Whoa. One of the true weird experiences of my life way see GPO play a little, super rough punk bar in Tempe, AZ about... geez... maybe 9 years ago. S/he played topless.
A long time ago a friend of mine gave me a TG cd. He told me that at the far end of the night when you want people to leave your house party, put this on full volume. He was right.
Yup. In my youth plenty of parties went from forty people to just half a dozen of us listening to something... Unconventional like Discopathology or BANG! An open letter.
Some of it's definitely actually good. "Discipline" is good for example. Some of it is important ("All largely propaganda" makes a good point) and lots of it is just annoying and will make people leave. Some of the same friends actually hosted a few live music events at the turn of the century and "Did people leave in disgust?" was a measured criterion of success.
Vale Genesis P-Orridge. I first became acquainted with their work watching the excellent electronic music documentary _Modulations: Cinema for the Ear_
Found about Psychic TV aimlessly downloading stuff from people on soulseek, took me through a deep rabbit hole.
Truly weird person, certainly inspired me and and bunch of other people. RIP.
Oh man, I was at the Einstürzende Neubauten show in Los Angeles that got them banned from ever performing in California again. Their show's climax was cutting cables allowing two 20 foot steel girders to swing down and crash into each other like a gong. The sonic wave knocked the audience off our feet, everyone had bleeding ears and could not hear for the next several hours. The building, The Palladium in Hollywood, had plaster falling and it was said to be damaged by their show. That was an event.
This reminds me of being at a Survival Research Lab show and having to run from tear gas or whatever horrible noxious smell all the pyrotechnics were putting out. That was under the 80 freeway in a parking lot in SOMA during the dot com boom. Does wild stuff like that even happen anymore?
Yeah. I was there in 1997 and 2007. I guess I must suffer from old school disease, because it just doesn't have that sense of danger that 90s fringe culture had. Lots of people sitting around in lawn chairs in front of their RVs drinking beer in 2007.
Vinegar Syndrome actually restored and reissued this within the last year. I've always been a fan of his part in it:
"Information is like a bank. Some of us are rich. Some of us are poor with information. All of us can be rich. Our job--YOUR job is to rob the bank. To kill the guard. To go out there, to destroy everybody who keeps and hides the whole of information."
S/he made an immense contribution to music and though I never really fancied industrial stuff, I certainly appreciate a lot of Psychic TV's output for its creativity and diversity. My partner put me onto it and he's bawling his eyes out right now, listening to 'The Orchids'. I highly recommend people watch the (always) excellent Nardwuar interview Genesis [0] to hear some of the crazy stories from h/er life.
I was lucky enough to very briefly meet Genesis outside the venue that Psychic TV was playing in Salt Lake City on their Infinite Beat tour. A real inspiration and a genuine trailblazer. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that music changed my life.
I grew up with Throbbing Gristle. Genesis has a complicated legacy of control and manipulation that was part of their music and art. They lived their work, which is part of what made it so compelling. Industrial music for industrial people - more prophetic than insane.
I grew up listening to them and the Industrial music, art noise, intellectual punk sounds of the 80's. I met Genesis at a dinner party, but he was not really there there, being on some multi-day trip and just sat zoned in the corner. So, no, I did not meet him beyond his eyes glancing my way when my name was stated. Ah, those were the daze...
H/er artistic and personal partner of many years, Cosey Fanny Tutti, has accused h/er of physical and mental abuse over many years.
FWIW, I have always enjoyed her and Chris Carter's work, but I have to admit never really getting into the Psychic TV output despite owning many records.
Sad, although it reminded me of a quirky usenet meme in the early 90s that Gen had died via having a Pepsi machine falling on them. I miss rec.music.industrial
> P-Orridge’s genius didn’t lie in her artistic skills, but rather in her ability to manipulate others
It's true. His now her talent in any musical configuration was always adding a non-musical element. I would liken him now her to a hype man, like Flava Flav, but one that has traveled through and beyond a permanently state of drug induced psychosis to land on some distant shore, mysterious, disturbing, pointless, raw, Dionysian in the Paglian sense (not necessarily in the sense of N).
I love GP because sheitwhat proves that the absolutely psychologically depraved can find a place in this world, can be of value, too. It's an important and reassuring lesson.
For a great retrospective of the British industrial/neofolk scene, check out the book _England’s Hidden Reverse_. I’m more of a neofolk than an industrial fan myself, but there would be no David Tibet without Genesis P-Orridge.
31 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 82.2 ms ] threadSome of it's definitely actually good. "Discipline" is good for example. Some of it is important ("All largely propaganda" makes a good point) and lots of it is just annoying and will make people leave. Some of the same friends actually hosted a few live music events at the turn of the century and "Did people leave in disgust?" was a measured criterion of success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjl6V6wC28
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulations%3A_Cinema_for_the_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoder_(film)
I think Burning Man is trying to capitalistically monopolize fringe culture now. Inevitable.
"Information is like a bank. Some of us are rich. Some of us are poor with information. All of us can be rich. Our job--YOUR job is to rob the bank. To kill the guard. To go out there, to destroy everybody who keeps and hides the whole of information."
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4suhp5QNpE
H/er artistic and personal partner of many years, Cosey Fanny Tutti, has accused h/er of physical and mental abuse over many years.
FWIW, I have always enjoyed her and Chris Carter's work, but I have to admit never really getting into the Psychic TV output despite owning many records.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/10/genesis-p-orri...
> P-Orridge’s genius didn’t lie in her artistic skills, but rather in her ability to manipulate others
It's true. His now her talent in any musical configuration was always adding a non-musical element. I would liken him now her to a hype man, like Flava Flav, but one that has traveled through and beyond a permanently state of drug induced psychosis to land on some distant shore, mysterious, disturbing, pointless, raw, Dionysian in the Paglian sense (not necessarily in the sense of N).
I love GP because sheitwhat proves that the absolutely psychologically depraved can find a place in this world, can be of value, too. It's an important and reassuring lesson.