Em’s post about A Certain Ratio reminded me of the above show, a double-billed Psychic TV and ACR gig held at the Hammersmith Town in 1984. I was in attendance, age 18. I still have that flyer as well (note ticket price). In the days before the Internet, you had to truck on down to the Rough Trade Store to buy tickets for a show like this and that’s where I bought mine. I doubt even the biggest ticket sales offices in London were computerized back then.

This was an extremely intense show. I’ve been to some pretty crazy gigs (Einstürzende Neubauten trying to burn The Palladium down and Julian Cope slicing his stomach open onstage at the Hammersmith Palais for two notable examples from that same era), but this show was so insane that (not kidding here) had demons materialized on the stage—or something even weirder happened—I would not have been the least bit surprised.

Let me try to describe the atmosphere to you: First off, I don’t think I have ever, before or since, seen such a degenerate fucking crowd. A fair percentage of the punters looked mentally ill and an equal number looked criminally inclined or overtly sleazy. Diseased in both body and mind, or at least people who cultivated such qualities in the way they presented themselves to the world. I will never forget one lost soul, with her Thorazine-slacked features and one tit hanging out wandering around on her own. She had the blankest look that I have ever seen on a human face, a bottomless pit of psychotic misery in human form. I mean to tell you there were some right fucking weirdos there, and I’m someone who has made a career out of dealing with odd people. The single time I’ve ever been in a weirder scenario was a visit to NYC’s notorious Hellfire Club a few years later, but that’s another story…

There was a seriously dark vibe going on even before Psychic TV started due to the dozen or so television monitors flickering their spinning logo and candles lighting the stage. Then it started to ramp up. The imagery flashing across the monitors was intended to shock and shock it did. Much of it was footage from the First Transmissions and Cerith Wyn Evans’ (amazing) “Unclean” video (with Leigh Bowery), but there was some stuff that made even that level of an assault to the senses seem tame, like a gay S&M porn-style clip with Peter Christopherson having someone stretch his eyelids out as someone else jerked off and ejaculated right into his eyeball. Cheerful, eh?

When the band walked onstage—and this was when Psychic TV were coming off their evil masterpiece Dreams Less Sweet—the “spirits” that were swirling through the hall that night felt so malevolent that my friend and I both opted to back away from where we were standing at the front of the stage. The back of the hall just seemed “safer” in case something, well, something infernal happened.

It’s one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen. It completely blew me away. It was actually scary. Have you ever been to a scary concert? I recommend it!

But what of A Certain Ratio? Well… they came on second. It was utterly preposterous to think that anyone could have followed what Psychic TV had done. Most of the dazed and confused audience just got up and left and the ones who stayed on for ACR sat on the floor. I seem to recall that the house lights went up after PTV finished and just stayed up.

When I emailed Em to tell him that I’d seen ACR in London in 1984, and Em, consummate rock snob that he is, sniffed “1984 was also post-Simon Topping for ACR, a very different band.”

Yeah, but I saw Psychic TV, too, motherfucker!

Below, a 1984 Earsay report that shows you just a few fleeting moments from the Hammersmith Town Hall gig. You’ll note that they couldn’t show what was on the monitors and so placed their cameras accordingly. They even say so in the piece.
 

 
For over 30 years, the so-called First Transmission video from Psychic TV, has been the stuff of, well, “snuff film” legend. It used to be that you couldn’t see this except through a fair amount of effort and now look, it’s on YouTube… like everything else. Just like normal things.

First advertised in the back pages of Thee Grey Book—the curious philosophical tract that aspiring members of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth got through mail order via a postal address listed on early PTV album covers—The First Transmission was an ultra weird touchstone of the underground VHS tape trading scene of the 1980s. (I dubbed my copy from the one they had for rent at the Magickal Childe occult bookstore, probably the sole copy anywhere in Manhattan and although it was a “legit” copy, acquired directly from TOPY I’m pretty sure, this was still a handmade item.)

Eventually I think there were three or four volumes of this material going around under the First Transmission title (this hour-long clip represents just a portion of it). Some of the participants were Genesis P-Orridge, Paula P-Orridge, Derek Jarman, Monte Cazazza, Peter Christopherson and David Tibet, with video of Brion Gysin and one of his Dream Machines, Jim Jones and some way fucked-up, er… “medical footage.”

A warning, this video is really not something that you want to watch at work. Maybe if you work at an S&M dungeon where ritualistic blood-letting is the norm... Don’t say you weren’t warned. The really gruesome parts, are, of course, faked, but they don’t look fake. The pissing, the blood enemas, the ritual scarring, they don’t look so fake, do they? I think those bits are, you know, real.

A secondary warning is that it’s a bit… slow moving. Still shocking after three decades, but a tad on the dull side. In defense of the project, Genesis told me that this material was more or less something that was conceived of to air on New York’s notoriously sleazy cable access station Channel J. The idea was for this weird, dreamlike footage just to appear on TV sets, sort of randomly, late at night, with no explanation whatsoever! On that level, and in the context of 1983, it becomes a minor prank masterpiece of sorts.
 

 
When Throbbing Gristle’s mission was terminated in 1981, the band split into Chris & Cosey and Psychic TV, which, for a while, included both Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Genesis P-Orridge. Other members of the group’s initial incarnation were Paula P-Orridge, Alex Fergusson (formerly of Alternative TV), John “Zos Kia” Gosling and Geff Rushton, a.k.a. John Balance. At this time, the group’s sound was a unique mix of exotic instruments, Velvet Undergroundy guitar drone, TG and elements we think of as defining the music of Coil, which, of course, Christopherson and Balance soon went on to form.

I got to see this group (and after the Coil founders left) several times in the early 80s and these shows were among the most mesmerizing, insane and just plain hair-raisingly scary concerts I’ve ever attended. I vividly remember seeing Psychic TV at the Hammersmith Town Hall in 1984 and deciding to step back from the front of the stage in case a demon materialized. I didn’t want to be too close to that action!

This show, taped at the Berlin Atonal Festival in 1982, captures that same intimidating sense of menace and dark energy.
 

 
Black Joy features live footage of Psychic TV performing in Manchester in 1988 and the Subterrania Club in London in 1991.

A collaboration between the band and film maker Karen Bentham, Black Joy was previously only available as two separate VHS tapes. You can purchase it on DVD at See Of Sound’s website or, thanks to the always generous folks at SOS, you can watch it here. The DVD does come with a bunch of extra bells and whistles.
 

 
Derek Jarman’s collaboration with Psychic TV Pirate Tape: A Portrait of William Burroughs, from 1982. This experimental film shows William Burroughs in London, cut to a loop of his voice. For copyright reasons, this clip tends to disappear quickly, so watch it while you can.
 

 
Bonus clip, Derek Jarman and Psychic TV’s ‘Force the Hand of Chance’ plus ‘Catalan’, after the jump…
 

 
Psychic TV’s performance at SXSW was one of the highlights of the festival thus far. Genesis P-Orridge fronted a growling beast of a band that mesmerized a capacity crowd.

Genesis was in town not only to perform but also to attend the Austin premier of a film about her/his life and love affair with partner Lady Jaye. The Ballad Of Genesis and Lady Jaye, directed by Marie Losier, is a moving document of two people attempting to spiritually and physically merge as one. Part performance art and part metaphysical quest, Genesis and Lady Jaye alter their appearance over the course of several years in order to not only look like each other, but to become an entity beyond duality, a form of alchemy utilizing flesh and soul, creating their pandrogyne.

Losier’s direction of the film evokes the experimental movies of the 60s. Shooting with an old Bolex, Losier creates a mystical and dreamlike vision that seems to flutter at the borders of consciousness, a grainy living thing. Some of the footage recalls the look of Warhol’s Factory films and the work of Jonas Mekas. At the heart of the movie is the romance of two deeply committed lovers, but Losier also explores the many layers of Genesis’s art, from Pyschic TV to Throbbing Gristle to books written and archival documents from P-Orridge’s past. It’s a fascinating life lived on the edge of always becoming.

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: vocals, violin
Edley ODowd: drums, samples
Alice Genese: bass, backing vocals
Jeff ‘Bunsen’ Berner: guitar
Jess Stewart: keyboards

Here’s Psychic TV at SXSW creating a dark and beautiful roar.

Watch it in high definition.
 

 
Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson’s passing yesterday evoked many tributes to the man as a member of influential electronic acts Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and Coil. But we haven’t heard quite enough about one of his best solo projects, Threshold HouseBoys Choir.

Both live and on the guise’s single proper release, Form Grows Rampant, THBC basically comprised Sleazy backing his own video of various rituals at the Vegetarian Festival in southern Thailand’s Krabi Town (12 hours from his adopted home of Bangkok) with an abstract soundtrack that drew on the many field recordings he made in the city. Christopherson’s infamous fascination with the young active male body is clear in this work. But many of the problematics surrounding the European gaze that typifies exotica seem mitigated somehow by the late composer’s intimate audio-visual treatment. 

Overall, Christopherson’s work helped create a literary, psychotropic aesthetic that synthesized aspects of outside sexuality, technology, and ritual magick, bound by a wry sense of humor. THBC brought that angle to a highly personal level, and will stand as an evocative late moment in the man’s prolific career.
 

 
More from Form Grows Rampant after the jump…

Your daily community service reminder by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.

Previously on Dangerous Minds: Thee Psychick Bible

 
Wonderful time yesterday as Dangerous Minds taped for an upcoming show “cultural engineer” Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.  Not to tease something that won’t show up here for a week or so, but Richard’s interview with Gen was at times so captivating I was practically crawling into the speakers beyond our “black box studio” so as to not miss a single word.  In the meantime, check out Psychic TV covering the Velvet Underground classic, Foggy Notion:

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Thee Psychick Bible Now Out! , The Infinity Factory: Genesis P-Orridge Interview,
The Infinity Factory: Robert Anton Wilson, Genesis P-Orridge and Me