Other, Like Me (2020) - full transcript
History of Coum Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle.
This programme contains scenes of a
sexual nature, some strong language,
and scenes which some viewers may
find disturbing
SYNTH NOTES REVERBERATE
LOW NOTES BOOM
ELECTRONIC BEAT INTENSIFIES
Look what I'm doing -
standing with a knife.
MAN LAUGHS
Even like this,
I can keep up my secret reputation
as evil and vicious.
Ah! Oh! God bless David Bowie.
Which one? The LSD, the DMT
or the ketamine?
The OTO, Cafe OTO, was great.
It was beautiful.
We really like doing those.
Your lunch is here.
Lunch is served.
Do you mind if I just give
her a little...?
We moved here in '96.
Way back in the '60s,
we wrote this poem about,
"New York is the toilet of Europe.
"They flush all the people
they don't want into New York."
And strangely enough,
they flushed me here, too.
Wow, what a life, Musty.
What a life.
One of the most transgressive
art collectives
that this country's ever produced.
It was pretty full-on. How do you
actually describe your own music?
To be as difficult as possible.
No boundaries.
You were intending to provoke
the establishment, weren't you?
We've always strived to be honest.
I'm interested in what human beings
are capable of doing to one another,
good and bad.
I grew up with Throbbing Gristle.
Utter inspiration to me
when I was younger and queer.
The wreckers of civilisation,
and anything less,
I'll be sorely disappointed.
All my life I've been drawn
to gardens,
and I'm a big believer that
everybody should touch the Earth
once a day.
The garden is a very
spiritual place.
It's, there's, the plants are not
going to ask you any questions,
they're just going to make
their statement and be there.
Maybe we should be more like that.
Just be rather than try
and change everything.
Ah, lovely! That powdery blue,
that lilac-y blue.
If you was at the beginning
of the world,
and you were creating the world,
could you have thought of that?
Would you have ever thought
a fish, that live in water?
What great thing, what a great idea.
Whose idea was that?
They can't live in our world
and we can't live in theirs. Wow!
I came originally from Hull.
I grew up with Cosey.
We were neighbours.
We were friends from the age
of dot.
She's like my sister
rather than a friend.
We are very close.
In our teens, we grew up and did
things together,
and, when she left home, she moved
into a different part of Hull,
and eventually met up with Genesis,
and they'd started doing
different things under the name
of COUM Transmissions.
I can't tell you when that actually
started, or when it ended,
cos I feel it still goes on.
COUM is transmitting now.
Les once made a point to me
years ago -
we forget that as we grow,
we're growing away from the ground.
He said, "When you're young,
you just see everything,
"and you're on the ground
"and you can see all this
are the world going on.
"And as you grow your, your eyes
are moving away from that
"and focusing on other things."
And I think it's good to get back
down on the ground
and realise where everything
really comes from.
I grew up on a council estate
in Hull.
I was born in 1951 -
post-war baby.
I wasn't content with
what I was expected to be.
I mean, especially being I wasn't
middle-lass, I was working-class,
and you were definitely channelled
into just literally working
for the rest of your life,
being a wife and working
and supporting your husband.
Even, even a lot of the women
on my estate didn't go to work.
Some worked in factories,
but not many.
They were stay-at-home mums.
And, erm, I,
I couldn't see myself doing that.
Maybe the way my dad brought me
up and gave me access to a more male
kind of view of the world, through,
you know, wanting me to be a boy.
I think that had a lot
to do with it.
I remember having a conversation
with my father when I was 14.
He wanted me to be a gas fitter
for British Gas.
And I told him
I wanted to be a poet.
I never really knew what that meant,
but it sounded nice.
But I knew instinctively,
that I was different,
and that I wasn't like
the other boys.
I lived on a council estate.
You were homosexual, you were queer,
you would be beaten up.
Hull was pretty isolated.
The Humber Bridge wasn't built.
Back in the 1960s, Hull was
a different sort of place.
Most people just had to work,
and just tucked into that, you know,
so a very drab, drab place, Hull.
And I hate to say that,
but that's how it was.
Obviously, there was beginnings
of pop programmes
which became Top Of The Pops, but
there were all sorts of things
going on before then,
like Ready, Steady, Go.
So you've got an idea of
what was going on in the world
outside of Hull.
And, also, there were a lot of bands
that came to play in Hull.
So, you'd get the Small Faces and
Walker Brothers,
and then Hendrix, of course,
came in,
and that was a big sort of epiphany
for me, really,
was seeing him.
When I started going to all the
music and folk clubs
and meeting those kind of people,
I realised that a different
lifestyle was possible,
and that was where I was heading,
you know?
With a 303 rifle,
I was a first-class sniper.
So, Jen and I first really met
when we were travelling on a bus
to a cadet force day out.
This is where you dressed
as soldiers and went out
and shot at things, you know?
I'd got a few things in my pockets
that he was interested in.
I'd got my appendix I used to carry
around with me in a jar,
I'd got a dried-up leech, I'd got a
rabbit bone, you know,
all those things that boys have.
He was...effete.
He was kind of like the Oscar Wilde
of the school.
Solihull School in those days
was a very repressed place.
You know, we were very much
outsiders.
And, at that point, we did not
have a single friend.
And then there were these four boys
a year below me
who were also in
the same kind of boat.
They were getting bullied.
And it was our salvation, really,
cos we then realised
that we were into the weird,
new music that was happening,
and we were into beatnik poetry,
and it was spies that often informed
us of new stuff.
He told me, "There's a band called
The Velvet Underground,"
and he'd first heard about Sun Ra
and the Mothers Of Invention.
It's hugely impossible to describe,
in the internet days,
when you can just google something,
but, you know,
we'd fall on this stuff
like starving men, really.
We felt like we were a miniature
version of the beats,
that we were protecting each other
and inspiring each other,
and we were working towards doing
something important.
We received...these visions,
under the name COUM Transmissions,
in the late summer of 1969.
We thought that we were
completely alone
and that we'd experimented
with being in a commune in London
and it hadn't worked, and we had no
great idea of direction.
We were just floating free.
We decided to hitchhike
around Britain and,
on the way, to drop in on
my parents in Shrewsbury.
There was this weekend where
they said,
"Would you like to go
for a drive in the countryside?"
So, we were driving around,
and we closed our eyes
at some point.
And suddenly there was an
explosion of psychedelic spirals
and colours and voices,
and we suddenly had this experience
that my being
had moved outside the car,
but we were reduced to the molecules
and the atoms.
So, we were in the hedge,
but moving through it.
And as that realisation
was happening in my conscious mind,
suddenly all this other
information started coming in.
And part of that was this phrase
cosmic organicism
of the universal molecular.
COUM for short - C-O-U-M.
I was at the point where I'd started
smoking dope, taking acid,
left my job because that was
just too straight.
And there were people in the college
that I got to meet who had bands.
And so my whole world shifted
from the council estate to people
that went to university,
art college, and I spent
all my time with them.
I was also in the throes
of being thrown out of home.
And I've been thrown out once
and still not learned my lesson.
We had received amongst the visions
that we would meet a woman
who would be Cosmosis.
I was at the university
and had gone to an acid test,
which I didn't like at all.
I was about to leave.
And as I was coming down the stairs,
I saw this little guy
with a graduation gown and the hat
and the purple beard.
And there was this classic flower
child and we kind of stopped
and looked at her.
I didn't quite know if he was real
or not.
And he'd seen me, apparently.
Someone came up to me and said,
"Cosmosis, Genesis wants
to see you."
That was the name he gave me.
Then about a week or two
later, I met up with him.
So we moved all our stuff
into Prince Street.
This totally Dickensian,
Georgian terrace.
Two of them were more or less
derelict, knocked into one.
They have 19 rooms.
But the downside was, when it rained
or snowed, it snowed and rained
in the kitchen.
And then shortly after, Spydeee
joined us.
I'd gone hitchhiking
around the country and gone
to various places.
I'd gone to Hull then because
I had to leave home as well.
Eventually, I found Gen and Cosey
just living around the corner
and moved in with them.
And as far as I'm concerned, that's
where COUM really began.
Hello, good morning and welcome
to Arena. Genesis P-Orridge,
who is fairly well known in Hull
for his walking about with long hair
and a beret, came into the studio
to tell me what was going to happen.
Well, obviously it starts with
COUMA Are Fab and Kinky.
"COUM is the folk music of tomorrow,
because there is no tomorrow.
"COUM urinate down the handrails
of your subconscious."
"Come away, you don't know where
they've been."
"COUM make a nice evening
out for the family."
There was nothing like it in Hull.
Totally nothing like it. We would go
out on the streets, on the main
shopping area, dressed up in really
vibrant colours and do bizarre
little Dada surrealist actions.
They said to me at one point
the people come and say,
"Well, what does it mean?"
It doesn't need to mean anything.
It just is.
We would bring props out and stand
there and maybe do a sort of recite
poetry or do songs and try
and involve the public.
By the way, Hull was quite
a friendly place.
People were pleased to see,
you know, you brighten their day.
You know, you could almost say every
day was a performance, really.
It grabbed people's attention,
it made people smile.
Some people became angry,
they thought
we was absolute lunatics.
Some joined COUM from that and said,
"I really enjoyed the other night.
"It was like something
I'd never seen."
You know, "Next time you're doing
something, can I join in?"
We were interested in the idea that
people who've never been to art
college, people who were the
cast-offs of society, were actually
all potentially geniuses.
We considered ourselves as outlaws
and outcasts, really, because anyone
can do art.
You don't need a degree.
Anyone can play an instrument.
Anyone can make a noise.
I mean, I had a couple of very
cheap old tape recorders, reel
to reel, and I would mix them
up and I'd slow them down and record
off the other one and I'd use a bit
of Stockhausen and I'd use classical
music and underlay that with...
Record the sound of the beds in the
garden and just overlay it and
overlay it until I had a concoction
of sound which seemed to fill the
room.
Most of the people that we worked
with had nothing to do
with universities or art colleges.
They were just incredibly
eccentric, interesting people.
People inhabited these characters
that they had a particular interest
in and fetish for, even, if you want
to say that, and they were allowed
to go and explore that,
but in a public place.
Was a free thinking way
of doing things.
It was new.
It felt right.
It felt as if this is the direction
the whole world should go.
We did a gig in Bradford,
and that was how we met Foxtrot.
I always thought it was more
like a gang or a group, at least,
but a gang, really. In some ways it
was like a criminal gang or a kid's
gang. It was very much a '60s thing,
which I think was very healthy.
Everybody could have a go.
It was at a time when there was some
social mobility.
You know, your father could
have been a docker or something,
but you could do something.
I think this was to get
into Czechoslovakia.
I actually said COUM
was my company.
This is one of the patches,
which were embroidered by Cosey.
And the whole Daily News
or whatever it was.
There's Gen sitting in Prince
Street.
That was an extraordinary place.
It was a semi-derelict jam factory.
There were sort of dummies
and strange figures.
It was like a sort of wonderland,
really.
And I know Spydeee
said he was always cold.
The roof was leaking and the kitchen
was just a cobbled floor that used
to get frosted over in winter,
and the toilet in the corner,
which was disgusting.
And we used to have a water carrier
that we'd fill up and take upstairs
to do the cooking on the fire.
It was hard, but for me, I was kind
of living in a way I'd never lived
before, like everybody was.
We all were in that house.
It was just, I can't really describe
to people what it was like as an art
practice because I never
looked at it like that.
It was just the way I lived.
It was hand to mouth.
A lot of people don't realise
that having no money in your pocket
and no prospect of any money...
Where you going to go?
What are you going to do?
Genesis got the dole.
Cosey had part time jobs
to help them survive.
I had to get odd jobs as well.
You know, I worked at the docks
and I was a petrol pump attendant
and all sorts of in between.
I got quite fed up with not
having enough money to eat properly.
And I went and got a job
at the Humbrol paint factory.
So we could have regular
meals and we could afford to buy
certain things for the actions
that we wanted to do.
Cosey was actually on this poster.
This is a bone of contention.
Why was not the only female
member of the group
on the poster, you know?
Well, it was really.
I never even cottoned on that I was
the only woman because it's just not
the way I looked at it.
I was just part of this creative
community.
But, yeah, I did do a lot
of the housework.
So I think other people looked at me
as a woman and expected me
to do womanly duties.
I had no roof over my head
from being thrown out,
so this was my security,
this home.
Both Cosey and I,
we could have ended up homeless
on the streets, you know?
Absolutely could.
It was very close to that side
of things.
It's bad because I really don't
want to compartmentalise
her as the mother figure,
but she just had the common sense,
actually, is what it was,
the common sense that, you know,
we need to eat. We need to keep a
certain degree of cleanliness.
We need to keep a certain
degree of sanity.
General Idea, who were based
in Toronto, did a magazine called
File, and amongst it in one
of their issues was about six pages
that were yellow paper and it was
called the Image Bank Request List.
And in it, there were literally
maybe 2,000 artists' names,
and you could give your name
and your mailing address,
and then you could request images
of what you needed for your work.
We started writing to people.
It was like being given a gift,
really.
And sending handmade things.
The whole idea was that you were
avoiding the galleries,
you were avoiding commerciality.
You are giving a gift to another
artist.
And so, word got around and people
would write to you and say,
"We're doing this, how do you fancy
doing some little thing "with us?"
Was a good time,
and it really accelerated
what we were doing in terms
of who we're meeting
and the opportunities that were sort
of presented to us as well.
Yeah, it sort of exploded.
Thank you all.
Is he going to smack me up?
It became too hot, so they moved
out. They made the right choice,
but it wasn't because of that,
they had to get out of Hull.
There was nothing left in Hull,
Hull had gone.
And I kept saying to them, you know,
most of the things we'd like to do,
I'm sure they'll be a more
receptive audience down in London.
And we had our Austin,
the big black van, and we piled
what we needed and could fit
into it.
ECHOING: You're walking along
that way
ECHOING: You're walking along
that way
because I've got to go now,
I own this house.
You know, sometimes I really do
think...
..that, you know... Keep me company.
It was a big, big thing
to move to London.
It was a big move that fragmented
us as a collective.
And then we met different people.
Robin Klassnik was saying
that there was a studio
at Martello St that was up,
and did we want it?
The electricity wasn't working
and the water was turned off
in the one sink and one tap.
But it was home. It was a bit better
than Prince St, but it was much
smaller, it was just one room
instead of 17.
I built this box in one corner,
a wooden cave box just big enough
for a mattress that Cosey
had sewn out of canvas.
And then we piled up foraged wood
around it to make it look
like that's where we kept our raw
material for sculptures,
because you weren't allowed
to live there.
And then under the arches
were all the factories, dress
factories, shoe factories, handbag
factories, which were a great source
of art materials for us.
And Hackney was just very working
class, hardcore area. We many times
got chased through the park and,
you know, harassed and stuff.
But it was no different
to Hull really.
REVERBERATING NOTE PLAYS
When we went into the Martello
St studio, Bruce Lacey
was the caretaker there and his son,
John Lacey, used to come and work
with him on his theatre productions.
And we got to know John
really well, and he joined COUM
and brought his expertise
on building synthesisers.
Testing, hello. Oh, listen.
When I first started working with
COUM, more of the music was either
acoustic or guitars and bass.
But in terms of effects,
units and synthesisers,
COUM weren't using those when I
started working with them.
John was quite a catalyst
in what we did, sound-wise.
I think he was the bridge from
what we did as COUM - chaos -
to then having all this equipment
because he had theatre lights
and everything.
The Oval House was about the COUMing
Of Age, it was called, and that one
in particular was the very innocent
views of sex.
It was about rites of passage.
I actually was in the control booth
doing lighting and sound.
We did use other music, though.
We used John Cale,
some Velvet Underground.
There was me on the swing,
pink swing with a heart hole
cut in the seat of it.
But then I peed right
across as I went along.
Jules Baker loaned
us this wonderful cage.
Used on monsters for Doctor Who
at the time.
And it had tendrils coming
in all over it.
And I was in that as a model
doing my modelling. But trapped
in this threatening environment.
And that was obviously drawn
in from what she was doing
by that point in her actual daily
life, which was photography
for other people.
I found this competition for
Men Only magazine for...for,
you know, nude photographs that,
you know, and if you got accepted,
you'd get a prize and maybe you'd
get some more work from it.
"Shall we enter it?
Would you do it?"
And I said, "Yeah, let's try it."
And that was the opportunity.
So he presented
really the opportunity for me
to start doing that,
must give him credit for that.
And I took the first photographs of
her. We'd done nude stuff before.
So you're kind of like open
to being naked in front of people.
And also, for myself, intrigued
by the whole sex market
and exploring my sexuality
in that way, because it's not
a commitment to anybody
and it's an experience.
And it fascinated me, not least
because I started doing collages
using porn magazines.
It would be really nice for me
to be cutting myself out
and using myself in collages,
in found material, but genuinely
found. If I enter that market
and become that person
in the magazine that I'm cutting
out, then that's a fantastic,
complete work to me.
I've entered it and brought it right
back to my artwork again,
and it's an artwork from beginning
to end.
We were trying to manipulate
the media in some way.
That was one of the big
ideas in COUM.
You know, either get yourself
mentioned in the papers or lead
them down the garden path in some
way or play with the way the media
would play with you.
It was fascinating because from
the beginnings of those little black
and white porn mags and some
colour ones off and on,
this whole thing sort of unfolded
before me about what it is
to be a model for these
sleazy little magazines.
It was a business.
And a big business.
I was in Greece, this is me
in Greece, modelling for Men Only.
I did a lot of modelling
for Laszlo Szabo.
He became a very good friend of mine
and he photocopied one of them
and sent it to me and signed it.
This is part of the life forms
artwork I did with a series
of about four or five sequences
of photographs.
It shows the body position of me
whatever arena I was working in,
one informed the other.
So we have the photograph
I did with Szabo, the striptease
I was doing in Shepherd's Bush in
London and the art performance, art
action I did at the Hayward Gallery.
I do this set of business cards,
but they're like little artworks
because they fix in time
certain important parts of my life.
And this was for one I did it
for Tate, which, as you can see
again, I had to...
..cross out the offending
areas, but there you go.
It's ongoing, isn't it?
I didn't find feminism
spoke for me at all.
In fact, I found it very divisive.
It would split me away from an area
that I was really
enjoying exploring.
And I'd been to Gay Liberation
Front in Notting Hill, and I'd seen
first-hand what it was like to be
all-inclusive rather than divisive.
And that's what I liked, and I felt
more affinity with than feminism
at that time.
I didn't hate men.
You know, I loved men, I didn't want
to have to say I don't want men
in my life.
I understand the points completely,
but I am actually out doing
there what you are prescribing,
but in a different way.
I was in a position where I could
explore who I was and do exactly
what I wanted to do.
I had no responsibilities to anyone.
I didn't have to answer to anyone.
Maybe, Gen, but,
you know, that was part
of a relationship and working out
what you are with each other and...
But I didn't find feminism
sparked for me at all.
ECHOING: Catch them, catch them,
catch them, catch them...
Don't waste it, don't waste it...
Sleazy was starting
to get into the mould
of everything, and it was starting
to change.
It became more sinister.
What are you wearing under that?
We met Sleazy when we did the
COUMing Of Age
at the Oval House in London.
Having seen the show one night
and then came to the cafe and sidled
up to us and said,
"Hi, my name is Peter.
"I'm a photographer and I'd like
to take photographs of your show.
"Is that OK with you?"
And yeah, that's why...when he
became Sleazy, because I said
he was...the way he approached
us was very sleazy.
And the fact that he approached us
to take photographs of us naked.
He was interested in COUM, and he
knew it was within his kind of
zone of alternative interests,
shall we say.
So he was wanting to be a part
of it, but also needing
to keep his foot in the Hypnosis
camp because that's
how he earned a living.
He's working with Hypnosis, doing
all these hyper expensive album
covers for hundreds of thousands
of pounds for Pink Floyd
and LED Zeppelin, and all in the era
of great overindulgence
and massive budgets.
He was just sort of gradually
becoming friends.
He was happy taking photographs
because he was a voyeur, Sleazy,
you know. It got to the point where
I said, "Well, are you actually
"going to do anything or are you
just coming here just to sort of get
"down and dirty now and again,
you know?"
And then we discovered that he'd
joined the Casualties Union
and that he could simulate
epileptic fits and create
really realistic wounds.
So you'd have like rehearsals
for disasters, so they had to make
it look real.
And that interested us in terms
of the art actions as well,
because it was a really fantastic
art form.
And we said, if you, you know,
if you want to do something
with COUM, that would be interesting
for you to do.
The first was Coumdensation Mucus
at the Royal College of Art,
and in the video,
Sleazy appears to slice his arm
open and then stitch
it up with the needle and thread.
And we do blood and milk
and wine enemas - which are real -
and then urinate into a milk
bottle and then masturbate.
And it still disturbs people
when we show them...
HE CHUCKLES
..for some strange reason.
Studio Of Lust, which were the three
of us gradually becoming naked
and becoming entwined, which was
something quite new for Sleazy
to be naked with a woman,
cos he was gay.
So I was quite sensitive
to that and careful how I positioned
myself, so I didn't freak
him out completely.
That was his zone that he liked
to be in, pushing himself as well.
It was really good to be with
somebody who was other like me,
if that's a good phrase to put.
Bringing the base element of the
human experience into a public
arena can shock people,
but at the time I had such a long
time in that sphere of being naked
and being at one with myself,
if you like, and with whatever my
bodily functions were, it was me.
We are all the same.
And it's quite OK to share
these things, rather than feel
that there's something we shouldn't
talk about or discuss in public.
My personal belief is that you can
do anything you want to yourself.
Body is your property.
It's not sacred.
It's not owned by society.
It's not owned by family.
It's not owned
by laws and regulations.
It's yours to do with as you choose,
and to explore as you choose.
And for me, that's...that's enough.
There's enough there to keep
you occupied for a very long time.
But the idea of then extending
that out even voluntarily to other
people, it becomes problematic.
It was a party and Chris
was doing a light show.
And then Chris and myself started
discussing our interest
in synthesisers. And as he sort
of entered our world...
..John left.
I was working for so many different
people doing soundtracks, doing
lighting, that I kind of felt
I'd lost my way a bit and I thought
I needed just to recoup.
So, yeah, Chris joined us
and he brought again, like John did,
he brought every bit of equipment
he did at one point to the studio
and set it all up. And that was just
like mind-blowing.
And I thought, you know,
this is something totally different.
Never heard anything like it.
What we could produce with
the assistance of Chris's knowledge
is going into new territory
completely with sound.
When you're trying to truly change
a society or behaviour or any part
of some social group...
..you can't just use one strategy.
You have to be really aware
of when the moment's gone
and you have to switch.
Throbbing Gristle is Yorkshire
slang for an erection.
Throbbing Gristle initially came
from Les. That was just
a throwaway statement.
I don't know if I can say this on
camera.
There used to be a big fishing
fraternity in Hull,
and that's their expression
they used to use.
It did describe the way we played.
It was throbbing. And gristly,
it was tough.
And we proved that nobody needed
to have any training to make
successful radical new art.
It's proved that you can also
have a successful, radical,
innovative band with people
who can't play.
You have to go to first.
Sleazy wasn't into playing
an instrument.
He couldn't get a note out.
He did try.
He got a cornet and tried
to play it and couldn't do it.
Passed it to me and I managed
to do it.
Well, we don't want a drummer
because that immediately takes
you into traditional rhythms.
The guitarist must not be able
to play, and that was Cosey.
It was just through effects pedals,
striking the guitar and then working
the sound from there.
And there was an old bass guitar
lying around,
somebody had left there.
I think possibly the only one
that played any instrument straight
was Gen's bass because he kept
a rhythm with it.
And Chris was obviously
on his synths and effects units
that he built. And Sleazy wanted
to extend the tape recorder
experiments and cut-ups.
He'd got this Walkman, Sony Walkman.
What Chris did with him
was he used them to build a sampler
so that he could run tapes.
Then built them a little keyboard
that was hooked up to it.
And then you just play. We jammed.
ELECTRONIC SOUNDSCAPE
The timbre of the sounds,
the frequencies and the volume...
..that's what it was about.
It was just to sort of rebuild
the notion of what music could be.
The direct connection between
frequency and physical response
was something that we investigated
in Throbbing Gristle quite a bit.
In doing so we were quite often
physically sick or had optical
tunnelling effects and things
that could be regarded as probably
not very good for one's health.
We discovered some really weird
things to do with sort of high-level
sound and various sound waves.
Using low frequency sine waves
through really good speakers,
as loud as you can get it does
the strangest things to my knees.
It really does.
The ICA had another in its
long-running,
"let's make you sick" series.
This was called Prostitution
and featured all the tools
of the trade - and the leftovers.
1976.
We decided mutually that it was time
for COUM Transmissions to end.
We'd already been rehearsing
as TG since 1975.
We wanted to then try and see
what happened if we inserted
it into the culture.
The Prostitution show started
off with Ted Little,
who was then the director
of the ICA, inviting us to do
a male art show there.
Quickly turned into something
else as things do.
And during a conversation with him,
I must have mentioned this idea,
and he said, "I'll do
a retrospective."
So Prostitution became
a retrospective of COUM.
And basically our exit
from the art world.
Cosey had just done some modelling
for a magazine called Curious.
There was a picture of her on
a chaise longue with a blindfold
on and above it,
it just said "prostitution".
I thought, well, we're all
prostitutes, really.
So I proposed it should be
called Prostitution.
I decided that that would be where I
present the magazines for the first
time. My magazines were put out
the back in a kind of box
where they were slid in, you know,
like Athena posters used to be.
And you'd pull them out
to have a look, but you had to join
and become a member of the ICA first
before you could see them.
It was kind of work around
the laws of pornography.
We had props that we built,
so we ended up with those
being exhibited as well and bits
of costumes that Cosey had made
and bits of costumes that I'd worn.
I had this idea for these small
sculptures called Tampax Romana.
The tampons were my used tampons.
I had been collecting
for a while and we used them
in performances, again as part
of that whole thing of showing
what womanhood is.
There was a copy of the
News Of The World on a table...
..and I just thought I wonder
what would happen if we sent invites
to all the press.
Little did I realise what a furore
it was going to cause.
And then we had the opening.
And lo and behold, all those
editors and journalists
turned up and freaked.
We talked to Ted Little
and said, we want music.
So we got the band Chelsea
that became Generation X to play.
And so a punk element sort of
contingent came along to see them.
It was brilliant.
And a comedian, John Smith from
Bridlington, who told dirty jokes.
And we had a stripper.
Why not have a stripper?
Let's make it our party.
And then Throbbing Gristle played
live to launch the band.
MUSIC PLAYS
Everyone had been drinking a lot.
And Ian Hinchcliffe was there,
was another quite extreme artist.
I remember there was a cluster of
people and Ian was shouting at Gen
about something
because I didn't get on.
Suddenly I saw stars, and the
journalist from the Evening Standard
had hit me over the head
with a pint beer glass.
And there was just like
a huge fight on the floor
and Ted got kicked in the
balls, had to go to hospital.
Gen, I took Gen to hospital
because he thought he'd broken
his little finger and then we came
back and cleared the gear away
into the van and we went home.
It was just like...
..being stunned by some hand
grenade, really, that gig.
And the newspapers went crazy.
And then the next like ten days
or so handling all the press
and being hounded by them
outside the house and the market
nearby, in the gallery
being chased by them.
Being slagged off by Spare Rib,
all that, I just didn't even
want to know. Being called
the wreckers of civilisation
by Nicholas Fairbairn
wasn't a real problem.
I don't think we're uncivilised.
In actual fact, I think
we're more civilised
than some people
and some elements of society.
Monte Cazazza over there
will be making the video cassette
of the whole proceedings.
There was a Canadian artist
who called herself Anna Banana.
One day she wrote me this long
letter and amongst the letter,
it said, "We met this awful human
being, the worst person
"we've ever met.
He calls himself Monte Cazazza."
And he'd send us all this
information and photographs,
photocopied things that he'd been up
to.
We were at this person's house
talking and drinking wine,
and then he turned up
and he had this small suitcase
and he opened the little case and
it had a dead cat in it, roadkill.
And he had no fear at all
because he had no...
..no career hopes.
And he pulled out the cat, squirted
lighter fuel on it, set it on fire
and then pulled out this gun and
said, "You can't leave the room."
And we just thought,
"Wow, he sounds interesting.
"Sounds like my kind of guy."
He was there when industrial
music got named.
It was him that was saying, "Well,
you keep saying industrial, Gen.
"So it's industrial music."
And we went, "Yeah, you're right.
"It's industrial music."
It was industrious, there was a lot
of research involved.
Chris was obviously very industrious
with his technical experiments
and building equipment.
And that's where it came from
with the irony of the factory,
which is where we were.
In London Fields park, which we were
next to, there were the plague pits
from when the Black Plague happened.
And so hundreds of plague victims
had been buried under the ground
in the park, and as we were
in the basement, we were actually
at the same level as all
the plague victims.
And I called it the Death Factory.
It was fairly on the cards
that she was going to leave.
They'd fallen in love.
That can't be helped.
Me and Chris were together
but trying not to be for the sake
of the band, and my relationship
with Gen, which was in trouble
big time by then.
How are we going to cope
with that now?
You know, Gen's going to go
off and do his thing.
You're going to be doing your thing.
And someone like Gen, you know, he's
got a lot of personality and a lot
of energy there, so he was a
difficult man to be around.
And he could throw some
serious, serious tantrums.
That sort of display of anger
can be quite frightening.
It was never going to be an easy
parting, and there was a lot
at stake.
We were much more focused
by then and more serious
about the things we were interested
in and what we wanted
to communicate to people.
It wasn't frivolous any more,
and neither was the climate
in the country, and I think
that had a lot to do with it.
We met Al Ackerman - Blaster -
who we'd been doing mail art
exchanges with and who in the
end ended up writing the lyrics
to Hamburger Lady.
He'd been in Vietnam...
..as a medic, and he was working
on the night shift in a hospital
in Eugene, and there was a woman
who'd been in a car crash.
Been burnt so badly, she was known
around the wards as
the Hamburger Lady.
Her ears had got burned off
and she couldn't hear, her eyes
had been melted and gone,
so she couldn't see.
And her throat and tongue
had been so damaged,
she couldn't speak.
And we thought,
what would it sound like
in that ward, you know?
And it became probably one of the,
strangely enough, the most popular
songs we ever did.
People weren't sort of
turned off by it.
They were...they were driven
to a place of compassion.
# Medical advances... #
There was always an element for most
of TG when I was writing
all the lyrics of it being closer at
times to a newspaper. The darkness
in TG came from the time,
the political state of the time,
and also from our own
personal histories.
When I was growing up,
there was the Moors murders.
And then, of course, you go
from there in the '60s
and there's Charles Manson.
There was obviously the post-war
thing going on and our parents not
talking about it because
they were so traumatised.
People always go on about the Nazi
element of TG, which just wasn't
there at all.
It was just that we were willing
to discuss that thing.
Human beings have done horrendous
things to one another.
Put it out there for discussion.
It's not something you
should hide away.
Why is there this unwritten
boundary or a limitation
on what you can discuss in a lyric?
Just because you mention it
doesn't mean you approve of it.
You know, journalists write
about all sorts of terrible things
and they're not accused
of endorsing it.
People had started looking up to us
for some reason,
like we had all the answers.
We didn't. We were just posing them.
At the beginning, we did
lots of weird stuff, like once
we had just big mirrors in front
of us. That made people angry
because they couldn't see us.
We did another one where
we had halogen lamps along the front
of the stage on the audience,
so that they were blinded.
But we could see them, you know?
But there's only so many ways
you can play with the audience/band
dynamic before it becomes
just trickery.
Yeah, Oundle.
Some guy had heard about us
and written to us and said,
"I could get my music teacher
to book you."
We said, "We'll come and play as
long as we can have a tour of the
"school and have lunch with the boys
in the huge dining area."
It was very strange but interesting
because... I mean, Sleazy knew
what it was like because
he'd gone to public school
and Gen did to some extent,
and we just did what we did
and they really didn't know
what hit them.
And in the end, they started
singing Jerusalem.
It was quite amazing.
Beautiful moment,
full of testosterone.
MUSIC: Don't Do As You're Told,
Do As You Think
Monte said something interesting,
he said, "You know they all want
"you to die on stage, don't you?"
I said, "What?"
He said, "It would suit everybody
"if you took it so far, you would...
..you died on stage.
"Stay alive out of spite, Gen."
I'd never thought of it that way
that you could actually end up a bit
too much like a sideshow.
"What will Gen do to Gen next?"
And in the end, we're all
going to watch Gen die.
No, that's not what we're trying
to say.
# Persuasion... #
No, I always thought of TG
as a concept that I wanted to see
if we could change music and change
popular culture and give it some
extra weight and intelligence
and new systems of expression.
And it worked.
We did that.
But suddenly, it was part-time
for three out of four. We felt
that it became a pastiche
of itself and we'd taken
it as far as we wanted to take
it without it becoming some kind
of demon or beast that was not
totally within our control.
I think we'd...we'd finish
with the, you know, shouting
in the face and hitting people
on the head with a hammer
kind of approach.
And now we were more interested
in exploring areas that almost
we had no right to enter.
You know, real music, like Giorgio
Moroder territory kind of thing.
And even Abba.
But it interested us in how
we could approach it and do
it our way.
One of these myths that seems
to circulate is that TG ended in
1981 because of bedroom politics
and because I was jealous of Chris.
But I wasn't jealous of Chris.
When we were in the studio
recording,
it was still really great.
Yeah, because that was important
to, I think,
to all of us, including Gen.
You know, that whatever you decide
to do in your extracurricular time,
you could say, I felt should
have been kept separate
and could have been. I mean, we were
all grown ups, you know?
And, you know, we're going to get
into dodgy territory here.
I don't want to go into it.
Sure.
Can you tell us a bit about some
of the concepts
that you're dealing with?
No.
# When all the numbers swim together
and all the shadow settle
# Windows forced open shut again,
a fly trap and a petal
# My eyes burn and claws
rush to fill them
# And in the morning
I fall in love with the light. #
# Sometimes I felt I had to run
away... #
Mute Records wanted us to...
They put feelers out.
Would it be at all possible for us
to regroup to publicise
their release of 24 Hours on CD?
To be really frank,
I still thought, would it
just become like it was last time?
And I'm sure they thought
exactly the same thing,
but we all decided to see.
And so it took place.
When we did the Astoria,
that just totally blew me away.
When the cheer went up,
when we came out, I didn't quite
know what to do.
It was one of those moments where
you look behind you like someone
else is there
that they're cheering for.
I had no idea that we'd had that
effect on people, and such
a wide range of age groups
as well, wasn't just the people
that were around when we first
did it.
And that was good because it
more or less said to me
that it functioned well at its time,
and since.
this is a band called
Throbbing Gristle - Chris, Cosey,
Sleazy and me.
It's been almost
23 years to the day
since we played together.
Wouldn't you just know it?
Oh, it's so hard trying
to do this after so long.
# There's never a way
# To convince people... #
The first time we went
to the studio together after such
a long time, after 20 years or more,
we fitted in, we slotted in together
and gelled and produced music
within minutes, and it just
seemed like we'd never been away.
It was like being in a time
warp or something. As it went by,
it developed and we did more albums
that were new music
that were equally as interesting.
So it just was one of those things,
it would have mutated naturally
if it kept going.
The music of Throbbing Gristle
featuring Peter Christopherson,
who has died aged 55.
There's a part of
me that wasn't totally surprised,
because he'd lived a life of
massive indulgence,
of anything and everything
that could take him into
new dimensions and delirious realms
and then his strange,
twisted imagination.
Maybe that's why I
called him Sleazy.
You've got a kind of a few
conflicting memories,
but there is a truth in there,
which is all about using
your imagination, being open
to experience,
not being afraid to experiment.
It's allowable to be sad,
to be...or happy, to find humour
in something you shouldn't find
humour in because it's like a
safety valve.
And that's what we are.
Try and find a way to come to terms
with being alive and the strange
mystery of being alive,
but also the mortality.
And for me, art should deal
with those, the great mysteries.
And that's why we thought life
and art are inseparable.
You know, it's not just random and
death's not the end, you know,
but I can't explain why
I believe that or why.
To me, you just know.
sexual nature, some strong language,
and scenes which some viewers may
find disturbing
SYNTH NOTES REVERBERATE
LOW NOTES BOOM
ELECTRONIC BEAT INTENSIFIES
Look what I'm doing -
standing with a knife.
MAN LAUGHS
Even like this,
I can keep up my secret reputation
as evil and vicious.
Ah! Oh! God bless David Bowie.
Which one? The LSD, the DMT
or the ketamine?
The OTO, Cafe OTO, was great.
It was beautiful.
We really like doing those.
Your lunch is here.
Lunch is served.
Do you mind if I just give
her a little...?
We moved here in '96.
Way back in the '60s,
we wrote this poem about,
"New York is the toilet of Europe.
"They flush all the people
they don't want into New York."
And strangely enough,
they flushed me here, too.
Wow, what a life, Musty.
What a life.
One of the most transgressive
art collectives
that this country's ever produced.
It was pretty full-on. How do you
actually describe your own music?
To be as difficult as possible.
No boundaries.
You were intending to provoke
the establishment, weren't you?
We've always strived to be honest.
I'm interested in what human beings
are capable of doing to one another,
good and bad.
I grew up with Throbbing Gristle.
Utter inspiration to me
when I was younger and queer.
The wreckers of civilisation,
and anything less,
I'll be sorely disappointed.
All my life I've been drawn
to gardens,
and I'm a big believer that
everybody should touch the Earth
once a day.
The garden is a very
spiritual place.
It's, there's, the plants are not
going to ask you any questions,
they're just going to make
their statement and be there.
Maybe we should be more like that.
Just be rather than try
and change everything.
Ah, lovely! That powdery blue,
that lilac-y blue.
If you was at the beginning
of the world,
and you were creating the world,
could you have thought of that?
Would you have ever thought
a fish, that live in water?
What great thing, what a great idea.
Whose idea was that?
They can't live in our world
and we can't live in theirs. Wow!
I came originally from Hull.
I grew up with Cosey.
We were neighbours.
We were friends from the age
of dot.
She's like my sister
rather than a friend.
We are very close.
In our teens, we grew up and did
things together,
and, when she left home, she moved
into a different part of Hull,
and eventually met up with Genesis,
and they'd started doing
different things under the name
of COUM Transmissions.
I can't tell you when that actually
started, or when it ended,
cos I feel it still goes on.
COUM is transmitting now.
Les once made a point to me
years ago -
we forget that as we grow,
we're growing away from the ground.
He said, "When you're young,
you just see everything,
"and you're on the ground
"and you can see all this
are the world going on.
"And as you grow your, your eyes
are moving away from that
"and focusing on other things."
And I think it's good to get back
down on the ground
and realise where everything
really comes from.
I grew up on a council estate
in Hull.
I was born in 1951 -
post-war baby.
I wasn't content with
what I was expected to be.
I mean, especially being I wasn't
middle-lass, I was working-class,
and you were definitely channelled
into just literally working
for the rest of your life,
being a wife and working
and supporting your husband.
Even, even a lot of the women
on my estate didn't go to work.
Some worked in factories,
but not many.
They were stay-at-home mums.
And, erm, I,
I couldn't see myself doing that.
Maybe the way my dad brought me
up and gave me access to a more male
kind of view of the world, through,
you know, wanting me to be a boy.
I think that had a lot
to do with it.
I remember having a conversation
with my father when I was 14.
He wanted me to be a gas fitter
for British Gas.
And I told him
I wanted to be a poet.
I never really knew what that meant,
but it sounded nice.
But I knew instinctively,
that I was different,
and that I wasn't like
the other boys.
I lived on a council estate.
You were homosexual, you were queer,
you would be beaten up.
Hull was pretty isolated.
The Humber Bridge wasn't built.
Back in the 1960s, Hull was
a different sort of place.
Most people just had to work,
and just tucked into that, you know,
so a very drab, drab place, Hull.
And I hate to say that,
but that's how it was.
Obviously, there was beginnings
of pop programmes
which became Top Of The Pops, but
there were all sorts of things
going on before then,
like Ready, Steady, Go.
So you've got an idea of
what was going on in the world
outside of Hull.
And, also, there were a lot of bands
that came to play in Hull.
So, you'd get the Small Faces and
Walker Brothers,
and then Hendrix, of course,
came in,
and that was a big sort of epiphany
for me, really,
was seeing him.
When I started going to all the
music and folk clubs
and meeting those kind of people,
I realised that a different
lifestyle was possible,
and that was where I was heading,
you know?
With a 303 rifle,
I was a first-class sniper.
So, Jen and I first really met
when we were travelling on a bus
to a cadet force day out.
This is where you dressed
as soldiers and went out
and shot at things, you know?
I'd got a few things in my pockets
that he was interested in.
I'd got my appendix I used to carry
around with me in a jar,
I'd got a dried-up leech, I'd got a
rabbit bone, you know,
all those things that boys have.
He was...effete.
He was kind of like the Oscar Wilde
of the school.
Solihull School in those days
was a very repressed place.
You know, we were very much
outsiders.
And, at that point, we did not
have a single friend.
And then there were these four boys
a year below me
who were also in
the same kind of boat.
They were getting bullied.
And it was our salvation, really,
cos we then realised
that we were into the weird,
new music that was happening,
and we were into beatnik poetry,
and it was spies that often informed
us of new stuff.
He told me, "There's a band called
The Velvet Underground,"
and he'd first heard about Sun Ra
and the Mothers Of Invention.
It's hugely impossible to describe,
in the internet days,
when you can just google something,
but, you know,
we'd fall on this stuff
like starving men, really.
We felt like we were a miniature
version of the beats,
that we were protecting each other
and inspiring each other,
and we were working towards doing
something important.
We received...these visions,
under the name COUM Transmissions,
in the late summer of 1969.
We thought that we were
completely alone
and that we'd experimented
with being in a commune in London
and it hadn't worked, and we had no
great idea of direction.
We were just floating free.
We decided to hitchhike
around Britain and,
on the way, to drop in on
my parents in Shrewsbury.
There was this weekend where
they said,
"Would you like to go
for a drive in the countryside?"
So, we were driving around,
and we closed our eyes
at some point.
And suddenly there was an
explosion of psychedelic spirals
and colours and voices,
and we suddenly had this experience
that my being
had moved outside the car,
but we were reduced to the molecules
and the atoms.
So, we were in the hedge,
but moving through it.
And as that realisation
was happening in my conscious mind,
suddenly all this other
information started coming in.
And part of that was this phrase
cosmic organicism
of the universal molecular.
COUM for short - C-O-U-M.
I was at the point where I'd started
smoking dope, taking acid,
left my job because that was
just too straight.
And there were people in the college
that I got to meet who had bands.
And so my whole world shifted
from the council estate to people
that went to university,
art college, and I spent
all my time with them.
I was also in the throes
of being thrown out of home.
And I've been thrown out once
and still not learned my lesson.
We had received amongst the visions
that we would meet a woman
who would be Cosmosis.
I was at the university
and had gone to an acid test,
which I didn't like at all.
I was about to leave.
And as I was coming down the stairs,
I saw this little guy
with a graduation gown and the hat
and the purple beard.
And there was this classic flower
child and we kind of stopped
and looked at her.
I didn't quite know if he was real
or not.
And he'd seen me, apparently.
Someone came up to me and said,
"Cosmosis, Genesis wants
to see you."
That was the name he gave me.
Then about a week or two
later, I met up with him.
So we moved all our stuff
into Prince Street.
This totally Dickensian,
Georgian terrace.
Two of them were more or less
derelict, knocked into one.
They have 19 rooms.
But the downside was, when it rained
or snowed, it snowed and rained
in the kitchen.
And then shortly after, Spydeee
joined us.
I'd gone hitchhiking
around the country and gone
to various places.
I'd gone to Hull then because
I had to leave home as well.
Eventually, I found Gen and Cosey
just living around the corner
and moved in with them.
And as far as I'm concerned, that's
where COUM really began.
Hello, good morning and welcome
to Arena. Genesis P-Orridge,
who is fairly well known in Hull
for his walking about with long hair
and a beret, came into the studio
to tell me what was going to happen.
Well, obviously it starts with
COUMA Are Fab and Kinky.
"COUM is the folk music of tomorrow,
because there is no tomorrow.
"COUM urinate down the handrails
of your subconscious."
"Come away, you don't know where
they've been."
"COUM make a nice evening
out for the family."
There was nothing like it in Hull.
Totally nothing like it. We would go
out on the streets, on the main
shopping area, dressed up in really
vibrant colours and do bizarre
little Dada surrealist actions.
They said to me at one point
the people come and say,
"Well, what does it mean?"
It doesn't need to mean anything.
It just is.
We would bring props out and stand
there and maybe do a sort of recite
poetry or do songs and try
and involve the public.
By the way, Hull was quite
a friendly place.
People were pleased to see,
you know, you brighten their day.
You know, you could almost say every
day was a performance, really.
It grabbed people's attention,
it made people smile.
Some people became angry,
they thought
we was absolute lunatics.
Some joined COUM from that and said,
"I really enjoyed the other night.
"It was like something
I'd never seen."
You know, "Next time you're doing
something, can I join in?"
We were interested in the idea that
people who've never been to art
college, people who were the
cast-offs of society, were actually
all potentially geniuses.
We considered ourselves as outlaws
and outcasts, really, because anyone
can do art.
You don't need a degree.
Anyone can play an instrument.
Anyone can make a noise.
I mean, I had a couple of very
cheap old tape recorders, reel
to reel, and I would mix them
up and I'd slow them down and record
off the other one and I'd use a bit
of Stockhausen and I'd use classical
music and underlay that with...
Record the sound of the beds in the
garden and just overlay it and
overlay it until I had a concoction
of sound which seemed to fill the
room.
Most of the people that we worked
with had nothing to do
with universities or art colleges.
They were just incredibly
eccentric, interesting people.
People inhabited these characters
that they had a particular interest
in and fetish for, even, if you want
to say that, and they were allowed
to go and explore that,
but in a public place.
Was a free thinking way
of doing things.
It was new.
It felt right.
It felt as if this is the direction
the whole world should go.
We did a gig in Bradford,
and that was how we met Foxtrot.
I always thought it was more
like a gang or a group, at least,
but a gang, really. In some ways it
was like a criminal gang or a kid's
gang. It was very much a '60s thing,
which I think was very healthy.
Everybody could have a go.
It was at a time when there was some
social mobility.
You know, your father could
have been a docker or something,
but you could do something.
I think this was to get
into Czechoslovakia.
I actually said COUM
was my company.
This is one of the patches,
which were embroidered by Cosey.
And the whole Daily News
or whatever it was.
There's Gen sitting in Prince
Street.
That was an extraordinary place.
It was a semi-derelict jam factory.
There were sort of dummies
and strange figures.
It was like a sort of wonderland,
really.
And I know Spydeee
said he was always cold.
The roof was leaking and the kitchen
was just a cobbled floor that used
to get frosted over in winter,
and the toilet in the corner,
which was disgusting.
And we used to have a water carrier
that we'd fill up and take upstairs
to do the cooking on the fire.
It was hard, but for me, I was kind
of living in a way I'd never lived
before, like everybody was.
We all were in that house.
It was just, I can't really describe
to people what it was like as an art
practice because I never
looked at it like that.
It was just the way I lived.
It was hand to mouth.
A lot of people don't realise
that having no money in your pocket
and no prospect of any money...
Where you going to go?
What are you going to do?
Genesis got the dole.
Cosey had part time jobs
to help them survive.
I had to get odd jobs as well.
You know, I worked at the docks
and I was a petrol pump attendant
and all sorts of in between.
I got quite fed up with not
having enough money to eat properly.
And I went and got a job
at the Humbrol paint factory.
So we could have regular
meals and we could afford to buy
certain things for the actions
that we wanted to do.
Cosey was actually on this poster.
This is a bone of contention.
Why was not the only female
member of the group
on the poster, you know?
Well, it was really.
I never even cottoned on that I was
the only woman because it's just not
the way I looked at it.
I was just part of this creative
community.
But, yeah, I did do a lot
of the housework.
So I think other people looked at me
as a woman and expected me
to do womanly duties.
I had no roof over my head
from being thrown out,
so this was my security,
this home.
Both Cosey and I,
we could have ended up homeless
on the streets, you know?
Absolutely could.
It was very close to that side
of things.
It's bad because I really don't
want to compartmentalise
her as the mother figure,
but she just had the common sense,
actually, is what it was,
the common sense that, you know,
we need to eat. We need to keep a
certain degree of cleanliness.
We need to keep a certain
degree of sanity.
General Idea, who were based
in Toronto, did a magazine called
File, and amongst it in one
of their issues was about six pages
that were yellow paper and it was
called the Image Bank Request List.
And in it, there were literally
maybe 2,000 artists' names,
and you could give your name
and your mailing address,
and then you could request images
of what you needed for your work.
We started writing to people.
It was like being given a gift,
really.
And sending handmade things.
The whole idea was that you were
avoiding the galleries,
you were avoiding commerciality.
You are giving a gift to another
artist.
And so, word got around and people
would write to you and say,
"We're doing this, how do you fancy
doing some little thing "with us?"
Was a good time,
and it really accelerated
what we were doing in terms
of who we're meeting
and the opportunities that were sort
of presented to us as well.
Yeah, it sort of exploded.
Thank you all.
Is he going to smack me up?
It became too hot, so they moved
out. They made the right choice,
but it wasn't because of that,
they had to get out of Hull.
There was nothing left in Hull,
Hull had gone.
And I kept saying to them, you know,
most of the things we'd like to do,
I'm sure they'll be a more
receptive audience down in London.
And we had our Austin,
the big black van, and we piled
what we needed and could fit
into it.
ECHOING: You're walking along
that way
ECHOING: You're walking along
that way
because I've got to go now,
I own this house.
You know, sometimes I really do
think...
..that, you know... Keep me company.
It was a big, big thing
to move to London.
It was a big move that fragmented
us as a collective.
And then we met different people.
Robin Klassnik was saying
that there was a studio
at Martello St that was up,
and did we want it?
The electricity wasn't working
and the water was turned off
in the one sink and one tap.
But it was home. It was a bit better
than Prince St, but it was much
smaller, it was just one room
instead of 17.
I built this box in one corner,
a wooden cave box just big enough
for a mattress that Cosey
had sewn out of canvas.
And then we piled up foraged wood
around it to make it look
like that's where we kept our raw
material for sculptures,
because you weren't allowed
to live there.
And then under the arches
were all the factories, dress
factories, shoe factories, handbag
factories, which were a great source
of art materials for us.
And Hackney was just very working
class, hardcore area. We many times
got chased through the park and,
you know, harassed and stuff.
But it was no different
to Hull really.
REVERBERATING NOTE PLAYS
When we went into the Martello
St studio, Bruce Lacey
was the caretaker there and his son,
John Lacey, used to come and work
with him on his theatre productions.
And we got to know John
really well, and he joined COUM
and brought his expertise
on building synthesisers.
Testing, hello. Oh, listen.
When I first started working with
COUM, more of the music was either
acoustic or guitars and bass.
But in terms of effects,
units and synthesisers,
COUM weren't using those when I
started working with them.
John was quite a catalyst
in what we did, sound-wise.
I think he was the bridge from
what we did as COUM - chaos -
to then having all this equipment
because he had theatre lights
and everything.
The Oval House was about the COUMing
Of Age, it was called, and that one
in particular was the very innocent
views of sex.
It was about rites of passage.
I actually was in the control booth
doing lighting and sound.
We did use other music, though.
We used John Cale,
some Velvet Underground.
There was me on the swing,
pink swing with a heart hole
cut in the seat of it.
But then I peed right
across as I went along.
Jules Baker loaned
us this wonderful cage.
Used on monsters for Doctor Who
at the time.
And it had tendrils coming
in all over it.
And I was in that as a model
doing my modelling. But trapped
in this threatening environment.
And that was obviously drawn
in from what she was doing
by that point in her actual daily
life, which was photography
for other people.
I found this competition for
Men Only magazine for...for,
you know, nude photographs that,
you know, and if you got accepted,
you'd get a prize and maybe you'd
get some more work from it.
"Shall we enter it?
Would you do it?"
And I said, "Yeah, let's try it."
And that was the opportunity.
So he presented
really the opportunity for me
to start doing that,
must give him credit for that.
And I took the first photographs of
her. We'd done nude stuff before.
So you're kind of like open
to being naked in front of people.
And also, for myself, intrigued
by the whole sex market
and exploring my sexuality
in that way, because it's not
a commitment to anybody
and it's an experience.
And it fascinated me, not least
because I started doing collages
using porn magazines.
It would be really nice for me
to be cutting myself out
and using myself in collages,
in found material, but genuinely
found. If I enter that market
and become that person
in the magazine that I'm cutting
out, then that's a fantastic,
complete work to me.
I've entered it and brought it right
back to my artwork again,
and it's an artwork from beginning
to end.
We were trying to manipulate
the media in some way.
That was one of the big
ideas in COUM.
You know, either get yourself
mentioned in the papers or lead
them down the garden path in some
way or play with the way the media
would play with you.
It was fascinating because from
the beginnings of those little black
and white porn mags and some
colour ones off and on,
this whole thing sort of unfolded
before me about what it is
to be a model for these
sleazy little magazines.
It was a business.
And a big business.
I was in Greece, this is me
in Greece, modelling for Men Only.
I did a lot of modelling
for Laszlo Szabo.
He became a very good friend of mine
and he photocopied one of them
and sent it to me and signed it.
This is part of the life forms
artwork I did with a series
of about four or five sequences
of photographs.
It shows the body position of me
whatever arena I was working in,
one informed the other.
So we have the photograph
I did with Szabo, the striptease
I was doing in Shepherd's Bush in
London and the art performance, art
action I did at the Hayward Gallery.
I do this set of business cards,
but they're like little artworks
because they fix in time
certain important parts of my life.
And this was for one I did it
for Tate, which, as you can see
again, I had to...
..cross out the offending
areas, but there you go.
It's ongoing, isn't it?
I didn't find feminism
spoke for me at all.
In fact, I found it very divisive.
It would split me away from an area
that I was really
enjoying exploring.
And I'd been to Gay Liberation
Front in Notting Hill, and I'd seen
first-hand what it was like to be
all-inclusive rather than divisive.
And that's what I liked, and I felt
more affinity with than feminism
at that time.
I didn't hate men.
You know, I loved men, I didn't want
to have to say I don't want men
in my life.
I understand the points completely,
but I am actually out doing
there what you are prescribing,
but in a different way.
I was in a position where I could
explore who I was and do exactly
what I wanted to do.
I had no responsibilities to anyone.
I didn't have to answer to anyone.
Maybe, Gen, but,
you know, that was part
of a relationship and working out
what you are with each other and...
But I didn't find feminism
sparked for me at all.
ECHOING: Catch them, catch them,
catch them, catch them...
Don't waste it, don't waste it...
Sleazy was starting
to get into the mould
of everything, and it was starting
to change.
It became more sinister.
What are you wearing under that?
We met Sleazy when we did the
COUMing Of Age
at the Oval House in London.
Having seen the show one night
and then came to the cafe and sidled
up to us and said,
"Hi, my name is Peter.
"I'm a photographer and I'd like
to take photographs of your show.
"Is that OK with you?"
And yeah, that's why...when he
became Sleazy, because I said
he was...the way he approached
us was very sleazy.
And the fact that he approached us
to take photographs of us naked.
He was interested in COUM, and he
knew it was within his kind of
zone of alternative interests,
shall we say.
So he was wanting to be a part
of it, but also needing
to keep his foot in the Hypnosis
camp because that's
how he earned a living.
He's working with Hypnosis, doing
all these hyper expensive album
covers for hundreds of thousands
of pounds for Pink Floyd
and LED Zeppelin, and all in the era
of great overindulgence
and massive budgets.
He was just sort of gradually
becoming friends.
He was happy taking photographs
because he was a voyeur, Sleazy,
you know. It got to the point where
I said, "Well, are you actually
"going to do anything or are you
just coming here just to sort of get
"down and dirty now and again,
you know?"
And then we discovered that he'd
joined the Casualties Union
and that he could simulate
epileptic fits and create
really realistic wounds.
So you'd have like rehearsals
for disasters, so they had to make
it look real.
And that interested us in terms
of the art actions as well,
because it was a really fantastic
art form.
And we said, if you, you know,
if you want to do something
with COUM, that would be interesting
for you to do.
The first was Coumdensation Mucus
at the Royal College of Art,
and in the video,
Sleazy appears to slice his arm
open and then stitch
it up with the needle and thread.
And we do blood and milk
and wine enemas - which are real -
and then urinate into a milk
bottle and then masturbate.
And it still disturbs people
when we show them...
HE CHUCKLES
..for some strange reason.
Studio Of Lust, which were the three
of us gradually becoming naked
and becoming entwined, which was
something quite new for Sleazy
to be naked with a woman,
cos he was gay.
So I was quite sensitive
to that and careful how I positioned
myself, so I didn't freak
him out completely.
That was his zone that he liked
to be in, pushing himself as well.
It was really good to be with
somebody who was other like me,
if that's a good phrase to put.
Bringing the base element of the
human experience into a public
arena can shock people,
but at the time I had such a long
time in that sphere of being naked
and being at one with myself,
if you like, and with whatever my
bodily functions were, it was me.
We are all the same.
And it's quite OK to share
these things, rather than feel
that there's something we shouldn't
talk about or discuss in public.
My personal belief is that you can
do anything you want to yourself.
Body is your property.
It's not sacred.
It's not owned by society.
It's not owned by family.
It's not owned
by laws and regulations.
It's yours to do with as you choose,
and to explore as you choose.
And for me, that's...that's enough.
There's enough there to keep
you occupied for a very long time.
But the idea of then extending
that out even voluntarily to other
people, it becomes problematic.
It was a party and Chris
was doing a light show.
And then Chris and myself started
discussing our interest
in synthesisers. And as he sort
of entered our world...
..John left.
I was working for so many different
people doing soundtracks, doing
lighting, that I kind of felt
I'd lost my way a bit and I thought
I needed just to recoup.
So, yeah, Chris joined us
and he brought again, like John did,
he brought every bit of equipment
he did at one point to the studio
and set it all up. And that was just
like mind-blowing.
And I thought, you know,
this is something totally different.
Never heard anything like it.
What we could produce with
the assistance of Chris's knowledge
is going into new territory
completely with sound.
When you're trying to truly change
a society or behaviour or any part
of some social group...
..you can't just use one strategy.
You have to be really aware
of when the moment's gone
and you have to switch.
Throbbing Gristle is Yorkshire
slang for an erection.
Throbbing Gristle initially came
from Les. That was just
a throwaway statement.
I don't know if I can say this on
camera.
There used to be a big fishing
fraternity in Hull,
and that's their expression
they used to use.
It did describe the way we played.
It was throbbing. And gristly,
it was tough.
And we proved that nobody needed
to have any training to make
successful radical new art.
It's proved that you can also
have a successful, radical,
innovative band with people
who can't play.
You have to go to first.
Sleazy wasn't into playing
an instrument.
He couldn't get a note out.
He did try.
He got a cornet and tried
to play it and couldn't do it.
Passed it to me and I managed
to do it.
Well, we don't want a drummer
because that immediately takes
you into traditional rhythms.
The guitarist must not be able
to play, and that was Cosey.
It was just through effects pedals,
striking the guitar and then working
the sound from there.
And there was an old bass guitar
lying around,
somebody had left there.
I think possibly the only one
that played any instrument straight
was Gen's bass because he kept
a rhythm with it.
And Chris was obviously
on his synths and effects units
that he built. And Sleazy wanted
to extend the tape recorder
experiments and cut-ups.
He'd got this Walkman, Sony Walkman.
What Chris did with him
was he used them to build a sampler
so that he could run tapes.
Then built them a little keyboard
that was hooked up to it.
And then you just play. We jammed.
ELECTRONIC SOUNDSCAPE
The timbre of the sounds,
the frequencies and the volume...
..that's what it was about.
It was just to sort of rebuild
the notion of what music could be.
The direct connection between
frequency and physical response
was something that we investigated
in Throbbing Gristle quite a bit.
In doing so we were quite often
physically sick or had optical
tunnelling effects and things
that could be regarded as probably
not very good for one's health.
We discovered some really weird
things to do with sort of high-level
sound and various sound waves.
Using low frequency sine waves
through really good speakers,
as loud as you can get it does
the strangest things to my knees.
It really does.
The ICA had another in its
long-running,
"let's make you sick" series.
This was called Prostitution
and featured all the tools
of the trade - and the leftovers.
1976.
We decided mutually that it was time
for COUM Transmissions to end.
We'd already been rehearsing
as TG since 1975.
We wanted to then try and see
what happened if we inserted
it into the culture.
The Prostitution show started
off with Ted Little,
who was then the director
of the ICA, inviting us to do
a male art show there.
Quickly turned into something
else as things do.
And during a conversation with him,
I must have mentioned this idea,
and he said, "I'll do
a retrospective."
So Prostitution became
a retrospective of COUM.
And basically our exit
from the art world.
Cosey had just done some modelling
for a magazine called Curious.
There was a picture of her on
a chaise longue with a blindfold
on and above it,
it just said "prostitution".
I thought, well, we're all
prostitutes, really.
So I proposed it should be
called Prostitution.
I decided that that would be where I
present the magazines for the first
time. My magazines were put out
the back in a kind of box
where they were slid in, you know,
like Athena posters used to be.
And you'd pull them out
to have a look, but you had to join
and become a member of the ICA first
before you could see them.
It was kind of work around
the laws of pornography.
We had props that we built,
so we ended up with those
being exhibited as well and bits
of costumes that Cosey had made
and bits of costumes that I'd worn.
I had this idea for these small
sculptures called Tampax Romana.
The tampons were my used tampons.
I had been collecting
for a while and we used them
in performances, again as part
of that whole thing of showing
what womanhood is.
There was a copy of the
News Of The World on a table...
..and I just thought I wonder
what would happen if we sent invites
to all the press.
Little did I realise what a furore
it was going to cause.
And then we had the opening.
And lo and behold, all those
editors and journalists
turned up and freaked.
We talked to Ted Little
and said, we want music.
So we got the band Chelsea
that became Generation X to play.
And so a punk element sort of
contingent came along to see them.
It was brilliant.
And a comedian, John Smith from
Bridlington, who told dirty jokes.
And we had a stripper.
Why not have a stripper?
Let's make it our party.
And then Throbbing Gristle played
live to launch the band.
MUSIC PLAYS
Everyone had been drinking a lot.
And Ian Hinchcliffe was there,
was another quite extreme artist.
I remember there was a cluster of
people and Ian was shouting at Gen
about something
because I didn't get on.
Suddenly I saw stars, and the
journalist from the Evening Standard
had hit me over the head
with a pint beer glass.
And there was just like
a huge fight on the floor
and Ted got kicked in the
balls, had to go to hospital.
Gen, I took Gen to hospital
because he thought he'd broken
his little finger and then we came
back and cleared the gear away
into the van and we went home.
It was just like...
..being stunned by some hand
grenade, really, that gig.
And the newspapers went crazy.
And then the next like ten days
or so handling all the press
and being hounded by them
outside the house and the market
nearby, in the gallery
being chased by them.
Being slagged off by Spare Rib,
all that, I just didn't even
want to know. Being called
the wreckers of civilisation
by Nicholas Fairbairn
wasn't a real problem.
I don't think we're uncivilised.
In actual fact, I think
we're more civilised
than some people
and some elements of society.
Monte Cazazza over there
will be making the video cassette
of the whole proceedings.
There was a Canadian artist
who called herself Anna Banana.
One day she wrote me this long
letter and amongst the letter,
it said, "We met this awful human
being, the worst person
"we've ever met.
He calls himself Monte Cazazza."
And he'd send us all this
information and photographs,
photocopied things that he'd been up
to.
We were at this person's house
talking and drinking wine,
and then he turned up
and he had this small suitcase
and he opened the little case and
it had a dead cat in it, roadkill.
And he had no fear at all
because he had no...
..no career hopes.
And he pulled out the cat, squirted
lighter fuel on it, set it on fire
and then pulled out this gun and
said, "You can't leave the room."
And we just thought,
"Wow, he sounds interesting.
"Sounds like my kind of guy."
He was there when industrial
music got named.
It was him that was saying, "Well,
you keep saying industrial, Gen.
"So it's industrial music."
And we went, "Yeah, you're right.
"It's industrial music."
It was industrious, there was a lot
of research involved.
Chris was obviously very industrious
with his technical experiments
and building equipment.
And that's where it came from
with the irony of the factory,
which is where we were.
In London Fields park, which we were
next to, there were the plague pits
from when the Black Plague happened.
And so hundreds of plague victims
had been buried under the ground
in the park, and as we were
in the basement, we were actually
at the same level as all
the plague victims.
And I called it the Death Factory.
It was fairly on the cards
that she was going to leave.
They'd fallen in love.
That can't be helped.
Me and Chris were together
but trying not to be for the sake
of the band, and my relationship
with Gen, which was in trouble
big time by then.
How are we going to cope
with that now?
You know, Gen's going to go
off and do his thing.
You're going to be doing your thing.
And someone like Gen, you know, he's
got a lot of personality and a lot
of energy there, so he was a
difficult man to be around.
And he could throw some
serious, serious tantrums.
That sort of display of anger
can be quite frightening.
It was never going to be an easy
parting, and there was a lot
at stake.
We were much more focused
by then and more serious
about the things we were interested
in and what we wanted
to communicate to people.
It wasn't frivolous any more,
and neither was the climate
in the country, and I think
that had a lot to do with it.
We met Al Ackerman - Blaster -
who we'd been doing mail art
exchanges with and who in the
end ended up writing the lyrics
to Hamburger Lady.
He'd been in Vietnam...
..as a medic, and he was working
on the night shift in a hospital
in Eugene, and there was a woman
who'd been in a car crash.
Been burnt so badly, she was known
around the wards as
the Hamburger Lady.
Her ears had got burned off
and she couldn't hear, her eyes
had been melted and gone,
so she couldn't see.
And her throat and tongue
had been so damaged,
she couldn't speak.
And we thought,
what would it sound like
in that ward, you know?
And it became probably one of the,
strangely enough, the most popular
songs we ever did.
People weren't sort of
turned off by it.
They were...they were driven
to a place of compassion.
# Medical advances... #
There was always an element for most
of TG when I was writing
all the lyrics of it being closer at
times to a newspaper. The darkness
in TG came from the time,
the political state of the time,
and also from our own
personal histories.
When I was growing up,
there was the Moors murders.
And then, of course, you go
from there in the '60s
and there's Charles Manson.
There was obviously the post-war
thing going on and our parents not
talking about it because
they were so traumatised.
People always go on about the Nazi
element of TG, which just wasn't
there at all.
It was just that we were willing
to discuss that thing.
Human beings have done horrendous
things to one another.
Put it out there for discussion.
It's not something you
should hide away.
Why is there this unwritten
boundary or a limitation
on what you can discuss in a lyric?
Just because you mention it
doesn't mean you approve of it.
You know, journalists write
about all sorts of terrible things
and they're not accused
of endorsing it.
People had started looking up to us
for some reason,
like we had all the answers.
We didn't. We were just posing them.
At the beginning, we did
lots of weird stuff, like once
we had just big mirrors in front
of us. That made people angry
because they couldn't see us.
We did another one where
we had halogen lamps along the front
of the stage on the audience,
so that they were blinded.
But we could see them, you know?
But there's only so many ways
you can play with the audience/band
dynamic before it becomes
just trickery.
Yeah, Oundle.
Some guy had heard about us
and written to us and said,
"I could get my music teacher
to book you."
We said, "We'll come and play as
long as we can have a tour of the
"school and have lunch with the boys
in the huge dining area."
It was very strange but interesting
because... I mean, Sleazy knew
what it was like because
he'd gone to public school
and Gen did to some extent,
and we just did what we did
and they really didn't know
what hit them.
And in the end, they started
singing Jerusalem.
It was quite amazing.
Beautiful moment,
full of testosterone.
MUSIC: Don't Do As You're Told,
Do As You Think
Monte said something interesting,
he said, "You know they all want
"you to die on stage, don't you?"
I said, "What?"
He said, "It would suit everybody
"if you took it so far, you would...
..you died on stage.
"Stay alive out of spite, Gen."
I'd never thought of it that way
that you could actually end up a bit
too much like a sideshow.
"What will Gen do to Gen next?"
And in the end, we're all
going to watch Gen die.
No, that's not what we're trying
to say.
# Persuasion... #
No, I always thought of TG
as a concept that I wanted to see
if we could change music and change
popular culture and give it some
extra weight and intelligence
and new systems of expression.
And it worked.
We did that.
But suddenly, it was part-time
for three out of four. We felt
that it became a pastiche
of itself and we'd taken
it as far as we wanted to take
it without it becoming some kind
of demon or beast that was not
totally within our control.
I think we'd...we'd finish
with the, you know, shouting
in the face and hitting people
on the head with a hammer
kind of approach.
And now we were more interested
in exploring areas that almost
we had no right to enter.
You know, real music, like Giorgio
Moroder territory kind of thing.
And even Abba.
But it interested us in how
we could approach it and do
it our way.
One of these myths that seems
to circulate is that TG ended in
1981 because of bedroom politics
and because I was jealous of Chris.
But I wasn't jealous of Chris.
When we were in the studio
recording,
it was still really great.
Yeah, because that was important
to, I think,
to all of us, including Gen.
You know, that whatever you decide
to do in your extracurricular time,
you could say, I felt should
have been kept separate
and could have been. I mean, we were
all grown ups, you know?
And, you know, we're going to get
into dodgy territory here.
I don't want to go into it.
Sure.
Can you tell us a bit about some
of the concepts
that you're dealing with?
No.
# When all the numbers swim together
and all the shadow settle
# Windows forced open shut again,
a fly trap and a petal
# My eyes burn and claws
rush to fill them
# And in the morning
I fall in love with the light. #
# Sometimes I felt I had to run
away... #
Mute Records wanted us to...
They put feelers out.
Would it be at all possible for us
to regroup to publicise
their release of 24 Hours on CD?
To be really frank,
I still thought, would it
just become like it was last time?
And I'm sure they thought
exactly the same thing,
but we all decided to see.
And so it took place.
When we did the Astoria,
that just totally blew me away.
When the cheer went up,
when we came out, I didn't quite
know what to do.
It was one of those moments where
you look behind you like someone
else is there
that they're cheering for.
I had no idea that we'd had that
effect on people, and such
a wide range of age groups
as well, wasn't just the people
that were around when we first
did it.
And that was good because it
more or less said to me
that it functioned well at its time,
and since.
this is a band called
Throbbing Gristle - Chris, Cosey,
Sleazy and me.
It's been almost
23 years to the day
since we played together.
Wouldn't you just know it?
Oh, it's so hard trying
to do this after so long.
# There's never a way
# To convince people... #
The first time we went
to the studio together after such
a long time, after 20 years or more,
we fitted in, we slotted in together
and gelled and produced music
within minutes, and it just
seemed like we'd never been away.
It was like being in a time
warp or something. As it went by,
it developed and we did more albums
that were new music
that were equally as interesting.
So it just was one of those things,
it would have mutated naturally
if it kept going.
The music of Throbbing Gristle
featuring Peter Christopherson,
who has died aged 55.
There's a part of
me that wasn't totally surprised,
because he'd lived a life of
massive indulgence,
of anything and everything
that could take him into
new dimensions and delirious realms
and then his strange,
twisted imagination.
Maybe that's why I
called him Sleazy.
You've got a kind of a few
conflicting memories,
but there is a truth in there,
which is all about using
your imagination, being open
to experience,
not being afraid to experiment.
It's allowable to be sad,
to be...or happy, to find humour
in something you shouldn't find
humour in because it's like a
safety valve.
And that's what we are.
Try and find a way to come to terms
with being alive and the strange
mystery of being alive,
but also the mortality.
And for me, art should deal
with those, the great mysteries.
And that's why we thought life
and art are inseparable.
You know, it's not just random and
death's not the end, you know,
but I can't explain why
I believe that or why.
To me, you just know.