Genesis P-Orridge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Genesis P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson February 22, 1950) is an English performer, musician, writer and artist. His early confrontational performance work with COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s - early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution, pornography, serial killers and occultism, generated controversy. Later musical work with Psychic TV received wider exposure, including some chart-topping singles. GP-O can be found on over 200 releases.
He has two daughters, Caresse and Genesse, with his former wife and creative partner, Paula P-Orridge (aka Alaura O'Dell).
Contents |
[edit] Early life
P-Orridge was born in 1950, in Victoria Park, Manchester. His parents were involved in both theatre and music. A photograph of P-Orridge, age five, appears on the cover of the CD A Hollow Cost.
In his teens he attended Solihull School.
[edit] Early inspirations
P-Orridge was interested in the occult. His grandmother, Edith Swindells, was a medium. The Megson family lived at the edge of Epping Forest, in Loughton.
His father, Ron, was a Jazz musician who liked Bebop and Nat King Cole.
P-Orridge was drawn to the manner and dress of The Rolling Stones band member Brian Jones.
[edit] Name change and Early Worm
In 1965, Neil subsumed himself into the character of Genesis P-Orridge. He released his first record, Early Worm (in an edition of one), as Genesis P-Orridge in 1968 and legally changed his name in 1971.
Although 1969 is written on the label, in November of 1968, Neil Megson received from the lab his first record of which only 1 copy, an acetate, was pressed. Recorded in the attic in summer of '68, it is called Early Worm and its follow-up, never pressed, is called Catching The Bird. Home made instruments are used as is improvisation.
Neil was attending Hull University. At this point, the family was living in Solihull, which is a suburb of Birmingham. Gen's first sound lab was here, in the attic at the house on Links Drive, which was converted into a den. It was his place of escape and included a completist's trainset as well as reel-to-reel tape recorders.
Synchronistically, the lab wherein Early Worm was pressed, called Deroy Sound, also pressed the speeches of Adolf Hitler, recorded from radio and television by the infamous Scottish serial killer Ian Brady. The Throbbing Gristle song Very Friendly is about Brady and his partner-in-crime Myra Hindley.
The cover of Worm features quotes by John Cage, handwritten, his Silence book being a source of inspiration for Neil.
[edit] 1971-76
In 1971, P-Orridge met William S. Burroughs after a brief correspondence. Burroughs took him under his wing and tutored Genesis in magick. (P-Orridge, 2003)
P-Orridge dropped out of the University of Hull in 1969, P-Orridge joined Exploding Galaxy, a commune in London's Islington Park Street. Members abandoned all normal modes of living, all notions of privacy, and Britain's class structure. Discipline was expected and costumes were the norm, as was role-playing and a rejection of all forms of social convention.
He returned to Hull and formed a prankster collective which eventually included Cosey Fanni Tutti.
Tutti and P-Orridge became the focus of COUM events and transformed COUM from a music and theatre operation into more of a performance art group with a focus on sex, taboos, and the paranormal. In 1973 they were joined by Hipgnosis's Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson.
Tutti worked as a secretary, stripper, and pornographic and erotic model. The now infamous "Prostitution" show, in 1976 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London included on display Tutti's pornographic images from magazines as well as erotic nude photographs. The show featured a stripper, used Tampax in glass, and transvestite guards. Prostitutes, punks, people in costumes, and general curiosities hired to mingle with the gallery audience.
The show caused debate in Parliament about the public funding of such events. In the House of Commons, Scottish Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Fairbairn demanded an explanation from Arts Minister Harold Lever and proclaimed P-Orridge and Tutti as "wreckers of civilisation". Fleet Street was not slow to pick up the story. The reviews were cut up, framed and put on display for the remainder of the exhibition. This was also reported in newspapers, so cut-ups about the cut-ups were also put on display.
[edit] Post-industrial and Acid House
P-Orridge was instrumental to the development of Industrial, Post-Industrial and Acid House music. The extent of his involvement in the last genre is often disputed, though it seems likely that he and his cohorts in Psychic TV (PTV) were among the first to import the Detroit Techno music to England[citation needed].
A Psychic TV picture disc was the first to have the phrase "Acid House" written on it[citation needed]. Due to a copyright problem with an image of Superman used in the illustration, this disc was pulled and is much sought after by collectors[citation needed].
His former wife and PTV collaborator, Paula P-Orridge, is no longer mentioned in liner notes of any of the reissues of the music or writings since the mid-1990s.
P-Orridge and Paula have been associated with the culture of body modification, as well as magical or religious movements. They founded Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth aka TOPY. In the mid-1990s Genesis chose to distance himself from TOPY, even going so far as to claim that the project had been ended, as he had done with Throbbing Gristle in the early eighties.
COUM had always been a confrontational enterprise, one example of this being the Nazi visual element. Toward the end of COUM, performances would often consist of only P-Orridge, Cosey and Sleazy, the core group who went on to form Throbbing Gristle.
[edit] Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle was formed 18 October 1976 at the ICA as a four-piece rock band
The first Throbbing Gristle performance was at the Air Gallery in London on July 6, 1976. The band performed in one room with the music "appearing" in an adjacent room. Peter worked in special effects and provided the performers with simulated scars, and Chris used a razor to slash himself.
At that point Throbbing Gristle headquarters was 10 Martello Street, Hackney, in East London, an address of an anti-West End artist collective. P-Orridge and Tutti's living and work space was the mailing address of Industrial Records. The IR logo was a faded, high-contrast black-and-white photograph of Auschwitz's main ovens.
The final Gristle single was "Discipline."
The final IR release was called Nothing Here But The Recordings, a best-of album taken from the archives of William S. Burroughs, who had allowed P-Orridge and Sleazy access to his reel-to-reel tape archive.
The final TG event, Mission Of Dead Souls, was in May 1981 in San Francisco. Soon after, Genesis and Paula P-Orridge (née Alaura O'Dell) were married in Tijuana.
[edit] Psychic TV
Psychic TV was formed in 1981. Alex Fergusson of Alternative TV had, over tea, encouraged P-Orridge to start something new. The musical collaboration between the two goes back to the very first ATV line-up, which included Genesis as drummer. According to a bit of writ on the official P-Orridge and Voiceprint websites, the name was Fergusson's idea, with the "psychic" part representing P-Orridge and the "TV" part representing Fergusson. "Just Drifting" was the first PTV song, based on a poem by P-Orridge.
Psychic TV made its debut in 1982 at an event organized by P-Orridge, David Dawson, and Roger Ely, called The Final Academy. It was a 4-day multimedia celebratory rally held in Manchester and at the B2 Gallery in South London. It brought performers and audience together with literature, performance, film and music. PTV, Cabaret Voltaire, 23 Skidoo, Z'ev, John Giorno, William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Terry Wilson, Jeff Nuttall, and The Last Few Days participated to honor the cut-up techniques and theories of William S. Burroughs, Ian Sommerville, Anthony Balch and Gysin. Video projection and early sampling were used here, as well as whispered utterances by P-Orridge reprocessed as a soundtrack to Gysin's Dreammachine by the Hafler Trio.
Force Thee Hand Ov Chance, Dreams Less Sweet, Allegory and Self, and Trip/Reset are considered by P-Orridge, in an interview with Sonic Envelope, to be the fully-realized PTV albums -- "metaphorical and very, very considered and carefully constructed meticulous albums."
Psychic TV was an ever-evolving thesis but "thee mission" remains to wake people up from the delirium of preconceived notions and the sleepwalking most of us subject ourselves to. Amazing shows, even on the many off nights, are always part of what PTV was and continues to be. Jarring, comforting, disappointing, fulfilling, exciting, mundane, transcendental, unnerving, ugly, beautiful and surreal, in keeping with the title of Derek Jarman's film of a Throbbing Gristle dis-concert, Psychic Rally in Heaven (Heaven being a club in London), a PTV event/experience/show or dis-concert often takes on the mood of a revival meeting, wherein the collective consciousness takes a break from the day-to-day and gets transported, in the tradition of Sun Ra, Grateful Dead, Fela, George Clinton or even, at times, with audience and performers becoming blurred, akin to a Santería ceremony or kirtan.
Earning an entry into the Guinness Book Of World Records for most records released in a year by a musical group, Psychic TV set about, in the mid-eighties, to release 23 live albums on the 23rd of each month for 23 months in recognition of the 23 enigma. The liner notes to each of these releases functioned somewhat like mini-manifestos in the tradition of the Situationist International or William S. Burroughs' Electronic Revolution in addition to recounting aspects of the recordings contained therein. For example, the fourth album in this series, Live In Reykjavík, featuring part of a ritual from Godhi Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson includes liner notes that refer to Christianity as "sham X-tianity," in reclamation of a Pagan heritage via an Ásatrú marriage, over which Beinteinsson presided, below a statue of Thor in "thee wilderness".
Psychic TV returned to the stage in 2003, with a concert in New York under the guise of PTV3 and was accompanied by (with the exception of Genesis) an all new line-up. In September 2004, an extensive tour of Europe (covering 16 countries) and North America was launched. 2005 saw the band return to the studio, recording their first album in over 10 years (Genesis also spent 2005 working with Throbbing Gristle on what will be their first album in over 25 years). Additionally, a few more dates were performed in Europe throughout the year. In January 2006, the new PTV album was announced by Genesis on his website. HELL IS INVISIBLE...HEAVEN IS HER/E, the album, was recorded in New York and features Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers) guesting on some tracks. Genesis describes it as "Dark Side of the Moon for the 21st century". Release is expected mid-Spring (Northern Hemisphere) 2006 and it will be followed by a tour that may last up to 18 months. [2] To inaugurate the release of HELL IS INVISIBLE...HEAVEN IS HER/E, PTV3 hosted a five night residency in September 2006 at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, USA that included collaborations with such cult luminaries as Kembra Pfahler as well as many others.
[edit] Trouble in England
In February 1992 GP-O, the family, and various members of the TOPY entourage, had just come from Kathmandu, where they had distributed rice, dal, and clothing to those in need from a Hindu temple in an annual tradition of "giving back" through PTV royalties. A disturbing telegram arrived stating that there was "trouble in England".
Scotland Yard arrived at the P-Orridge's house in Brighton on a tip in the hopes of finding incriminating items. This was followed by a Channel 4 Television program addressing a supposed growth of Satanism in the U.S. and the U.K. Geraldo Rivera had, with much success, unleashed a similar program to the U.S. in 1987. According to Genesis's account of the events, a fundamentalist lawyer in Liverpool had convinced a couple of mental patients to relocate to a Christian safe house in the North of England where, through various methods including sleep deprivation they would confess to involvement in a Satanic cult, in this case Psychic TV. These individuals claimed they were forced to engage in various ghastly and unspeakable acts in the basement of the (basementless) house in Beck Road, Hackney, East London.
GP-O believes that all these extremists -- he and his family as well as the right wing pawns in the aforementioned events -- were actually being used, as everyone is, by those with the power to play both sides against the middle, and, in such a way, ultimately benefit those in wealth and power.
In Brighton, the swelling P-Orridge archives had already been extensive for decades. Oddly enough, actual controversial items, including sigils, were left untouched by the police. Amidst the many items, eventually what was procured was a videotape, some 10 years old at the time, of a supposed ritual murder which, according to a Sonic Envelope interview with GP-O, was actually made by John Balance and Sleazy. In the years since this episode, it would all seem like bad blood between Genesis and his ex-co-conspirators, as well as his homeland, has nearly all been absorbed. All charges were dropped, not long after the handover of power in the UK, and all the items returned.
Genesis and family heard from their lawyers in Britain that it wouldn't be safe to return home. The P-Orridge family approached the parents of actress Winona Ryder who had offered them refuge if needed. Soon after the relocation to California, Genesis and Paula's marriage ended.
[edit] Recent life
Genesis relocated to New York City with his second wife, Lady Jaye, nee Jacqueline Breyer, and began an ongoing experiment in body modification aimed at creating one "Pandrogenous" being named "Genesis Breyer P-Orridge". Like Brian Zembic before him, Genesis P-Orridge got breast implants and began referring to himself as s/he. A book of GP-O writings, poems and observations, called S/He is Her/e, was published in Nepal.
In the mid 1990s, GP-O collaborated with different people in music, including Pigface and Skinny Puppy. Oddly, GP-O also performed with Nik Turner and a reinvention of Hawkwind, a band with whom he'd shared bills with in the early 1970s.
In April 1995, GP-O won a $1.5 million lawsuit against producer Rick Rubin and his American Recordings label for injuries he sustained while trying to escape a fire at Rubin's home. According to P-Orridge's attorney, David D. Stein, P-Orridge was staying at Rubin's home as a guest of Love and Rockets when the fire broke out. P-Orridge tried to escape the house by crawling through a second-story window and fell onto concrete stairs. P-Orridge suffered a broken wrist, broken ribs and a pulmonary embolism, as well as a shattered left elbow that will prevent him from playing guitar or keyboards, according to Stein. The jury found that the liability for the fire rested with Rubin and American Recordings and awarded P-Orridge $1,572,000 for his injuries
In 1999, Genesis performed with the briefly reunited late 1980s' version of Psychic TV for an event at London's Royal Festival Hall. It was called Time's Up, also the title of the Thee Majesty CD release. The MC for the event, via pre-recorded video, was Quentin Crisp. A DVD was made of this event, which included the Master Musicians Of Jajouka and ? & the Mysterians, Billy Childish and Thee Headcoats.
In the 1999 World Serpent Distribution release of the Thee Majesty CD Time's Up, Jaqueline Megson is credited as providing Point Of View, Bryin Dall for Frequency Of Truth and Genesis as Divination Of Word.
In December 2003, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, calling himself Djinn, unveiled PTV3, a new act drawing upon the early "Hyperdelic" work of Psychic TV with media theorist Douglas Rushkoff among its members.
On 16 May 2004, all four former members of Throbbing Gristle performed at the London Astoria for the first time in 23 years.
Genesis P-Orridge appears in the 1998 film and 2000 book Modulations. S/he also appears in the 2004 documentary film DiG!.
[edit] References
- Ford, Simon. Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle. Black Dog Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1-901033-60-0
- P-Orridge, Genesis, Douglas Rushkoff (foreword), and Carl Abrahamsson (introduction). Painful but Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge. Soft Skull Press, 2002. ISBN 1-887128-88-3
- P-Orridge, Genesis. "Magick Squares and Future Beats." Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. The Disinformation Company, 2003: 103-118 ISBN 0-9713942-7-X
- Vale, V. and John Sulak (2001). Modern Pagans. San Francisco: Re/Search Publications. ISBN 1-889307-10-6
- Williams, Sheldon. "Genesis P-Orridge". pp. 770-772 in Naylor, Colin & Genesis P-Orridge (editors). Contemporary Artists. Macmillan Press/St Martin's Press, 1977. ISBN 0-333-22672-0
[edit] External links
- Genesis P-Orridge Official Website All Breyer P-Orridge information and most everything covered in this entry is to be found here.
