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Art Sex Music

Page 24

by Cosey Fanni Tutti


  *

  Our cheques had come from John Krivine: Sleazy’s for the shop design he and his friend John did, and my and Gen’s for the Gary Gilmore T-shirts. We had funds to enable us to press up our very first album and we sourced a pressing plant, Orlake in Dagenham. Sleazy paid the whole bill as promised and we set about designing the cover. We had no money for colour printing. The cheapest way forward proved to be the most suitable: a plain white cover – in actual fact just a bog-standard unprinted white album sleeve. We wanted something simple that reflected ‘industrial’ and we adopted the style of a company annual report – an Industrial Records business report of Throbbing Gristle’s sound research in the form of an LP, with recordings from various gigs, jam sessions and the soundtrack from After Cease to Exist.

  All of us sat in the living room of Beck Road drinking cups of tea and putting the black-and-white printed stickers on by hand: a small one on the front simply stating the title, the dates the recordings were made and the label name, Industrial Records Ltd; on the back we placed a black-and-white sticker that gave details presented as a business report, plus the label logo and small photo of TG. We included a probing questionnaire to research our market, asking their opinions on film, commercial music, the record itself, political and sexual preferences and asking them to feed back to us their own questions. Also inside was a small slip of paper disclaiming the sound quality, and two stickers: ‘Nothing Short of a Total War’ (to make our motives clear) and a red-and-black circular TG flash sticker for people to keep or stick in public places to promote TG.

  Reviews followed, the first by Alex Fergusson’s friend Sandy Robertson for Sounds, then more in Melody Maker, NME and even the Hackney Gazette. The response took us by surprise. It was helped a lot by John Peel playing tracks from the album on his show. The Rough Trade shop took stock off us; Chris and Gen did the deliveries and Chris made a window display for them of the TG flash logo on circular wooden discs left over from speaker cabinets he’d made. To our amazement, the album sold out – all 785 copies.

  We didn’t re-press; we let Fetish Records, run by Rod Pearce, do that to get the label off the ground. Fetish Records’ presentation was different in colour, with the striking TG flash forming the front cover. We never knew that our first TG album would prove to be so influential or that industrial music would become an established new genre.

  I was in awe at our ability to keep TG together, and at the fact that it even gained strength and focus under such crazy circumstances. It seemed to have a momentum all of its own despite the turmoil that existed around and within it. We each poured ourselves fully into TG, feeding off each other’s ideas, creating something greater than the four of us. We pooled our combined resources on all levels, using individual talent for specific tasks but surrendering our individual psyches to the process of creating sound together – united as a ‘third mind’.

  TG as one was powerful and all-consuming, but the anchor was Chris. The whole being greater than the sum of its parts was never more true than in the case of Throbbing Gristle and industrial music as a genre. Neither would have existed without Chris. He was the determining catalyst. Up until him joining, there was no sign of anything near the TG sound. Gen couldn’t do it, I couldn’t and neither could Sleazy. The simple fact is that, prior to Chris entering our world, we were effectively three parts of TG – me, Gen and Sleazy – and we hadn’t come up with anything that resembled the sound that TG would later become known for. It certainly wasn’t Chris alone, but his discipline, focus, ingenuity, knowledge, technical skills and experimental ideas were the crucial elements that brought Throbbing Gristle into existence. For years prior to Chris joining us, we hadn’t found a sound that gave voice to our deeper feelings and more radical ideas.

  As TG we wanted a sound that hit people between the eyes and swirled in grinding, growling mayhem between their ears. A sound that caused an involuntary physical response in the body that would make people feel and think rather than just listen, dance and get drunk. In the studio, we experimented with extreme frequencies; one of us stood at the ‘kill switch’ to cut the power if the effects became too much. We experienced tunnel vision, our stomachs going into spasm and our trouser legs flapping. When we played live, we added an additional layer to the aural assault on the senses: we interjected with strobes, halogen floodlights shining at the audience, large mirrored panels behind us, and the industrial-strength (of course) negative-ion generator Tony Bassett had made for us, with a super-strong fan that would arc randomly if anyone got too close, sending out flashes and sparks into the audience.

  We weren’t messing around: there was nothing comfortable about a TG gig, for us or anyone else. We were thought to be confrontational but our intention was far from that. We wanted to connect, interact in a way that counteracted the mindless indulgences and spoon-feeding prevalent in the music business. From a limp, post-coital COUM penis to a fully erect Throbbing Gristle, up and ready for action. That kind of summed up both our change in attitude and all four of us as individuals. Being such strong characters and having our interrelationship conflicts was what made TG. When we were as one we were an uncompromising force to be reckoned with, an unstoppable, highly charged ball of throbbing energy.

  TG operated as a democracy, something that COUM had failed to be. And that caused lots of arguments when Gen didn’t get his way, mainly between him and Chris, who was no sycophant. Chris’s work ethic was a big influence on me. He was diligent and resolute, and worked through the night if needed. He understood how necessary it was to experiment beyond the good parts, break things down and build them up again to see where they could lead to. Me and Sleazy loved doing that and would want to carry on with Chris, excited about the whole process of exploring crazy ideas, going off on tangents just to see what happened. That took time and patience but Gen’s limited attention span was a problem for us all. We’d just be getting somewhere when Gen would think that was enough and want to leave and go to the Wimpy or home for hot chocolate. That angered and frustrated Chris in particular, but also me, because Gen expected me to go with him and not choose being with Sleazy and Chris over being with him – and to make his hot chocolate. It disrupted the flow of creativity and sound experiments, imposed an unwanted and unwarranted limit on our time in the studio, when freedom to explore was at the centre of our practice.

  What transpired was a compensation strategy. To dispense with the annoyance and frustration, Chris worked on sounds, ideas, tracks and rhythms in his flat and then brought them to the studio – ready-made backing tracks – thereby cutting out all the time that the process usually took during the jam sessions, in the hope that TG could maximise the time Gen was willing to hang around. It turned out to be a great thing but also led to Chris’s massive number of hours of work being taken for granted, unseen and at times miscredited.

  Whatever Gen lacked in staying power at jam sessions, he made up for as a live performer. Assigned to vocals, he could really grandstand, be the centre of attention, something the rest of us weren’t interested in. He was a fantastic frontman.

  Chris and Sleazy became very close, drawn together in frenzied enthusiasm for technology that could bring a new approach to and ways of making sound. They were always ringing each other up and meeting at the Hipgnosis offices, going to music shops in Charing Cross Road and Denmark Street to look at what was new and useable or modifiable for TG purposes. With Chris also seeking out components to make circuit boards to install into his synthesisers, he was accumulating a substantial array of weird and noisy self-built gadgets.

  At first Sleazy had been happy to work out front, doing his tapes and mixing us through the PA – he wouldn’t come on the stage. But we turned that around, persuading him that his function as a member of TG was generating the sound, not mixing it. My answerphone provided some inspiration for a sound machine for Sleazy. Some of the interesting and threatening phone messages left on it were used in TG tracks, but the machine also used endless-loop cassett
e tapes, which was quite rare and gave Chris the idea to build a TG ‘sampler’. He built himself and Sleazy one each, using old cassette machines connected to a one-octave keyboard. Sleazy added to his with Sony Stowaway cassette players (which became the Sony Walkman), which he’d bought while on a Hipgnosis trip to New York. Sleazy was over the moon and he added further to his gear by buying one of the first Apple II computers with a sampling card.

  As for me, I’d started playing the cornet that Sleazy had bought himself but couldn’t get a sound out of. He tried but never mastered the required blowing technique and was perturbed but impressed that I got a sound on my first blow. My Raver guitar was a bit of an odd shape for the way I used it, so me and Chris went and bought another cheap guitar, a Satellite, and worked together on customising it. Chris cut it down so it was more cricket-bat-shaped, making it easier for me to access the strings with my screwdriver, bottleneck, drumsticks or other objects I wanted to use to make sounds on it. We painted it black.

  I put the guitar through the small distortion box and a wah-wah pedal Chris had built for me, and the Gristleizer, which was all great but I wanted more noise-making boxes. I took my guitar to Macari’s to try out some FX foot pedals. The other guitarists were all doing renditions of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and there was me saying to the assistant, ‘No, I don’t need to tune my guitar first – I’ll just plug in. I kind of know what sound I’m looking for.’

  I tried out different pedals, smashing and hitting the guitar, adjusting the controls to see what extreme sounds I could get out of them, all dials set to max. Then I heard the sound I wanted and could work with. ‘Yeah, that’s the one – that’ll do the job,’ I said. It was a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal, my first off-the-shelf FX unit (which I still have). After that, I got Boss-pedal fever and later bought phaser, flanger and analogue-delay pedals. Chris ordered a bulldog flight case and installed all my pedals, connected together in a row: a neat, transportable (if heavy) case that opened in two, the pedals in one half and my guitar tucked safely in foam in the other.

  The TG affair with Roland equipment had started with Chris’s synth and sequencers, then my Boss effects pedals, then we got a Roland Jazz Chorus combo amp each and thought what fun it would be to infiltrate the music-business practice of sponsorship deals. We approached Roland, sending them a photo of us posing with all our Roland gear. They didn’t bite. But we added Eventide Harmonizers to our arsenal of effects, one each and one for vocals, and downsized our equipment, installing the necessary units into portable flight cases to make TG sound-generating gear more portable for gigs.

  4

  Despite my efforts, including being amenable to Gen going to Poland for two weeks to stay with another girl ‘friend’, he still seemed miserable most of the time. I was constantly having to second-guess his mood swings, and to try and head them off by coming home with a box of Maltesers or an Aero chocolate bar. Nothing I did for him was enough. He showed no empathy towards me – it was always about him. If I had an early start for a photo or film shoot he’d keep me up late, talking about himself, saying he was depressed and needing reassurance about his art, stroking his ego. He fed off me like a parasite, draining me psychically, physically and emotionally. My love for Chris was so intense and I knew my life with Gen couldn’t continue. I just had to be careful about the timing of my leaving him. In the end, it was determined largely by someone else.

  Chris’s job for ABC News came to an end. He’d finished their new studio and was part of the team that covered the outside broadcast of the Silver Jubilee for America. Not long afterwards, Bill Blakemore, the London anchorman for ABC News, got in touch and asked Chris to refit their Rome studio. It would be a full-time job and he’d have to go and live in Italy. It was a huge decision as he’d have to leave me behind. He chose to stay with me. That was the point at which we committed to each other and I looked for somewhere to live so I could move out of Beck Road.

  I approached Acme for one of their houses but they let me down – I didn’t fit their ‘artist’ criteria. That floored me. I’d got them their first house down Beck Road (ours), then squatted and handed over so many houses to them that within a few years of our living there Acme artists occupied a large part of the street. I was left thinking that maybe you needed an art degree to be one of their tenants. Gen didn’t have one; Phil, a motorcycle courier next door, didn’t; so why was I unsuitable? It seemed I was only good for supplying properties and performing COUM actions in their new Acme Gallery. I looked elsewhere, but it was difficult finding somewhere that allowed dogs. I couldn’t leave Tremble behind. I eventually found a small bedsit above a shop in Tottenham.

  On 1 August 1978, as we lay in bed, I told Gen I thought that we should separate. I knew, once I uttered those words, I would be inviting Armageddon. And sure as hell, it arrived.

  First there were tears, from us both. I held him close. I hated making and seeing him so sad. When he realised he couldn’t talk me round, that I wasn’t just saying it to get attention and bring our relationship back on track, the reality hit home and shook him to the core. ‘But you’re my battery – I feed off you,’ he said.

  No mention of love, just the vampiric nature of his need for me. ‘That’s why I have to leave,’ I said. ‘I feel like I’m being eaten away.’

  He leaped on top of me, grabbed me by the throat and started strangling me. ‘If I can’t have you, nobody can!’ Such a cliché, but true.

  I was strong enough to get him off me and hold him down until his temper subsided a bit. He looked wild-eyed and crazy and I suspected that, as soon as I let go of him, he’d flip again. I jumped up, ran through to the front bedroom and dressed as quickly as I could, and grabbed my bag of essentials that I’d thankfully packed ages ago after the Soo saga. I heard Gen get out of bed and turned as he came running at me, threatening to hurt Tremble as she stood there, tail between her legs and ears back, trembling and wondering what the hell was going on. Then he attacked me. He was so fast. ‘All because of THAT!’ he screamed at me as he kicked me so hard in my crotch that it almost lifted me off the ground. I was doubled over in pain, holding myself. I couldn’t move. Then he unleashed a torrent of punches and kicks and delivered a verbal blow that hurt me more: ‘I’d never have let you kill my baby if I’d known you’d leave me.’

  I was stunned. ‘My’ baby? Not ‘our’? How savagely cruel to use the child I’d mourned against me. Why would he think that keeping the baby would have ensured his hold on me? So many thoughts flashed through my mind. Much as I was capable of defending myself, I couldn’t bring myself to hit him back, hurt him more than he was hurting already. I put his exceptional reaction down to him not knowing how to handle rejection.

  I started moving my things out two weeks later, on 15 August. I got Fizzy to stay with Gen to keep an eye on him as I was worried about him. As I went to put Tremble in my Mini with my final load of belongings, Gen demanded to come with me. I said no, and the drama began. He started kicking and thumping the car and screaming at me. He was like a madman. I put the car into drive (it was automatic), frantically trying to get away – then he jumped in front of it and lay down on the road to stop me driving away. I leaped out to get him out of the way, not thinking the car was still in drive … It rolled on to him. I quickly pushed the gearstick into neutral and pulled Gen out of the way.

  ‘You’d even drive over me to get away!’ he said.

  ‘No. No, it was an accident,’ I explained. ‘The car is automatic and I’d left it in drive.’

  He didn’t believe me. ‘Right!’ he shouted, and rushed into the house.

  Fizzy was stood in the doorway with tears in his eyes. ‘Go quick,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’

  All I could say was, ‘Sorry, I have to do this. I have to go.’

  Then Fizzy was pushed aside as Gen came flying through the door wielding a nine-inch knife with ‘KILL’ burned into the wooden handle, blazing, staring eyes, screaming and heading for me. Fizzy grabbed hold of him, took t
he knife and dropped it on the floor of the car so Gen couldn’t snatch it back. ‘Go! Go!’ he shouted.

  I drove off at breakneck speed down Beck Road, turning on to Mare Street so fast I lost two hubcaps as I scraped the kerb. I wasn’t going to stop.

  I didn’t contact anyone for three weeks after I left. I needed to let my emotions surge and resettle as I came to terms with the realisation of what I had relinquished to Gen, other than a house and home, a studio and all my worldly possessions, except the few I took with me. I’d given up so much for a life with Chris and had possibly split up TG. I knew in my heart that it was the right thing to do. I’d have lived in a tent on a hillside if that was the only way me and Chris could be together. He didn’t try to influence me in any way and would have accepted my going back to Gen if that’s what made me happy. He gave my head and heart space to breathe.

 

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