Industrial Evolution: Through the Eighties with Cabaret Voltaire by Fish Mick

Author:Fish, Mick [Fish, Mick]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Music & Songs
ISBN: 9781908413000
Publisher: SAF Publishing Ltd
Published: 2011-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

why kill time

(when you can kill yourself)

“falling apart”

1985 rolled into 1986 and it felt like I was still nursing the hangover from our night down the Reeperbahn. I thought about doing music again, or putting on some kind of event, but mostly I just thought about going down the pub. So that’s exactly what I did.

Mal was living in London most of the time by now, so every now and then I would meet up with him and catch up with what was new in the Cabaret Voltaire camp. A party at Mal’s London flat meant rubbing shoulders with New Order, Mark E. Smith, Paul Morley and various assorted hacks, trendies and hasbeens. And of course, never-was-in-the-first-places like myself.

Mal gave me the impression that the whole Sheffield music scene was running out of steam. Unlike Manchester where it was going from strength to strength, Sheffield’s scene was lacking in staying power. Mal was probably right to be tired of its small-minded mentality. He also bravely laboured under the idea that he could keep up Cabaret Voltaire’s profile in London by hanging out with a drinking set that included members of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Rob from the Cocteau Twins and his new mate Pete Wylie. Other regulars in this rock’n’roll clique were Paul Rutherford from Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Mick Jones now fronting Big Audio Dynamite.

“Basically a bunch of people who used to be good at making records, but are now a lot better at drinking and taking drugs,” was one friend’s rather cynical opinion. I nodded along hypocritically. I hadn’t even bothered with the making records side of this equation.

Mal’s move south was swiftly followed by Paul. In the end The Box had made two LPs for Go! Discs (and a live album for Doublevision) before deciding to call it a day. Both the studio LPs had their moments but there was the sense that they couldn’t quite get the balance right. Just as a track started to swing, it was thrown off kilter by some obtuse idea. I sensed that Paul realised that it was never going to gel in the way that he wanted. There were too many people pulling in different directions to achieve the symmetry that the name The Box implied. Perhaps The Dodecahedron would have been a more accurate name.

The Box played a farewell concert at The Leadmill in Sheffield and they positively ripped their material apart in the knowledge that this was the last time they were going to be playing together. Not a pretty sight, but captivating nonetheless. It was a Tuesday night and I remember bumping into Richard as he staggered around in his overcoat (however hot it was he never did take it off). He was trying to juggle two double brandies — one in each hand. Still ebullient as ever, he looked tired. As I juggled my never-ending supply of half-finished beer glasses, God knows what I looked like.

In the end, the split in The Box was amicable and they all went their separate ways.

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