Rarely does a band arrive on the scene that does not have to bow to the dictum one way or another. Throbbing Gristle, however, have no need to com- promise. The band have surrounded themselves, from the start, with their own equipment, own transport, own studio, own sources of income, and, if necessary, their own recording facilities and oblique means of obtaining gigs. If the industry wishes to ignore them they will simply court a small audience and will become a cult group on the fringe.

On Friday the 11th, Throbbing Gristle agreed to let a promoter arrange a date for them. They made it clear that the equipment was extra- ordinary and required at least four hours to set up. The promoter thought that anything short of the big bands needed no more than to plug in. Thus, Throbbing Gristle were prevented from entering the venue until two hours before their set. It was inevitable that the evening would never run smoothly. Unwittingly the promoter had cleared the way for Throbbing Gristle to expose a concept behind their music, to shatter a few illusions. Those who had witnessed the prime concepts behind Punk Rock, Portsmouth Sinfonia and Eno turn to dust were now able to see those concepts properly portrayed in rock.

I will not describe the first thirty minutes of the set, its pros and cons; that criticism is best left for a date that starts off on a right footing.

After thirty minutes all the faults of the hasty equipment erection, mingled with the frust- rations of the band, came to a head. Cosey's lead guitar ceased to exist. The fault could not be located quickly and rectified. The reason was simple. There was no plain lead running directly to an amplifier, but several leads that fed through a series of boxes (synthesisers & specially-made "Gristle- lizers"), controlled by a row of foot pedals. All the instruments are similarly manipulated and fed through a web of electronic equipment, including Gen's microphone. Cosey took the only course open to her; she strolled off stage and sat in the audience.

Chris Carter remained at his specially-made "syphilisythesizer" and keyboards, frustrated that his complex net of electronics was ineffectually employed that night, his own equipment only twenty per cent effective at that point. The position on stage was becoming impossible. Chris walked off and headed for the toilet.

Gen was left alone on stage, still plucking at his dominant throbbing bass guitar, adding vocals, whilst Sleazy (Peter Christopherson) was having trouble off-stage slotting in tapes and loops. The set-up was crumbling.

Most bands would have stopped, perfection being their treadmill. Gen saw the opportunity to em- hasize the raison d'etre of Throbbing Gristle.

Throbbing Gristle does not contain accomplished musicians.

Throbbing Gristle comprises four people who wish to make music and thus call themselves musicians, they believe that whatever noise they wish to make is valid.

But Throbbing Gristle accept the fact that we live in a modern age, an age of technology. There- fore, Throbbing Gristle surrounds itself with electronic wizardry and exploits it, unlike the "name" rock bands.

In theory any member of the audience should be able to step up on stage and play. Some of the audience, particularly around the bar, were becoming restless. Gen met the challenge. Still pounding his bass, stretching the lead, he climbed into the audience and jeered, insulted and provoked the audience, collectively and individually, concentrating on the restless members, beckoning one of them to accompany him onto the stage. Once there Gen transferred the bass to him and left the "musician" pounding away in his turn, before himself jumping back into the audience, running amok, overturning a table and its beer mugs, insulting and provoking others to take to the stage.

Having succeeded in gaining a fresh band who made an adequate sound, given the equipment's dicey standing, Gen then took the action a step further than just indicating the "common" ability to form a rock band.

Gen draws his content from the sexual and criminal mind, and in particular the sexual psychopath. Central to such a mind is a power complex. Gen tested another idea just as the new band probably thought they might settle down. He approached the bass guitarist and instructed him to play just two notes on one string. Then he approached the singer, instructed him to repeat whatever he was told, and then pursued a vocal line that wound through insults and vulgarity, watching every word faithfully repeated without hesitation. There was little more for Gen to do; he retired to the dressing-room. For a band that bases songs on Brady and Hindley, on Manson, that calls their sound "Music From The Death Factory", that sports a poster of a German Gas Chamber building, Gen had no need to confront us with the songs for one night, the same cutting message had been made effectively in another way to many of us in the audience.

The music industry will not want to accept Throbbing Gristle and in consequence their audiences will be select. There is no place in the rock world for toleration of such ideas, for Throbbing Gristle threaten the foundations of the pyramid of rock-money. For years people have been told anyone can make art and poetry, let's not ruin things and tell them they can make rock music too.

Nothing is quite black or white. Not everyone could obtain the same energy as Throbbing Gristle, for each brings his own obsessions to whatever he turns his hand. Gen and Cosey use their ability as performers and the way they see themselves. These contributions are mixed with Chris' electronic knowledge and experiment and Sleazy's psychopathic/ technical preoccupations. (If only the Punk Rock musicians would simply be sincere with their obsessions and not have to fall foul of the money machine, then Punk Rock could be worthwhile, instead of which it is little more than unpolished rock.)

The real paradox of Throbbing Gristle is that though it is against their principles to fall into the trap of becoming accomplished musicians, (impossible anyway given their approach to the instruments), the sound that Throbbing Gristle drives forth needs to have a proper "mixing" to have its best effect. This is not to say it must issue as a neat or a pretty packaged sound. The songs are rough and brutal, as is the music that you hear, and that which you don't hear (the engineered low frequencies), but which can affect your stomach for hours after.

Personally, I prefer to vomit to Throbbing Gristle that to some of the pretentious rock around.

Or to sum up another way, if the rock world accepts Throbbing Gristle reason demands we invite President Amin to dinner.

Copyright Paul Buck February 1977