his holistic message, “We have lost above Fields Of like ‘From One Jesus To the sore-encrusted leviathan of
touch with our spiritual nature/ ‘Cos The Nephilim is a Another’, which asks PompBono as U2 suck the living
we are wrapped up in too much shit”. financially profitable the question: “Jesus brains out of small children. For
PETER ANDERSON/TOM SHEEHAN

No macho strutting here – these are but artistically glum walked on the water/But now, however, they are still The
positivity fops in corduroy kecks. place. did he walk on the air?” Mission as we know and sort of love
‘Full Tilt’ kicks in Stones-style Still, The Mission There’s a barmy crooning them, only with a few new ideas and
just so we don’t forget why we’re forge on, caring less than one jot song with a Kinks-style beat called a sequencer. Hurrah for that.
here, and proceeds to go metal about the critics and making records ‘She Conjures Me Wings’, which David Quantick

NME ORIGINALS 141

 The
Mansion Family NME, 18 April 1992, p24

Between thinking of buying small Cornish villages and uncharted Islands, The Cure have
recorded their ninth album in all its sticky-up-haired glory. Reformed goth Andrew Collins
is granted an audience with the world’s most lucrative pantomime
 1990-1992

t
he embers of six months crackle in actually seen the world; teen angst gone mad. and it comes with hexagons on. I backcomb it a
the fireplace. A fine old chessboard But goth music was filling the Albert Hall by lot too. I did use mousse for a while, but it used to
sits unattended. The tang of freshly 1986, in the stark, skeletal form of The Sisters Of drip onto my nose when I was on stage.”
percolated coffee mingles with the Mercy. Many of the goth bands gave the genre a – Robert Smith, Just 17, August 1985
comforting funk of Irish wolfhound and oak. bad name, though some of them extracted high
The grandfather clock is stuck permanently at drama, cut-price kicks and even some humour Face it, The Cure’s ludicrous look has been their
12. The ghostly sound of piano keys being jabbed from the goth manifesto of unforgiving railroad fortune. Robert Smith, in his over-generous
filters through into the empty snooker room. rhythms, guitar histrionics, Hammer imagery fluffy sweater, wrinkled black drainpipes and the
On the sideboard sits a bottle of Sandeman’s and lost chords. undone trainers of a much larger man, crowned
port, a single daffodil, a discarded archery arrow But it was The Cure, from Crawley in Sussex, with that award-winning ha-ha-ha-have-you-
and a garish tube of Living Nightmare Glow-In- who took it out of the belfry and into the front had-an-electric-shock hairdo, is, whether he
The-Dark Make-Up. Someone upstairs is playing room. It was Robert Smith whose own particular likes it or not, a modern-day icon.
‘Loveless’ by My Bloody Valentine. brand of back-combed foppishness found a place On the day I meet up with The Cure at Chez
We are in the heart of verdant Oxfordshire. in the glossy pop papers. Dick, they look very much like The Cure. Smith
The clock might, if it was working, strike four. The Cure grew into a goth hit machine (19 to may have trimmed his head-topiary recently, and
So, who lives in a house like this? date), an international phenomenon and, yep, the blind man’s lipstick is absent, but he is still a
It’s The Cure – or, as Roger Daltrey had it on the most successful alternative band that ever satisfying caricature of himself.
last year’s Brits, when he presented their Best shuffled disconsolately about the earth. Their Large, bird-like bassist Simon Gallup claims
British Group award – “The Kyoo-aarhh!” only contender in the profit-margin stakes at that all five of them happened to wear black
The Manor studio, at Shipton-on-Cherwell, record company Polydor is James Last. And he because, “It’s the most practical colour, you don’t
owned by Richard Branson (as hinted at by the makes two albums a year. have to wash it till you smell,” but this is clearly
embarrassing hippy mural of Phil Collins, Mike To deftly write goth off as a peculiarly a reflex cover-up (and a typical dose of laddish
Oldfield, Feargal Sharkey and Peter Gabriel ’80s phenomenon is to deny the existence of hygiene bravado to boot).
halfway up the stairs) costs around £6,000 a hundreds of black-clad, aromatic, asexual If The Cure changed, thousands of sprayed
week to rent. But The Kyoo-aarrhh can weather gormtroopers who huddle in coffee shops and teenagers the world over would feel cheated
that. They are, after all, the most popular and refectories and branches of the Body Shop and betrayed. The Cure are loved and invested
successful cult band in the world. up and down the land to this day. The goth is in and stuck onto walls because – since their
And this, for the time being, is their house. (despite appearances) alive and unwell. commercial watershed in 1984 – they NEVER
There is a rumour going about the place that All About Eve are not a goth band. Nor are CHANGE.
a) Branson is thinking of selling up; and b) The The Sisters of Mercy. At least, that’s what they ‘Wish’ – despite the band’s protestations
Cure are thinking of buying. This would be say. Being a goth means, well, never having – is another Cure record. This is no put-down.
good. Robert Smith and his quaintly dishevelled, to say you’re a goth. Goths think ‘lazy’ music Another Cure record is a good thing. If ‘Wish’
forever-adolescent thirtysomething pals should journalists invented the term. They did. were a film, it wouldn’t win any individual
live together in the same elegant country The question is, will The Cure admit to Oscars, but would probably scoop one of those
mansion with tons of wolfhounds and chess and being a goth band? Are they embarrassed that Lifetime Achievement Awards. That’s the sort
grouse-shooting. they invented – or at the very least popularised, of album it is. In short, masterful slowie ‘Trust’
You wish. legitimised, patented – goth? on Side Two made me want to weep in an
Robert: “Do you think we did really? When underpass, and the single ‘High’ miraculously
The 1980s: now there was a funny decade for we were making ‘Pornography’ there wasn’t any cured my flu when they put it in the office.
our old pal pop music. The Smiths, Madness, such a thing as goth, we were just miserable, not ‘Disintegration’, The Cure’s last LP in 1989,
New Order, The Human League, Frankie Goes like goth with the flour and the hats, all that. sold in excess of three million copies worldwide.
To Hollywood, ABC, Public Enemy, The Stone I’ve never actually liked goth bands. I’ve always So why make another record?
Roses, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Margaret despised The Sisters Of Mercy.” “Why did we make the last one?” asks Robert,
Thatcher, acid house. You were there. But Why? rhetorically.
something else happened between the years “’Cos the music’s shit.” Is there any thing else you can get? Any more
1980 and 1989, and it was somewhere between “I always use gel, not hairspray. It’s called KMS fame, any more satisfaction, any more cash?
a fashion movement and a creeping “It’s not about continual gain.
mould on the underside of post-punk
Britain. It was gothic rock, or goth, “I’ve never actually liked goth We don’t think, ‘It’s about time The
Cure made another album, if we

bands, ’cos the music’s shit”

so called because it investigated the make one more the bank balance
grandiose and the macabre, the dark gets a bit bigger.’ I look forward to
and the doomy. our new records. There are very few
From out of the things that you genuinely look
disenfranchised sneer of forward to hearing.”
punk it came, a more verbose, The Cure are still going
decorative incarnation which because they tend not to shed
borrowed its greasepaint and their audience. You can always
finery from glam rock, and spot an older Cure fan – they’ve
its morose indulgence from grown out of having the funny
European metal machine sticky-up hair.
music. David Bowie, Edgar The band themselves pull it
Allen Poe, Morticia Addams off because they are The Cure.
and Frank-N-Furter went to It’s harder to have funny, sticky-up
the carnival and someone hair when you’re 30 and living in
turned the lights out. the real world.
Your goth was an Robert: “I haven’t got funny
apolitical animal, nocturnal, sticky-up hair.”
PAUL COX/ DEREK RIDGERS

introspective, tribal, almost It’s quite funny.

“Hey, great hair!
hermaphrodite. The goth The job’s yours”: “There’s a lot weirder-looking
was also about 19, world- Perry Bamonte people – older than us – walking
weary without having (second right) joins around in Oxford. They shout


Bob’s happy band

NME ORIGINALS 143

 Let’s Get Happy

NME, 18 April 1992, p26

THE CURE
Wish
(Fiction)

In some ways, The

Cure embody
everything
appalling about
rock music. They
make sulky, selfish

singles about how things out to you!” off twice, because it went into my hair. So I cut it
great it is being a kitten and Simon: “But they are social misfits.” off. I’ve cut it off three times in the last five years,
then follow them with maudlin albums Robert: “On the whole, yes.” each time for a different reason. Cycling is the most
about how everything is dark and the absurd so far.”
crows are pecking at one’s gangrenous The Cure look healthy. Why?
eyes. But here is ‘Wish’ and once again Robert: “You should’ve seen us in all our cycling The Cure have a licence to print money. They could
The Cure are forgiven, the bastards. kit round September time, that would’ve blown all stick out any old toss at this stage, put a squiggly
‘Wish’ makes you talk about how the myths.” drawing on the front and call it ‘Spiders In My
Smith is a master of rock writing and Yep. The Cure have been mountain-biking Eyes’ and the cash would roll in. Surely there is a
an eclectic pop talent. The 12 songs around Oxfordshire while at The Manor, a regular fiscal reason for them being here…
here are, almost without exception, six-mile circuit to their fave pub and back. How, Robert: “The only thing I’ve wanted to buy on
bold displays of genius. Every kind of exactly, did they get back from the pub? any grand scale in the last few years was an island
Cure music is in here, done better than “Slowly.” in the middle of the Channel which came up for
ever. We get: cute songs about kittens! Ha ha. sale. There was a big concrete fortress on it,
Raving death and gloom rock anthems! The Cure are funny. Prone to lucrative built during the war, it was fucking excellent.
Noodling dance pop! New Order rip- miserablism, sure, and we love them for that, but But it was four and a half million pounds or
offs! Beatle rip-offs! Jovial optimism! as five people, they can be summed up by the something. It’s not on the maps or anything, ’cos
Major glumathons! And lots more. scraps of paper stuck to the studio wall. There are it was a secret.
We begin with the astonishing ‘Open’, snippets of Emily Dickinson, true, but these are “A village once went up for sale in Cornwall for
which has a guitar part that sounds like very much outnumbered by childish cartoons a pitiful amount of money, and we toyed with the
the “Hello, hello” bit off ‘Teen Spirit’ and of The Cure’s driver and odd-job man, Bruno, idea of buying that. That would take the unreality
rocks like six tons of iron, and we end drawn by the band and usually portraying him as a to an extreme. We’d put road blocks up and
with, erm, ‘End’, which actually sounds balloon-like perv with a ten-foot knob. diversion signs.”
like Nirvana themselves attempting to That’s the duality of The Cure. A colleague
play ‘Are Friends Electric?’ backwards. of mine who wouldn’t piss on The Cure’s music “I would love it if everyone was forced to listen to
Along the way, Bob goes for jangle during a water-shortage admits that we need them at least one Cure record,” says Robert.
pop with ‘Friday I’m In Love’, vomitously because they are stars and artists (ie flamboyant, Which one?
sings “sticky as lips and licky as chips” on visual, pretentious, enigmatic, all that good “It depends whether it was
‘High’ and even says “Fuck” on the nearly and forgotten stuff that pop stars used to be to upset them or not.”
twee ‘Wendytime’. contractually obliged to bring along). Meanwhile, One of each.
The charming ‘Doing The Unstuck’ the new breed of indie ‘star’ is utterly bereft of the “‘Disintegration’, and ‘Friday I’m In Love’.”
is full of such jaunty aphorisms as “It’s pizazz and danger and mystery which The Cure The clock, were it working, would strike five.
a perfect day for making out” and “It’s old-fashionedly prescribe to. My 60 minutes of The Cure are up. I pack The Cure
never too late to get up and go” and Bob “Ah, but we were like that when we first started,” interview away into my little black army surplus
even feels compelled to sing “LET’S GET reasons Robert. “I can see why a lot of groups do it bag (a legacy, I dare say), and ask Robert why they
HAPPY!” occasionally. Conversely, the – we actually did it ourselves, that non-image. By should go on the cover of New Gothic Express.
slow and haunting ‘Trust’ is a dignified the time of the ‘Kiss Me’ album, it’d reached the “Sometimes I think, ‘Why should we be on
plea for love wherein Smith solemnly other extreme, the cover when
sings, “There is no one left in the world
who I can turn to/You are the only one”.
we’d become a
pantomime act. “ By the time of ‘Kiss Me’ , there’s other
groups who are
‘Wish’ is an album in the old-fashioned
sense of loads of songs that don’t sound
much like each other, but do sound like
But we don’t look
like this now and
then, and like
we were a pantomime act ” getting their first
chance, or their
only chance to be
they’ve all got some kind of sensibility something else when we’re not doing this. Unlike on the cover?’ But then I think, ‘Why shouldn’t we
in common. It has an enormous amount you, I would go shopping with my hair up, and I be on the cover? We make a fucking sight better
of quite justified faith in itself, and best could have my hair like that at home. records than at least 40 of the groups who are on
of all, where it has no tunes, it has a “Anyway, we had some quite bright cycling the cover.”
monstrous amount of noise. outfits! See and be seen!” Hurrah! The next journo in line is wearing a
Once again we have to conclude that Was your hair up when you went cycling? suit, I inform them.
there is no one like The Cure. And ‘Wish’ “That’s actually the reason why I cut it all off. “That means we’ll all stand up when he leaves.
DEREK RIDGERS

may even be their best album. We used to come home from the pub on this tow Unlike you. Ha ha ha ha!”
David Quantick path, and there was a low hanging bit, and I came Cheers.

144 NME ORIGINALS

 1990-1992

needs protecting from the strain

MM, 13 October 1990, p40
NME, 13 January 1990, p15 of spontaneous effusions, like
a heart weakened by too much
THE MISSION smoking. It’s as if Nick Cave is no SISTERS OF MERCY
Butterfly On A Wheel longer up to being direct with us. More
(Myth) Hence the formalities, the archaic (Merciful Release)

Puke universe! The “butterfly restraint of ‘The Weeping Song’ I don’t mean to be a killjoy. I do
on a wheel” reference is taken Over a trolling, downcast realise that Andrew Eldritch is the
from a ‘60s Times editorial which shanty backbeat, Cave and funniest cartoon character this
asked whether it was worth using Bargeld engage in a ‘There’s A side of Bart Simpson and Bart’s
the full force of law every time Hole In My Bucket’-type dialogue big brother Billy Idol. But I have a
a pop star was caught taking in which all the world weeps for horrible suspicion that there are
drugs. Of course it is! Wipe out MM, 22 September 1990, p35 our sad lot. Touching if you’re people over the age of 12 who
the drug supply and you wipe out willing to go along with the take this laughable nonsense
the ‘music.’ The Mish, however, THE CURE courtly rituals that lead you to the seriously, and that’s truly sad.
demand more direct action. I Never Enough heart of the song. Unfortunately ‘More’ is the usual dull, gruff,
want you all to put on balaclavas (Fiction) the word that springs to mind absurdly pompous rumble
tonight, sneak into your local Profoundly baggacious, ‘Never when considering listening to punctuated with plastic soul wails
record shop and smash with Enough’ trips and flops around new Nick Cave records is “should” about needing love – as if Eldritch
hammers every copy of this record the room like an army of wazzy rather than “want”. didn’t adore himself with more
you can find. rejects gone AWOL. Fuzztone Nick Cave sounds like a man than enough torrid passion to
Steven Wells Roses guitar and lobotomised who will never scream again. make any other lover redundant.
Mondays bass, topped off with David Stubbs Dave Jennings
Robert Smith’s overripe hiccups,
stutters and whoops. Arguments
about who’s ripping who off end
here,as do questions about the
extent to which Smith’s tongue
is penetrating his cheek. Because
‘Enough’ is enough. A hit.
Paul Lester

NME, 1 September 1990, p16

COCTEAU TWINS NME, 20 October 1990, p22 NME, 23 May 1992, p17
Iceblink Luck
(4AD) THE CURE THE CURE
Thankfully the Cocteaus have Close To Me Friday I’m In Love
discarded the “Noddy and (Fiction) (Fiction)

Tinkerbell indulge in sensual From the heavy metal brain Another Cure single. Usual
massage” approach that so surgery of ‘Never Enough’ we Cure tune, always liked it. It is
exasperated semi-fans like me flop back in time to ’85’s ‘Close To remarkable only in that Robert
who always wanted Liz Frazer to MM, 15 September 1990, p34 Me’, a preview for Bob and co’s makes no reference to either cats
kick vocal ass a little.
JC: “That’s quite good for them.”
NICK CAVE & ‘Mixed Up’ album, with that Paul
Oakenfold doing the remixing
or Japanese babies, but Cure fans
will be reassured by the fact that
BD: “The Cocteau Twins have THE BAD SEEDS here. The panting, snuffling, Robert goes “Dooby dooby doo”
never given a fuck about what’s The Weeping Song claustrophobic original remains at least four times and sings at
happening around them. They just (Mute) pretty much intact (although I one point about spinning around
get on and do what they do and “This is a weeping song/A song don’t remember the daffy, jazz “like a sheep”. And he doesn’t take
they seem to the getting better at in which to weep”. These days, sax solo) and Oakenfold wodges drugs like the crappy Mancy Shite
it. Attitude matters just as much as Nick Cave songs are epic, stagey, on a fairly standard shuffle dance Wankers and those other rubbish
the music in most cases.” deliberately contrived – as if, after rhythm. Not one of the triumphs bands. He also goes “Owy owy
Barbara Ellen with Bill all those years of filthy, shrieking of dance/rock interbreeding. ooooh!” That’s my favourite bit.
Drummond & Jimmy Cauty (KLF) catharsis his battered spirit Roger Morton Steven Wells

NME ORIGINALS 145

 Let Sleeping Dogs Die?

Queens of noise:
Originals Editor Steve
Sutherland with Wayne
Hussey of The Mission at
the Metal Gurus’ video
shoot, London, 1990

EDITORIAL 25th Floor, King’s Reach Tower, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LS EDITOR Steve Sutherland ART EDITOR Jimmy Young PICTURE EDITOR Monica Chouhan (020 7261 5245) PRODUCTION EDITOR Tom Mugridge
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