Earlier this week it was announced that Throbbing Gristle will release a final double album featuring Desertshore, the group's interpretation of Nico's 1970 album Desertshore, and a second disc called The Final Report. It will be out November 26 on TG's relaunched Industrial label.
"CHRIS & COSEY released the TG records without my consent & have kept all the money. We NEVER quit TG.That is UNTRUE.BOYCOTT their records."
-Genesis's Vocal Tracks were deleted By Chris And Cosey for this forthcoming release.
Showing posts with label Throbbing Gristle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Throbbing Gristle. Show all posts
Friday, September 28, 2012
Sunday, October 9, 2011
NOTHING HERE NOW BUT THE RECORDINGS notes
"Nothing here now but the recordings" was an album compiled by Genesis of William S.Burroughs audio work, Released via Industrial records in 1980.
Genesis P-Orridge, founder of Throbbing Gristle, salvaged these recordings from Burroughs’ archives and was responsible for their preservation and release. The recordings highlight Burroughs’ influence on concrete poetry and industrial music. The recordings also spotlight Burroughs’ link with the sound experiments of Carl Weissner and Henri Chopin who published Burroughs on vinyl and in magazines in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s.
Notes on the release follow, all borrowed from the extensive Burroughs archive site http://realitystudio.org/
Borrowed from the article The Lost Tapes of Carl Weissner, Claude Pélieu and Mary Beach, 1967-1969
by Edward S. Robinson
...Burroughs’ own recordings, however, remained in the vaults. Initially recorded for the purposes of his own personal research, the tapes were not intended for public consumption. It wasn Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle who convinced Burroughs to allow him to release a selection of these experiments commercially. After spending many long hours going through the tapes, Orridge compiled the hour’s worth of material that was released as Nothing Here Now But the Recordings on Industrial Records in 1980
.Nevertheless, Burroughs’ influence on music, particularly the music of the avant-garde, precedes the public release of his experimental recordings, primarily on account of his book Electronic Revolution (1970, 1972, 1976), which expounds the theoretical contexts of some of his practical experiments with audio. Throbbing Gristle were among the first to explore the possibilities of using tape loops, cut-ups, samples and “found sounds” to make music. It was in this work that Burroughs’ influence on music became truly tangible.This was true of many of the bands involved in the Industrial scene that exploded on both sides of the Atlantic between 1978 and 1984. They immersed themselves in studio experimentation and the application of techniques first explored by Burroughs and Gysin some 20 years previous. The reason for the delayed spread of the Virus in sound recordings was largely due to the lack of technology to facilitate widespread experimentation prior to 1978. But once Burroughs and Gysin had made the “breakthrough,” it was almost inevitable that their ideas would spread.
The appeal of Electronic Revolution is obvious. While those who had followed Burroughs’ writing through the cut-up experiments would have been able to admire the many qualities of the writing, and even the methodology behind it, to the extent that it was possible to “write like Burroughs,” Electronic Revolution revealed new possibilities, demonstrating the potential for the written word to develop and mutate in new directions off the page. It also represented a “call to arms” for dissenters, providing as it did directions for sonic terrorism with the potential for “real” results:
…make recordings and take pictures of some location you wish to discommode or destroy, now play recordings back and take more pictures, will result in accidents, fires, removals. Especially the latter. The target moves. We carried out this operation with the Scientology Center at 37 Fitzroy Street. Some months later they moved to 68 Tottenham Court Road, where a similar operation was carried out…
Like Naked Lunch and The Third Mind, Electronic Revolution is a “how-to” book, a handbook, with instructions for the replication of the author’s techniques to achieve specific effects. “Riot sound effects can produce an actual riot in a riot situation. Recorded police whistles will draw cops. Recorded gunshots, and their guns are out.”14 Burroughs explained the function of site-specific recording and playback thus:
…playback on location can produce definite effects. Playing back recordings of an accident can produce another accident… We carried out a number of these operations: street recordings, cut in of other material, playback in the streets …(I recall I had cut in fire engines and while playing this tape back in the street fire engines passed.)… (I wonder if anybody but CIA agents read this article or thought of putting these techniques into actual operation.) Anybody who carries out similar experiments over a period of time will turn up more “coincidences” than the law of averages allows.
It was the capacity to achieve a specific desired effect, as Burroughs’ empirical testing of the theories demonstrated, which proved a significant factor in the book’s appeal to a certain audience. Although Burroughs believed that “the influence of fiction is not direct,” he always intended for his writing to have a tangible effect upon the reader in some way — after all, “if your writing had no effect, then you would have something to worry about.”
Genesis P-Orridge, founder of Throbbing Gristle, salvaged these recordings from Burroughs’ archives and was responsible for their preservation and release. The recordings highlight Burroughs’ influence on concrete poetry and industrial music. The recordings also spotlight Burroughs’ link with the sound experiments of Carl Weissner and Henri Chopin who published Burroughs on vinyl and in magazines in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s.
Notes on the release follow, all borrowed from the extensive Burroughs archive site http://realitystudio.org/
Borrowed from the article The Lost Tapes of Carl Weissner, Claude Pélieu and Mary Beach, 1967-1969
by Edward S. Robinson
...Burroughs’ own recordings, however, remained in the vaults. Initially recorded for the purposes of his own personal research, the tapes were not intended for public consumption. It wasn Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle who convinced Burroughs to allow him to release a selection of these experiments commercially. After spending many long hours going through the tapes, Orridge compiled the hour’s worth of material that was released as Nothing Here Now But the Recordings on Industrial Records in 1980
.Nevertheless, Burroughs’ influence on music, particularly the music of the avant-garde, precedes the public release of his experimental recordings, primarily on account of his book Electronic Revolution (1970, 1972, 1976), which expounds the theoretical contexts of some of his practical experiments with audio. Throbbing Gristle were among the first to explore the possibilities of using tape loops, cut-ups, samples and “found sounds” to make music. It was in this work that Burroughs’ influence on music became truly tangible.This was true of many of the bands involved in the Industrial scene that exploded on both sides of the Atlantic between 1978 and 1984. They immersed themselves in studio experimentation and the application of techniques first explored by Burroughs and Gysin some 20 years previous. The reason for the delayed spread of the Virus in sound recordings was largely due to the lack of technology to facilitate widespread experimentation prior to 1978. But once Burroughs and Gysin had made the “breakthrough,” it was almost inevitable that their ideas would spread.
The appeal of Electronic Revolution is obvious. While those who had followed Burroughs’ writing through the cut-up experiments would have been able to admire the many qualities of the writing, and even the methodology behind it, to the extent that it was possible to “write like Burroughs,” Electronic Revolution revealed new possibilities, demonstrating the potential for the written word to develop and mutate in new directions off the page. It also represented a “call to arms” for dissenters, providing as it did directions for sonic terrorism with the potential for “real” results:
…make recordings and take pictures of some location you wish to discommode or destroy, now play recordings back and take more pictures, will result in accidents, fires, removals. Especially the latter. The target moves. We carried out this operation with the Scientology Center at 37 Fitzroy Street. Some months later they moved to 68 Tottenham Court Road, where a similar operation was carried out…
Like Naked Lunch and The Third Mind, Electronic Revolution is a “how-to” book, a handbook, with instructions for the replication of the author’s techniques to achieve specific effects. “Riot sound effects can produce an actual riot in a riot situation. Recorded police whistles will draw cops. Recorded gunshots, and their guns are out.”14 Burroughs explained the function of site-specific recording and playback thus:
…playback on location can produce definite effects. Playing back recordings of an accident can produce another accident… We carried out a number of these operations: street recordings, cut in of other material, playback in the streets …(I recall I had cut in fire engines and while playing this tape back in the street fire engines passed.)… (I wonder if anybody but CIA agents read this article or thought of putting these techniques into actual operation.) Anybody who carries out similar experiments over a period of time will turn up more “coincidences” than the law of averages allows.
It was the capacity to achieve a specific desired effect, as Burroughs’ empirical testing of the theories demonstrated, which proved a significant factor in the book’s appeal to a certain audience. Although Burroughs believed that “the influence of fiction is not direct,” he always intended for his writing to have a tangible effect upon the reader in some way — after all, “if your writing had no effect, then you would have something to worry about.”
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Excellent Throbbing Gristle article from http://immanentterrain.wordpress.com
Excellent Throbbing Gristle article from
http://immanentterrain.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/throbbing-gristle-deleuze/
Throbbing Gristle & Deleuze
“We need to search for methods to break the preconceptions, modes of unthinking acceptance and expectations that make us, within our constructed behavior patterns, so vulnerable to Control” – Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
***
Toward the beginning of the semester when we first started discussing Deleuze’s philosophy of immanence and process ontology, I sensed some resonance between Deleuze and a collective of artists whose work has been important to my own understanding of music and the possibilities it can hold– Throbbing Gristle. I decided to write my final paper on Throbbing Gristle after finding an essay relating them to Deleuze (explained further on), and figured I’d try to work out some of my ideas on the blog before I present my topic (I’ll play some of the videos I include here in class, but feel free to take a listen if you are unfamiliar with TG).
Formed in the mid-1970s and consisting of members of the performance art group COUM Transmissions (infamously described by a British politician as “wreckers of civilization”), Throbbing Gristle approached music as a way to evolve and disseminate their own ideas of how sound can work on pure affect and lead toward a de-subjectification of their listeners’ understanding of control systems. Credited with developing the genre of Industrial music, TG worked with home-built electronics, synthesizers, various home-built effects units, found sounds, processed noise, and lyrics using the cut-up technique developed by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin to create some of the most intense and influential records of the 1970′s.
Interestingly, Throbbing Gristle created most of their tracks in a live setting, improvising and working off one another. Similarly, lyrics were either developed live on stage by vocalist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, or free-associated as a group and then cut-up and reassambled. As P-Orridge says,
“Our sound is describing our collective and individual emotions and visions. And the sound that came from what we thought and saw… was second. Because that sound is completely inseparable from the way we felt at any given moment, which is why we did so much live, and why so much happened live. Whatever happened live was exactly what was going through us all at that time… And you can’t imitate that or mimic it or copy it” (Re/Search Magazine).
TG were always focused on the process of creation and the ways their own percepts and affects influenced their work. Though influenced by the urban-industrial landscape of London, TG’s work was not a representation of that world, but rather an active, creative process that sought to transform and rethink the world around them, an idea which resonates with Deleuze’s own interest in how an artists’ engagement with an artwork can enact an immanent philosophy.
Similarly, as they considered themselves to be non-musicians, TG’s artistic mission was more about pushing the limits of sound and to advance a philosophy that rejected control by assembling and re-contextualizing the detritus and unsavory elements of modernity; external forces such as industrial noise, serial killers, Nazi propaganda, Christian extremism and cult phenomena, and all sorts of violent and “taboo” sex found its way into their work. As they bluntly put it on one of their LPs, TG sought “Entertainment Through Pain,” a kind of deterritorialization of the harmonics found in popular music in order to elicit an affectual response.
While one could make the argument that TG worked solely in shock aesthetics (and trust me, many have, and even more have unsuccessfully imitated it), this would ignore the core of their intent: that by working with affective elements in their art (noise, intense frequencies, graphic imagery), they could instigate a break in their listeners’ habituated realities that have been ingrained by powers that seek to dominate and control us. Michael Goddard writes, “by simulating these cult phenomena, TG were able to examine the demonic mechanisms by which individuals are subjugated and turned into a pliable mass by organizations of sound and language, with a view to reversing these processes into a process of deconditioning… [making] reference to entirely immanent processes of desubjectification and subjectification” (Goddard 166). TG’s interest in dark subject matter was partly a reflection of the world they sensed; however, this material also serves to remind listeners how these forces are not outside our world, but rather a part of the world in which we are complicit. Indeed, “shock was used in a tactical way, not to immediately actualize anomalous phenomena by representing them but to tap their unactualized virtual forces by maintaining them in virtuality” (Goddard 169).
Virtuality helps to understand TG’s aesthetic, for they remained interested in leaving their work open-ended and in the realm of possibility and potential: the potential for unexpected relations, the potential for change, the potential for new ideas to emerge, transform, and proliferate. This virtuality is best seen in their formless and improvised live performances, their use of home-built electronics to create and manipulate unknown and unpredictable sounds, and their lyrical structures based on cut-up and improvisation. To me, this kind of virtuality lends itself to a comparison to Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of the smooth and striated, in that they aimed to deterritorialize ideas about how popular music could be conceived, executed, and understood.
This interest is taken one step further in Throbbing Gristle’s experimentation in undermining expectations, leaving room for the band to explore, evolve, and remind their audience that the function of art is to create new modes of expression to stimulate thought. For example, they released their D.o.A. album of harsh, industrial noise followed immediately after by the “United” single, a song that can best be described as a sappy Abba-inspired love song. Similarly, the cover of their 20 Jazz Funk Greats LP belies the content on the album; the image of the band standing on a cliffside wearing leisure suits and cheery smiles on a sunny day was deliberately used to disorient and disrupt expectations, as well as to raise questions about how the media/advertisers package products to implore us to buy without thinking.
By seemingly working within the realm of pop consumer culture through pop tracks like “United” or “Hot on the Heels of Love” or by reinventing their image on 20 Jazz Funk Greats, Throbbing Gristle resisted being pigeon-holed (anything is possible in the world of TG) and raised important questions about how different images and sounds work upon our habituated ideas. Similarly, by creating assemblages of noise, ambient texture, rhythm, synthesizers, found sound, and lyrics referencing the occult, violence, and other ‘dirty’ things, TG created affectual and haptic sonic environments that strove for unexpected connections and an engagement with a plane of immanence with no recourse to power structures that seek to delimit and control our becomings with the world (and all its gory details).
There is a lot here to figure out, but my main interest in investigating Throbbing Gristle vis-a-vis Deleuze came from Michael Goddard’s essay “Sonic and Cultural Noise as Production of the New: The Industrial Music Media Ecology of Throbbing Gristle,” in which he relates the art/music practices of TG to Deleuze and Guattari’s idea that the production of the new is always possible in art, philosophy, and science. While Goddard raises many interesting points in his essay, I would like to go one step further by showing how Throbbing Gristle’s music-making and aesthetic practices relate to a wholly Deleuzean philosophy of immanence and process ontology based on their ideas of deterritorialization, the rhizome, affects and precepts, the refrain, and the smooth and striated. Particularly in connection to Deleuze’s ideas concerning control societies and the “new forms of resistance” that must be created to fight them, Throbbing Gristle’s sense of the world (however dark or unpleasant TG’s sense may be) rejects universals and insists on change and becoming through a rethinking of the systems of control that delimit dynamic engagement and continual becoming. Ultimately, TG created some really powerful (and endlessly influential) music that works so well because it utilizes a sonic palette that is entirely original, varied, and disorienting (or should I say deterritorializing?), while also forging connections with the world and its potential for change.
Any suggestions or comments would be much appreciated!
-Chris P http://immanentterrain.wordpress.com/
http://immanentterrain.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/throbbing-gristle-deleuze/
Throbbing Gristle & Deleuze
“We need to search for methods to break the preconceptions, modes of unthinking acceptance and expectations that make us, within our constructed behavior patterns, so vulnerable to Control” – Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
***
Toward the beginning of the semester when we first started discussing Deleuze’s philosophy of immanence and process ontology, I sensed some resonance between Deleuze and a collective of artists whose work has been important to my own understanding of music and the possibilities it can hold– Throbbing Gristle. I decided to write my final paper on Throbbing Gristle after finding an essay relating them to Deleuze (explained further on), and figured I’d try to work out some of my ideas on the blog before I present my topic (I’ll play some of the videos I include here in class, but feel free to take a listen if you are unfamiliar with TG).
Formed in the mid-1970s and consisting of members of the performance art group COUM Transmissions (infamously described by a British politician as “wreckers of civilization”), Throbbing Gristle approached music as a way to evolve and disseminate their own ideas of how sound can work on pure affect and lead toward a de-subjectification of their listeners’ understanding of control systems. Credited with developing the genre of Industrial music, TG worked with home-built electronics, synthesizers, various home-built effects units, found sounds, processed noise, and lyrics using the cut-up technique developed by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin to create some of the most intense and influential records of the 1970′s.
Interestingly, Throbbing Gristle created most of their tracks in a live setting, improvising and working off one another. Similarly, lyrics were either developed live on stage by vocalist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, or free-associated as a group and then cut-up and reassambled. As P-Orridge says,
“Our sound is describing our collective and individual emotions and visions. And the sound that came from what we thought and saw… was second. Because that sound is completely inseparable from the way we felt at any given moment, which is why we did so much live, and why so much happened live. Whatever happened live was exactly what was going through us all at that time… And you can’t imitate that or mimic it or copy it” (Re/Search Magazine).
TG were always focused on the process of creation and the ways their own percepts and affects influenced their work. Though influenced by the urban-industrial landscape of London, TG’s work was not a representation of that world, but rather an active, creative process that sought to transform and rethink the world around them, an idea which resonates with Deleuze’s own interest in how an artists’ engagement with an artwork can enact an immanent philosophy.
Similarly, as they considered themselves to be non-musicians, TG’s artistic mission was more about pushing the limits of sound and to advance a philosophy that rejected control by assembling and re-contextualizing the detritus and unsavory elements of modernity; external forces such as industrial noise, serial killers, Nazi propaganda, Christian extremism and cult phenomena, and all sorts of violent and “taboo” sex found its way into their work. As they bluntly put it on one of their LPs, TG sought “Entertainment Through Pain,” a kind of deterritorialization of the harmonics found in popular music in order to elicit an affectual response.
While one could make the argument that TG worked solely in shock aesthetics (and trust me, many have, and even more have unsuccessfully imitated it), this would ignore the core of their intent: that by working with affective elements in their art (noise, intense frequencies, graphic imagery), they could instigate a break in their listeners’ habituated realities that have been ingrained by powers that seek to dominate and control us. Michael Goddard writes, “by simulating these cult phenomena, TG were able to examine the demonic mechanisms by which individuals are subjugated and turned into a pliable mass by organizations of sound and language, with a view to reversing these processes into a process of deconditioning… [making] reference to entirely immanent processes of desubjectification and subjectification” (Goddard 166). TG’s interest in dark subject matter was partly a reflection of the world they sensed; however, this material also serves to remind listeners how these forces are not outside our world, but rather a part of the world in which we are complicit. Indeed, “shock was used in a tactical way, not to immediately actualize anomalous phenomena by representing them but to tap their unactualized virtual forces by maintaining them in virtuality” (Goddard 169).
Virtuality helps to understand TG’s aesthetic, for they remained interested in leaving their work open-ended and in the realm of possibility and potential: the potential for unexpected relations, the potential for change, the potential for new ideas to emerge, transform, and proliferate. This virtuality is best seen in their formless and improvised live performances, their use of home-built electronics to create and manipulate unknown and unpredictable sounds, and their lyrical structures based on cut-up and improvisation. To me, this kind of virtuality lends itself to a comparison to Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of the smooth and striated, in that they aimed to deterritorialize ideas about how popular music could be conceived, executed, and understood.
This interest is taken one step further in Throbbing Gristle’s experimentation in undermining expectations, leaving room for the band to explore, evolve, and remind their audience that the function of art is to create new modes of expression to stimulate thought. For example, they released their D.o.A. album of harsh, industrial noise followed immediately after by the “United” single, a song that can best be described as a sappy Abba-inspired love song. Similarly, the cover of their 20 Jazz Funk Greats LP belies the content on the album; the image of the band standing on a cliffside wearing leisure suits and cheery smiles on a sunny day was deliberately used to disorient and disrupt expectations, as well as to raise questions about how the media/advertisers package products to implore us to buy without thinking.
By seemingly working within the realm of pop consumer culture through pop tracks like “United” or “Hot on the Heels of Love” or by reinventing their image on 20 Jazz Funk Greats, Throbbing Gristle resisted being pigeon-holed (anything is possible in the world of TG) and raised important questions about how different images and sounds work upon our habituated ideas. Similarly, by creating assemblages of noise, ambient texture, rhythm, synthesizers, found sound, and lyrics referencing the occult, violence, and other ‘dirty’ things, TG created affectual and haptic sonic environments that strove for unexpected connections and an engagement with a plane of immanence with no recourse to power structures that seek to delimit and control our becomings with the world (and all its gory details).
There is a lot here to figure out, but my main interest in investigating Throbbing Gristle vis-a-vis Deleuze came from Michael Goddard’s essay “Sonic and Cultural Noise as Production of the New: The Industrial Music Media Ecology of Throbbing Gristle,” in which he relates the art/music practices of TG to Deleuze and Guattari’s idea that the production of the new is always possible in art, philosophy, and science. While Goddard raises many interesting points in his essay, I would like to go one step further by showing how Throbbing Gristle’s music-making and aesthetic practices relate to a wholly Deleuzean philosophy of immanence and process ontology based on their ideas of deterritorialization, the rhizome, affects and precepts, the refrain, and the smooth and striated. Particularly in connection to Deleuze’s ideas concerning control societies and the “new forms of resistance” that must be created to fight them, Throbbing Gristle’s sense of the world (however dark or unpleasant TG’s sense may be) rejects universals and insists on change and becoming through a rethinking of the systems of control that delimit dynamic engagement and continual becoming. Ultimately, TG created some really powerful (and endlessly influential) music that works so well because it utilizes a sonic palette that is entirely original, varied, and disorienting (or should I say deterritorializing?), while also forging connections with the world and its potential for change.
Any suggestions or comments would be much appreciated!
-Chris P http://immanentterrain.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
COUM Transmissions write up by Tate Modern
preface from Genesis...
CORRECTION:-
This text on COUM Transmissions compounds an often re-iterated misconception about COUM Transmissions.
For the sake of Astorical accuracy only, we add this correction.
COUM Transmissions was received as a series of visions by Genesis (Breyer) P-Orridge in Shrewsbury, Shropshire late Summer of 1969. Genesis founded COUM Transmissions as an art project alone. There were NO co-founders. He had never met, nor heard of Christine Carol Newby (later Christened Cosmosis by Genesis) at that time. The original members of COUM Transmissions were G P-O and John Jesus Shapeero. Later on Dr Timothy poston, Ian "Spydee" Evetts, Peter "Pinglewad" Winstanley all became members. Cosey began her connection with COUM Transmissions performances around 1971-72. She had however, always supported Genesis and COUM both conceptually as a member of the "Coumunity" at the HoHo Funhouse and functionally creating costumes and props. After beginning to also take part in street actions and arts festival performances she grew to add a unique and powerful element and became an integral aspect of the ever more intimate and extreme actions of COUM Transmissions. A perfect foil in the later explorations of sexuality, gender and stereotypes.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge NYC 2011.
From http://www.tate.org.uk/ Europes largest Art Magazine...
Handbill for COUM Transmissions' 'Prostitution' exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, October 1976
Courtesy Tate Archive
Lizzie Carey-Thomas on COUM Transmissions
“Public money is being wasted here to destroy the morality of society. These people are the wreckers of civilisation,” wrote Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn in the Daily Mail on 19 October 1976. The subject of his tirade was the performance-art group COUM Transmissions and its recently opened, now infamous exhibition ‘Prostitution’ at the ICA, London. COUM, formed in Hull in 1969 by Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, had begun life as a band, but gained notoriety throughout the early 1970s for its taboo-breaking direct “actions”. Its founders’ antagonistic approach often brought them into conflict with the law, the most well-documented of which was P-Orridge’s indecent postcard trial of April 1976. Hijacking the trial as an art event under the title ‘G.P.O v. G-P.O’, complete with invitation cards, he subsequently announced: “What E [sic] am interested in now is that point where Art meets Life and fuses, dispersing art and enhancing life.”
While ‘Prostitution’ ran for only eight days at the ICA, it received a hostile and widespread reaction from the national press, who saw its contents as a deliberate assault on the moral and artistic values of the time. Alongside photographs of COUM performances and related press cuttings (including those levelled at the show), the exhibition included used tampons sculptures, props from past “actions” and framed pages of pornographic magazines from Tutti’s modelling career, available upon request.
Nineteen seventy-six had been a difficult year for contemporary art in Britain, which found itself facing an increasingly sceptical press during a period of all-time economic lows. Since the furore over Tate’s purchase of Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII (the “Tate Bricks”) in February, public subsidy of the arts had been forensically examined, and some critics were quick to see ‘Prostitution’ as further evidence of waning standards and a threat to societal values. In a typically agile move, the show was to be both the culmination and death of COUM’s art-related activities – the duo relaunched themselves at the opening as industrial band Throbbing Gristle, abandoning the art establishment altogether.
- Archive material on COUM Transmissions and 'Prostitution' has been selected from the Genesis P-Orridge archive held at Tate and a private collection.
CORRECTION:-
This text on COUM Transmissions compounds an often re-iterated misconception about COUM Transmissions.
For the sake of Astorical accuracy only, we add this correction.
COUM Transmissions was received as a series of visions by Genesis (Breyer) P-Orridge in Shrewsbury, Shropshire late Summer of 1969. Genesis founded COUM Transmissions as an art project alone. There were NO co-founders. He had never met, nor heard of Christine Carol Newby (later Christened Cosmosis by Genesis) at that time. The original members of COUM Transmissions were G P-O and John Jesus Shapeero. Later on Dr Timothy poston, Ian "Spydee" Evetts, Peter "Pinglewad" Winstanley all became members. Cosey began her connection with COUM Transmissions performances around 1971-72. She had however, always supported Genesis and COUM both conceptually as a member of the "Coumunity" at the HoHo Funhouse and functionally creating costumes and props. After beginning to also take part in street actions and arts festival performances she grew to add a unique and powerful element and became an integral aspect of the ever more intimate and extreme actions of COUM Transmissions. A perfect foil in the later explorations of sexuality, gender and stereotypes.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge NYC 2011.
From http://www.tate.org.uk/ Europes largest Art Magazine...
Courtesy Tate Archive
Lizzie Carey-Thomas on COUM Transmissions
“Public money is being wasted here to destroy the morality of society. These people are the wreckers of civilisation,” wrote Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn in the Daily Mail on 19 October 1976. The subject of his tirade was the performance-art group COUM Transmissions and its recently opened, now infamous exhibition ‘Prostitution’ at the ICA, London. COUM, formed in Hull in 1969 by Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, had begun life as a band, but gained notoriety throughout the early 1970s for its taboo-breaking direct “actions”. Its founders’ antagonistic approach often brought them into conflict with the law, the most well-documented of which was P-Orridge’s indecent postcard trial of April 1976. Hijacking the trial as an art event under the title ‘G.P.O v. G-P.O’, complete with invitation cards, he subsequently announced: “What E [sic] am interested in now is that point where Art meets Life and fuses, dispersing art and enhancing life.”
While ‘Prostitution’ ran for only eight days at the ICA, it received a hostile and widespread reaction from the national press, who saw its contents as a deliberate assault on the moral and artistic values of the time. Alongside photographs of COUM performances and related press cuttings (including those levelled at the show), the exhibition included used tampons sculptures, props from past “actions” and framed pages of pornographic magazines from Tutti’s modelling career, available upon request.
Nineteen seventy-six had been a difficult year for contemporary art in Britain, which found itself facing an increasingly sceptical press during a period of all-time economic lows. Since the furore over Tate’s purchase of Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII (the “Tate Bricks”) in February, public subsidy of the arts had been forensically examined, and some critics were quick to see ‘Prostitution’ as further evidence of waning standards and a threat to societal values. In a typically agile move, the show was to be both the culmination and death of COUM’s art-related activities – the duo relaunched themselves at the opening as industrial band Throbbing Gristle, abandoning the art establishment altogether.
- Archive material on COUM Transmissions and 'Prostitution' has been selected from the Genesis P-Orridge archive held at Tate and a private collection.
Friday, November 5, 2010
GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE – HAS NOT QUIT TG !
Statement from http://www.genesisbreyerporridge.com/
Dear Friends,
We have seen and heard various inaccurate, erroneous, even sometimes libelous speculations about why we felt compelled to drop out of the current Throbbing Gristle tour. As a result we intend to address these matters in full as soon as possible. We hope that what we state now, and later, will be clear, will not fan the flames of destructive gossip, will not seem negative and will reduce an somewhat dramatic situation into a simpler story. We want to make it clear right now that we did not, and have no wish to quit TG. Obviously there is more involved than just that simple statement. Personally, at this point of my life, my position is that the inner workings and dynamics of any band, but especially of TG, are as intimate, unique and most of all complex as they are within any family. Unfortunately, even at the level TG occupy in popular culture, band business becomes potentially everyone’s business. We all know the internet has amplified the speed of distribution of “information” almost as fast as it has accelerated the decline of accuracy worldwide. We have no interest in pointing fingers (or is it claws?) at various people or sites and accusing them of letting the cat out of the bag. Bickering is never attractive, not one on one nor within the realms of an ever expanding media fueled by smart phone technologies and laptops. As soon as we have composed a written version of what series of events we believe led to my feeling unable to remain part of THIS short tour by the re-grouped TG that feels acceptable we will post it here.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
Dear Friends,
We have seen and heard various inaccurate, erroneous, even sometimes libelous speculations about why we felt compelled to drop out of the current Throbbing Gristle tour. As a result we intend to address these matters in full as soon as possible. We hope that what we state now, and later, will be clear, will not fan the flames of destructive gossip, will not seem negative and will reduce an somewhat dramatic situation into a simpler story. We want to make it clear right now that we did not, and have no wish to quit TG. Obviously there is more involved than just that simple statement. Personally, at this point of my life, my position is that the inner workings and dynamics of any band, but especially of TG, are as intimate, unique and most of all complex as they are within any family. Unfortunately, even at the level TG occupy in popular culture, band business becomes potentially everyone’s business. We all know the internet has amplified the speed of distribution of “information” almost as fast as it has accelerated the decline of accuracy worldwide. We have no interest in pointing fingers (or is it claws?) at various people or sites and accusing them of letting the cat out of the bag. Bickering is never attractive, not one on one nor within the realms of an ever expanding media fueled by smart phone technologies and laptops. As soon as we have composed a written version of what series of events we believe led to my feeling unable to remain part of THIS short tour by the re-grouped TG that feels acceptable we will post it here.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
Friday, October 29, 2010
Statment: Throbbing Gristle has Ceased to Exist.
10.28.2010
• IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THROBBING GRISTLE!
In the evening 27th October TG members and their associated managements received two emails from Genesis P-Orridge stating he was no longer willing to perform in Throbbing Gristle and returned to his home in New York.
Cosey, Sleazy & Chris have concluded that once more, and for the time being, Throbbing Gristle has Ceased to Exist, at least as a live entity.
Therefore, and with deepest apologies, TG must cancel their scheduled performance at Archa Theatre, in Prague, Czech Republic on 30th October.It being too short notice to offer an alternative set.
In order not to disappoint fans of the old quartet, Cosey, Peter & Chris have offered to perform live under the name X-TG at Arena Del Sole, Bologna, Italy on 2nd November & at Casa Musica, Porto, Portugal on 5th November.
We are awaiting confirmation from both the Bologna & Porto Promoters.
We hope fans will appreciate and enjoy this new project and the trio is looking forward to performing exciting new and radical electronic musics together.
Full refunds are available at the point of purchase if required.
Industrial Records Ltd, London. 29th October 2010
REMAINING PERFORMANCES
∞
2nd Nov - ARENA del SOLE THEATRE, BOLOGNA, ITALY
5th Nov - PORTO CASA MUSICA, Portugal
3/4/5 Dec - ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES, MINEHEAD, UK
• IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THROBBING GRISTLE!
In the evening 27th October TG members and their associated managements received two emails from Genesis P-Orridge stating he was no longer willing to perform in Throbbing Gristle and returned to his home in New York.
Cosey, Sleazy & Chris have concluded that once more, and for the time being, Throbbing Gristle has Ceased to Exist, at least as a live entity.
Therefore, and with deepest apologies, TG must cancel their scheduled performance at Archa Theatre, in Prague, Czech Republic on 30th October.It being too short notice to offer an alternative set.
In order not to disappoint fans of the old quartet, Cosey, Peter & Chris have offered to perform live under the name X-TG at Arena Del Sole, Bologna, Italy on 2nd November & at Casa Musica, Porto, Portugal on 5th November.
We are awaiting confirmation from both the Bologna & Porto Promoters.
We hope fans will appreciate and enjoy this new project and the trio is looking forward to performing exciting new and radical electronic musics together.
Full refunds are available at the point of purchase if required.
Industrial Records Ltd, London. 29th October 2010
REMAINING PERFORMANCES
∞
2nd Nov - ARENA del SOLE THEATRE, BOLOGNA, ITALY
5th Nov - PORTO CASA MUSICA, Portugal
3/4/5 Dec - ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES, MINEHEAD, UK
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
final additions announced for Nightmare Before Xmas - Throbbing Gristle...Friday 3rd to 5th December 2010
All Tomorrow's Parties curators Godspeed You! Black Emperor have announced the final acts for this year's Nightmare Before Christmas event.
The final five additions to the bill are Throbbing Gristle who will headline one of the nights of ATP. The controversial avant-garde Brit group fronted by Genesis P-Orridge will perform an all new set using new experimental electronic equipment, spiced with a couple of old favourite tracks and no doubt some thought provoking imagery to boot.
Completing the new additions heading to Butlins are the melancholy Tindersticks, The Sadies, Yomul Yuk, and Dreamcatcher
All Tomorrow's Parties - Nightmare Before Christmas takes place at Butlins Resort, Minehead, Somerset from Friday 3rd to 5th December 2010
tickets online here
http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/alltomorrowsparties/2010wk3/
The final five additions to the bill are Throbbing Gristle who will headline one of the nights of ATP. The controversial avant-garde Brit group fronted by Genesis P-Orridge will perform an all new set using new experimental electronic equipment, spiced with a couple of old favourite tracks and no doubt some thought provoking imagery to boot.
Completing the new additions heading to Butlins are the melancholy Tindersticks, The Sadies, Yomul Yuk, and Dreamcatcher
All Tomorrow's Parties - Nightmare Before Christmas takes place at Butlins Resort, Minehead, Somerset from Friday 3rd to 5th December 2010
tickets online here
http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/alltomorrowsparties/2010wk3/
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Throbbing gristle live videos on youtube
1979
Throbbing Gristle live at Northampton, Guild Hall, 26th May, 1979. "Hamburger Lady
2004
Live footage of Throbbing Gristle's notorious regrouping at London's Astoria Theater in Spring 2004
THROBBING GRISTLE Discipline live @ The Astoria, London 2004
2008
5/31/08 Primavera Sound, Auditori del Fòrum Barcelona
THROBBING GRISTLE - 32th Annual Report LIVE IN PARIS 6/6/2008
part one
part two
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
2009
Throbbing Gristle Hamburger Lady Chicago 4/25/2009
4/28/09 Throbbing Gristle "Gristleizer" @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple
Throbbing Gristle, Coachella 2009
Throbbing Gristle live at Northampton, Guild Hall, 26th May, 1979. "Hamburger Lady
2004
Live footage of Throbbing Gristle's notorious regrouping at London's Astoria Theater in Spring 2004
THROBBING GRISTLE Discipline live @ The Astoria, London 2004
2008
5/31/08 Primavera Sound, Auditori del Fòrum Barcelona
THROBBING GRISTLE - 32th Annual Report LIVE IN PARIS 6/6/2008
part one
part two
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
2009
Throbbing Gristle Hamburger Lady Chicago 4/25/2009
4/28/09 Throbbing Gristle "Gristleizer" @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple
Throbbing Gristle, Coachella 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Genesis p-orridge INTERVIEW / DOCUMENTARY videos on youtube
Temple Ov Psychick Youth
Psychic Tv Psychlopedia
Volume One - "EDEN 3"
Interview with Genesis-P-Orridge & Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson
1986
Network21 pirate TV (Clip)
Genesis P Orridge talks about Brion Gysin's dream machine
1986 full network 21 episode
genesis begins speaking about dreammachine around 7:00 mark)
Psychic TV Interview on New Music (Toronto 1990)
1999(?)
Genesis P Orridge talks about WIlliam Burroughs and then talks with Mario Pazzaglini on two separate Infinity Factory shows hosted by Richard Metzger
1999(?)
Genesis P Orridge about Throbbing Gristle on Infinity Factory interviewed by Richard Metzger (Part 1 of 4)
Genesis P Orridge about Throbbing Gristle on Infinity Factory interviewed by Richard Metzger (Part 2 of 4)
Genesis P Orridge interviewed about Throbbing Gristle on Infinity Factory by Richard Metzger (Part 3 of 4)
Infinity Factory Throbbing Gristle Genesis P Orridge Part 4 of 1
1999(?)
Robert Anton Wilson & Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 1 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson & Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 2 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson & Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 3 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 4 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 5 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 6 of 6
Genesis P-Orridge - Relocating The Sacred
here is a circa 1999 news posting on this event from Gen's old "next-new-way-on" website.
RELOCATING THE SACRED VIDEO STREAM ONLINE AND CDRom:
During our weekend in Preston, Lancashire as participants of the Relocating The Sacred In Contemporary Performance Practice Genesis P-Orridge gave a keynote speech, did a live interview with the public along with a representative of Jah Wobble and then Thee Majesty performed live in the Guildhall. An long time friend; ally and supporter of all our incarnations, JOHN BENTHAM, appeared and with our full consent recorded everything we did on a palmcorder. Samples of his documentation can be viewed and downloaded FREE from:
www.punkcast.com/56
s6k Arts Interview w/Genesis
SOFT FOCUS interview part one of four
Genesis P-Orridge interviewed on Soft Focus at the Guggenheim Museum, NYC
SOFT FOCUS interview part two of four
SOFT FOCUS interview part three of four
SOFT FOCUS interview part four of four
THE TRANSFORMATION OF GENESIS P-ORRIDGE by Kel O'Neill & Eline Jongsma
XLR8R TV Ep. 108: Genesis P-Orridge, Better than the Beatles
Psychic Tv Psychlopedia
Volume One - "EDEN 3"
Interview with Genesis-P-Orridge & Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson
1986
Network21 pirate TV (Clip)
Genesis P Orridge talks about Brion Gysin's dream machine
1986 full network 21 episode
genesis begins speaking about dreammachine around 7:00 mark)
Psychic TV Interview on New Music (Toronto 1990)
1999(?)
Genesis P Orridge talks about WIlliam Burroughs and then talks with Mario Pazzaglini on two separate Infinity Factory shows hosted by Richard Metzger
1999(?)
Genesis P Orridge about Throbbing Gristle on Infinity Factory interviewed by Richard Metzger (Part 1 of 4)
Genesis P Orridge about Throbbing Gristle on Infinity Factory interviewed by Richard Metzger (Part 2 of 4)
Genesis P Orridge interviewed about Throbbing Gristle on Infinity Factory by Richard Metzger (Part 3 of 4)
Infinity Factory Throbbing Gristle Genesis P Orridge Part 4 of 1
1999(?)
Robert Anton Wilson & Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 1 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson & Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 2 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson & Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 3 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 4 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 5 of 6
Robert Anton Wilson Genesis P Orridge on Infinity Factory Part 6 of 6
Genesis P-Orridge - Relocating The Sacred
here is a circa 1999 news posting on this event from Gen's old "next-new-way-on" website.
RELOCATING THE SACRED VIDEO STREAM ONLINE AND CDRom:
During our weekend in Preston, Lancashire as participants of the Relocating The Sacred In Contemporary Performance Practice Genesis P-Orridge gave a keynote speech, did a live interview with the public along with a representative of Jah Wobble and then Thee Majesty performed live in the Guildhall. An long time friend; ally and supporter of all our incarnations, JOHN BENTHAM, appeared and with our full consent recorded everything we did on a palmcorder. Samples of his documentation can be viewed and downloaded FREE from:
www.punkcast.com/56
s6k Arts Interview w/Genesis
SOFT FOCUS interview part one of four
Genesis P-Orridge interviewed on Soft Focus at the Guggenheim Museum, NYC
SOFT FOCUS interview part two of four
SOFT FOCUS interview part three of four
SOFT FOCUS interview part four of four
THE TRANSFORMATION OF GENESIS P-ORRIDGE by Kel O'Neill & Eline Jongsma
XLR8R TV Ep. 108: Genesis P-Orridge, Better than the Beatles
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