you were warned. and now, 'proof'.

from the Cabaret Voltaire Facebook Group page:


Andrew McKenzie, of The Hafler Trio, describes the hall-of-mirrors effect this sort of thing kicked up — while still remaining halfway in character:

“Next to the Western Works in Sheffield, the studio of Cabaret Voltaire, as it were, was a small terraced house. In it was a man claiming to be German and Scottish, who had several businesses there. He had three or four women sewing jeans and stuff in there, and he used to sit around the ‘office’ wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes. This was utterly ridiculous to start off with. There are some promo photos of Cabaret Voltaire with him playing the bagpipes in the background.”

“So, he was named Robert Sprodgeon (or something close to that), and one of the companies named on the blue plaques on the door was "Robal Nuclear Fallout Shelters.” So we had to use this. So we changed the name a bit, and used it. Later, I started receiving letters from a guy in Manchester who had books by Spridgeon, as we had called him. Then he started send me xeroxes of them, which was really creepy. You see, people always used to be annoyed when they couldn't find his books in the library, but we said on the insert of the first LP ‘all material by The Hafler Trio’ and we never lied.”

and now, photographic evidence!

I had been looking for these for ages, so thank you, Simon Dell.