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Rating: 
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: Anybody interested in truly subversive music / art / anti-art needs to read this. This obsessively documented and well written tome lays out the attempts by Coum Transmissions / Throbbing Gristle to wreck civilization, and for good reason. Dadaists P-Orridge, Tutti, Sleazy and Carter meet in post industrial collapsed welfare state Britain and decide that things must be changed or at least destroyed and set about to do so. Musically influenced by the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, 50-Foot Hose, Nico and a number of other artistes you've never heard of, t/g created the soundtrack for industrial society's post-mortem. On the surface apolitical, t/g was severely antiauthoritarian on all levels, deconstructing the 20th century while advocating a true revolution of the cortex, where everyone would be free to think for themselves without the restraints of normality or even sanity. Simon Ford does a very good job of putting t/g in context, and reminding us blase 21st century dwellers just how provoking they were. These four people shook the art and music world, and the reverberations affect people who've never heard of them, let alone the many that have heard of but never heard them. Read this while listening to "Second Annual Report", "Special Treatment", "Rafters" and "D.O.A." Can the world be as sad as it seems? Don't worry, t/g is long gone and civilization is safe.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: Anybody interested in truly subversive music / art / anti-art needs to read this. This obsessively documented and well written tome lays out the attempts by Coum Transmissions / Throbbing Gristle to wreck civilization, and for good reason. Dadaists P-Orridge, Tutti, Sleazy and Carter meet in post industrial collapsed welfare state Britain and decide that things must be changed or at least destroyed and set about to do so. Musically influenced by the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, 50-Foot Hose, Nico and a number of other artistes you've never heard of, t/g created the soundtrack for industrial society's post-mortem. On the surface apolitical, t/g was severely antiauthoritarian on all levels, deconstructing the 20th century while advocating a true revolution of the cortex, where everyone would be free to think for themselves without the restraints of normality or even sanity. Simon Ford does a very good job of putting t/g in context, and reminding us blase 21st century dwellers just how provoking they were. These four people shook the art and music world, and the reverberations affect people who've never heard of them, let alone the many that have heard of but never heard them. Read this while listening to "Second Annual Report", "Special Treatment", "Rafters" and "D.O.A." Can the world be as sad as it seems? Don't worry, t/g is long gone and civilization is safe.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Story
Review: Having been a member of COUM TRANSMISSIONS from 1971 to 1976 I must say that Simon Ford has done a commendable job in his overview of the work of COUM and TG.I have corresponded with the author and he recognises that there still remains more to be told.There certainly is much about performances and first hand experiences that needs to be added.Hopefully in a subsequent edition ,or in a new contribution by another author, this will be addressed. Another reviewer asked the question "what became of Foxtrot Echo and Fizzy Paet?".We are alive and well and living lateraly,as allways, in England.
Rating:
Summary: Great comprehensive collection of god awful art
Review: I'm new to the TG phenonmenon. My first purchase was 20 Funk Jazz Greats. I was a very scary listen indeed. I always was familiar with TG, I knew about them, but also knew nothing; mysterious indeed. This book laid it all out very easily, and challenged my preconceptions of what is "industrial music." Now, I look back at the industrial-bands of yesteryear: KMFDM, Ministry, NIN, Skinny Puppy and the like and think they are a punch of wannabees. And after reading this book, P-Orrigge's philosophies of pop culture, life, death, fascism, etc has been haunting my dreams accompanied with the sounds of Discipline and Hot on the Heels of Love. This is it! Buy this "evil" book for great photos of Cosey, Chris, Gen and Peter. Buy it now! Oh by the way, I never would have labeled TG as industrial but rather experimental. They have more in common with avant-noise bands than they've ever had with their lackluster metal and industrial wanking industrial bands (ie Minsitry, NIN et al). BUY NOW!
Rating:
Summary: Very good overview of TG/Coum
Review: It took me all of 1999 to get hold of this book, and finally amazon.com sold me a slightly damaged copy for $32. People are waiting for a second printing and/or a US edition. The cover looks cheap, white with a cut-out and rearranged photo of TG members from the «20 Jazz Funk Greats» album cover. But that's about the only negative thing I could say about the book. This will stand as the definitive work on the subject for a LONG time. It's incredibly thorough, and with many picures and illustrations never or rarely seen before, including many photos of the pre-TG hippie version of Genesis P-Orridge. It tells the full story from GPO's birth in 1950 up to the split of TG in 1981.While TG has been the subject of quite a lot of writing before, in two of the RE/Search books and many music mags, the performance art COUM period has had very little attention and critique. This is fully rectified here. When TG put out their first LP, you're more than halfway thru the book. Ford's unfolding chronological work is strong on both personal biographical detail and assessment of COUM/TG's place in art history.
I see TG/GPO as much stronger conceptualists than actual artists, much like their mentor William Burroughs. But as such, they have wielded an extremely strong influence on others, and sown the seeds of whole new genres of art and music. The unorthodox use of synths, «industrial» noise and cut-ups are now commonplace, while in the 70's it could cause riots when presented to an audience most used to the popular music of the time.
The COUM group's extreme use of bodily fluids and food in performance could be viewed as a continuation of the ground-breaking work of people like Hermann Nitsch and Otto Mühl. Coum did some far out stuff, but were in my opinion not as much pioneers in their field as TG was. But the scandalous 1976 «Prostitution» show at the ICA in London must have been a lot of fun. Backed by tax-payers' money, Cosey Fanni Tutti tore out nude pics of herself from men's magazines she had posed in, and presented them as art. If it's in a gallery, it must be art, right? Not quite. The exhibition created a massive moral outrage.
For record-collecting geeks, a full discography listing ALL releases (official, semi-official and bootlegs) is included in the back of the book, but in the book itself only the recordings released while TG was active are discussed. Which is a perfectly valid decision, as these are the original «manifestos» authorized by all TG members.
An indispensable book for anyone with an interest in 20th century art and music history.
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