Utilisateur:Arronax50/Bac à sable
Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre.
| Arronax50/Bac à sable | |
| Alias | DJ Doktor Megatrip, Megs'on, P. Ornot, PT001, Vernon Castle |
|---|---|
| Nom | Neil Andrew Megson |
| Naissance | 22 février 1950 |
| Pays d’origine |  Royaume-Uni |
| Genre(s) | Musique industrielle |
| Site internet | www.genesisp-orridge.com |
Genesis P-Orridge (né Neil Andrew Megson le 22 février 1950) est un musicien, écrivain et artiste de anglais. Ses premières performances artistiques datent de la fin des années 60 avec COUM Transmissions, mais il est plus connu en tant que membre du groupe de musique industrielle Throbbing Gristle, qui suscita la controverse à la fin des années 70 pour les thèmes de ses chansons : prostitution, pornographie, tueurs en série, occultisme, ainsi que leur son résolument dissonnant. Son travail ultérieur avec Psychic TV lui valut une reconnaissance plus large, et quelques singles à succès. Genesis P-Orridge a contribué à la création de plus de 200 disques.
Il est père de deux filles, Caresse et Genesse, avec son ex-femme et partenaire Paula P-Orridge (alias Alaura O'Dell).
Sommaire |
[modifier] Enfance
Neil Megson est né en 1950, à Victoria Park, Manchester, dans une famille d'artistes. Une photograpgie de Neil à 5 ans figure sur la pochette de l'album A Hollow Cost. Pendant son adolescence il fréquenta l'école Solihull. Il s'intéressait beaucoup à l'occultisme, sa grand-mère étant médium. La famille Megson vivait à l'orée de la forêt Epping, à Loughton. Son père, Ron, était un musicien de jazz qui appréciait particulièrement le Bebop et Nat King Cole. Neil s'habillait et se comportait à la manière du leader des Rolling Stones, Brian Jones.
[modifier] 1965-1971 : le changement d'identité
En 1965, Neil, alors étudiant à l'université de Hull, se métamorphosa dans le personnage de Genesis P-Orridge. Il enregistra son premier disque, Early Worm, sous ce nom en 1968 (une seule copie fut gravée). Il changea son nom légalement en 1971. Le successeur de cet album d'improvisation sur des instruments fabriqués par lui-même, Catching the Bird, ne sortit jamais.
A cette époque, la famille Megson vivait à Solibu, une banlieue de Birmingham. Le grenier de la maison de Links Drive n'était pas seulement le repaire de P-Orridge mais aussi son premier studio, où Early Worm fut enregistré.
D'après Genesis P-Orridge, Deroy Sound, le laboratoire où Early Worm fut gravé, avait auparavant gravé des discours d'Adolf Hitler pour le compte du tueur en série Ian Brady, enregistrés à la radio et à la télévision [1]. Plus tard, avec Throbbing Gristle, Genesis P-Orridge écrivit un morceau appelé Very Friendly à propos de Brady et de son complice Myra Hindley.
Sur la pochette d'Early Worm on peut voir des citations de John Cage, son livre Silence étant une source d'inspiration pour Genesis P-Orridge.
[modifier] 1971-1976
En 1971, P-Orridge rencontra William S. Burroughs après avoir brièvement correspondu avec lui. Burroughs lui présenta Brion Gysin, qui devint une des influences majeures de P-Orridge à la fois sur ses idées et ses travaux, et l'initia à la magie.
P-Orridge quitta l'université en 1969 et rejoint une communauté nommée Exploding Galaxy à Londres. Les membres de cette communauté vivaient de façon stricte et abandonnaient toute notion de classe sociale et de vie privée. Ils rejetaient toutes les conventions sociales, se costumaient et participaient à des jeux de rôle.
Il retourna à Hull et forma un collectif incluant Cosey Fanni Tutti.
Tutti et P-Orridge transformèrent COUM, originellement un collectif centré sur la musique et le théâtre, en groupe de performance art se focalisant sur les tabous, le sexe, et le paranorrmal. En 1973 ils furent rejoints par Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson.
Tutti travailla en tant que secrétaire, strip-teaseuse, et performer pornographique. Le spectacle Prostitution, représenté en 1976 à l'Institute of Contemporary Arts à Londres, comprenait un mix vidéo de photographies érotiques et d'images pornographiques de Tutti, une strip-teaseuse, des gardes travestis, des punks et des gens en costumes sensés se mêler à la foule.
Le spectacle provoqua un débat au Parlement du Royaume-Uni sur le bien-fondé des subventions accordés à ce genre d'évènements. Dans la chambre basse, le représentant conservateur (Tory) écossais Sir Nicholas Fairbairn demanda une explication au ministre des Arts Harold Lever et qualifia P-Orridge et Tutti de "fossoyeurs de la civilisation".
Fleet Street was not slow to pick up the story. The reviews were cut up, framed and put on display for the remainder of the exhibition. This was also reported in newspapers, so cut-ups about the cut-ups were also put on display.
[modifier] Post-industrial and Acid House
P-Orridge was instrumental to the development of Industrial (including ongoing influence in the form of Post-Industrial music) and Acid House music. The extent of his involvement in the last genre is often disputed, though it seems likely that he and his cohorts in Psychic TV (PTV) were among the first to import the Detroit Techno music to England Modèle:Fact.
A Psychic TV picture disc was the first to have the phrase "Acid House" written on it Modèle:Fact. Due to a copyright problem with an image of Superman used in the illustration, this disc was pulled and is much sought after by collectors Modèle:Fact.
His former wife and PTV collaborator, Paula P-Orridge, is no longer mentioned in liner notes of any of the reissues of the music or writings since the mid-1990s.
P-Orridge and Paula have been associated with the culture of body modification, as well as magical or religious movements. They founded Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth aka TOPY. In the mid-1990s Genesis chose to distance himself from TOPY, even going so far as to claim that the project had been ended, as he had done with Throbbing Gristle in the early eighties.
COUM had always been a confrontational enterprise, one example of this being the Nazi-influenced visual element. Toward the end of COUM, performances would often consist of only P-Orridge, Cosey and Sleazy, the core group who went on to form Throbbing Gristle.
[modifier] 1976-1981 : Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle was formed 18 October 1976 at the ICA as a four-piece rock band.
The first Throbbing Gristle performance was at the Air Gallery in London on July 6, 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, and Chris used a razor to slash himself.
At that point Throbbing Gristle headquarters was 10 Martello Street, Hackney, in East London, an address of an anti-West End artist collective. P-Orridge and Tutti's living and work space was the mailing address of Industrial Records. The IR logo was a faded, high-contrast black-and-white photograph of Auschwitz's main ovens.
The final Throbbing Gristle single was "Discipline."
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 TG 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 in Tijuana.
[modifier] 1981- : Psychic TV
Psychic TV was formed in 1981. Alex Fergusson of Alternative TV had, over tea, encouraged P-Orridge to start something new. The musical collaboration between the two goes back to the very first ATV line-up, which included Genesis as drummer. According to a bit of writ on the official P-Orridge and Voiceprint websites, the name was Fergusson's idea, with the "psychic" part representing P-Orridge and the "TV" part representing Fergusson. "Just Drifting" was the first PTV song, based on a poem by P-Orridge.
Psychic TV made its debut in 1982 at an event organized by P-Orridge, David Dawson, and Roger Ely, called The Final Academy. It was a 4-day multimedia celebratory rally held in Manchester and at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton[South London]. It brought performers and audience together with literature, performance, film and music. PTV, Cabaret Voltaire, 23 Skidoo, Z'ev, John Giorno, William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Terry Wilson, Jeff Nuttall, and The Last Few Days participated to honor the cut-up techniques and theories of William S. Burroughs, Ian Sommerville, Anthony Balch and Gysin. Video projection and early sampling were used here, as well as whispered utterances by P-Orridge reprocessed as a soundtrack to Gysin's Dreammachine by the Hafler Trio.
Force Thee Hand Ov Chance, Dreams Less Sweet, Allegory and Self, and Trip/Reset are considered by P-Orridge, in an interview with Sonic Envelope, to be the fully-realized PTV albums -- "metaphorical and very, very considered and carefully constructed meticulous albums."
Psychic TV was an ever-evolving thesis but "thee mission" remains to wake people up from the delirium of preconceived notions and the sleepwalking most of us subject ourselves to. Amazing shows, even on the many off nights, are always part of what PTV was and continues to be. Jarring, comforting, disappointing, fulfilling, exciting, mundane, transcendental, unnerving, ugly, beautiful and surreal, in keeping with the title of Derek Jarman's film of a Throbbing Gristle dis-concert, Psychic Rally in Heaven (Heaven being a club in London), a PTV event/experience/show or dis-concert often takes on the mood of a revival meeting, wherein the collective consciousness takes a break from the day-to-day and gets transported, in the tradition of Sun Ra, Grateful Dead, Fela, George Clinton or even, at times, with audience and performers becoming blurred, akin to a Santería ceremony or kirtan.
Earning an entry into the Guinness Book Of World Records for most records released in a year by a musical group, Psychic TV set about, in the mid-eighties, to release 23 live albums on the 23rd of each month for 23 months in recognition of the 23 enigma. The liner notes to each of these releases functioned somewhat like mini-manifestos in the tradition of the Situationist International or William S. Burroughs' Electronic Revolution in addition to recounting aspects of the recordings contained therein. For example, the fourth album in this series, Live In Reykjavík, featuring part of a ritual from Godhi Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson includes liner notes that refer to Christianity as "sham X-tianity," in reclamation of a Pagan heritage via an Ásatrú marriage, over which Beinteinsson presided, below a statue of Thor in "thee wilderness".
Psychic TV returned to the stage in 2003, with a concert in New York under the guise of PTV3 and was accompanied by (with the exception of Genesis) an all new line-up. In September 2004, an extensive tour of Europe (covering 16 countries) and North America was launched. 2005 saw the band return to the studio, recording their first album in over 10 years (Genesis also spent 2005 working with Throbbing Gristle on what will be their first album in over 25 years). Additionally, a few more dates were performed in Europe throughout the year. In January 2006, the new PTV album was announced by Genesis on his website. HELL IS INVISIBLE...HEAVEN IS HER/E, the album, was recorded in New York and features Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers) guesting on some tracks. Genesis describes it as "Dark Side of the Moon for the 21st century". Release is expected mid-Spring (Northern Hemisphere) 2006 and it will be followed by a tour that may last up to 18 months. [2] To inaugurate the release of HELL IS INVISIBLE...HEAVEN IS HER/E, PTV3 hosted a five night residency in September 2006 at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, USA that included collaborations with such cult luminaries as Kembra Pfahler as well as many others.
[modifier] Trouble in England
In February 1992 GP-O, the family, and various members of the TOPY entourage, had just come from Kathmandu, where they had distributed rice, dal, and clothing to those in need from a Hindu temple in an annual tradition of "giving back" through PTV royalties. A disturbing telegram arrived stating that there was "trouble in England".
Scotland Yard arrived at the P-Orridge's house in Brighton on a tip in the hopes of finding incriminating items. This was followed by a Channel 4 Television program addressing a supposed growth of Satanism in the U.S. and the UK. Geraldo Rivera had, with much success, unleashed a similar program to the U.S. in 1987. According to Genesis's account of the events, a fundamentalist lawyer in Liverpool had convinced a couple of mental patients to relocate to a Christian safe house in the North of England where, through various methods including sleep deprivation they would confess to involvement in a Satanic cult, in this case Psychic TV. These individuals claimed they were forced to engage in various ghastly and unspeakable acts in the basement of the (basementless) house in Beck Road, Hackney, East London.
In Brighton, the swelling P-Orridge archives had already been extensive for decades. Oddly enough, actual controversial items, including sigils, were left untouched by the police. Amidst the many items, eventually what was procured was a videotape, some 10 years old at the time, of a supposed ritual murder which, according to a Sonic Envelope interview with GP-O, was actually made by John Balance and Sleazy. In the years since this episode, it would all seem like bad blood between Genesis and his ex-co-conspirators, as well as his homeland, has nearly all been absorbed. All charges were dropped, not long after the handover of power in the UK, and all the items returned.
Genesis and family heard from their lawyers in Britain that it wouldn't be safe to return home. The P-Orridge family approached Michael Horowitz who had offered them refuge if needed. Horowitz provided needed shelter and new connections such as Timothy Leary and Oliver Stone who hired GPO as a consultant for his adaptation of Wild Palms. Soon after the relocation to California, Genesis and Paula's marriage ended.
[modifier] Recent life
Genesis a déménagé à New York City avec sa deuxième femme, Lady Jaye, née Jacqueline Breyer et a débuté une expérience encore en cours visant à la création d'un être pandrogyne appelé "Genesis Breyer P-Orridge". Il s'est implanté des mamelons et a commencé à se référer à lui-même en tant que femme. Un livre comprenant poèmes, notes et observations intitulé S/He is Her/e a été publié au Népal.
In the mid 1990s, GP-O collaborated with different people in music, including Pigface and Skinny Puppy. Oddly, GP-O also performed with Nik Turner and a reinvention of Hawkwind, a band with whom he'd shared bills in the early 1970s.
In April 1995, GP-O won a $1.5 million lawsuit against producer Rick Rubin and his American Recordings label for injuries he sustained while trying to escape a fire at Rubin's home.[2] According to P-Orridge's attorney, David D. Stein, P-Orridge was staying at Rubin's home as a guest of Love and Rockets when the fire broke out. P-Orridge tried to escape the house by crawling through a second-story window and fell onto concrete stairs. P-Orridge suffered a broken wrist, broken ribs and a pulmonary embolism, as well as a shattered left elbow that will prevent him from playing guitar or keyboards, according to Stein. The jury found that the liability for the fire rested with Rubin and American Recordings and awarded P-Orridge $1,572,000 for his injuries.
In 1999, Genesis performed with the briefly reunited late 1980s' version of Psychic TV for an event at London's Royal Festival Hall. It was called Time's Up, also the title of the Thee Majesty CD release. The MC for the event, via pre-recorded video, was Quentin Crisp. A DVD was made of this event, which included the Master Musicians of Jajouka, ? & the Mysterians, Billy Childish, and Thee Headcoats.
In the 1999 World Serpent Distribution release of the Thee Majesty CD Time's Up, Jaqueline Megson is credited as providing Point Of View, Bryin Dall for Frequency Of Truth and Genesis as Divination Of Word.
In December 2003, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, calling himself Djinn, unveiled PTV3, a new act drawing upon the early "Hyperdelic" work of Psychic TV with media theorist Douglas Rushkoff among its members.
On May 16th, 2004 all four former members of Throbbing Gristle performed at the London Astoria for the first time in 23 years.
Genesis P-Orridge appears in the 1998 film and 2000 book Modulations. S/he also appears in the 2004 documentary film DiG!.
[modifier] Notes
- ↑ (en) Interview de Genesis P-Orridge sur Sonicenvelope.com
- ↑ (en) Genesis P-Orridge gagne un procès de 1.5M$ contre Rick Rubin sur VH1.com
[modifier] Bibliographie (en anglais)
- Ford, Simon. Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle. Black Dog Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1-901033-60-0
- P-Orridge, Genesis, Douglas Rushkoff (foreword), and Carl Abrahamsson (introduction). Painful but Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge. Soft Skull Press, 2002. ISBN 1-887128-88-3
- P-Orridge, Genesis. "Magick Squares and Future Beats." Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. The Disinformation Company, 2003: 103-118 ISBN 0-9713942-7-X
- Vale, V. and John Sulak (2001). Modern Pagans. San Francisco: Re/Search Publications. ISBN 1-889307-10-6
- Williams, Sheldon. "Genesis P-Orridge". pp. 770-772 in Naylor, Colin & Genesis P-Orridge (editors). Contemporary Artists. Macmillan Press/St Martin's Press, 1977. ISBN 0-333-22672-0
[modifier] Liens externes
- (en) Site officiel
