I found Gen to be testing in many ways. The Cult/Magick task ‘test’ was back. I’d already screwed cocks I didn’t want for hard-core films. But that didn’t count, that was my (art project) choice, so Gen tested my love and commitment to him by demanding me to do things he knew I really didn’t want to do. Upping the stakes (for me). His reasoning was: if I’d hurt myself for him, that would prove my love and dedication to him beyond doubt. These ‘tests’ were a self-serving ploy presented to me under the twisted notion that submitting to his demands was a way for me to gain strength. He never pushed himself or took risks; he always stayed within his comfort zone, seemingly feeding off my discomfort.
I’d stopped acquiescing to his suggestions for a while. He used sex as a weapon, as a means to exercise his power and control. It wasn’t about love or mutual pleasure. I’d return home from working on porn jobs and have to describe the whole event for Gen’s sexual gratification. Home didn’t feel like home but more like work, providing another sex fantasy. Gen wanted me to screw Szabo and other models and photographers I worked with. I didn’t want to. I told him I would, just to shut him up and leave me alone. He was constantly pecking at me. Where had I been, why did I want to go out again, what was I doing when I was out. It was an endless questioning and checking on my movements, like picking at a healing wound and making it bleed again.
As for Szabo, he was my friend, he was married, and I knew and got on well with his wife, Tris. Gen said he wouldn’t have sex with me until I did as he asked. That hurt, but I wasn’t going to be bullied. I was pretty good at sexy phone calls by now, having talked to Jeff so much, and I made up stories of my sexual adventures for Gen. I wasn’t ready to lose another home and everything I’d worked so hard for, just for the sake of Gen’s expected daily orgasm.
And I didn’t want TG to suffer – it was too important to me. It was all working so well. I’d had ‘Death Factory’ T-shirts done for us all, we had John Krivine asking to manage TG, and Chris had worked hard on gear, making me an auto-wah pedal, buying himself a new Korg keyboard synth and spending hours rewiring the equipment in the studio, adding a custom slave amp and arranging it into a wall of sound. It sounded awesome. ‘Wall of Sound’ became one of TG’s signature tracks. TG material was coming together very nicely.
4 September 1976
Off to Death Factory to play Gristle music. Did our one hour set and it went very well. On the Myra Hindley/Ian Brady number got a really good backing. I’d like to keep it. Chris thought it was the best we’d done. Wall of sound it was, bricked up to the ceiling!!!!
11 September 1976
We did a nice new tape with ‘SLUG BAIT’. Was really nice. A new number for Gristle.
COUM was running in parallel to TG. Me and Gen were invited to go to the USA to perform at N.A.M.E. Gallery and the Marianne Deson Gallery in Chicago, the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Design Environment and Architecture (I.D.E.A.) in California, and had applied for a grant from the British Council. There was so much to organise, with the dates falling shortly after the planned ICA exhibition.
By this time I’d got a half-decent portfolio together. I thought I’d almost finished with my project and had enough material for the exhibition, but when I joined the Suzannah-Jon agency I was the busiest I’d ever been – even diversifying into being put forward as Mike Yarwood’s naked card-trick assistant, going a bit upmarket and auditioning for Playboy (which I never did), and filming with Paul Raymond’s lover, Fiona Richmond. I had to buy my first pocket diary to keep tabs on what I was doing where and when. Other than the TG get-togethers and times I was working on COUM or away with COUM, I was out with my model portfolio, doing photo shoots or films, sometimes working till the early hours of the morning.
The ICA exhibition was getting ever closer and I made a final push, writing to different magazines asking to buy three copies of each issue I’d appeared in. I didn’t get many responses. But Michel and David Sullivan were really helpful and I’d collected over fifty different magazines already for the show. I extracted all the images of myself and the associated text from each one – those pages were my ‘action’, to be framed as my work, thereby subverting the ‘male gaze’. The title of the exhibition was ‘Prostitution’, not only as a direct reference to my first appearance in a sex magazine, as well as my subsequent sex-magazine works, but it also represented our thoughts about the art world – talent being touted and sold for a price, the relationship between high art and money. We felt we’d come to the end of the road with Arts Council grants: the conditions were too restrictive.
The exhibition opening would be the official launch of Throbbing Gristle and a support band was needed. We thought of John Krivine. He’d started and managed a band called LSD (who became Chelsea), with Gene October as lead singer. They also had Bill Broad (Billy Idol) on guitar and Tony James playing bass, who later formed Generation X together. John had asked TG to go to see them rehearse and advise as to whether he’d selected the right people. I remember walking to the Tube, with Bill talking about the band and practising his Elvis lip-curl-cum-sneer.
There was an incident at the audition. Tony insulted Sleazy, questioning his qualifications as a judge for the band, calling him ‘just a knob-twiddler’ (which was true in another respect). Gen punched Tony in the face for being so insulting and disrespectful, sending his sunglasses smashing to the floor and splashing his can of Colt 45 everywhere. We didn’t say a word.
Regardless of said incident, Tony made it into John’s punk shop BOY band, which was later formed in ‘opposition’ to Malcolm McLaren’s band, the Sex Pistols, and his and Vivienne Westwood’s shop, SEX. The shops were just up the road from each other and each had a brand and a band to help sell it. Sleazy ended up with a foot in both camps, as window dresser for BOY and photographer for the first publicity shots of the Sex Pistols. Hipgnosis Studio, where he worked, was close to where the Sex Pistols rehearsed and he arranged with Malcolm McLaren to do some photos. They were never used – McLaren thought they were too extreme (very ‘Sleazy’). When John opened BOY he had Sleazy make a window display that attracted police attention and investigation. They thought the contents were from a real crime scene. He’d created a forensic-like display of what looked like the dismembered, charred remains of someone who’d broken in. Sleazy loved that his work looked so authentic.
25 September 1976
We did some Gristle music. Seems we can do it now so no need to practise. Just looking forward to getting the Alpha Wave machines.
Sleazy arrived at the house a little late, as usual, but all excited and bursting to tell us about his train adventure on his way to his Casualties Union meeting earlier that day. He got flashed by a guy in the carriage and had oral sex. They’d just finished when the train stopped and his friends from the union got on, and the guy got off. Sleazy started chatting away as if nothing had happened. What a perfect day, he said, all smiles.
Then Tony Bassett arrived. We’d invited him for dinner after David introduced us. Tony was a small, quiet, gentle, unassuming man with amazing imagination and skills, and made special effects for TV and film. We discussed ideas with him on negative-ion generators and the possibilities of hooking ourselves up to alpha-wave machines and feeding the alpha-wave signals through the PA. That was impractical, just because of safety and noise interference, but he made us an industrial-size negative-ion generator that would clear the venue of cigarette smoke (a real problem back then) and make people feel good.
Two weeks before the ICA, Chris left his job – rather convenient in retrospect, as it meant he was around all the time to help while I went to Greece for a week on a modelling job.
16 October 1976
Gen was a little cold at first, upset me. Seems like the show has caused trouble. He only knew yesterday that it was definitely on still. Been in the papers … still the ICA have decided to go ahead even when threatened by the ACOGB with a reduction in their grant … Doesn’t feel real to m
e. Feel in a dream. Greece this time last night and ICA chaos now.
My arrival back at Beck Road was not the homecoming I’d expected, or wanted. Gen was pissed off with me that my sex-magazine works – or, as he put it, ‘your fucking magazines’ – had caused so much trouble, with the ICA coming under fire for exhibiting ‘pornography’, and had nearly robbed him of the exhibition.
Such an unwelcoming return was depressing and hypocritical, considering we’d both agreed about the show taking its title from my magazine works, which had inspired and formed the core of the show. Anyway, the invites and posters stating that were all printed. So it was too late.
The exhibition was opening on the 19th but the private view was on the 18th and, despite me, Gen, and Chris having already framed some works and done the Tampax sculpture boxes, there was still so much work to do. I really needed to sleep but Gen blamed me for the ICA chaos, made me feel so guilty that, despite having travelled back overnight, I went to the studio to work on mounting and framing the photographic documentation of the Milan and Kiel COUM actions.
I’d spent months printing the COUM photographs in readiness for the exhibition and Chris had managed to get the frames cheap through his father’s glass shop. The budget from the ICA was pretty minimal and Gen suggested I be given just £50 for the framing of my magazines and could pay for the rest myself. The original quote I’d got for framing was for £500, which was crazy expensive, so the ICA framed a few for me and I paid for the others myself. In the last week of September Martello Street studio became a framing workshop. Chris delivered all the glass and hardboard and cut it to size. All forty-one framed magazine actions and the photographic documentation of the COUM actions of Milan and Kiel were assembled ready for installation at the ICA. It was all going so well and looked amazing … but.
After the troubles over my magazines and the intervention of both the Crown Commissioners (the owners of the ICA’s lease) and the ACOGB (Arts Council of Great Britain), it was decided that my sexually explicit magazine works could not be shown on the main gallery walls for legal – and what was described as ‘diplomatic’ – reasons. Not just that, but they would be housed in boxes and form part of a members-only exhibition in a separate room at the back of the main gallery – to be viewed ‘on request’ and only by members of the ICA. I was told that this would enable the magazines to be included in the show and avoid any of the obscenity regulations that applied to public displays in the gallery itself.
I always felt this was, intentional or not, like relegating the magazines to a place comparable to their original context – in a back room, an under-the-counter situation like a Soho sex shop. Sex shop to art gallery to back room. All it needed was a dusty velvet curtain in the doorway.
While the ICA staff concentrated on making the boxes for my framed magazines, we set to work installing everything in the main gallery – the large ‘Orange and Blue’ wooden pyramid, the shower of chains from Milan, the Perspex box of tampons and buzzing flies that was shown at the Paris Biennale, and the photo documentation of COUM actions and related press on the walls. Then we positioned display cases containing relics from COUM actions, assorted objects and clothing, including my bloodied tampons, which were used as raw material for many pieces – and which (unknown to us at that time) became the focus, alongside my magazine works, of the furore that descended upon us the very next day.
We’d decided that the private view for the exhibition would not be like the usual polite, wine-sipping art-crowd gathering. As the exhibition was both a farewell retrospective of COUM and the official launch of our new project, Throbbing Gristle, we would make the private view a special evening to shake things up a bit. We’d arranged for John’s band, LSD (aka Chelsea), to play as support to TG, booked a stripper called Shelley through my friend Lynn’s stripping agency, Gemini, and also a beautiful, tall, intimidating transvestite bodyguard called Java. Well, it was indeed a special night … that kicked off big time.
It turned out to be a good decision that my magazines were in the back room – especially for the private view. They needed to be out of harm’s way. Having bump-started Doris the van and loaded up all the TG equipment, we arrived at the ICA around two o’clock in the afternoon. We set everything up and made sure the gear was all working. Our friends turned up to help and Ted Little was totally supportive, despite all the hassle and pressure he’d had about the show. The press were already buzzing around as we prepared for the party.
LSD and John didn’t get there until 3.30 and spent two hours doing a soundcheck, then blew the monitor speakers. As the party started at 6 p.m. time was getting tight and we now had to repair the monitors. The tech people sorted it out pretty quickly and Chris took the opportunity to have a last check of our gear before we started our set. Something was amiss – someone had purposely fucked with our equipment by jamming a screwdriver into the PA amp. It would have ruined the gig. Chris removed it immediately, and the sabotage was thwarted.
When we opened the doors to the main gallery, people flooded in and the place was heaving. We were to play first as most of our equipment, being self-built by Chris, was best left set up and undisturbed once it was all working. We took up our positions. Chris on rhythms, synths and machines, me on Raver lead guitar and effects, Gen on vocals, violin and Rickenbacker bass guitar, and Sleazy using his tapes. I wore my leather biker jacket, hung open with nothing underneath. I had Sleazy apply his casualty make-up to my boob so it appeared to be gashed open and bloody, and during the performance I took my jacket off. Gen had the front of his hair shaved into an inverted ‘V’ (Peter Gabriel-style) and had a bottle of Sleazy’s fake blood to hand, which he proceeded to pour into his mouth as he sang, spitting it out as he screamed apocalyptic lyrics into the mic.
The set began slowly, building intently into ‘Very Friendly’ (the Moors murderers song), ‘We Hate You (Little Girls)’, ‘Factory’, ‘Slug Bait’, ‘Dead Ed’ and finally letting rip, no holds barred, with ‘Zyklon B Zombie’. Throbbing Gristle’s official launch was complete and we were pleased with what we’d done. I didn’t know, or care, what the audience thought.
Next up was Shelley the stripper, who enthusiastically took to the ‘stage’ for her striptease, playing to the audience and ending up rolling on the floor naked in the spilled fake blood left from TG’s set. People loved it. LSD then took over from Shelley and thrashed out a punk set, to the cheers of their friends (including pre-Banshees Siouxsie Sioux). Their little crowd were all garbed out in their punk outfits, some undoubtedly bought from SEX or even John’s shop, BOY, and as expected were rather stand-offish about the art.
There was a lot of alcohol consumed that night, including Gen, who liked a good tot of whiskey prior to performing. The bar had been very busy, the evidence of which was all over the floor of the gallery. We’d put our equipment to one side and as far away as we could from the main hub of party people, and went to join our friends. We were no strangers to violence or trouble so we thought nothing of the agitated atmosphere. I was glad to see Kipper Kid Brian – I always had such fun times with him. He was very drunk when he walked up to me and Gen accompanied by Ian Hinchcliffe, who was also drunk as a skunk.
By this time, Ian had gained a reputation for his spontaneous, aggressive verbal and physically violent outbursts, either against property, himself or others. He had issues with Gen. Ian hated pretension, and had previously squirted Gen in the eye with washing-up liquid. As he approached I could see blood on his mouth: he was in the throes of his glass-eating trick. I don’t know who threw the first punch at Gen, but the language was vitriolic against Gen’s ‘use’ and deplorable treatment of me. All hell let loose as fists, feet, bottles and glasses flew in all directions, and they all ended up in a writhing heap on the floor. People stepped back, some left, Ted Little tried to intervene and in the tangled web of fury got kicked in the balls so hard that he had to be taken to hospital.
Gen sustained a suspected broken finger and we ended the evening
with a visit to Charing Cross A&E department. The doctors were immediately attentive to Gen’s bloody face, fearing serious injury, only to discover the blood was fake. They became rather dismissive about his finger, which turned out not to be broken. While I was at the hospital with Gen, Chris and Sleazy stayed at the ICA to pack away the gear and load it into the van. When me and Gen returned we all drove back to Martello Street, unpacked the gear, carried it down the narrow basement steps into our studio, locked up Doris and trudged across London Fields back home to Beck Road.
We thought that the previous night’s dramas would be the end of it, but we were in for a rough ride. The show opened officially the next day, Tuesday 19 October, and that’s when the eruption of press ‘outrage’ began. Me and Sleazy were due to perform together at the ICA on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’d decided on a kind of demonstration of casualty make-up, in part to disappoint the press, who were expecting a nude sex action, and thereby remaining true to our COUM slogan, ‘COUM, We Guarantee Disappointment’. When we arrived at the ICA on Wednesday for the one o’clock action, the audience, including artists and a heavy contingent of the press, were already in place. We only did the one performance.
20 October 1976
Fucking ridiculous today at the ICA. So many reporters and so aggressive. Can’t do any more performances now, it’s impossible, they’d all be there again. Three pics were broken today, reckon there’ll be none left by next Tuesday. The reporters chased me through the gallery and nearly broke the door down. They punched Chris and called him a cunt. We had to be sneaked out of the back way, and went off to have some lunch with Paul (Buck). He’s been so good to be with.
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