What a special day

That's Genesis P-Orridge between sets last night at Brooklyn's Masonic Hall. It was Throbbing Gristle's first U.S. show in 28 years, and their first New York and East Coast show ever. What an amazing thing to be 10 feet away from, as I was during the band's second second set, which spanned its career. To call it a "hits" set would be inaccurate since key tracks like "United," "Hot on the Heels of Love," "Persuasion," and "Something Came Over Me" were absent. That's on top of the fact that TG never really had chart hits in the first place -- at best, this set was comprised of pummels, given the aggressive nature of the band. You know you're in a dreary place when a song called "Hamburger Lady" feels the most like home.

But to a degree, this was a kinder, gentler Throbbing Gristle. Where there used to be onstage fornication and self-mutilation, there was now a meet-and-greet. I heard someone outside scoff it as a "baseball card convention," but I thought it was nice that a band with such a following (rabid, as if bitten by the members of TG themselves) would cater to it. Besides, it was just a brief respite into friendly. Besides the aforementioned lack of essentials (that no one complained about, actually), the band opened the show by playing their score to Derek Jarman's In the Shadow of the Sun, a 50-minute abstract art film from 1974 about...things burning? I don't know, there were a lot of superimposed, washed-out images and very little sense of narrative. Genesis has called the film "ambient video," and I think that's a good assessment. After about 20 minutes, I stopped trying to make sense of it and just settled into the vibrating, instrumental gloom TG provided, a feedback-laden sound fog that was so bass-heavy, I felt it in my gut. After I jotted down, "Blaring woodwind sound, stressed-out beauty," I stopped taking notes all together, lest I be provoked into responding with more sub-college-level poetry.

 

Their second set was more rousing. It came after 45-minute presentation from Bruce McClure that consisted of a series of flashing images flashing along to an increasingly distorted guitar pulse (and then decreasingly and then increasingly and then...), which probably would have literally been torture had it gone on longer. I think that was the idea, and it made sense that a band as morbid as TG would see this as an appropriate opener. Soon after they took the stage for a second time, it struck me that TG have matured in the best possible way -- they've gained structure. Everything except "Hamburger Lady," in their 60-minute, eight-song setlist had a driving beat, a four-on-the-floor, feet-on-the-ground gravity that made for an extremely palatable experience. It wasn't exactly dance music, although many danced. My favorite was some post-club kid, post-Hare Krishna-looking dude whose moves included holding his head with both hands while squirming in rapture, stomping as if to get the hot coals he wasn't standing on to touch his knees, and humping the giant speaker he was standing next to. He and his entire group seemed ecstatic, although that could have just been the Ecstasy.

It wasn't exactly pop, either, but the formless unpredictability that's defined TG was nowhere to be found. Genesis, himself, through his cathartic emoting through multiple plastic surgery procedures, has a train-wreck quality that does not seem out of place in today's pop culture atmosphere.

 

Except, of course, his is coyly aware. I've long admired TG's ability to create sound that is every bit as unsettling as what we usually only expect from visual images. But before I even got into their music (and believe me, I'm virtually a novice when it comes to TG's catalog -- I'm far from having every dissonant squeal or clank memorized), I admired their ethic. (Wreckers of Civilisation, in fact, made me a fan more than any one album.) I loved their blood-black sense of humor, their challenging of appropriate public behavior way before "politically correct" became something people said or cared about, their interest in the power of representation (placing images Cosey Fanni Tutti's porn work in a museum as an exhibit in the '70s = brilliance), their disdain for the pretension of the concept of "art" while creating just that, their seriousness in not taking shit seriously. When I saw Modulations in college, I barely knew who Genesis was, but when he said, "When in doubt, make no sense. No sense is good. And nonsense is good," I adopted those as words to live by.

I'm not saying that TG is most valuable as polemic, but it's hard not to appreciate them as such. As a statement on getting older and the lameness that common knowledge attributes to it, this show was so reassuring. I hope I have a shred of this much cool in me at 60.

Comments

[Natty Soltesz]

I saw Psychic TV one of the first times I ever got high, then again post-tits. G-P's tits just blew my mind; they were really quite nice.

[John R.]

Jealous!!

[pete]

i'm seeing them in San Francisco next week!

[Katybeth]

Of topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl12bfiLGpM

Caridee is hosting reality tv?! ew

[Deidre]

I adore Genesis. Since he lost his partner/muse Jaye last year his performances/music have taken on a new quality, trainwrecky perhaps but born of love and grief expressed in that funhouse mirror way that he has always had that has seemed both a critique and an embrace of pop culture.

[R]

Today, I logged on to FourFour and thought Rich posted another Lady Gaga post. It took me up until the fifth second of the six second video to realize it wasn't her. FML.

[kate]

i'm so glad you love everything i love

[jonnytrrrash7]

very jealous that you got to see them. Genesis pulled me up on stage when i saw PTV years ago.

and i love that TG and ANTM coexist here!

[Judy]

I was on the fence about going and now I'm sad I skipped it. Thanks so much for your thoughtful, insightful take on it.

[kathotdog]

The Real Housewives of Throbbing Gristle.

I listen to what Genesis has to stay, but I'm just not advanced enough to understand.

[Emily H.]

Rich, have you read that 33 1/3 book on "20 Jazz Funk Greats"? It's really well written & does an amazing job of putting their music into social/artistic context -- one of the best music books that I've read in a while.

[Val]

I saw TG at Coachella in a tent that was dense with the stink of 3 days of outdoor music baked by the desert. I had to move to the back so I could, as I told my friend, "sit down and let it run over me".

And best yet, more to look forward to as I am seeing them in Chicago this Saturday!

[Rsctehqs]

iRN1Zu

[generic cialis]

It was a wonderful presentation, I was there and it was the best music at the same time it was the best performance. By the way, it'd be nice if you can annex more pictures about it because my camera wasn't work well.

[christmas tree shop]

This post absolutely made my day. Your optimism and integrity are inspiring. If I was hiring for any job, I'd hire you!

[white christmas tree]

This was the scariest story to me!!! I would run out of the room rather than hear it re-told, that caused trouble when it was my classroom I was running out of. I was afraid I'd dream about it, a fear I had about pretty much everything as a child...
Well told.
Happy Halloween!

[data strip]

When you have a black cat, every day is Halloween. I enjoyed this and I have to admit I would not miss the holiday if it disappeared in the states, too. It lost its charm when the litte fun size candy bars appeared. Cheap!