25 November 2010
Bee called and I was sobbing. He was very sweet and reassured me Sleazy died peacefully. We spent all day just wandering around not knowing what to do, crying and unable to speak for choking up. Chris spoke with Paul, he is so shattered by the news.
If we and others thought the Gen-quitting episode sealed the ending of TG, everyone had grossly overestimated his importance to the whole TG equation. It was Sleazy’s unexpected and untimely death that ended TG forever. Something none of us had anticipated would happen.
When I got up on the morning of the 25th, I saw the red light flashing on the answerphone. There were three messages from Sleazy’s friend Bee in Thailand. I pressed ‘Play’. Bee’s soft voice said, ‘Cosey, please call me as soon as you can.’ His tone told me all I needed to know. I rang him and he answered quickly. ‘Darling …’ he said.
‘No, no, no. Please don’t say it,’ I sobbed. I wanted him to say anything but that Sleazy had died. I couldn’t bear the thought.
As I cried uncontrollably, Bee gently told me what had happened. That Sleazy died in his sleep next to his lover and in his beloved Thailand home was a comfort I clung to as I tried to hold back the tears to talk to Bee. Knowing the TG situation, he asked if I wanted him to tell Gen. I said that I would tell him. It seemed the right thing to do. Chris had been stood in front of me with a look of shock and disbelief on his face as the awful reality of the phone conversation hit him. He came over and held me in his arms and we wept together. The sense of loss and grief was beyond any we’d felt before. Our hearts were broken. We’d lost Sleazy, our dearest, adored, loving, fun friend of thirty-six years, our fellow collaborator, experimentalist and explorer of life.
Thailand was six hours ahead of UK time. Sleazy had died the evening of 24 November (UK time), just hours after my last email exchange with him about the ramifications of Gen’s walking out and how best to proceed – he’d just received an email from Gen and was vitriolic about him. Gen had still not apologised, which irked Sleazy as much as the financial shortfall incurred by Gen’s quitting: ‘The loss he caused came very close to me losing my house, possibly even my ability to stay in Thailand, which is true. He needs to understand his actions hurt his so-called friends.’
Sleazy had been forced to cash in a life insurance policy to stave off the unthinkable scenario of leaving Thailand. It was Gen’s callous behaviour that hung foremost in my mind as I tried to deal with my despair at Sleazy dying and spending part of his very last day dealing with the aftermath of Gen quitting TG. So many ‘what if’s and ‘why’s.
Grief is a strange thing: you have a need for an answer to what caused someone to die so suddenly. It was hard for me and Chris not to connect Sleazy’s heart attack with the immense stress levels of the past month and that day’s revisiting of them, which could likely have had some influence on his seeking escape from the TG mess in recreational indulgences. His lifestyle was at times excessively and dangerously hedonistic. I suspect that was a contributing factor to his death, which came sooner than he or anyone would have thought.
The announcement of Sleazy’s death brought an enormous outpouring of shock, sadness, love, respect and condolences. Everyone was stunned and grief-stricken. Paul and Skot were a huge support to me and Chris through it all. Sleazy’s death was going to take a long time to get over.
Chris was racked with sorrow – he couldn’t sleep and kept crying. It all seemed so unfair that Sleazy, who was such a warm and tender person, had been ripped from us all. His equipment table in our studio was still set up for his return for ATP. We couldn’t bring ourselves to take it down. That seemed too final an act. We preferred to kid ourselves that he was just off in Thailand and we’d see him soon. His presence lingered from when he stayed with us, which was both a comfort and a reminder that he would never be returning to make magic with us again. We’d shared so much excitement about X-TG. Sleazy had gone home with lots of new goodies and now they were just sitting abandoned in Thailand. That thought made us so very sad. Sleazy really hadn’t been ready to leave us yet.
Two years after Sleazy’s death, I was asked to write a memoir of him and Geff for England’s Hidden Reverse. I decided not to have it included. This is an extract:
From the moment I first met Sleazy at the Oval House in 1974 he was ‘family’ to me, no matter where we were or what we were doing, separately or together. We had an unspoken connection on so many levels. I don’t think either of us fully understood why, considering some of our differences, but we embraced the longevity and intimacy of our relationship, particularly during the regrouping of TG. We were both older and wiser then and the wounds of life have a way of making you treasure love in its many guises. His work with COUM and TG gave voice to his interests over and above what he could do with his creative ideas for Hipgnosis. Together we were incorrigible explorers of the unorthodox – the film After Cease to Exist being a prime example. That was a wonderful day. A near-derelict building, a willing ‘victim’ (Chris), the scene was set and we three were on a symbiotic roll. That key and precious unspoken connection between us all was there to the very end.
4 December 2010
Sleazy was cremated this morning (UK time) so we have had a contemplative morning. Amid many tears I wrote our farewell words to Sleazy last night to read out at the cremation. His ashes are to be taken out in boats by his friends and scattered into the sea. I’m still in a weird place with all this.
I’d emailed Gen immediately after speaking with Bee to tell him about Sleazy. I hadn’t been able to enter into a dialogue with him. Maybe that was wrong of me but my feelings towards him were still so negative, my emotions over Sleazy so very raw. We had yet to assess the TG losses, the deepest unimaginable loss being Sleazy. Gen had been in touch about the future of TG. There was a lot to sort out as we’d been on the verge of signing assorted agreements with Cargo, White Cube and state51. Sleazy was so far away, being cared for and having all his funeral arrangements made by his Thai friends.
His cremation took place the day X-TG would have played ATP. It had happened so quickly, before we really fully had time to consider travelling to Bangkok. It was odd that we and his biological family weren’t in Thailand with him. His ‘will’ was even odder, but that’s a whole other story.
11 January 2011
The ending of 2010 was so sad and cruel but now I’m just beginning to feel the resurgence of positive energies and it feels good. There are so many plans for this year, some that were laid last year and some new exciting projects that we’re utterly thrilled about … I have a LOT of work to do for the C&C ICA show … a shift in time to our earlier works … fun!
If we’d needed something to lift our spirits, nothing could surpass the Chris & Cosey live performance and reception of the vinyl re-releases. We’d had a second bite of the cherry with TG and now with C&C. We were feeling more than blessed. The reinvigoration that Chris & Cosey brought, courtesy of Richard Clouston, was the antidote to the many losses of the past ten years. We wanted to celebrate our lives and those we’d lost, not mourn what we couldn’t have any more.
The reactivating of Chris & Cosey propelled us into the realm of happiness and positivity again. We knew that C&C tracks were played regularly by DJs but hadn’t fully appreciated how much people still loved them. Richard had been asking us for years to play a Chris & Cosey live show for Cosey Club and we’d refused, wanting to concentrate on new work. With the C&C vinyl albums about to be released it seemed the perfect time and Richard asked again. We relented with a casual ‘OK’, thinking we’d do one show and that would be it.
But we stumbled on a problem as soon as we started putting the set together. All the old C&C material we’d selected to play live relied on equipment we no longer had or sounds that were stored on old optical drives. It all needed to be digitally transferred. A combination of forensic editing, resampling and sourcing sounds and vintage equipment took over six weeks. That was more work than we’d assumed it would ta
ke but in a way it was a good thing because we hadn’t wanted to re-present the tracks with a thin 1980s sound. The old live video material was re-edited and remastered and synchronised live to the music. It was a neat but complex set-up that had taken weeks of programming and run-throughs until we were happy. We’d put together a set of songs that we’d loved playing live, starting slow, then building into 120 b.p.m. through to the end, finishing with ‘Dancing on Your Grave’, with the option for our classic ‘October (Love Song)’ as an encore.
The C&C show was announced, billed as ‘Carter Tutti plays Chris & Cosey’, and sold out immediately. We seemed to be the only ones surprised. Also on the bill were Factory Floor and DJ sets from Trevor Jackson and Richard. We were a little apprehensive about performing our first C&C gig in ten years, the first gig since X-TG, and it being at the ICA in the same room we’d worked with Sleazy on the Desertshore sessions. We were with good people, though: Nick, Paul, Susan, Charlie, Terry, Richard and other friends. We dedicated the show to Sleazy.
As soon as ‘Sleeping Stephen’ struck up, we were away on the crest of the C&C wave with everyone alongside us. I was singing, playing guitar, cornet, melodica and drum pads, and dancing as Chris drove the rhythms, sequencers and melodies. The atmosphere was intoxicating, the audience jubilant, and I was enjoying myself so much I almost forgot to play. I was so deliriously happy I thought I’d burst. We had to do an encore and the iconic first notes of ‘October (Love Song)’ sent the whole place shooting off the Richter scale. I’d never experienced that amount of love towards us both before.
20 May 2011
Materials from Gen’s archive and ‘a private collection’??? Is my name not allowed to be mentioned in public alongside Gen’s regarding his archive? I find this very odd if indeed this ‘private collection’ is referring to my framed pieces and the polaroid.
The mastering and artworks for the TG re-releases had to be finished and delivered, as did a remix for S.C.U.M. (finally) and Billie Ray Martin, Tate Britain business and a gig for Mute’s ‘Short Circuit’ event at the Roundhouse in London. The Tate had a great exhibition – ‘The Scene Is Set’ – which was to include COUM and use works from both my and Gen’s archives. I’d received the text referring to COUM, and my loaned works had been acknowledged as from ‘a private collection’. As my magazine works and the Polaroid of me sitting on them at the ICA were being loaned to give context to Gen’s archive, I wasn’t pleased that my name had been omitted. I was effectively an anonymous ‘collector’.
Gen’s tendency to make me all but invisible in COUM was a continuing irritant to me and others, and I took exception to what would seem a small, insignificant oversight to most people. Context is everything, that’s why my work was there, and I wasn’t going to be a silent facilitator. I was so glad that I’d insisted on the text amendment after the meeting to view Gen’s archive materials. I was to assist in providing information on the various letters, photographs, etc. that related to my own exhibits. When I looked at what the Tate had bought from Gen I was shocked and upset to see some of my personal letters, the photographs I’d taken and printed myself in my darkroom, and other personal objects laid out before me. Anger resurfaced and I wanted to reclaim them. It felt so wrong that what I considered to be mine could be sold by someone without my permission. I read and looked through them and reminisced, making affectionate comments about the stories behind them and thinking how sad it was that COUM had become marred by Gen’s increasing tendency to not give due credit to those involved in the co-creation of many shared past works.
6 May 2011
We had a pleasant 10 days after we returned from Europe with visits from Nick and Tatis, then Rose and Vicki. Now we’re behind on our preps for the Mute Roundhouse gig next Friday!! Nik arrives on Monday to go through the set with us then we’re all off to London for the show. It’ll be exciting to play live with someone new.
As Mute label artists, me and Chris were asked to take part in the Mute ‘Short Circuit’ event at the Roundhouse in London. I looked on it as a celebration of their refound independence. They suggested we, like some of the other Mute artists, could collaborate with someone on the label. Our adrenaline started surging at the thought of a one-off gig where we could do anything we wanted, no expectation, no strings, just freedom to ‘play’, and with the idea of pursuing ‘Carter Tutti +’ as an additional outlet for further musical adventures.
We decided against the more obvious choices and asked Nik Void. We knew from the Triptych Festival that she’d been on Mute as a member of KaitO and liked what she did with Factory Floor, and Chris really liked the idea of being flanked by two women on guitars. I sent Nik an email to see if she was interested. She wrote back straight away, thrilled by the idea. To keep things totally open to chance and our own ideas having free rein, we said we’d prepare the leanest of guide rhythms and run through them just twice in our studio to see how we all gelled before leaving to perform live together. Nik came to our studio for three days. Our compatibility was no problem at all. We were all caught a bit off guard by how intuitive it felt.
The last time I was at the Roundhouse had been in 1974 for the COUM performance ‘Miners Catastrophe’, inspired by the volatile political climate of the time, with two general elections in quick succession after the first resulted in a hung parliament, and also the three-day week imposed due to industrial action by the miners. Since then the Roundhouse had been renovated and looked nothing like I remembered it in its ‘bare bones’ performing-arts-venue days. There were now two performance spaces, a large one and a small studio theatre. We were in the studio theatre with NON, Richard Kirk, Komputer and Balanescu Quartet.
Richard’s set-up time had overrun due to problems with his equipment, so soundcheck was running later than late. We set up pretty quick, with Charlie doing PA sound for us. Fitting us all on to the stage was difficult, but we pulled together to make it work. All was going well until Balanescu Quartet turned up and demanded that the stage be cleared for them. After all the careful plugging in and placing of everyone’s gear we were all completely thrown by what they said, but more so by the way they said it – as if they were headlining and we were all just novice support acts that didn’t know how to play ‘real’ music. Their disrespectful attitude had affronted and angered artists and sound engineers alike. The situation started to escalate when one of the women performers with the quartet told Charlie to shut up, more or less saying he was of no importance to the discussion. I was ready to give her a verbal bollocking for being such a rude, arrogant bastard. Charlie was already red in the face and shouting at her. There were comments suggesting that someone should point out to the quartet that at least we all wrote and played our own music and our reputations weren’t founded on doing cover versions of Kraftwerk. The whole situation had to be calmed down.
Everyone withdrew to the communal dressing room, where the atmosphere was warmer and more party-like, where friends, artists and Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk had no such delusions of grandeur. Nik had gone off to get her old guitar for Boyd to use with his electric drill, and me and Chris took a walk round the building, stopping off at the Dirty Electronics workshop and then the Schneiders Buero, who had a stand stacked with modular synths. Chris got ‘hands-on’ and I took a detour, leaving him to explore and no doubt place an order or two.
We were due to perform after Komputer and Boyd (NON). The studio theatre was full, with a long line of very disappointed people stuck outside unable to get in. It was a shame the room was so small but the upside of it was that the sonic overload we created had more impact. It was good to see some familiar faces at the front, including our Nick, his girlfriend Tatis, Andrew, Joe Ahmed, Phil (P6), DIL23 and others, all grinning away and up for whatever we were to do. It was a wonderful feeling; the audience were so receptive and embraced the idea of us doing something new. Chris was centre stage, with me and Nik either side. He provided a constant 4/4 beat with extra rhythmic elements, which briefly and accidentally i
ncluded his metronome tick-tocking away. The whole room locked into the unceasing rhythm, the metallic, forceful thrusting of my and Nik’s guitars and the random bizarre sounds that cut across the pulsing beats or locked into them, driving them furiously forward. From the get-go the audience were totally with us. What we’d thought was a one-off show had unintentionally created a demand for more, as well as another grouping configuration as Carter Tutti Void.
Two months after Mute’s ‘Short Circuit’ we were back at the Roundhouse. This time it was Chris playing with Factory Floor to fill in for Dom, who was on paternity leave. Chris had already played at the Primavera festival for them as well. We met up with Nik and she introduced us to her new boyfriend, Tim (Burgess), and we all sat down to have dinner together, chatting away. Watching Chris play was a treat for me as I hadn’t seen him perform without me since pre-TG days.
Me and Chris stayed over in London as I was taking part in an informal discussion at the Royal College of Art about the medium of pornography. I had to do a quick mindset change as I headed off from there to the ICA for a seminar based around the issues raised by Simon Reynolds’ new book, Retromania, about the trend for bands re-forming, the demand for retro music and what the future held for music and art. It was appropriate for me, having regrouped with TG and my now revisiting Chris & Cosey music.
There was still much to do on the TG back catalogue re-releases – artworks for five separate albums on vinyl, CD and download meant fifteen lots of mastering and artworks. Their release had been agreed back in 2010, before Sleazy died. Sleazy had announced the re-releases via his blog: ‘I can confirm that TG will continue to complete all existing contracts, sales, ongoing negotiations and the recording/delivery obligations already in place.’ So me and Chris were to proceed with the production and deliver to Cargo.
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