Genesis P-Orridge - Throbbing Gristle

Throbbing Gristle

"I've been involved in a total war with culture since the day I started… I am at war with the status quo of society and I am at war with those in control and power. I'm at war with hypocrisy and lies, I'm at war with the mass media. Then I'm at war with every bastard who tries to hurt someone else for its own sake. And I'm at war with privilege and I’m at war with all the things that one should be at war with basically."

Throbbing Gristle was formed in the autumn of 1975 as a four-piece band consisting of P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, and Chris Carter.

The first Throbbing Gristle performance was at the Air Gallery in London on 6 July 1976. The band performed in one room with the music "appearing" in an adjacent room. Peter worked in special effects and provided the performers with simulated scars; meanwhile, Chris actually used a razor to slash himself.

At that point Throbbing Gristle headquarters was 10 Martello Street, Hackney, East London, an address of an artist collective. P-Orridge and Tutti's living and work space was the mailing address of Industrial Records. Throbbing Gristle released "Discipline" in 1981.

The final IR release was called Nothing Here but the Recordings, a best-of album taken from the archives of William S. Burroughs, who had allowed P-Orridge and Sleazy access to his reel-to-reel tape archive.

The final Throbbing Gristle event, Mission of Dead Souls, was in May 1981 in San Francisco.Soon after, Genesis and Paula P-Orridge (née Alaura O'Dell) were married.