On May 29th, 1981, Throbbing Gristle performed their last live show at the Kezar Pavillion in San Francisco, CA. This legendary performance marked the initial breakup of the group and end of its mission.
One of the attendees remembers:
You know for the life of me I can’t remember anymore about the actual music. I can remember closing my eyes during one piece and floating off into the 4th dimension (no drugs here just TG). I can remember jumping up and down because of the intense beat, and I can remember screaming along with the rest of the audience as they yelled back at Genesis during ‘Heathen Earth’. The show ended within the usual 60 minutes with a short version of ‘Discipline’. At the end there was no screaming for more. I think the audience was too mesmerised by the last 60 minutes to really do anything. The group stayed on stage and started packing things up. Genesis talked with the audience for a while and I spoke with peter for a few minutes. As I said at the beginning it wasn’t your average rock concert, it was more a happening, an event and one I’ll remember for a long time to come.
Set list:
“Dead Souls”
“Guts On The Floor”
“Circle Of Animals”
“Looking For The OTO”
“Vision And Voice”
“Funeral Rites”
“Spirits Flying”
“Persuasion U.S.A.”
“The Process”
“Discipline (Reprise)”
I’ve watched the video literally dozens of times already and it simply blows my mind.
In related news, all five TG albums have been remastered and reissued by Industrial Records last year and according to Chris Carter, the sixth and final TG album, TG’s Desertshore – The Final Report, is in the works and set to be released later this year. Bring it!
2011 has been a great year for reissues. Starting with Conrad Schnitzler’s seminal LP Con (reissued as Ballet Statique by the good folks at M=Minimal), Harald Grosskopf’s Synthesist, classics from Drexciya, UR and Arthur Russell, and ending with one of my all-time favorite acts: Throbbing Gristle.
For those of you who have no clue (is that even possible?) who Throbbing Gristle are and their impact on electronic music, here’s some starting points to kick off your research: TG’s Wikipedia, their official website and this excellent article by Federico Nessi. TG’s history is also the subject of Simon Ford’s excellent book Wreckers Of Civilization: The Story of COUM Transmissions & Throbbing Gristle which has been out of print for ages and thus pretty hard to come by.
You cannot imagine how happy I was when I first heard that Industrial Records is about to be restarted and reissue all the iconic TG LPs – freshly remastered and repressed for the first time in ages. The original pressings go for hundreds of dollars on Discogs and eBay, so that added even more to my happiness. So far I purchased three of them: The Second Annual Report, D.o.A and 20 Jazz Funk Greats, and I’m planning to acquire the remaining two in the next couple of weeks. TG’s Chris Carter did an awesome job with the remastering and I can confirm that all three LPs sound fantastic. Each LP is housed in a pictured sleeve with visually reconstructed original artwork and 8-page full size booklet featuring vintage photos of the band, newspaper clippings and various artwork. As far as I can tell, each LP is limited to 2,000 copies only, so don’t sleep on this for too long.
You can read more on the remastering process in Carter’s own words here or listen to the excellent Carter/Tutti interview with the Quietus below.
Chris Carter & Cosey Fanni Tutti Interview, Rough Trade East by theQuietus