CHAPTER 3. Well Mercy me!
It was January 1989. Andrew said come to Denmark and join the Sisters, make an album... it would only take a couple of months..... What a great idea... Tj joins Goth Gods the Sisters, what a great clash of two really strong personalities... it was like a sideways move and I needed it... a reason to believe in rock and roll again... I felt bad about leaving Neal, but we both knew we needed something to kick start us (in fact Neal came to Denmark too for 2 weeks to play some guitar but Eldritch hated him... now I know why, because whatever he says, its a power thing... if Neal had been involved it would have been a separate cabal inside Andrews power base... uh uh).. well I went to Denmark, to Puk studios in late January... and finished 12 months later!... the result "Vision Thing", a more rock n roll sisters...
Looking back on it , I must have actually recorded for only about 3 hours in that whole time... but what great times me and my girlfriends had in the jacuzzi... working with Andrew, who is more of a fanatic than I can ever be, (and I'm bad) was a complete nightmare... he was soon working all nite and sleeping all day... its like he has to suffer pain or its not art for him... his idea of fun (like a lot of band fanatics I know but not me this time!) is when everybody else is miserable... I tried to stave off this misery by driving the record companies rented car all over Denmark and Germany exploring, while being paid... don't get me wrong - I think Andrew is a genius at what he does and great to talk with as we both share the passion, a bit like me and my best friend Mick Jones...but but but... never work with them - they will eat you alive..... although when the Giant royalty cheque came 2 years later I looked back on those days fondly... watching the cricket, sightseeing, sticking pictures of girls from Vogue all round my part of the studio, getting a letter from Joanna Lumley and photocopying it 100 times, playing games on our new Amiga computers, and discovering Tetris on a new thing called a GameBoy, going to Berlin to see Roger Walters perform the Pink Floyd album The Wall and getting really drunk with my friend Kristianne Backer from MTV and then waking up next morning and going for a canal boat ride round the east German part of Berlin in a strange sunshine... and we made a rocking record... even if on the really slow track Andrew had to play the bassline for me cos I just couldn't get it... my lasting vision of those days in Denmark is when Andrew recorded 120 vocal takes of the 9 minute song Vision Thing (and he never credited me with the lyric "another black hole in the killing zone...)... anyway it took Andrew a week just to listen back to the vocals..... and you wonder why it took a year?
I loved Tim from All about Eve... a really nice
guy, (he too was eventually to fall under the Eldritch axe) who played guitar,
and Andreas Brun, the Guitarist was a sweet German boy..
That year ended and we returned to London to rehearse for gigs... my hair was
very long and black by then and we did these photos in the street in Hamburg
with me looking like Alice Cooper... even slight beard... I was entering
the rock God period!
But you know it was never gonna work... I was just so used it being my group, with my heart like with Gen X and Sputnik... Me contributing... but here I was, just a paid hired hand. I remember making the video for More in LA (OK life wasn't that bad) and the director asking Andrew about everything while I was ordered about like a roadie... a highly paid one I guess...but.. I HATED it. I was full of ideas and I was suffocating.
In LA I called up Billy Idol who came to the
gigs and we hung out at his palatial home on Mulholland drive and looked at all
his sports cars...ahhh this is fun... and he was great... Being in bands
together is a bond you never loose... I saw Steve Jones from the pistols,
saw Matt Dillon at the hotel who was a big Generation X fan, hung out
with Penelope Spheeris who was about to make Waynes World the movie
(I went to the London premier with her a year later), the girls from the Bangles,
stayed at the Mondrian hotel, saw Matt Dyke who we hung out in LA with
when I was there with Sputnik who had now produced Tone Loc ,who was now
huge, and went on a world tour...
But I was already isolated, there was just me, a copy of the latest Vogue and
the good food guide... I checked out all those Michelin starred
restaurants all over Europe (Eldritch liked shit food and speed still and ate
backstage)... I'd met my girlfriend Penelope Kyme by then at a party by Roger
Taylor from Duran Duran in Gloustershire on Bonfire nite and she came
to the East Coast leg of the tour... Eldritch hated her cos she laughed at his
Marks and Spencer (very washed out) underpants and was immediately banned from
the dressing room... but what fun we had in New York, staying at the Paramount
hotel designed by Phillipe Starcke and playing Radio City with
Public Enemy supporting us...It was a rock n roll dream come true, the
USA by bus... and yet I yearned for Sputnik... my baby, this was my
destiny
You know I always really liked Eldritch , one of the few
people in this business who always kept in touch... we had wild times and
adventures, but this was his baby... I became more and more isolated and
in the end I didn't care about the Sisters and he rightly read that and we
agreed we couldn't continue....
Alice and Alice on the street in
Hamburg - the first Sister picture,
note the long hair, beard,
cigarette and leathers its rockertime!
Relaxing in the sun of LA
at the park inn off Sunset
Seems like hard work!
TJ calls it a goodbye day