Chart entered : 14 June 1986
Chart peak : 70
This is a continuation of stories we've already begun in the Dead Or Alive and Sisters of Mercy posts.
In the summer of 1985 recording sessions for a second Sisters of Mercy album broke down with first bassist Craig Adams and then guitarist Wayne Hussey quitting the band. The pair started demo-ing songs that Andrew Eldritch had rejected for the album and asked Mick Brown of Leeds band Red Lorry Yellow Lorry to drum on the sessions . Red Lorry Yellow Lorry had been going since 1981 and had put out a steady string of singles and an album "Talk About The Weather " on Red Rhino records. Their music was very much in the Sister's shadow, second division, melodically boring Goth-rock which was never going to lift them out of the indie ghetto. Mick was a full member of the group although they often used a drum machine on their recordings. By the end of the year he had decided to jump ship. With Wayne taking on vocal duties they decided to recruit a second guitarist , Sheffield - born Simon Hinkler .
Simon was a multi-instrumentalist and also a producer. He formed his first band TV Product with friends at Sheffield Polytechnic. They shared an EP with another band The Prams in 1979 but I haven't heard either track. Simon left to join Peel favourites Artery in 1981 as keyboard player. He arranged their 1981 single "Afterwards" which sounds like Joy Division , an influence the band always denied. Their next single "The Clown " is much more synth-y with hints of the macabre cabaret leanings of Fad Gadget. Their final single in 1983 was a version of "The Alabama Song" which I haven't heard. Simon took a sabbatical to work on the first album by Pulp but we'll discuss that at the appropriate time.
The group announced they would be playing their first concert in January as "The Sisterhood". Eldritch felt they had broken a gentleman's agreement that neither side would trade on the Sisters' name. He quickly wrote and recorded a new track "Giving Ground" with his friend James Ray on vocals for contractual reasons and put it out as "The Sisterhood " on the same day that Wayne's "Sisterhood" played their first concert. He also set up a company under the name. Wayne and Craig had no option but to surrender it and did a session for Janice Long under the name of "The Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams Band" before deciding on "The Mission" a couple of weeks later.
All this was played out in the full glare of the music press who gleefully reported every twist and turn. In fact it probably gave The Mission priceless publicity for a band whose members were hardly household names.
As Wayne and Craig were still under contract to WEA their first two singles had to come out on independent labels while their manager Tony Perrin , who'd been in TV Product with Simon , worked to extricate them.
Therefore "Serpents Kiss" came out on Chapter 22 while the band did a tour of Europe, The single sets out their stall pretty well. The circular guitar riff immediately recalls the Sisters although with a human drummer the sound is less brittle. Wayne sings with generous use of studio echo trying to convey a similar hauteur to Eldritch and not quite getting there. The lyric is unashamedly sexual ; " A serpent's kiss on that untouched flower" doesn't have many alternative meanings. The song was left off their debut LP , perhaps because of a melodic similarity to the superior "Wasteland ". Getting any sort of hit with your first single on an independent label is an achievement so I'm guessing they were pretty pleased with this.
My favourite Sisters of Mercy music was always the "Floodland" stuff (have to dig the sheer OTTness of it), which would indicate that their earlier stuff was too Goth for my liking. That said, I've always quite liked the song... I recall my first listen, I thought it was the Cult under the vocals come in. It probably would have been even better with a vocalist as strong as Ian Astbury fronting it.
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