The Throbbing Gristle quick introduction

By Adam Bergstrom

Throbbing Gristle
Founded: 1975-09-03

Terminated: 1981-06-23
Members:

Genesis P-Orridge
Chris Carter
Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson
Cosey Fanni Tutti

Genesis and Cosey had worked with performance art as 'COUM Transmissions' before entering the musical scene in 1976.
As a group, they experimented with music and its methods, just to see what could be done with it, just as with performance art. Provocation and the unexpected was their trademark, and the result was quite enormous.
For their performance (musical and art) at the I.C.A. , the public reaction (or rather the press's reaction) was that of shock. Members of the parliament expressed their outraged views in the press, calling Throbbing Gristle 'sick people', 'wreckers of civilization' and worse. This gave Throbbing Gristle a lot of publicity, and enabled them to get more gigs.
The band used synthesizers, guitars, lots of pedaleffects, bass guitar, tape cut ups, cornet, and presented a very varied, but mostly noisy, soundpicture. They used digital samplers before any Fairlights were built, and Chris built a lot of other electronic equipment to form the very special sound of TG.
Most of the songs were made directly, unrehearsed on stage and was rarely remixed when the records were made. Even the studio material is mostly 'live'.
The music range from ambient synth, to really harsh guitar-bashing, to 'nice' pop tunes, but they all have the pure energy of enthusiasm and experimentation.
The last recordings are dated 1981, and that's when TG ceased to exist as a group.

Genesis has been involved in the group 'Psychic TV' ever since the break-up of TG. He now lives in the U.S.A, since he got exiled from Great Britain.

Chris has made music in his own name, 'Cris Carter', but also together with Cosey as 'Cris & Cosey' and 'CTI'.

Peter was a part of 'Psychic TV' in the beginning, but is now involved in the band 'Coil'.

Cosey has made a few records on her own, as 'Cosey Fanni Tutti', but also together with Chris in 'Chris & Cosey' and 'CTI'.

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~vijay/tg/tg.html