Phantasmagloria

BEFORE

Yes.  

Yes, it exists in the dark recesses of the human minds.  

Millions of people secretly believing.  

Think of the immense power of all these people combined together.   

Makes this place become a reality, hmm?

- The Doctor

Thousands of years ago, which can’t be right, I lived on top of a hill and next to a park.  In October 1987 there was a storm and a lot of trees came down.  It made getting to school more difficult than it had been previously.

I drifted into music slowly, graduating via cassette and radio audio adventures that usually had some cinematic link until I ended up owning a record player that looked like a coffin: a very long wooden box with inbuilt speakers and the potential to stack records for continuous play (just like a juke box).  I think it was saved from tigers or something but I’ve no real idea where it came from.

School was getting less and less interesting at the same speed that I was getting hairier and more obsessed with comics.  It happens to us all in some way or another. 

Fields of the Nephilim grew out of Carl McCoy’s childhood hobbies.  These were planted in the embers of a band called The Mission¹ and watered with copious amounts of lager.  The music press wasted lakes of ink as they totally missed the point – like they had with Bauhaus – and continued misnaming a scene that should’ve included Joy Division in its list of members’ interests.  At about the same time, a band called The Mission² were listening to Motorhead and making the final arrangements that led to being barred from The Sisterhood in perpetuity. 

This is all set in a time where music mattered.  The metamorphosis of puberty arrived in time to symbiotically graft itself to music and reading, giving a one-size-fits-all identity and, finally, a tribe.  Information was expensive and coded in a bush-telegraph of fanzine articles, gig-lists and flickering glimpses in the grown-up big sheets.  At a pinch, Record Collector and Kerrang were shovelling filler into the hungry and unfillable chasm, hollowed out by all that angst. 

Although I’ve got a map of my past dotted with highlighted markers to show where and when I purchased their singles, albums, bootlegs and so on, I can’t remember where I first heard Fields of the Nephilim.

The Nephilim 2x12” #1735

Our Price, Bristle

I tore the front sticker slightly when slipping it off the cellophane.  The bottom left hand corner came off, but I stuck it back on in more or less the right spot.

Psychonaut

Our Price, Bristle

 Picked up in the same session.  I must’ve had Our Price vouchers.  I wrote to the Neff fan club³ and asked for information about the songs I’d misremembered from the back of a VHS.

Forever Remain VHS

HMV in Bristle, after a lot of coveting

At this point I still hadn’t seen any pictures of the band, so the full live Neff experience was a bit of a surprise – they didn’t look anything like that on record.

Burning the Fields (green)

Fan club³

This came with a shiny badge and two posters.  

 One of the posters was for a cancelled gig in Edinburgh and covered acres.  I hung it up on the side of the building I lived in during my first year at college, with hilarious consequences.

But Can Spock Do This?

Bristle’s Bierkeller, Bristle (record fair)

Interview 1987 7” blue vinyl

Replay, Bristle

Flour Power #201

Cardiff’s Saint David’s Hall, Cardiff (record fair)

Returning to Gehenna

HMV, Bristle

One school trip to Stratford saw the coach stuck in traffic.  The teacher asked if anyone had any cassettes they could play to stave off the boredom.  I handed down my home-bootlegged copy of Returning to Gehenna and, blow me, they played it.  This was a fun way of making myself a pariah for the rest of my school days.

Power

Our Price, Weston Super Mare

Preacher Man

Our Price, Weston Super Mare

 I picked up both of these as the worthwhile part of a geography field trip.  The shop assistant was so excited that someone had finally bought Power that he couldn’t stop talking.  I bumped into the same chap on another geography field trip in Weston Super Mare⁴ where he remembered me, loudly, in front of the rest of the class.  In the end, I failed geography.

Moonchild (longevity)

Replay, Bristle

Yes, it was embossed.

Dawnrazor LP

Spillers, Cardiff

Dawnrazor US LP

Our Price, Bristle

The first time I spent more money than I should’ve in order to hear Blue Water.

Psychonaut
Spillers, Cardiff

Much better cover.

Psychonaut

Record Shop in Cornwall, where I’d been dragged on safari

Moonchild (second seal)

Record Collector 

I love the post and I love getting things through the post.  At about this time I was getting letters and artwork from 2000AD alumni quite often, which put me on an up for the whole week.  I’d taken to cycling around and around and around, often through the night.  Occasionally I’d ride up to the sorting office very, very early in the morning and see if there was anything there for me.  Sometimes there was.⁵  Yes, it was embossed.

For Her Light (Two)

HMV, Bristle

(dead but dreaming) For Her Light
HMV, Bristle

I bought the CDS and 12” with a print.  Paddy had taken the day off school to play ‘Hicks in the City’ and managed to buy a promo copy of the CDS that shouldn’t have been available.

Neff anecdote #1

My Neff badge got spotted by a chap behind the counter of one of the Watershed’s gift shops.  He told me his mate Richard made some videos for them, which didn’t impress me in the slightest because I hadn’t seen any.  Who’d be young, eh?

Cheltenham’s Town Hall, Cheltenham, support from Loud – 2 August 1990. 

This was special.  This was a birthday gig for me, my friend Gruff acting as guardian chum for the evening.  Loud were outstanding, which came as a shock.  The Neffs were marvellous, being all real and everything, but the songs were a bit different, with the then-unheard Elizium stuff appearing in a confusing form – Submission live didn’t sound much like the remixes on the single...  At this point I was still trying to work out how I understood this band.  They were a laughing-stock at school.  The venom in the derision was acidic.  They didn’t look like they sounded, they didn’t sound how they felt and they didn’t feel anything less than transubstantiational.⁶ 

Elizium

HMV, Bristle

 Took the day off school, headed to Bristle, bought the LP and CD off the shelf then headed straight back and listened to the CD once, because that evening the Neffs were playing…

Bristle’s Studio, Bristle, support from Creaming “Here’s a song that Robert Smith wrote for us” Jesus. – 24 September 1990. 

Bless my cotton socks, it’s in the New (Musical Express).

Sumerland

HMV, Bristle

Sumerland

HMV, Bristle

Sumerland

HMV, Bristle

The three editions of Sumerland were all limited release – available for one week only – in a (pointless) attempt to break the charts.  I skipped school and headed to Bristle, once again paying more money than I should’ve just to hear Blue Water.

Morphic Fields VHS 

Our Price, Gloucester

Don’t ask.

Earth Inferno 

Worlewind Records, Clevedon

For some reason I only bought the cassette version of this.  And, until this year, the only format that I owned this on.  I’d moved up from the bike now, flying up and down the lanes that surrounded Hell in a friend’s car.  Days spent driving up and down and around and around – never really watched the Visionary Heads VHS (Our Price, Bristle) either. 

The Sacred and the Profane

Spillers, Cardiff

 London’s Forum, London, 30 April 1991. 

The final UK gig by the original line-up.  It did feel a bit portentous, they opened with Preacher Man and all.  I’ve never managed to track down a copy of Festival of Fire, the supposed bootleg of this gig, which isn’t for lack of trying.

During all this time I had a band up and running.  We were embryonic and played a lot of cover versions.⁷ Unable to handle the competition, the Neffs called it a day and Nod’s Corner was pulled.

The Lost Ones

Replay, Bristle

This knocked the cotton socks off Earth Inferno.  The shop owner insisted that the sleeve was supposed to look like that.  I had my doubts.  My favourite Neff bootleg up until I heard Memoriam, which is stunning.

  

Revelations

Record shop that used to be on the corner just next to the Market, Newport

I picked up the limited edition 2CD and managed pay more money than I should’ve, just to hear the Blue Water b-side.  And Psychonaut Lib I, the cassette mix.

During my third and fourth years in college, I flogged practically everything to Moonlight Records, Wrexham.

Zoon

HMV, Cardiff

Bought the cassette on a whim.  Listened it to bits.

That’s about it for one century.

One More Nightmare

Spillers, Cardiff

I’d been following the rumours on the internet.

From the Fire

Tested really badly when premiered on a radio show, mostly because it was dreadful.  I didn’t buy it, couldn’t see the point.  It didn’t even have a live version of Blue Water.

Fallen

HMV, Newport⁸

 Power, Preacher Man, Burning the Fields (green) – Kelly’s Records, Cardiff.  Fired by something approaching enthusiasm, I vowed to replace the gaps in my Neff collection.

Interview 1987 12” black vinyl

Lost Chord, Glasgow

Blue Water (finally) (and Loud)⁶

Lost Chord, Glasgow

Earth Inferno LP (and Loud)⁶

Missing, Glasgow

The Nephilim 2X12” #1735⁹

Love Music (nee Avalanche), Glasgow

Mourning Sun

HMV, Glasgow

Live in Dusseldorf

HMV, Glasgow

Ceromonies

Fopp, Glasgow

Genesis and Revelation

HMV, Glasgow

This dodgy boxset can also be found in Hillhead library.

Fields of the Nephilim Five Album Boxset

Love Music (nee Avalanche), Glasgow

Glasgow’s 02’s Academy, Glasgow, support The Mission.²  - 14 December 2013.

 In the end, everything’s connected.

1.  No, not that one. 

2.  Yes, that one. 

3.  Sorry, “Information Service”. 

4.  Insert Jeffrey Archer/John Cleese/Coil joke here. 

5.  And often, it’d been there for a while, undelivered. 

6.  This doesn’t go anywhere: LOUD – memories and thoughts – purchasing… Jaz Coleman, D Generation – Cambridge, same record shop I found Anaconda in. The only support band to win over the fans.

 7.  FotN: Preacher Man and Submission.  TSoM: Alice (in the middle of Preacher Man), Floorshow, Temple of Love.  U2: Bullet the Blue Sky.  Mish:² Hymn (for America), Deliverance, Wasteland.  Stooges: 1969.  Marillion:² Three Boats Down From the Candy.  We also played a few of our own songs, including a couple that later turned up here, but no Kate Bush or the Queen.  Bah. 

8.  Neff anecdote #2.  I made a faux pas with the member of HMV staff who sold me this.  She looked exactly like someone I sort of knew and so I struck up an over-familiar conversation with her that must’ve been an unsettling experience from her point of view. 

9.  Obviously it can’t possibly be the same one.

Even though the sticker’s got the same damage…