Shadows for Sale - A Compendium of Wise Words to Illuminate Coil's Universe by Ben Waddington

Shadows for Sale is a compendium of my Coil-adjacent writings from the last seven years or so. The research itself goes back to 1987 when I first borrowed Horse Rotorvator from my local library in Denton, Manchester. No other band or artist since has introduced me to so much off-the-chart culture and the intervening decades have been a crusade to absorb the art, cinema, folklore, history and literature that inspired and energised them.

My research is prompted by curiosity and a desire to keep Coil this side of the horizon, the further their earthly years recede. In their crooked house of crossed thresholds, one thing is certain: they left clues to be found, hanging there openly on their many walls or wrapped tightly in boxed backrooms. I've always enjoyed the detective work involved in getting closer to any subject. So, to quote Sherlock Holmes: 'The game is afoot!'

Here too are photographs taken while researching my Coil guided walks of London, Weston and Avebury, plus collages and other artworks to illustrate thirty or so long and short texts, blog posts, memoirs, fiction, forum rants, speculation and rigorous research. Nothing here has previously appeared in print.

The chapter titles should give you a clue as to what's in store:

Stone Steps Barn - Exploring John Balance's birthplace | 23 Hours to Avebury - Rural psychedelia: a circular Jarmanic jaunt | Finding Nero - London's stone lions, sleeping in the sunshine | Village People - Hampstead Heathens and cultural gatekeepers | Dark Rivers of London - Navigating another drowned world | What Kind of Animal Are You? - The Czech Art of Eight Legs or Stag Do in Kutná Hora | The Princess Who Knew Too Much - On the trail of Princess Margaret's Man in the D'Jalmalfna | Something in the Water - Did Coil find Prince Charming? | Lennon's Secret Domain - Which Coil member appears on Sergeant Pepper? | Another Green Child - Lost love between Brian Eno and Coil | O Rose - A floral tribute to … | Stories of Shadows - Unpacking 'Boy in a Suitcase' | One for Sorrow- Celestial oscillations between Coil and The Smiths | Rent Asunder - Coil know how to destroy angels | 'Chickenskin!'- Exploring the pilomotor reflex with Coil | Things Happen! - Busting the little ghost chilli | Dial S for Solution - Calling the original suicide hotline | The Futhur Inquiry - RU on the bus? | Another Browne World - Thomas Browne and the dark side of moon music | A Hard Cell - Poppy Pill reports from the faraway zone | Snow Blind - If you want to touch the sky / Just put a window in your eye | Duffer - I'll wager your friends can't make films as well as Louis Jack, on no money and having to steal everything | The Force Awakens - Skulduggery in Piccadilly Circus | Dreams More Real - The quest for the land beyond the sun | Everybody's Free (to Wear Sensible Shoes) - Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '99… | The Totem Was His - A packaging holiday in Spain | Boxing Day is Drawing Near - A box ticking exercise | Stephen's 21st Birthday - Concluding the SWBP as a fiction writing prompt | See Microscopic - A. Pope under the 'scope | Castor and Pollux - Twin Gods at the end of the corridor | 'London, That Great Cesspool…' - A sleuth in the Marylebone Road | Higher Beings Served - A fable written in York Minster on June 22, 2023…

My miscellany has no common theme or approach but perhaps instead demonstrates how many 'points of entry' it is possible to take with Coil. A few chapters cover Sleazy's pre-Coil work with PTV and post-Coil time as Soisong.

221 pages, 30+ photographs and illustrations