My friend Deeanna has done a wonderful job on descaling my memory about music. Yesterday, there was a piece in The Guardian about Genesis P-Orridge. I could hear the chalky scales falling to the bottom of my skull. Was it 'Throbbing Gristle' I had seen in '78 ??? I knew that I'd seen Nico with another performer at The Marquee (Wardour St, London). A quick internet search reminded me that it was Pere Ubu on the same stage as when I saw Nico, and then it clicked ... Throbbing Gristle were also seen at the Marquee, but left no impression ...
The back story is that while I lived in Germany, I returned to the UK quite often between '77 and '80 as I still had use of a flat that a friend was renting from my father. The friend was into experimental music (he even had the early VU album with the banana ... still (and I hope, forever) unpeeled!!! So it was that on a trip (or trips) back to the UK, I saw Throbbing Gristle and then Pere Ubu (neither left a lasting impression), but Nico!!! She was playing a harmonium gifted by Patti Smith. She was Nico ... end of ... except that when she sang, in her low monotone, Deutschland Uber Alles ... some in the audience did not understand the irony and cans were thrown ... using my co-country lingo ... eejits!
It's a strange world ... I wrote the above while listening to the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde ... how tastes move on!
It's interesting you mention Pere Ubu, because they were the subject of the last music post on Flickr, after their main songwriter and only original member, David Thomas had died. Unfortunately it was a nasty comment on that post that caused to her abandon us on Flickr. I never had the chance to see Pere Ubu, but I have a couple of their records.
ReplyDeleteI loved Throbbing Gristle too. Definitely not an easy listen, but they were at the forefront of electronic music in the mid to late 1970s along with the original versions of the Human League and Ultravox. I'm a big fan of this type of music. Throbbing Gristle had an album entitled '20 Jazz Funk Greats' . I wonder if anyone was fooled by the title because there was nothing remotely close to anything jazz, funk or in-between on it. Just hard-core electronic industrial noise. Genesis P. Orridge was a fascinating character. A true eccentric and one of the first people to come out as Non Binary. They had a fascinating project with their marriage partner, where they took the same identity becoming single entity with each as one half of that identity. They both had body modification surgery to look like each other and they took the name Breyer P-Orridge and referred to themselves as being a single pandrogenous being. They were a living art installation. Sadly one half of the being, Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge died in 2007 and the other half Genesis Breyer P-Orridge followed in 2020. Genesis P. Orridge's Throbbing Gristle band mate and ex partner Cosey Fanni Tutti, was interviewed on 6 Music a couple of weeks ago.
I loved Nico. She had that deep voice that was more spoken word than singing. There is a history of that in French and German music. At the time you saw her perform, she was living in Manchester and in a relationship with John Cooper Clarke, the 'Bard Of Salford '.
Brilliant reply, Deeanna! Our musical transits cross with Nico ... I'm listening to Desertshore now. I was very interested in what VU members got up to after splitting. I don't recall ever seeing John Cale but bought a couple of his LPs and I do own Reed's Metal Machine Music (rarely played even back in the day), but I think that's it for my foray into electronics - now, around midnight I find myself drawn to an old favourite ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPLrdP3KKKE
ReplyDeleteMusic critic John Robb's massive (800pp) book, The Art of Darkness covers Gristle and Pere Ubu and Nico among others in its post-punk chapters. I don't think I saw any of these live, but they all made a lasting impression when I first heard them on the radio, almost certainly on John Peel's show.
ReplyDeleteSusie, thanks for the link to John Robb's book. I do believe I need it as a reference to those days, there is so much I forget. Amazon are doing their job right now!
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