The Haunted Generation

ART SEX MUSIC

There are a couple of presumptions I am going to make in this introduction. Namely: you are familiar with Throbbing Gristle and industrial music. You are familiar with the four members of Throbbing Gristle. Hereafter referred to as TG.

So, there are bands and there are bands. Many of them crap, some, by accident or design become legendary. TG are one of those bands. There isn’t a great deal in print currently: The Re/Search Burroughs/Gysin/TG book, which I have and is little more than a lengthy Gen interview. Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of COUM Transmissions & Throbbing Gristle: The Story of Coum Transmissions and "Throbbing Gristle" – I don’t have, but due back in print in later this year. And The 33/3^rd Jazz Funk Greats, which is on the “to read” pile. 
For such an important band there is precious little out there. With great anticipation, I ploughed into Cosey’s Biography on the day of release. 
Prior to starting, what did I know ? Gen is a self mythologizing figure.
TG essentially invented the genre we all know and love as “industrial”. After finishing I don’t honestly know much more.
The first half or so of the book is fascinating. From Cosey’s childhood in Hull, through COUM and into TG. It does capture a time from the late 60’s through the early to mid 70’s, but not just the mainstream but the art and sex trade. I have read a number of books recently that cover this period. Dominic Sandbrook is great at capturing the period, but honestly he doesn’t strike me as the kind of chap that has “20 Jazz Funk Greats” in his album collection.There are a huge welter of fascinating characters that pass through this period. Unless you are au fait with the time many of these people remain just that, names.
What I had also hoped for was a lengthier digression from Cosey on art, and why she chose to express herself in this way. Many of these events such as the “Prostitution” at the ICA are stuff of legend. But there is no real explanation, these and many others are referred to as Actions, and scant information is forthcoming, other than the mechanics of what was involved. Which draws us to the question of the Sex industry. Was Cosey subverting this shadowy 70’s world of pornography or just using it to make money ? That’s never abundantly made clear. Though she does distance herself from figures like Mary Millington and other 70’s porn legends. 
So to TG itself. The picture painted is that this is initially a joint venture between Cosey, Gen, Sleazy and Chris Carter. Though it’s made abundantly clear that it’s Chris Carter’s technical knowhow that defined the bands sound. At a time when electronic instruments were the playthings of well off prog rock bands, TG turned this approach on it’s head. Using equipment largely built or modified by Chris, including what sounds like a prototype sampler using multiple cassette players and the legendary Gristlizer, they hammered out a sound that was brutal, minimalist and new. While punk was little more than rough round the edges pub rock, they did genuinely create something new. Removing the spacey cosmic voyages and Tangerine Dream and adding layers of noise, they built industrial music from the ground up.
Inevitably the band self-destructed. And it’s from here on the book becomes hard work.
It’s pretty clear that at the heart of this book and TG itself, Cosey and Gen have what can only be described as an epic love hate relationship. Which, at times is painfully hard to read through. Gen is selfish, abusive, violent, melodramatic and possibly certifiable. Fair enough. We get that. But a score has been kept and blood will out. The period leading up to TG’ eventual reformation and final implosion with Sleazy’s death, is dogged with a list of Gen’s attempts to dominate, side-line, manipulate and belittle the other three’s position. For anyone that’s ever been in a band that self destructed, there’s a need to have the last word. And the last section of this book is pretty much that. Over and over and over.
So what do I know after reading this ?
Gen is interested in only Gen and his own mythology, money and rewriting the past to suit him. Bootlegging TG as it suits him, selling his archive as he sees fit, meanwhile downplaying others involvement in COUM and TG.
Cosey remains an enigmatic figure. There’s no real explanation of her route from Hull Council Estate, through extreme performance art, pornography, stripping to her part in defining a musical genre and beyond.
Chris Carter remains the unspoken architect of glorious noise.
Sleazy, jeez…….where to start ?