7. CoilLove’s Secret Domain
I knew the work of Babs Santini long before I became entangled in the Nurse With Wound web. I can separate my friend Steven Stapleton from his art. They are two entirely different entities to me.
I have always loved his art. There are so many great album sleeves to choose from. I was going to go for Alas The Madonna Does Not Function. One of my biggest regrets is not buying the original. It was for sale in Vinyl Experience in the ’80s. It was only £100, but £100 may as well have been a million quid to me back then.
There is a lot of art that Steve has been involved in that most people don’t know about – for instance, he was involved with The Stranglers’ No More Heroes cover and he also worked with the design house Hipgnosis and worked on the tour programme for Pink Floyd’s The Wall. There is an expansive book of Steve’s art coming out next year. I can’t wait, it’s long overdue. Andrew Thomas, who is putting together the book, kindly sent me this picture of LSD: it’s a great picture which shows you the image from a different perspective. The image is painted on a door. It’s a very clever painting that combines all the Coil boys’ pastimes: the occult, drugs and spunk. I love it how you stand back and view the image as a whole and see all the component parts make a magnificent lion’s head.
