Gen's upcoming events and Misc.upcoming projects...





GENS MISC. UPCOMING PROJECTS: Heartworm Press are publishing “Collected Lyrics and Poems of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge – Volume One 1961 to 1971. Later they will publish Gen's first novel, written in 1969, “Mrs. Askwith”. Other books will follow.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

2003 era interview with Montreal mirror

originally appeared on http://www.montrealmirror.com/

Elves on acid and Hitler in drag

Interdimensional investigator or shamanistic shyster? Post-gender pandrogyne or perverse little imp? Genesis P-Orridge is all that and more

by ADAM GOLLNER

Genesis P-Orridge is an artist and not a pornographer. - William S. Burroughs

If his new book Painful but Fabulous: The Lives and Art of Genesis P-Orridge is any indication, he is not only an artist and a pornographer, he’s a constant presence in some of the most subversive and original undercurrents of high art and popular culture around.

Genesis P-Orridge (born Neil Megson in Manchester, England, in 1950) invented industrial music and pioneered techno with Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and Temple ov Psychik Youth. The Sex Pistols’ image of the Queen was ripped off from him. He collaborated with the likes of Burroughs and Timothy Leary. He is a well-respected “pandrogynist cultural speculator” and noted proponent of shamanistic “magick” (as opposed to rabbit-in-the-hat “magic”).

He has a German shepherd tattooed on his penis and a penchant for fascist fashion. His wife, Miss Jackie, holds him personally responsible for the current mass popularity of piercings - though his own adventures in body modification and transcending gender have gone so much further than a mere nipple ring or two.

P-Orridge is coming to Montreal to present a retrospective of his first project, the actionist performance group Coum Transmissions, at Concordia University’s VAV Gallery. Alongside his wife, Miss Jackie, and select number of participants, he will also be performing a number of sigils - “neo-magick rituals based around ecstasy, will, desire and knowledge.”

Prepare to have your mind expanded.

Mirror: How are you doing, Genesis?

Genesis P-Orridge: I’m pretty good - trying to decide what to do for me birthday later.

M: It’s your birthday? Happy birthday!

GPO: Thank you. I’m 53 years old. Timothy Leary used to joke about getting old and how it gives you the excuse to remember and forget anything you want. What it tends to give you is this incredibly humiliating hindsight when you realize that you’ve just been a reactive organism and you didn’t even realize it. You start to wonder, have I ever actually thought anything? Or am I really just a compression of all these different reactions? And, of course, in the end, who gives a fuck? Luckily, I always get to the ‘who gives a fuck.’

M: So what are your birthday possibilities?

GPO: We were gonna plan what to do for my birthday last night. We started to sip some wine and eat some nice food. I, of course, forgot that I’m on pain medication ’cause I had a root canal last week. I got nice and woozy and very content and smiley - nyiiiiii! Then suddenly it was 8 o’clock in the morning and we thought we should all go to bed. We didn’t plan anything. Maybe that was the party. We’ve already had it! So that was pleasant. Then I woke up to a nice sequence of e-mails. I got a phone call from Bruce LaBruce. I’m going to be in his next movie as Eva Adolf Braun Hitler, which is the character you picked for the cover of your magazine. So it’s all flowing together. Everything is very comfortable, like the soft, furry cogs of the people I appreciate being near and around are all cogging and furring and rubbing and clicking nicely. I feel good!

New boobs and Nazis

M: Tell me a little bit about this Eva Adolf Braun Hitler. What’s up with that?

GPO: That’s definitely someone I’m channelling. If there is such a thing as channelling then she’s being channelled. This is what she explained to me - ready?

M: Yes.

GPO: The official version of the end of the Second World War is of course completely inaccurate. Adolf Hitler actually murdered Eva Braun and then escaped in her drag when the Russians were coming. In all the confusion they just burned somebody else’s body next to hers. Adolf escaped and eventually, via various routes, got to America and is now living as a janitor in an old industrial building in the Midwest. However, through the guilt of having murdered the love of his life, and all the trauma of being who he is/was, he has become completely possessed by Eva. So he lives now as Eva Adolf Braun Hitler in this basement, in this boiler room. So that’s the basic story. She’s completely and utterly demented and suffering in hell. Yet she’s almost prudishly politically correct about gender issues. Ha, of all things!

M: So she’s going to be in the new Bruce LaBruce film?

GPO: Somehow we’re going to weave her in and out of the movie, almost like a Greek chorus, wandering around with these gender-queer statements and lavender revolution and so on.

M: Sounds Brechtian. Extreme Brecht!

GPO: Oh, I’ve got those. That’s the other surgery I’m recovering from. I got my breast implants last week. On Valentine’s Day, Miss Jackie and I both got our breast implants.

M: Seriously?

GPO: Yeah!

M: How are they?

GPO: Very nice. And sore still, ’cause we had it done under the muscle. It was our 10th anniversary of being together. And as you know, I prefer to immerse my entire being in the work that I do. I don’t like to only discuss, I also like to experience.


Dialogue with the divine

M: I would like to talk to you about magic -

GPO: Okay, what I’d like you to do - ’cause I’m a nosy little bastard from Manchester - is tell me a little about you. I know it’s hard ’cause it’s the other end of the stick and all that, but give me some background.

M: Well, I’m a writer, and I’m in a band called We Are Molecules.

GPO: I love the word ‘molecule!’ Good, good, good. Yummy. Go on.

M: I’m also in a group called Participation Mystique. We try to play music from all over the world, but are just two people.

GPO: Mystical participation? That makes total sense with what we’ve been trying to do. Invoking a dialogue with the divine, which is the root of music all over the world, the basic root of all calling down. So I get that one. Oh good! That’s exciting! I love to discover that something is inevitably happening that ought to be. I really feel that it’s one of these moments in time where it’s the duty of the artist to remember that creativity is the deepest luxury of all beings. The possibility of creativity. And with that goes improvising because of novelty, and explanation because of mystery. To be a little crass, the first book of the Bible is the Book of Creation. There’s a reason that’s what the order of things is. Creation is the highest form of being. I don’t know how it will unfold, but I have this feeling of it becoming okay to say that you have ethical, mystical, spiritual and magical considerations in the work that you do.

Metaphysics 101

M: Is that not the way it used to be?

GPO: Hah! Actually, no. Well, originally art was mystical and creative, but I think it’s been lost along the path. When I go and visit various art colleges and so on, I’m always amazed when I say to people, “What is it you want to do?” They say, “I want to be rich and famous.” When you’re talking about their art!

M: That’s confusion.

GPO: I would say 95 to 98 per cent say that to me. That’s frightening to me. Not in the traditional sense of frightening, but it’s bothersome. It concerns me that television culture has so homogenized the thinking process to the point that hardly any thinking is happening. You think about ethics, and sentiment, and emotions - where is the course for that at most art colleges? And yet, that to me seems to be one of the central themes of everything. The voyage of discovery to the unknown that is more fantastic than we ever imagined.

M: How would you change the curriculum?

GPO: We should have kids go to school to discuss metaphysics, but make it so exciting. Say to them, “Why not paint the whole street completely pink? Never explain it to anybody. Let’s just all paint it pink, and see what you find out about the way that people see the world and each other.” We have to not denigrate the idea of consciousness being the real issue. Consciousness is the only issue, the nature of consciousness. Are you part of me? Are we really all just one giant consciousness? Are we all the tiny fragments of God experiencing itself? Very possibly. So why not spend billions of dollars on that exploration, you know? How are we doing?

M: We’re doing great. I do want to talk about what you will be doing in Montreal.

GPO: Okay, let’s get practical. [Sings to the tune of Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical”.] Let’s get practical, magical!


The universe in you

M: So just what will you be doing here in Montreal?

GPO: I’ll be working with Miss Jackie, making a large sigil. We’ll be working with a group of people who’ve signed on to participate in the collective construction of a piece. It will eventually be displayed on the last night. The origins of art are very much about inter-dimensional blocks, portholes and conversations, which is what a lot of people tend to forget.

M: What is the first art ever?

GPO: Obviously, one can only try and track back and think down deep into the nether regions of the brain, wherever they are. I would imagine that it would at some point become apparent to our ancestors that there was a morning and an evening, that the sun came up and the sun disappeared and the sun was a very good thing. And that also the darkness was a very good thing for various reasons. So the first art was about passing on any information to do with functional survival that was cohesive enough to different generations that they could memorize it. It could be added to as an oral history that would maintain what reality appeared to be. The very first art was about maintaining materiality, staying real.

M: Sounds like what you are doing.

GPO: I think that’s a really important point in terms of where I work with my art, because that’s really what I’m right down to now, is identity and real. There is another argument, that we don’t really have any function beyond passing on DNA. So that DNA is really the supreme life form, or just the mitochondria, whatever. So again we’re back to your molecules! But I really do believe that very possibly the supreme beings on this planet are in fact molecular and we are the clumsy bio-clusters that give mobility and novelty and interaction to great big colonies of DNA. What does the universe look like to a molecule? There are billions and billions of them. And what are we to them? We are these weird, lumbering things that they can hitch a ride on. And the one thing that we do that is useful for them is we pass them on to the next lot of ourselves. They get immortality through us. So I really think the great challenge of the future is DNA, and what its role really is. That’s why as an artist I have to look at myself as DNA and say, “Who am I?” And that’s when you get to perception. So we really have to get back to focusing on creativity, perception, consciousness, and what the hell is DNA? So there you go!


Intersecting with elves

M: So how does this magic fit into what you do?

GPO: Hmmm. I do believe that everything that I do is a magical act. The more I think about my entire life, the more I think it’s been one constant magical invocation. That somewhere, somehow, I was blessed with this feeling. As a child most of us have feelings of moving stones around and making little shrines, dens and secret places to hide -

M: Like forts.

GPO: Yes. All I know is that in my own experience, if I focused and I moved things around in particular ways and I had a very clear intent or idea of something I would like to have happen, that some power, a combination of sensory deprivation or meditation or whatever the words are, would permit me to force the hand of chance. I could increase the odds of a conversation with that which appears to be hidden just beyond the other.

M: The other?

GPO: There are intersections with some other dimensional laws of the universe. There must be more dimensions. Perhaps everything that everybody experiences is happening all the time. I was thinking about psychedelic tourists the other day, and how annoying they could be. Imagine if people took ayahuasca or magic mushrooms and they go off to where Terence McKenna talks about and they meet the elves and everything -

M: Sorry - they go where? To meet whom?

GPO: They go to some psychedelic dimension and they meet with elves and strange creatures and they talk with them and they ask them questions. And they come back. Let’s suppose for a moment that that place where they are is just as real as where we are. So, all of our dreams are them on acid trips over here! Right? We’re actually visiting these other places, and blundering around in their world without any training or any etiquette. No one told us the right thing to say, or how to behave, and not to leave the rubbish behind when you take a shit. If you start just for a minute to think of it in a much more concrete way, you can imagine millions of people have been invading these idyllic other dimensions with not much of a plan. It’s an odd phenomenon. Magic is very wisely and very carefully recorded and documented journeys to facilitate the most diplomatic relationships possible with these other territories. There’s no way for me to prove where I am is any more real or material than other places I felt that I’ve been. When I’m sleeping and dreaming, it’s absolutely as real. I spend a third of my life or more - even if you just count sleep - in other worlds. And yet it’s not on the curriculum anywhere!

M: What are the ethical guidelines there?

GPO: Yeah! That’s what we have to look at. Some people are. I’m not proselytizing that anyone should or should not take drugs. What I’m pointing out is that there are possibly myriad realities, and for whatever reasons, people are travelling back and forth between them. It seems like this planet is one of the intersections. Maybe we talk to ghosts all the time and don’t know and they are just people on trips from somewhere else. Who knows what’s going on? :

"A BACKWARDS SPIRAL"

"A BACKWARDS SPIRAL" was the live presentation by Genesis During the oct 2010 Serpentine Gallery Map Marathon in London, England.

Now DNA is mapped we can deconstruct it, cut it up, chop it to pieces and reassemble it as a new “WE” see fit. Change the way to perceive and change all memory.

Description: We are focusing on evolutionary imperatives for this human species to become a humane species. Not billions of separated individuals in competition but one singular organism built from billions of integrated individuals with mutual unity of purpose.

One question we are asking ourselves is concerned with a possibility that consciousness, the "mind" within matter, might in fact be a voice of DNA, rather than our autonomous biological SELF.

We wonder if our species has misread the existential map of being. What if all the myriad clusters of cells that make up our organs, skin, bones and flesh are merely biological containers? What if DNA is actually the core species and “we” have been duped into imagining we exist?

What if our entire perceptual map of what "WE" are and where "WE" fit in this ongoing trajectory of life has been radically misconceived and led our species into serious errors in direction? A broken compass spiraling backwards…

If the physical body is NOT "US" but actually a camouflaged "cheap suitcase" that has enabled a programme to unfold? One that serves the covert and parasitic purposes of DNA allowing DNA to utilize us as organic machines and bio-utilitarian vehicles controlled and suppressed by built in obsolescence?

We are an unwitting, disposable dwelling, host to a life form whose continuity has far more innate longevity than our paltry 3 score years and ten. So whose voice do we hear as thoughts? Is our sense of individual physical autonomy an illusion?

To explore these questions we will use video, sound and voice to raise by implication issues we feel are critical. Our performance will take the shape of a "rant"! A manifesto of rage against the limitations imposed upon our evolutionary independence by DNA and the present inequity of our complacent co-dependence upon it.

We have an opportunity to utterly re-conceive what beings we are and to reconfigure our relationship with our genetic territories. We need to totally re-map our concepts of separateness, gender, physical shape, form and function. This is a search for methods and templates that redescribe how to isolate and alter some primal destructive, behavioural traits. Traits that block our potential and lock us in a pre-Astoric loop. Unless we liberate the exploration of genetic space our current malaise and inertia will leave us lost in a spatial geography with no concepts to guide us.

Where is the humanE species located? We must be able to break our dependence on inherited DNA and rupture the concept of the physical body being "sacred" or even a finished result of a process of nature? Now that DNA has been "mapped" we are able to cut that map up and reassemble it in unique, infinite ways and explore its shapes and functions according to imagination and creation.

BREYER P-ORRIDGE New York, 2010.
VIVA LA EVOLUTION!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Thee OTTT New Y-Ear draws near...as does T.O.P.Y. FLYING BUFFALO DAY!

From Gen....as we don't recognize XMAS (CHRISTmass) Funny, when the children were young, around 10 and 8 years old, they said they didn't want to celebrate Xmass at all, but they understood, from growing up in TOPY and with me & Jaye that there WAS a Pagan Day (Caresse's album was for that)...etc

So Jaye and me said OK, you refuse to celebrate organised XTIAN day(s)...what shall we call it?
GENESSE immediately said "FLYING BUFFALO DAY because it's as fake and unbelievable as Buffalos Flying!"

WOW! were WE proud parents. So it was agreed. My SELF and Lady Jaye created a large buffalo from chicken wire, added pink bows of ribbon and lots of fairy lights entwined and then hung the Flying Buffalo above the dining table. The kids LOVED their flying buffalo, as did we and to this day they call Xmas, Flying Buffalo Day.

PS. PLEASE tell your site that 25th December is T.O.P.Y. FLYING BUFFALO DAY and should be celebrated as such by the ONE TRUE TOPI TRIBE...as to what form that takes, well let's start a chat/forum about a OTTT Calendar. With Godstars (our saints) Special Holy Daze, and so on until it is ready to create and publish yearly.


Thee OTTT New Y-Ear begins on December 23rd and continues until January 23rd. Its a transition, NOT a sudden switch instantly. We let go of our old patterns and L-if-E Loops and move towards a New Creation in the next year

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

ONE TRUE TOPI TRIBE/ what do you want to know?

ONE TRUE TOPI TRIBE ! Gen has been collobarating more and more with thee archive page and wants to do a special post weekly answering questions from ALL OF YOU! ask away...Thee archive covers the span of this career...What have you always wanted to know? What do you want more detai lon-straight from Gen?

past/present/future....Ask Away...

Monday, December 13, 2010

The new era of PTV3 continues....

Straight from Gen..
You can tell the ONE TRUE TOPI TRIBE that PTV3 are so thrilled with the response of the fans last Thursday that we have decided to do a follow up to "Maggot Brain v Alien Brain"..it will be based on the live improvisations and called ?MOTHER SKY v ALIEN SKY"....with the current PTV3 line-up.

A gift to thee archive From Bryin Dall....."New York story-Thee Majesty Version"

A few notes from Bryin Dall (Thee majesty,4th Sign of the Apocalypse) on this Thee majesty New York Story version...

The song was written and first performed by Thee Majesty at a gig in Paris. It was then adopted and released by PTV3.



I got my hands on the tracks that PTV did and stripped it back down closer to the original version, removing everything but Edley's tracks that he did with TM, cut up Gen's vocals, kept Alice's vocals and put my guitar back in. I mixed it and made the video for it.


I always loved this song and wanted to have a TM studio version of it, so now there is!



Thanks Bryin!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

DO YOU have video from the PTV3 dec 9th gig?

Genesis has asked me to put the request out, for anyone that recorded any (or even better the entire show) of the Dec 9th PTV3 gig. If so please get in contact with me!
J3/ thee archive

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Dec 9th PTV3 recap post...words,pics,video.

A few words Genesis shared with me regarding the Dec 9th PTV3 show, including the disheartning news on the theft of some one-of -a kind sentimental items..


WE(me) wore "corpse death metal make-up" for no reason, just a whim. Jeff "BUNSEN" Berner..everywhere we went everyone was saying, WOW!! the new guitarist is AMAZING! And even, the DRUMMER is INCREDIBLE too! The new PTV3 line-up is STUNNING! "Acid Mothers Temple Meets the Stooges!!!" someone said, "on DMT!"



The band members ARE amazing, so tight, so able to improvise. We did 5 songs only.


MOTHER SKY (cover of CAN song, new lyrics)
ALIEN BRAIN
HOOKAH CHALICE
segue with "THEE LEGGE SONG" into
HOOKAH CHALICE crescendo
MAGGOT BRAIN
OF POWER


Played around 2 hours...


Unfortunately MY "Gristleizer" signed by all 4 members of TG inclusing Sleazy, was stolen. Morrison Edley's digital camera was stolen and Jeff Berner's WahWah was stolen. Sad, cos WE as a band, as a group of people trying to launch thee ONE TRUE TOPI TRIBE for a greater good. To help grow a collective alternative coum-unity and some cheap minded people saw ONLY opportunity to abuse our trust...!


PLEASE, REAL fans of the NEXT NEW WAY ON..don't see the trust of others as a cynical moment to exploit for transient greed. You may IMAGINE we are a "RICH ROCK BAND" but not one, NOT ONE of us has enough financial security to even be sure we can pay our rent next month. We don't mind being poor, we mind being betrayed when we are generous with whatever gifts we have.


BIG LOVE! Alice, Jess, Gen, Jeff, Edley (and Sam and Jeanne who create the videos)

UPDATE ON THE MISSING GEAR!

Dearest Garry,

GOOD NEWS! First...the GRISTLEIZER is returned. Transpired that Bryin Dall was packing up his gear and noticed various people clustered and clustering around my Gristleizer. Some were getting photos taken next to it ( !!!) and someone was saying "Look, its signed by all TG including Sleazy who just died"...so being VERY smart Bryin thought it time to remove the object of awesome talismanic power before impulse took over someones actions.


So Bryin packed the Gristleizer with his stuff and brought it home (next building up) for safe keeping. He just forgot to tell us and the people he told to tell us, didn't..


Which is wonderful news. As you implied it would have marred the magickal focus.


Jeff said it was an old wahwah anyway so it's no big deal to him..only Edley lost out.
We DO still need to retrieve Morrison Edley's digital camera. Its the images inside, of course, not the actual object
Still, we are all THRILLED by the public response....
                                                             Photo by Gigi Ben
 
                                                 All photos below by Todd Brooks

More pictures from Gigi Ben




Thursday, December 2, 2010

PSYCHIC TV - 'THEMES' BOXSET now avalaible for pre-order!

Cold Spring Newsflash - 2nd December 2010

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


PSYCHIC TV - 'THEMES' BOXSET
After many months of work, we're extremely proud to announce Psychic TV 'Themes' box is
finished and ready to pre-order now!

For the first time, all THEMES albums by PSYCHIC TV released together, in a sumptuous, embossed box set. The music itself was designed not only as soundtrack but also for subsequent use by Initiates of The Temple Ov Psychick Youth in their rituals as Functional music intended only to aid in the process of making things happen. It is a practical tool. Thee essential collection of rare, archive and modern PTV ritual / esoteric musick! Each CD is presented in it's own matt laminate, spot-varnished mini-LP sleeve. The box also includes a 28-page booklet of rare photos and essays.

"Themes" was originally released in 1982 as a limited bonus LP with the first 5000 copies of the legendary PSYCHIC TV album "Force The Hand Of Chance". Musicians: Stan Bingo, Peter Christopherson (Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Soisong), Genesis P-Orridge, and David Tibet (Current 93).








Themes:
1. Part I
2. Part II
3. Part III
4. Part IV
5. Part V
6. Part VI
7. Part VII
8. Part VIII










"Themes 2" was originally released on LP in 1985 by Temple Records and subsequently reissued as an extended CD version by Cold Spring in 1997. Musicians: Genesis P-Orridge, Alex Fergusson, John Gosling (Zos Kia, Coil, Mekon). `Themes 2` is presented here as a 2 CD set, including the full vinyl version - plus the original `Unclean` 12" and it`s two B side tracks that were recorded in the same sessions.

Themes 2:
1. Themes 2 Part One
2. Themes 2 Part Two
3. Themes 2 Part Three
4. Unclean
5. Mirrors
6. Unclean Monks









Themes 2 - A Prayer For Derek Jarman:
1. The Loops Of Mystical Union
2. Elipse Of Flowers
3. Mylar Breeze (Parts 1 And 2)
4. Mylar Breeze (Part 3)
5. Prayer For Derek
6. Rites Of Reversal








"Themes 3" was originally released on LP in 1986 by Temple Records and is presented here for the first time on CD, completely remastered. Musicians: Genesis P-Orridge, John Gosling (Zos Kia, Coil, Mekon), Mark Sangerman, Monte Cazazza. `Themes 3` is presented here as a 2 CD set, with an unheard version performed in Boston, US by Genesis P-Orridge and John Gosling.

Themes 3:
1. Culture
2. News
3. Drama
4. Nature
5. Science
6. Implant
7. Analgesia
8. Catalepsy
9. Reverie
10. Placebo
11. Induction









Themes 3 - CD2:
1. Culture
2. News
3. Drama
4. Nature
5. Science
6. Implant
7. Analgesia
8. Catalepsy
9. Reverie
10. Placebo
11. Induction









"Themes 4" is a brand new Psychic TV album, recorded by the late partner of Genesis P-Orridge, Lady Jaye and Psychic TV. Compiled by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Ryan Martin and Bryin Dall. Musicians: Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Larry Thrasher, Bryin Dall.

Themes 4 Lady Jaye:
1. I'm Making A Mirror
2. I Like The Holidays! (A Children's Story)
3. Gobbledegook
4. Mother Jack (A Children's Story)
5. Candy Factory
6. I Love You, I Know
7. This Is The Final War
8. S/He Is (Still) Her/E








Get a free bonus CD 'Live In Basildon' 1986 - only when bought from Cold Spring!

Live In Basildon: 1. Thee Degenerate
2. She Touched Me
3. Unclean
4. Riot In Thee Eye Ov Sky
5. Southern Comfort
6. Roman P.
7. Retinal
8. Ov Power
9. Godstar

RELEASED 23/12