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Underground > Radio & Music >

24 Hours of Throbbing Gristle

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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:39 / 12.01.03

Not quite sure I can match the Guardian's listening to "TG24" over a single 24-hour period, so I'm gonna try and do at least an hour each day.

Hour 1- The ICA. Listened to yesterday on public transport. Fairly poor cassette quality, which emphasises "found" sounds- people in the audience become indistinct from tape loops or Gen's quieter moments. "Slug Bait" and "We Hate You (Little Girls)" are touched on in full-on improv mode, and Gen screams a lot. Works well on the tube, especially when there are station announcements.

Hour 2- Winchester Air Gallery. Two tracks, the first a droney bass loop, the second more synth-torturing. The quality is a whole lot better than #1. I'm starting to feel funny about forty minutes in. I think I may skin up now.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:49 / 13.01.03

Hour 3- Nag's head, High Wycombe

Still listening to this one. Classic, proper TG noises. None too bad on the quality either.

Begins with a "Very Friendly" extended to lengthy Hindley/Brady story which somehow includes Mr Bradly AND Mr Martin. Then gets WAY spacey for a bit.

Now we're onto "Slug Bait", only more rhythmic than I've heard before, and reminiscient of Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop". A malevolent Tangerine Dream kills your entire family with static from its speakers.

Interesting point- when watched with a "dancing stickmen" theme on yr RealPlayer, them stickman emote a little too didturbingly.

Gen even interacts with the (mainly heckling) audience at points. (A taste of things to come, re- PTV?)

Brigade du jour

21:01 / 13.01.03

Now then we've talked about this stuff before. You are one brave stoat.

Rollo Kim, on location

22:04 / 13.01.03

Did you pay full-wack for it? I went to the exhibition. Lovely view of shit flats [very TG I thought].

"The primary reason for making any record at all was to document and preserve what [IR] considered to be the most effective and functional pieces of sound research. Mementoes for themselves and their friends, reference sources for other people who might be interested. Selling records as products, selling as a proces, was not a major concern... It was a case of stripping down the camouflage of a music industry and an Industrial society and naming the essence... Music was an Industry, Records meant files and research documents, a library." The Industrial records Story [1984].

20:10 / 14.01.03

"The Industrial records Story [1984]" is this a book?
plus, where's todays hour?

20:31 / 14.01.03

You are a brave man - frightenly, nay, suicidely brave - you know that point when you fucking hate 'em and all you want is a beer?
That's what I'm here for.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:28 / 14.01.03

Hour 4-Brighton Polytechnic. Fun with echo, though rather too much of it seems to consist of the bass with everything else very quiet in the background. About half-way through there's a really "nice" section with what I can only assume is a Gristle-ized violin, which put me strangely in mind of Nurse With Wound. It's strange- you really do start losing track of time.

Oh, fantastic! A big fight with hecklers- the full recording of the "you're all so fucking dead!" bit from (I think) "2nd Annual Report". Makes Consolidated's "open mic" bits seem somewhat poo. And Gen's just had a rant against rock-n-roll.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:49 / 14.01.03

Hour 5- Nuffield Theatre, Southampton. It's like someone set Tangerine Dream to "evil" and got them to jam with a pissed-off Hawkwind in "Sonic Attack" mode. Good old pulsing analogue synths, plus the trademark "large animal in pain a long way off but fucking loud" echoes, with burts (although they sound more like "injections") of feedback and white noise. People sitting near me (I'm currently at work) have started asking me what the appalling racket coming from my headphones is. Result!

--

02:32 / 15.01.03

I backordered that box a month ago from my dad's store but the IDIOTS at the warehouse or whatever CANCELLED the backorders a few weeks back and now they might be ALL OUT. Looks like I'll have to try Amazon...

02:56 / 15.01.03

Yer a brave man Stoatie. Others have tried and become subhumans, hamburger ladies, or worse. But if you're feeling really brave, make a 25th hour of cutups of GPO interviews, while driving on the M25 really fast. But Bill Drummond and Iain Sinclair might do you for horning in on their cultural action.

I once heard a guy who worshipped Jimmy Durante, doing the great schnozzola's rendition of "Subhuman." Ha-cha-cha-chaaa!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:23 / 15.01.03

Hour 6- Rat Club, Pindar, London

So far (about 20 minutes in) this is the most abrasive yet. (And I think I may have fucked my headphones!) Huge, pulsing bass frequencies that make you think you're living in Eraserhead (or maybe the first part of Lost Highway) with synth pulses coming in and out, every now and then drowned in a huge wash of white noise. Even the random feedback seems to be harmonising, and Gen's ranting along in the background like some sort of maniac who's gonna decide to start a cult (umm... hang on...)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:26 / 15.01.03

Oh no- earphones still working. Just got a huge squeal through the right ear (which is the bit I thought had blown).

Oh my god- Gen's started going on about Dr Who. I swear it. And return tickets from Wolverhampton.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:27 / 16.01.03

Hour 7- Highbury Roundhouse, London. Some sort of unholy amalgam of "Discipline" and "Hit By A Rock" brings in a more rhythmic element, which makes the whole feel a little less oppressive.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:38 / 16.01.03

Whoah. Now "Blood on the Floor". After the freeform extravagance of the last couple of discs, this is starting to feel strangely reassuring.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:13 / 16.01.03

Just took a break at the half-way point. I think I've gone deaf, and my balance seems to have suffered. Hopefully it's just temporary.

09:05 / 16.01.03

Keep up the good work, mate.

.

09:19 / 16.01.03

I'm stupidly impressed with this. Anyone want to try the same thing with the 24 CD Merzbox?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:46 / 16.01.03

Should be another couple of hours tonight, when I get to work.

Rollo Kim, on location

10:00 / 16.01.03

That Industrial Records quote was just from a newsletter I think. Probably in Wreckers og Civilization [that IS a book].

What's he say about Doctor Who?

20:02 / 16.01.03

thanks Rollo, i've read that, but just must have missed it.
keep up the good work Chairman.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:53 / 16.01.03

Hour 8- Winchester Art School

Lots of white noise, but fortunately there's more use of tape loops and found vocals, which is the only thing really anchoring me at the moment. I have no idea how much of it I've heard so far, there's an echoed bass mantra that seems to have been playing forever at the moment as other Gristle-ised effects fade in and out. Police sirens, I think, as well.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:55 / 16.01.03

Oh yes! Now some frenzied synth arpeggios! It's like Kraftwerk being taken out and shot!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:57 / 16.01.03

Now it's like being trapped inside some huge organic runaway train! (I think it may be crashing soon...)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:10 / 17.01.03

Hour 9- Rat Club, Valentino Rooms, London

This one's more like being held up against one of those grinding wheel things you cut keys with, but with a seriously arsequaking bass drone attaching your feet to the floor.

Oh, and it's very, very windy.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:48 / 17.01.03

Then the grindstone slows a bit, and a babbling lunatic comes in and tells you a nice story about (as far as I can tell) a murderer.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:49 / 17.01.03

Ed Kemper, unless I'm much mistaken.

--

04:01 / 17.01.03

"Ed Kemper he loved his mama
Ed Kemper he drove a big car
Ed Kemper he loved his Mama
Ed Kemper he drove a big car

And all the police forces
And all the police men
Couldn't put those girls back together again"

"Urge To Kill". Too bad TG only did that song once, great lyrics.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:38 / 17.01.03

Hour 10- Brighton Polytechnic

Only done half of this one so far... on the bus returning from London Bridge to Stoke Newington. Funnily enough, it worked best when there were no people to watch... or just one at a time. The times the music seemed to fit the visuals best was while either looking at denuded tree branches passing the window, or estates.

The overall effect (other than that I still have a high-pitched whine in my ears fort minutes later) was somewhat akin to watching "Baraka", if it had been directed by Jim van Bebber.

Musically- this one again seems largely instrumental so far- bass rumble, some nice percussive electronics, and again, the bursts of white noise. Lots of found sounds and samples, probably totally benign, but made sinister by their indistinction and association with the full-on aural assault they underpin.

(oh, by the way, I reached my posting limit during Hour 9, and therefore couldn't mention the "Nuclear survival" tapes towards the end. Very Cold War paranoia. Also very reminiscent- if such a word can be used in this context- of later stuff Gen did with Psychic TV, such as "Live At Thee Pyramid". Probably even the same tapes.)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:20 / 17.01.03

Continuing Hour 10- this has become more "industrial", in both (obviously) the TG sense and the literal. Only it sounds like there're some enormous birds trapped somewhere up near the roof of the factory. Haven't figured out what it is the factory's making, yet, though the slogan "Music from the Death Factory" has rarely seemed more appropriate.

23:09 / 17.01.03

hahaha this is gold. You are a true survivor mate. Say Hi to Auntie Genesis for me.

"Zyklooooooon, Zykloooon, Zyklon B, Zombie...."

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:37 / 18.01.03

Hour 11- Architectural Association, London

There's something very wintry about this one- it starts like being trapped in a very powerful, but very slow, blizzard. Now (about ten minutes in) it sounds like you're lost in the Antarctic.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:41 / 18.01.03

I thought I heard a helicopter coming to rescue me, but no. Still trudging across ice floes with a guy explaining killer viruses to me.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:43 / 18.01.03

Now we're getting all rhythmic and bleepy. A seriously pissed-off DAF appear to have joined me in the snow.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:02 / 18.01.03

It's all gone melodic. Well, there's a tape playing of some music, with all the good TG stuff over the top, mixed in with snatches of speech and news reports. Those echoey bass frequencies are starting to sound ominous...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:20 / 18.01.03

And now a bloke who was on earlier (during Hour 10, I think) is explaining about swallowing a toilet chain and getting it wrapped round his spine...

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