Rest in Peace Oliver Heuer.

Memories of Oliver Heuer by Trevor Bamford

The first time I heard Sweet William was back in 1992 via a DJ friend of mine who had just come back from a trip to Germany. He had been given a box of records by someone from Sweet William of their album “These Monologues” to help promote the band in England. He gave me a copy. I loved it right away and amongst other things, was entranced by the deep sepulchral voice. I was at that time just in the early days of setting up of the Nightbreed Recordings mail order service and I wrote the band a letter asking to buy some copies of their album. Which I did and I promptly included them onto my new and growing list of new Gothic bands releases. In fact, Sweet William were one of the first bands music I helped to promote and sell. I wrote to the band as few times and bought a few more consignements of records off them but as the Nightbreed Mail order service grew, it became easier for me to buy a load of different bands releases from just one distributor, and as such I lost letter writing touch with the band, but I still continued to champion and sell the bands music through my mail order service as well as gigs, events and shows that Nightbreed set up and ran. To me they were one of the original German bands that helped to save and inspire the UK scene, which was back in the late 80’s and early 90’s not in a healthy position due to the effects of the UK mass media becoming so very, very anti Goth on one hand, and the UK Gothic scene looking progressively to the past and inward on the other. They were essentially early doors to a whole plethora of high quality German acts that, in my opinion, helped to shape the scene into what it is today. A truly great band with a wonderful view and approach. Oliver Heuer and his work is appreciated and he will be missed my many people from around the world.