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The Silent One

The Silent One

Grimscribe
I can hardly believe that no-one on this board even bothered to post in the Throbbing Gristle forum! Without this band, such brilliant artists as Coil, Current 93, and even Swans (yes, Gira was a fan) would've never fulfilled their potential.

I think Throbbing Gristle were/are one of the most consistently screwed-up musical outfits that ever walked this earth. I mean, even the stuff that wasn't intended explicitly to disturb or confuse their audience had a slightly curious or bizarre slant. And, contrary to popular belief, much of their more depraved output was not purely for shock value. More often it was commentary on the state of the world, in particular how horrible it is. "Hamburger Lady", one of their creepiest songs, was constructed to imitate the sound and feel of an ICU, less to unnerve the listener than to convey the horror of keeping someone alive regardless of how much pain they endure. "Slug Bait" served as a portrait of the most vile inner impulses that sane humans resist and the select few bask in. The lighter pieces, too, hold deeper meaning. "Still Walking" is nothing but various meaningless phrases, mantras, over a constant theme, the title showing, in a way, how pointless marching through one's day is, not unlike, well, "What a Day!". "Persuasion", while on the surface just a rather dirty reflection, revolves around the idea of coercion supplanted by sly persuasion, wearing away resolve until... *snap* And then, "United", a queasy, semi-generic synth pop tune. Designed for "people to fall in love to". Once more, persuasion, insinuation, mesmerism, crowd control. Ergo "Convincing People" and the legendary "Discipline".

Wow. Rambling.

Anyway, I really like/love/am subliminally controlled by this band/collective. Any other fans/culties?

P.S. Any Psychic TV people? I've started looking into their catalogue, in particular live albums, and while I've heard it's a bottomless pit, the early stuff sounds great. TG meets... Brian Wilson?!
 
My interest in TG has resurged recently, due in part to the release of The Endless Not which I still can't get enough of. It sounds more akin to Coil's work but a couple tracks (Greasy Spoon and Lyre Liar) sound very TG to me.

I think Heathen Earth is my favorite of all their albums. Esp. After Cease to Exist and The World is a War Film. 2nd Annual Report and DOA tie as close seconds.

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TG used to make me nauseous when I was about 14... in a good way. Now I'm no longer shocked, and they're the sort of band that seems important to my "development" without being something that I actually listen to all that often.

Coil and PTV are both much more important to me, personally.
 
ventriloquist said:
TG used to make me nauseous when I was about 14... in a good way. Now I'm no longer shocked, and they're the sort of band that seems important to my "development" without being something that I actually listen to all that often.

Coil and PTV are both much more important to me, personally.
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Rarely do I find TG sickening, per se, but some of their more extreme stuff is literally so sonically thick and nasty that it induces a sort of trance in me, a state of emotional numbness and vague discomfort. It's pleasant in a very evil way. (In this case I speak not so much of the lyrics but the walls of noise; While I can discern notes, the level of distortion emulates a swarm of mutated insects.)

Coil, however, are truly one of those bands/musical collectives I feel an emotional connection to. I find Time Machines and their early "song"-based albums utterly indispensable. Their music is really fulfils its mystical purpose more than it fails, which is none too common.

On the other hand again, what little I've heard of The Endless Not has made me physically ill. What's more, in that good way.
 
memories.....

When I worked at Carl's Jr. in 1981 I had a good friend that liked even freakier music than I (Residents and Pere Ubu were my godhead at the time). He actually attended the final performance of TG in San Francisco. He didn't think it was a very good show but it had historic value.

I actually got a chance to see a video of TG performing in the late 70's - WOW what a trip they were. Gen was sitting with his bass guitar droning vocals. The rest of the band were walking around the stage noodling on piles of electronic apparatus. Does make you wonder about the state of "industrial" music without them.

I never could get into Gen's other project - Psychic TV. I did like Dreams Less Sweet as a mondo bizzaro pop album but I thought that Gen's philosophy overtook the music. I love ceremonial magik and homosexuality as much as the next man but...

Jeez - they even have the albums available in regular release now! Woo hoo!

Alec...
 
Your friend is a lucky bastard. Those sorts of stories make me regret being born into a relatively crappy era, as far as music goes. About 90% of the music I listen to was made no later than when I was in preschool. Fortunately, mp3s and stuff make this a prime era for recorded music (even if it's illegally obtained) so it's been very easy for me to dig back and find the things I like. If I were this age 10 or 20 years ago, then I imagine my taste would only suffer for it, on the whole. On the other hand, there were a lot more record stores worth a damn in decades past (not to mention 'zines, tape trading, etc.,) so there would've been more real, hands-on digging going on (which I still love to do!)

I agree that Gen the bizarro pop idol too often got in the way of the music as time went on.

Time Machines is probably my favorite Coil, btw. I don't know if I've ever listened to it without a head full of chemicals and the lights turned off, though!
 
ventriloquist said:
Those sorts of stories make me regret being born into a relatively crappy era, as far as music goes. About 90% of the music I listen to was made no later than when I was in preschool.
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I know how you feel, and possibly moreso. With a few small exceptions, pretty much every musical outfit I love has disbanded or dissolved.

I think living in the late 1970s, particularily in industrial England or San Francisco, would be the perfect time for me. While the atmosphere wasn't the most pleasant (politically especially), the pure creativity of the residents therein was astounding...
 
The Silent One said:
ventriloquist said:
I think living in the late 1970s, particularily in industrial England or San Francisco, would be the perfect time for me. While the atmosphere wasn't the most pleasant (politically especially), the pure creativity of the residents therein was astounding...
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I agree I think that living in Industrial England in the late '70s and the early 80's would have been pretty cool. I probably like the Cabs more than TG. Cabaret Voltaire is probably one of my all time favorite bands. I have like 30 CV releases compared to all 7 TG discs. I prefer Mal's voice more than Gen's. However, I have been on a huge TG kick. I recently aquired Heathen Earth, which might be one of my favorite Throbbing Gristle discs. I love the live improvised studio setting of the disc. I am always looking for the two box sets TG 24 and TG+. It's virtually every Throbbing Gristle show ever recorded. Unfortunately, it's way OOP.
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I have been building up my TG collection.
new additions include:
Throbbing Gristle-Rafters (live in Manchester)
TG-Live Vol. 1 '76-'78
TG-Dimensia in Excelsis( live in Los Angeles '81) the second to last gig before the Mission was Terminated back in 1981.
It's all lovely noise:)
 
Well, today being Halloween and all, I came here to declare "Hamburger Lady" to be the most unnerving and, yes, scariest piece of audio I have encountered in 40 years on this planet. I am only a tangential TG fan, but this is the song that sucked me in to that whole realm of noisy/industrial type music...

I heard it for the first time on a college radio station as a young adult, laying in bed with the lights off and trying to go to sleep. Drowsy, in a dark room, possibly (probably) intoxicated in some way, not expecting anything - I was about as susceptible as possible to TG's psychic assault. That song affected me like nothing before or since. It made me feel queasy, nervous, and actually frightened. Man, what a track.

I recently bought "DOA" through the iTunes Store, and have listened to most of the songs on it a number of times. I usually keep my iTunes on shuffle; my Library is almost 10k songs, and repeats are fairly rare. For some reason, "Hamburger Lady" comes up more often than I think it should, and I often skip over it to another, less distrubing song.

The Silent One said:
I know how you feel, and possibly moreso. With a few small exceptions, pretty much every musical outfit I love has disbanded or dissolved.

I think living in the late 1970s, particularily in industrial England or San Francisco, would be the perfect time for me. While the atmosphere wasn't the most pleasant (politically especially), the pure creativity of the residents therein was astounding...
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TSO, I can relate to this. I am much more into punk and weird rock than industrial and the like, but I feel like I was born a little too late as well. I did grow up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and saw lots of shows there in the mid- to late-80's. Even if I couldn't have been born 5 or 10 years earlier, I still wish I had the knowledge then that I have since gained about amazing bands and shows that happened in my backyard...

I also think you are right on the button with correlating outstanding art to unpleasant circumstances. So many artists, in all media, that I enjoy are products of political repression, bad social scenes, broken families, mental illness, etc. Would Lovecraft had written with such acid contempt for modern society had he lead a privileged and easy life? I doubt it!
 
Im glad someone else finds "Hamburger Lady" disturbing. I always thought the vocal effects were supposed to re-create the damaged vocal chords of the lady in question, and Gen's sing song delivery just makes it even more creepy. I really like this early demo, it has that pulverizing quality I look for :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghR5XXi4QGw
 
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