MAY 20: PSYCHIC TV PLAY NYC FOR ONLY U.S. DATE IN 2005
Apr 27, 2005 3:27 PM
While taking a break from recording their new album (due out in early 2006 on Birdman Recordings), Counter Cultural provocateur Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and PTV3, nee Psychic TV, will perform a rare NYC concert at Friday, May 20 2005 at The Hook (18 Commerce Street, Brooklyn). The show, set up to prepare for their main stage slot at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona the following week, will include favorite tracks as well new material written specifically for the album.
The current line-up of Psychic TV/PTV3 for the show is Markus “Fabulous” Persson (keyboards), Eddie ODowd (drums), David Max (lead guitar), Alice Genese (bass), Lu(x)z (live video mixing), Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge (sampling keyboards) and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (lead voices, noise bass guitar, electric violin).
Psychic TV was first born in 50 Beck Road, Hackney in 1982. Persuaded and encouraged by his cool friend guitarist Alex Fergusson of punk trailblazers Alternative TV an initially reluctant Genesis P-Orridge returned to active duty inventing new music following his termination of Throbbing Gristle in 1981. Six months later the duo completed the nucleus of the new unit with ex-TG’er Peter Christopherson. Along with the Velvet Underground, Throbbing Gristle is and remains one of the most influential rock groups of the last 30 years; if you haven't heard their music, you will certainly have listened to someone who has. In Throbbing Gristle, Genesis and company synthesized the influences and philosophies of Gen’s close friends and collaborators, including Beat writer William S. Burroughs; Beat poet and painter Brion Gysin; psychedelic shaman Dr Timothy Leary; queer activist film maker Derek Jarman; and those of legendary occultist Austin Osman Spare, theorist John Cage and various seminal underground authors, thinkers, artists and film makers. The group “TG” produced some of the most unsettling and thought-provoking music of all time. Their pioneering "Industrial" sound and self-sufficient approach to record distribution has had a profound impact, becoming key elements of underground music production and distribution ever since. ( the definitive TG history “Wreckers Of Civilisation” by Simon Ford is still available, published by Black Dog Books, London).
Right from the outset, Psychic TV in turn made highly innovative and unflinchingly provocative music blending elements of psychedelia and dance with Industrial sounds (named hyperdelic by Genesis). As with TG, the details of Psychic TV’s packaging, marketing and the radical lifestyle of the musicians were all treated as equally crucial components of the final aesthetic statement. Psychic TV created the template for the current avant-dance stance popularly labeled “electronica” as well as having an undeniable influence on the emergent “Rave” culture; the group released the world's first 12-inch single with the words “Acid House” in the title, “Turn On Tune In To The Acid House.” The label depicted Superman as a tab of LSD emblazoned with their logo a Psychic(k) Cross and triggered a suppressive lawsuit making this withdrawn icon a rare collectible!
For some 14 odd years, Psychic TV recorded and released dozens of live and studio albums ending up in the Guinness Book Of Records for releasing more albums in one year than any other artist (even Elvis!). Psychic TV was terminated in the mid ’90s as Genesis pursued further musical goals with his spoken-word and expanded poetry/video installation project Thee Majesty.
Over the last several years, drummer Eddie ODowd of New York City's legendary rock band The Toilet Boys gently persuaded Genesis to rekindle his rock spirit and Psychic TV. As sincere and dogged as Alex Fergusson had been before him, Eddie succeeded and Psychic TV has been reborn as PTV3 as of December 2003. Last year, Genesis announced that Psychic TV/PTV3 had regained ownership of all its master recordings (both previously released and unreleased) and inaugurated an ambitious re-issue campaign via the Voiceprint label, including the expanded “Directors's Cut” double CD release of Godstar, the soundtrack to a projected biopic of the Rolling Stones murdered founder Brian Jones. The full history of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and his varied seminal musical exploits of the past three decades as well as his socio-cultural (or should that be politico-sexual? Or all the above!) adventures would easily fill a book ( and…in fact …last year Soft Skull/Shortwave Books published “Painful but Fabulous: The Lives and Art of Genesis P-Orridge” in 2003).
Already living a creative further chapter of his”life” book Genesis continues to provoke and explore in his very public private life; from replacing all his healthy teeth with solid gold permanent replicas in an homage to Pierre Clemente in Luis Bunuel's “Belle De Jour” to he and his other half Lady Jaye simultaneously getting identical breast implants on Valentines Day 2003 as part of their modern “Breaking Sex” art project/exploration that they have named “Pandrogeny”.
Littering the dictionary and culture with new words for new, original ideas Genesis and now Lady Jaye can be said to follow the serious process and joy-filled strategy of “When there is no example imagine it, when there is no word for it invent one.” It is through this deeply sincere search for a positive path of humanE evolution and his/their commitment of mind, body and soul to that voyage of discovery that such a profound global influence of his creative experimentation and current (PTV3) music continues to animate and deeply inspire successive generations. S/HE IS HER/E alive, unique and a living legend!
Further details are available at:
www.thehookmusic.com
http://genesisp-orridge.com
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