Wednesday, December 25th, 1985
The Cat Call, London
 

    The house lights went down at exactly midnight as the band walked
onstage through sheets of dry ice. Clad in torn blue jeans and cowboy hats, the
band stood silently, staring at the audience, who all stood silently staring back at
the stage. Confused by the complete lack of their usually adoring fans, the band
began their set of raucous American Blues. Three songs into the show, the
audience still stood silently, waiting. Then, from off stage, a figure dressed head
to toe in black, with a long leather trench coat and sunglasses, walked through
the massive crowd to the foot of the stage. The band continued to play, eager to
finish for the night. The figure stood center stage, arms clasped behind his back,
and stared into the distance. After each of the remaining songs, the audience
would raise a deafening cheer and the figure in black would simply nod and
accept the applause. When the stage band’s set was over, the figure took hold of
the microphone and said, "Thank you and goodnight." And again the audience
cheered, sustaining the extreme decibel level for several minutes after he left the
stage for the final time, going out of the fire exit and into the night forever.

     The young man was William Hessler, a 23-year-old who took the early 80's
avant-garde experimental music/performance art underground, from San Francisco to
Berlin, by storm. According to Maxwell Demian, author of We Are the Shadow Men,
Hessler was born in 1964 and spent his youth traveling the world with his mother until, at
21, he settled in Detroit to begin his music career, something he had longed for since
childhood. He networked the music scene in Detroit, singing in a few bands before
feeling that his vocal talents were not strong enough to front a band, which was his
deepest desire, then disappeared from the scene.
 

     His first album under the moniker of Tuesday came out of nowhere at the end of
that first year, December 25th, 1983 on 12" vinyl. The sleeve art was simple with the title
In Perpetual Care. On the reverse side was a faded black and white image of Hessler
standing against a wrought iron fence. It was all very romantic and dripped with Gothic
frivolity. However, the ‘music’ on the album got some very important people listening.
Unlike a typical record album with its grooves holding the sound, this album was entirely
grooves. It was so carved out that the only raised sections were the outside and the inside
ring. When the needle was placed on the record, the head traveled back and forth
maniacally between the two minute walls creating beautiful, atrocious noise. That was it.
Two tracks, one on each side. All chaos that lasted as long as you could stand it. Included
with the album was a ‘lyric’ sheet, apparently to be sung along with the noise. The two
tracks, titled “Every Day Away” and “Mengele’s Piano” were complex and mature ‘love
songs’ riddled with passing references to World War II and images of mustard gas and
roses.

    The few copies of the album were quickly snatched up after word of mouth
spread, and taped copies were traded across the seas.  The first seeds of William Hessler's
legend had been planted. One early fan, who received a taped copy in the mail, was K.C.
Nipper, then a DJ at the highly influential KANN FM out of Chicago. “It was really
different for the time. Everyone was still reeling from the death of disco and its mutation
into New Wave. People were in a state of unconsciousness musically. Something needed
to be seriously fucked up.” Many felt alienated by the freakish element within the punk
scene at the time and even more alienated by the Video-Star/Poster-Boys that were first
beginning to cross the oceans.
 
     The album was very successful in New York City, a city always very open to the
Avant Garde. Another early supporter was Erik Vance, who owned a small underground
club in NYC. He was the first to have a night dedicated solely to playing IPC for several
hours straight, only stopping to change the destroyed needles on his record players.
“People really didn’t know what to think-- all this obnoxious noise coming at them
relentlessly. It became a challenge among a lot of the youths in the scene to see who
could stay in the main room the longest spinning and flailing to the ‘music’.” This
predated by 15 years many of the clubs which have been springing up across the globe
featuring Militant-Noize-Assault nights, where fans earn medals and honours by their
time spent in the ‘Front’.

     A tall slim figure, dressed in a cross between present day-Prada, Military Surplus,
and a touch of Worm-Era Pink, was often seen flipping through discount bins at record
stores or sipping wine at outdoor cafes in hip cities across the globe, always alone,
always silent and always hidden behind sunglasses. The few people who were able to
find the album recognized Hessler immediately. However, those who were unaware of
his extracurricular activities spoke in private of a growing Fascist underground sweeping
the country. These fears were also fueled by the slowly growing number of fans adopting
his mode of dress.

     “It was straight out of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, man,” said one fan outside his first
Tuesday performance. “I mean, it looked like someone made it to the other side and
decided to stay. The boots, the attitude. Man, it was fucking great. And he wasn’t alone,
there were hundreds of clones walking around like some kind of fucking army.”
 
     Goths, still mourning Bauhaus and Ian Curtis, took to the look rather quickly,
attracted by the stylish lack of color, the air of superiority, and the slowly swelling sense
of Anarchy that had attracted their forefathers to blue mohicans and safety pins. The
sense of structured insanity was something not quite tapped at the time musically, long
before the mainstream explosion of noise music in the late nineties. Hessler was
“sighted” all over the world, from Barcelona to Alaska, explainable, mostly, by the
numbers of clones who continued popping up in schools and cities. Fans were cutting
their long, crimped hair short, and trading their buckle boots for knee-high steeltoes. It
was an inside joke, shared throughout the entire by only a few hundred.

     Tuesday's second release came out eight weeks later. This time, it was a seven
inch of between two and seven songs. This release, Giorni di stimare, (roughly, Days of
Reckoning) was in fact previously-released 7"s of hundreds of different independent
bands. Their original liner art and stickers were replaced by a new, minimalist design,
similar to the first album. They, again, included a lyric sheet of Hessler’s poems.

     The bands featured illegally on the release were quickly in an uproar, crying for
litigation. However, all of that passed without much progress before December, when the
first interview with William Hessler was published simultaneously in music magazines
across the world. The entire interview was single page, with a simple title of  “Ruby
Tuesday,” and a small picture of Hessler in his ubiquitous sunglasses and trench coat,
holding a rose in one hand and a rifle in the other.
 
     The interview, written under the pseudonym of Ivana Firestorm, consisted of
several basic questions, asked to every band at the beginning of their career: what does
the band name mean? what are your songs about?, and it referenced specific song titles
and lyrics unknown to any fan. Odder still, were the answers. One, written in Mandarin
Chinese, translated roughly to: "It's all been done." Another, written in German,
translated to: "we are the shadow men. Beware the ides of March." And another, this time
in Latin, became: "history will always repeat itself. The bell is beginning to toll. "

     The article, as calculated and cryptic as it was, created another uproar in the
music media. Stories and letters appeared and denounced Tuesday, the band, and Hessler,
the man, as a crypto-fascist. Clues were apparently spelled out in his answers and
sublimation of his fascist-chic mode of dress. He was a threat to the youth of the day and
a terror to pop music. Albums were supposedly pulled from shelves (even though even
the smallest fan knew that there were no copies to be found) and debates raged in letter
columns of many magazines calling him, among other things, a musical genius, a
hooligan and a passing fad.

     The growing Music Television channel, MTV,  joined the game and announced
every hour on the hour that the very first Tuesday music video would be played within
the following hour. Though it never actually happened, the announcements still came and
fans sat glued to their television sets. The artistic idea was that Tuesday’s videos were the
ones actually being played coupled with the anticipation and, in turn, anger of the fans.

    And the letters and calls continued to pour in.
 
     It was during his early dealings with MTV that Hessler became friends with
original V.J., Pamela Wilson. According to Demian, Hessler and Wilson became very
close, and started spending a lot of time together traveling the world. She would attempt
to work a question about Tuesday into every on-air interview she recorded with bands
visiting the studio. The most troublesome response came from David Gahan of a young
Depeche Mode who, upon hearing the question during a live interview, stood and began
goose-stepping around the studio. It was this mainstream attention that finally started the
firestorm.

     Tuesday’s third album, Wir sind die Schattenmänner (We are The Shadow Men)
was released on March 15th, 1984. This album was rumored to be the first (real) time
Tuesday was an actual studio band. However, the music on the album was in stereo,
alternating white noise and ear splitting feedback on the left side and quiet, unintelligible
whispering on the right. There was only one track on one side that lasted for 46 minutes
when played on 33rpm. The album quickly sold out of every store that dared carry it.

     Hessler was apparently growing comfortable as a lyricist/poet. The lyric sheet
enclosed with Wir sind die Schattenmänner was one epic song which ran the gamut of
emotions, full of hope and despair, without becoming lugubrious. One magazine at the
time, the Paris publication WhISHES, had Hessler’s lyrics critiqued by an unnamed
‘leading poet’ who said, “These poems are the purest form of existential expression since
Camus’ L’Étranger. He has an experienced and worldly voice that seems to capture the
zeitgeist of an entire generation.”

     Then the announcement came of Tuesday's first live performance, set for April
4th, 1984, in Los Angeles, California. Posters were put up, tickets were sold, and the
night finally came. Fans and curiosity hounds lined up around the block of a small
theater. MTV’s presence caused many smaller news stations to make the trek to Los
Angeles. Protesters raged out front, asking the owner of the theater to cancel the show.
Within the venue, the fans sat in mildewed theater seats and squirmed anxiously. The
lights went out and a pornographic movie began playing on a large torn screen. There
was no sound. Several minutes into it, as several people began leaving, grumbling for a
refund, a single figure seated in the front row stood and began cheering and clapping
along to the rhythmic thrusts on the screen. The fan began singing Hessler’s lyrics at the
top of his lungs. The idea caught on and within minutes the entire audience was on their
feet clapping to different beats and singing different songs. The chaos ended with the
credits, each of which was replaced with the name of William Hessler.

     “When that first guy stood up,” says one concert-goer, “I knew that’s what the
show was going to be. I knew it in my gut, that we were going to be the show. I also felt
in my heart that the man himself was there, enjoying the show that we were putting on.”

     More bile-laden articles followed and the rumour mill worked overtime,
including one that Hessler was actually an actor in the pornographic movie, and another
that he had absolutely nothing to do with the show, that it had been a simple publicity
stunt played by the owner of a small adult theater to sell tickets.

     On Wednesday, April 25th, three weeks after the concert, one of the rumours was
settled. A live album was released with the title Shadows Walk Among Them. The album
was the audio track of the audience reaction from the theatre show. It was apparent
through the voices that the microphone was carried throughout the hall, through the
crowd and even briefly outside to record the protesters.

     The album again sold out, mainly because everyone who attended the show was
likely to recognize their own voice, their own song. Hessler had successfully taken the
star out of “Rock Star” unlike anyone before him. He made the audience the star, and the
demand for the album showed the world that it was successful. This album, despite its
low print run, peaked on the British and American Independent charts at number 88.

     Another six months passed before another release. This time, it was another 7",
entitled Une Dernière Chanson D'Amour (One Last Love Song). It was finally real proof
of a studio album, however, in a backwards way. The single track was in fact a love song,
slow and acoustic, but played backwards. It was audible if played backwards manually on
a turntable (as was a habit in those days of those trying to find Satanic messages in heavy
metal music.) The lyrics were sweet and surprisingly poetic and again peppered with
references to war. You could still not be sure of Hessler’s singing voice for it depended
on the speed at which you spun the record.

     Many fans cried sell-out and voiced their concerns that the first two years of his
career were just a media stunt to get his second rate love songs played. Old ‘friends’ from
Detroit were being interviewed by magazines and tabloids trying to get the inside scoop.
Once again, Liberal Politicians read into his lyrics a sympathy for tyranny and were again
calling for Tuesday to be banned. Father Joshua Ingham, who vehemently attacked the
success of Tuesday as “History repeating itself and a dictator taking his first baby steps,”
accepted an appearance on Pamela Wilson’s Video Request show, where Ingham’s
derision of Hessler caused Wilson to attack him with her microphone. That was Wilson’s
last television appearance, and the names Tuesday and Hessler were banned from being
spoken on the air at MTV.

     Another live show took place five months later in New York. A single electric
guitar was suspended from the ceiling and swung back and forth by a stereotypical,
bearded roadie in front of an amp, creating feedback every time it passed. Fans began
singing the simple tune of his love song to the beat. Five minutes into the pulsing barrage,
another roadie came out and, raising his arms, screamed, “Ladies and Gentlemen!
Tuesday!” And the crowd roared. The roadie’s arms slowly went down, before he
repeated the action and the words. Then again, and again. It lasted for about ten minutes
until the guitar’s pendulum swing ceased in front of the amp, producing violent feedback.
The roadie yelled his line one more time before walking off stage. Fans stayed and
cheered for several minutes until they realized that no more was going to happen, and
that their ears needed a break.

     Tuesday’s final album was released on December 20th, 1985. This one, entitled
EndGame, was a 12" of five songs, with a full studio band. However, each record was
severely scratched and the ‘music’ was the constant skipping. When pieced together
though, they were again, simple and touching love songs with a touch of bitterness in his
quiet, unassuming voice. A lyric sheet was included, albeit shredded into confetti. It was
completely intact when patiently pieced together. There was also a ticket included for a
concert on Christmas night in London. It said on the ticket that it was to be Tuesday's
final show. Fans with and without the means quickly arranged travel arrangements as the
week passed slowly.

     After the fateful show on that cold London night, the enigmatic William Hessler
supposedly took his own life in his apartment in Atlanta, Georgia. The performer at the
show was not Hessler, even though no one chose to accept it. Fans mourned and a few,
ridiculously, followed suit. When interviewed, mourning fans spoke of him as if they had
known him. It was if his fractured love songs said more in their mere broken existence
than any other song. Some are still convinced that he did not die. They had fallen for
many of his performances in the past and believe that this is just another in the list.

    Noise music pioneers Throbbing Gristle and Boyd Rice/NON each wrote articles
denouncing Tuesday, calling him, in short, a blatant rip-off. They were relentless in their
claims that they were the originators of what Tuesday was sowing; from his style to his
graphic design and distribution techniques. Rice was also quoted as saying, “I could have
made it big if I had mommy’s credit card pressing vinyl and buying me expensive
clothes.” However, these treacherous comments made by fellow musicians annoyed
many fans, causing them to choose sides and do battle in self-published ‘zines. One
pro-Tuesday ‘zine, Total War (which, incidentally, was the name of a Boyd Rice song
released several years later in a possible homage to Hessler), included an essay outlining
the motivation of all three musicians. The author made the argument:
 

    “Unlike T[hrobbing] G[ristle] and Mr. Rice, Tuesday is actually trying to make us
think, rather than settle on the excuse of noise for noise’s sake. While Mr. Rice
proudly exclaims his love for Abba and the pop mainstream, and his intentions of
warping it into something new and sinister, his technique is weak and thoughtless,
and his intentions would be missed by anyone not familiar with them.  Tuesday is
actually creating his own songs, then exploding them into their components;
music, lyrics, presentation, and then exploding them out of our speakers. That is
his art. That is his genius.”

     Talk of Hessler faded over the years as fans grew their hair out and bought into
the Day-Glo colors and spandex of the New Wave Movement. Many fans were
embarrassed by how quickly they bought into the fervor of the moment. None are quite
sure what the attraction was; was it the mystery, the threat, or was it something else, a
need to obey?

     “Every woman adores a fascist.” – Sylvia Plath

     Earlier this year, Maxwell Demian’s book, We Are the Shadow Men, was
released. The book contains many interviews with fans, previously unpublished
photographs of Hessler from his childhood in Detroit through his concerts, a
comprehensive collection of lyrics, and a discography. Even more interestingly, Demian
seemed to have tracked down a life story of Hessler, and found several of his cohorts
across the world.

    According to Demian (who was unable to be contacted through the publisher),
Hessler had been an art student who was forced to take curious steps at getting his music
heard. Having no musical talents of his own except for writing, and no musician friends
willing to follow his lead, Hessler took a different road. Two of his supposed hundreds of
accomplices whom he met on his travels around the world hand delivered his albums to
specific record stores, since he never bothered with a distributor. They claimed that
Hessler had friends all over the world who helped him out in the same ways, his
Schattenmänner. Many of the males adopted his simple look, and made brief appearances
at selected places.

    When asked what the meaning was behind his mode of dress and apparent Fascist
influence, they said, "William always believed that people listen more closely when they
dislike what you are saying." And right he was. While Hessler was never heard or quoted
as having said anything even remotely offensive, or even political for that matter, people
read into him what they wanted. And apparently, everyone wanted someone to dislike, to
loathe and vilify.

    Demian’s book painted Hessler as a young man caught between
sociopathic-existentialism, romanticism, broken hearts and alcoholism, a battle which
raged within him until it was finally played out in his apartment on December 26th, 1985,
the day after his 23 birthday.

    This Christmas is the sixteenth anniversary of Hessler's death, and in honour, a
documentary, "Ich bin immer hier" (I will always be here) is being released in Europe. The
director, Jorge Kichken, said, “Maybe this will finally be the year when William
Hessler’s deconstruction of the modern pop song is finally appreciated, bringing an end
to the stagnation of today’s popular music.” The film, which Kichken originally finished
in 1990, includes professional footage from each concert.  It also includes Hessler’s
previously-unreleased on-camera interview, shot the day before his death, in which he
talks briefly of his love of fine wine and cigarettes before walking away from the
interviewer after Hessler was asked a question which implied his role in a rash of hate
crimes.

    The year 2001 also marks the first appearance on CD of three Tuesday albums,
re-released through Crédule Records out of Paris. Also, an album of songs using Hessler's
lyrics came out during the summer on Aristostian Records. A very thorough fan site has
even popped up on the World Wide Web at c
and features a complete discography, pictures from Demian’s book, some of Hessler’s
lyrics, and news of recent sightings across the world. Occasionally, originals of his
albums appear on the Internet auction site, eBay, sometimes selling for more than
$100.00 a piece.

    Hessler’s short period of time in the limelight makes us question a lot about
ourselves. What will we believe? Who will we follow, and why? And it’s because of this
that we will forever walk the fine line between light and darkness.  Truly, we are the
shadow men.
 

This was an extensively researched fictional non-fiction piece I wrote for the April (April Fool's) Issue of Gothic.net. I even went so far as to create fake album covers, fan site and lyrics. The web site included a counter to see how many people fell for the article, last count was almost 200 readers. -R

copyright 2006. R. Hedengren