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So, some more West Yorkshire esoterica; as a man once said, “OK, Swedes, this is it.”
See The Film, See The Damage Done
In the early 1980s, the sitting room of 7 Village Place in Burley housed an impressive VHS video cassette collection. Among its serried ranks could be found AC/DC, The Doors, the New York Dolls and Motörhead, along with episodes of “On The Buses”, “Blake’s 7” and “Hogan’s Heroes”. Each tape was labelled in Andrew Eldritch’s distinctive, precisely flamboyant script.
Village Place offered other evidence of Eldritch’s catholic viewing habits.
One of John Keenan’s abiding memories of Village Place was of “Andy sat in the dark, curtains closed, drinking a cup of tea and watching ABBA videos. He was a big ABBA fan.” [i]
In those days, admits Eldritch, he would have been better known to Keenan as “the DJ’s boyfriend”, rather than any kind of rock star. The Sisters of Mercy were then in their infancy and the better-known inhabitant of 7 Village Place was Claire Shearsby - Eldritch’s girlfriend at the time - who was a DJ at Le Phonographique in Leeds and who had also been the DJ at Keenan’s F Club gigs.
Indirectly, it was actually one of Eldritch’s ABBA tapes that Keenan was interested in.
“Andy had a VHS copy of the 1980 Futurama,” Keenan explains. This was the second of the big weekend festivals that Keenan put on at The Queen’s Hall in Leeds. The 1980 bill featured The Banshees, The Bunnymen, The Psychedelic Furs and Gary Glitter. Low down on the Saturday were a pre-“Tainted Love” Soft Cell. Eldritch had recorded Futurama 2 when it was broadcast by the BBC in October and November 1981 and had filled up any spare tape at the end with ABBA.
Keenan had sold the Futurama footage to the BBC, but this had not covered the costs of filming it, so he was trying to effect a commercial video release.[ii] “I had film and U-matics, but not a video,” explains Keenan, “so I borrowed Andy’s copy to show to the guy who had Caesar’s nightclub in Bradford to try and get funding to put it out.”
Not only did the deal never happen, Eldritch’s tape went missing.[iii]
“The son of the guy who owned Caesar’s switched the tape for a copy of a Michael Caine film,” Keenan explains. “I had to say sorry to Andy. He sent me a few terse postcards. I think he wanted the Futurama tape back more for the ABBA.”
“That is mischievous but not exactly untrue,” comments Eldritch. “What’s not to like about ABBA?”
“If it was “The Ipcress File” or “Get Carter”, then he might have come out ahead.”
“It was "Ashanti" [iv], admits Keenan.
Endnotes
[i] Keenan added, “He’ll probably be annoyed at me for saying these things because he always wants to look cool, but he’s too old to be cool now and so am I.”
[ii] The footage can be seen here via these links: Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Not all the bands who played at the 1980 Futurama are included.
[iii] When this was put to Eldritch in a 2016 interview his initial – semi-serious - reaction was: “I’ve never forgiven him for losing that tape. It was the only copy I had of Futurama and we were on it.” Eldritch quickly realised this was not correct. The Sisters of Mercy did not play at the 1980 Futurama. However, Keenan did put them on at the 1981 Futurama at the New Bingley Hall outside Stafford. There was no film crew present for that.
[iv] Between 1978 and 1981, Michael Caine befouled his filmography with the worst set of choices ever made by a major star over such a short period of time. In a little over three years he made: “The Swarm”, “Ashanti”, “Beyond The Poseidon Adventure”, “The Island” and “The Hand”.