Psychic TV / PTV3
+ Michael Cashmore (official) / Shaltmira
Psychic TV was first born in 1982 at 50 Beck Road, Hackney following the termination of Throbbing Gristle the year before. Six months later the duo completed the nucleus
of the new unit with ex-TG’er Peter Christopherson. By that time Genesis had already conceived, named and pioneered the genre “lndustrial Music” with Throbbing Gristle. Along with groups like 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 thoughtprovoking 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.
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. For some 14 odd years, Psychic TV
recorded and released dozens of live and studio albums ending up in the Guiness Book Of Records for releasing more albums in one year than any other artist (even Elvis!). Psychic TV was terminated in the mid 90′s as Genesis pursued further musical goals with his spoken-word and expanded poetry/video installation project Thee Majesty.
In 2003, drummer Edley ODowd of New York City’s legendary rock band Toilet Boys gently but persistently persuaded Genesis to rekindle her rock spirit and Psychic TV. Edley succeeded and they played their first public show that December. The reactivated ensemble led by ODowd, has been touring the US, Europe and Russia and releasing music ever since. Presently motivated by a love of performance & recording, Genesis calls this most current lineup ‘the best version of Psychic TV ever’.
The full history of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and her varied seminal musical exploits of the past three decades as well as her soclo-cultural (or should that be politico-sexual?
Or all the above!) adventures would easily fill a book (and has … Soft Skull/Shortwave Books published “Painful but Fabulous: The Lives and Art of Genesis P-Orridge” in 2003 and more recently with “Thee Psychick Bible” in hardcover in 2009 and paperback in 2010). Genesis continues to exhibit artwork around the globe (Most recently at Art
Basel Miami and The Serpentine Gallery, London).
Already living a creative further chapter of her “life” book Genesis continues to provoke and explore in her very public private life; from replacing all her healthy teeth with solid gold permanent replicas in an homage to Pierre Clemente in Luis Bunuel’s “Belle De Jour.” Littering the dictionary and culture with new words for new, original
ideas Genesis 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.”
