Another heavy morning of interviews till noon, then we went to Tate Britain to talk about TG playing in the Duveen space as part of a Mute series. Sleazy said no, that we would have to be invited to do something at the Tate as ‘artists’. We all walked round the Turner Prize show. We went from there to Cabinet for an interview for Muzik magazine with Andrew Weatherall. It was the best interview of them all: he delved into all kinds of subjects and we were happy to sit there for two hours just chatting. Then the Muzik mag photographer shot off three rolls of film of us. Sleazy was so funny – he suddenly just stood there, arms folded, looking down.
‘What are you doing?’ Then it clicked. ‘Oh, you’re posing,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said. How utterly endearing he could be, and he’d probably hate me for saying that. I could have squeezed him to bits.
Our official TG promo photo shoot was with Brian Griffin at Holborn Studios. It turned out that Sleazy knew him from his Hipgnosis days. While Brian was setting up, we sat and signed some TG24 box set certificates. Gen was in a good mood and said he thought it had all gone very well and how we’d all slotted back into TG rather easily. I said I wasn’t surprised, because our basic characters hadn’t changed that much, that friends had told me he had, but I didn’t think he had at all. His face fell. He seemed to take it as an insult. Sleazy took over and we ended up with him at the front, looking like Daddy Sleazy with his three kids. I was past caring, really, and I couldn’t be bothered confronting Gen about his attitude and behaviour over the last few days. It seemed that, after the niceties of that first face-to-face meeting, he was looking more like the Gen of yesteryear. For all his wanting to build bridges and work together, he wasn’t interested in actually being together. In such a short time he’d annexed himself from us three, not joining us for breakfast or hanging out. I wasn’t sure how, under those conditions, the proposed TG gigs or recording new material could be feasible.
That looked even less likely when, back at the hotel, Sleazy came banging on our door and charged in all red-faced and in a furious frenzy. He stood at the end of our bed, gesticulating as he told us how he’d had a phone call from a friend who was writing a book on Coil and had spoken to Gen just two weeks earlier. Apparently Gen had reiterated a lot of awful things about Sleazy and dissed TG – Sleazy waved a press cutting at us as proof. ‘What you went through when you left Gen was nothing compared to what me and Geff went through,’ he said to us.
I wasn’t sure he knew everything we went through but it was obvious by the few things he mentioned that his experience must have been very nasty and hurtful to have such a lasting effect on him. Then he added, ‘Right, this is what we must do: treat Gen like a Prague rent boy – make him earn his money and don’t trust him an inch.’ He hadn’t finished … He said he was going to tell Gen that if he got up to any tricks he’d pull out of the TG gigs. It was beginning to look like TG the second time around could be a replay of the first.
Despite all that had gone on, Sleazy saw the potential for a TG regrouping and was excited about gig possibilities. He’d already started sourcing material and going through ideas for ATP. As curators of the weekend we were to play as TG, as our individual groups and select other acts. All under the title RE~TG. The regrouping of TG had been set in motion.
Gen returned to New York, Sleazy holidayed in Thailand and we went back to Norfolk. TG24 was officially released on 23 December and as a special TG Christmas gift was broadcast in its entirety on Resonance FM on Christmas Day, along with a group ‘Happy Christmas’ message from us all.
10 April 2003
Camber Sands was a very pleasant weekend. We got to meet the organisers and see all the facilities and possibilities of the site.
The date of the TG-curated ATP had been changed. Paul Smith, me and Chris all went to check out Camber Sands for RE~TG and see Coil play there. It seemed well organised and we met up with Sleazy backstage after his soundcheck … which never materialised because the Magic Band seemed to think a soundcheck was as long as they felt like playing for. Geff was nowhere in sight and Sleazy was grateful for that small mercy. He said he wasn’t even sure Geff would turn up to go on stage and it could be the last Coil gig. He’d had enough, saying that nothing could compensate him for the grief he had to go through with Geff. He’d lightened up by the time we left him.
Coil did an introspective and dark set, which was to be expected, interrupted at one point by Geff’s interesting audience banter. Someone accused him of being drunk. ‘I have no alcohol in my blood at all,’ he said.
‘LIAR!’ someone else shouted back.
‘No, I’m not lying. Well, yes, I am a liar, but I’m not lying about this. I have a horse tranquilliser for later …’
Meanwhile Sleazy and the other three band members played on. We went backstage afterwards and Sleazy’s face lit up when he saw us. With Geff on one side of the dressing room and Sleazy on the other, I didn’t know which way to go. Chris went to Sleazy and they had a big hug, and I went to Geff, then we both sat with Sleazy for his post-show wind-down.
I’d taken lots of photos of the site to email to Gen. Just as I sent it, an email came in from him asking if we’d been to Camber Sands yet because he needed to let his friend at Art Monthly magazine know what was happening with RE~TG. I had to quickly fire off an email saying, ‘Don’t say anything because NOTHING is finalised yet.’
4 June 2003
Paul Smith called yesterday to say we were all meeting on Friday at the Columbia Hotel. Chris asked Paul if he wanted him to bring anything. Paul sighed and seriously said, ‘Yes there is, I could really do with you bringing a sense of humour.’
In light of the success of the TG24 exhibition and the Tate’s interest in TG, we had discussions about the TG archive. The sensible thing to do was to view it as one and not four separate archives, pooling them together to ensure the complete TG/IR source material could be safely stored in an institution and be accessible to all. Me, Chris and Sleazy agreed, and Gen had been amenable to the idea but had since begun the process of cataloguing the items he had in his possession.
A meeting was arranged to talk about it further, as well as Mute business and the live shows. We tied it in with my being in London for the opening of a group show I was in at the South London Gallery and Gen coming over at the same time. We all made our way to Gen’s hotel, the Columbia, and were waiting for him in the lounge. Then I saw him go to reception in his denim miniskirt and bright yellow tights. He waved, came over to us and said, ‘Hi! What are you all doing here?’
What?! He said he didn’t know anything about the meeting and it was purely by chance that he and Jackie had been waiting for ‘Wheatley’ (Andrew) and even saw us, and anyway he and Jackie were off for breakfast now. He left us sitting there.
He was back half an hour later, a little breathless and puffing on his inhaler. By then the two Pauls had arrived, Paul Smith explaining to Gen that he had actually spoken to him three times since Sunday. ‘I don’t remember,’ was Gen’s answer.
The meeting about many TG matters commenced.
Paul Smith began by stating that he was acting on behalf of TG and not us as individuals, and he needed assurances that no one was going to walk out before the ATP or Tate events next year. Gen said he had no intention of pulling out. And neither had we three. As the finer details were discussed, Gen seemed bored. I got the impression that he couldn’t be bothered with anything other than performing on stage and the money – that we three could do all the work. Maybe the intervening years of being a lead singer in a rock and roll band had instilled in him a new approach to working that was far from what was involved when working in TG. He was jibing Paul Smith again, and tapping his feet and hands constantly as if irritated, which in turn irritated Sleazy, who had trouble containing himself.
But finally we got the Mute business done and dusted. There was to be a ‘Best of’ TG album and, to accompany TG24, a TG+ box set of the remaining historic live TG tapes, complete with me
tal cut-out cards that would form a TG flash. Chris faced lots more remastering and Sleazy more artworks. To avoid delays, Gen agreed to be contacted for his input at the latter stages of production, the same working practice as for TG24.
All that remained was the sticky subject of pooling the TG archive. I asked Gen what his intentions were. He announced that he would be selling what TG- and IR-related materials he had as part of HIS life archive, that to take it out and pool it with ours would mean his life’s work would be incomplete. Which begged the questions: What about our life stories inherent in the jointly created items he was selling? What about the protection and retaining of the complete legacy of TG we’d all spoken of at the beginning of our regrouping?
We three were appalled and angry that he felt he could disrespect us and TG and still expect us all to continue this renewed ‘relationship’. But there was no way out, having signed to Mute, and we felt a huge obligation to TG fans and everything TG had come to represent. There was little we could do about how Gen chose to behave towards us other than adopt a philosophical approach and rise above the personal negative band dynamics (as so many bands do) with a determination to enjoy the opportunity of the regrouping and to deliver the best we could as TG … After all, the first incarnation had been turbulent. Gen, intentionally or not, had provided that undercurrent of tension second time around too.
25 June 2003
The contracts for Camber are being processed now. So at some point things will get more hectic. I’ll make the most of the relative calm till then.
Whether or not ATP was actually going to happen, new TG material had to be created for a new TG studio album. I’d booked myself into a weekend’s healing voice workshop in London, primarily to learn the technique of Mongolian overtone chanting for my music and art projects. So Chris said he may as well tie in my being away with him going to Sleazy’s for a week to work on TG material. He packed his laptop and the bits and pieces he needed for the first Chris and Sleazy RE~TG sound workshop and we both set off, me for London and Chris to Weston-super-Mare. He dropped me off at the train station and began the long drive to Sleazy’s.
While I was intermittently in New Age workshop hell, Chris and Sleazy had had a great time together. That made me happy. Chris had worked on RE~TG sounds and rhythms for a few weeks before he went to Sleazy’s. Lucky he did, because Sleazy admitted that he didn’t know where to start. It worked out better than they could have expected. They got the beginnings of about ten tracks down.
Me and Chris had missed each other so much and got straight back into recording some of my overtone chanting and overlaying it with the ambient audio recordings from my Beachy Head action piece. Everything had worked out so well and just in time to be broadcast on Resonance FM one year to the day after the original action took place.
28 September 2003
We just want the gigs to be over with – to take a deep breath and suck in the sweetnesses of life again.
After months of work putting together a new set, me and Chris played our first two sold-out shows as Carter Tutti at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and in Barcelona, Spain. Much as they were a great success, they were overshadowed by the death of Chris’s uncle, Big Ernie – better known outside the family as Ernie Fossey, the legendary boxing matchmaker. The whole family was bereft. Nick was inconsolable. Ernie had been such a huge personality, the mainstay of our very close-knit family, and the thought of never seeing him again was unbearable. He and his wife, Pat, had taken Chris to their hearts and been a part of his life from the day he was born. Ernie was like Chris’s second father. I clung to the memory of him as the lively, laughing Ernie I knew, who always called me ‘darlin’’ and greeted me with a ‘Come ’ere, you’ as he gave me a Big Ernie hug and kiss. Pat and Ernie were inseparable, like me and Chris, and I felt her pain so acutely.
Tributes and obituaries were in the press and television, with reports that Frank Bruno had taken Ernie’s death badly (they were close friends). Ernie was as loved in the boxing world as he was in his family. Sky Sports dedicated the light-welterweight title fight in Manchester to Ernie, with the reigning champion, Ricky Hatton, saying how Ernie had been instrumental in his success: ‘Please give a minute’s silence for my dear friend Ernie Fossey.’ Then a picture of Ernie filled the TV screen and the hall went silent.
The private funeral was torturously sad. As we stood by all the flowers, I remembered the previous funerals for Chris’s nan and grandfather, when me and Ernie had stood together and he’d nudged me, saying, ‘Look: everyone’s thinking who will be next.’ Neither he nor anyone else ever expected it would be him.
A memorial service was organised by Frank Warren, so all the boxers and boxing-world fraternity could pay their respects and celebrate all the fun, light and love Ernie had brought to us all. Frank and Ernie were very close and Frank, his wife, Sue, and their children were part of our extended family. Ernie had worked with Frank, matchmaking and more, for twenty years. The service was held at York Hall in Bethnal Green. We got there early to prepare ourselves. When me, Rose, Pat and Debbie walked into the hall, we were floored. It was like a shrine to Ernie. The walls were lined with large photos of him as boxer, trainer, cuts man and manager, and hung above the boxing ring was a huge photo of him smiling down on us. It was heartwarming to see so many who loved Ernie come up and give Pat their condolences. Me and Chris returned home feeling emotionally drained.
1 December 2003
What a month … again I moan but bloody hell. The RE ~TG gig looks set to be called off again.
Getting back into work was difficult; with so much happening we were thankful for the positive events but reluctant to drag ourselves into anything negative. We needed to be lifted out of our sombre mood and what better way to do that than by plunging ourselves into DJing at Cosey Club. We DJ’d until 2.30 a.m., when Andrew Weatherall took over.
Returning home tired but decidedly more cheery, we were brought back to reality by emails from Paul, Sleazy and Gen. The RE~TG-curated weekend at ATP for 14–16 May was under review again. For whatever reason, Gen blamed the problems on Mute/EMI and Paul Smith not doing enough and said that, because me and Chris were in the UK, we should make ourselves available 24/7 for TG.
I was livid. For one thing, Sleazy also lived in the UK, and Gen didn’t seem to have any idea just how much we’d already done for TG in the past two years – and continued to do, with Chris presently mastering TG+.
Gen wanted in for RE~TG, saying he needed the money. Our Mutant TG remix album was going down extremely well and we were beginning to feel the press pressure, delaying all but urgent interviews until all of TG were together. Regardless of the ongoing stop-start-stop RE~TG business, we carried on with the TG plans we’d made and hoped ATP could be worked out.
Sleazy returned from holidaying in Thailand and me and Chris drove to his place to do the final tweaks to the TG gig material, ready for rehearsing with Gen. Sleazy had lost weight and was looking good but not feeling happy about being in the UK, describing it as being back in ‘grey England’. I had imagined his house to be an isolated Victorian building on a hill, akin to the Psycho house, but it was in a street of similar houses, with a large front garden and snaking drive, and a small, grim, walled rear yard that backed on to woods. Being an old boys’ school, there were about thirty rooms in all, a basement, two separate staircases and an elevator, as well as two self-contained flats, one used for ‘adventures’ and the other for archive/art storage.
Sleazy had made up a room for us and put a vase of fresh flowers in there. It was nice to be with him and his two basenji dogs, Pan and Moon. Poor Pan was fucked up, had started snapping and biting people for no apparent reason and wouldn’t go up the stairs. Sleazy put it down to Geff’s drunken binges while he was away. It had got really bad at times, with Geff having fallen down the stairs more than once – the worst being when their housekeeper had found him at the bottom of the stairs. He’d been lying there for days with the dogs by his s
ide, unfed. She’d cleaned up Geff and put the dogs in kennels until Sleazy got back.
We set up all our gear in Sleazy’s studio. It was dusty, especially the harmonium in the corner, and strewn with packaging from recent acquisitions and cables in tangled heaps. I made a space for my set-up close by the bay window, which had an amazing view of the sea. We worked all day and into the night on rhythms and sounds for the live performance, giving them the acid test by all jamming along. They felt good so we put them and the old TG tracks aside until we met up with Gen, to see how he felt about them all. Mute had given us a deadline for the new TG album of 23 April and we were booked into their studio in a week’s time to start recording it, hoping to complete it in two weeks and hand over the master when we left the studio.
Maybe that was ambitious but we cracked on with sorting out the rest of the new material, going for anything that excited and ignited a spark in us. We shared the cooking of meals and in the evenings we’d watch TV in Sleazy’s massive high-ceilinged living room, often falling asleep together on the big sofa. Sleazy had little time for the basics – he always had ‘someone who does’ to do those things for him. He just got on with life. He ignored bills and correspondence too. There was a carpet of unopened mail in the front porch that lay where it had fallen through the letter box. He’d just kick it to one side as he came through the door. It was intense working all day, but we got so much done that would otherwise have eaten into our time at Mute Studios. We composed nine new TG tracks to work with for the new album.
28 February 2004
Let’s hope we can get some order into things or we won’t have the album and gig material finished.
After twenty years, the four of us were about to go into the studio together to record a new TG album, and people were getting excited. Working at Mute was a far cry from our Martello Street studio (or our own C&C and Coil studios), where we had all our gear to hand and all the time in the world. It was important to use both the studio time and our being together efficiently.
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