As it’s Mother’s Day we’d like to dedicate this to all the absent mothers of the young boys here tonight. I’m sure if they were here tonight they’d wonder if it was worth all the money they’re paying.
Genesis P. Orridge introducing the TG set at Oundle, March 16, 1980.
On a Sunday in 1980, Throbbing Gristle gave an hour-long performance before 70-or-so teenage boys and a few teachers at Oundle School in Northamptonshire.
Chris Carter, the late Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, Genesis P. Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti were booked by 17-year-old pupil Nigel Jacklin, who had previously corresponded with P. Orridge. As head of the boarding school’s “Rock Soc”, Jacklin was entitled to choose one band a year to play a concert there and apparently hoodwinked teachers by telling them that TG’s music was akin to that of minimalist composer John Cage.
Jacklin certainly didn’t draw the school authorities’ attention to TG’s inextricable links to Coum Transmissions, the art/performance collective famously dubbed “wreckers of civilisation” by a Tory MP after the Prostitution exhibition at the ICA four years previously.
My friend the screenwriter Nick Vivian, then 15, was among the boarders in the audience. His belief that the event was “life-changing” is borne out by the extraordinary scenes in the film TG made of the gig, which also included footage shot in the medieval town and in the school grounds.
“They played in the Great Hall, the same place where we had whole school assemblies, speech day, public exams, etc,” says Nick.
“I’d been to my first gig, The Clash in Lewisham, a month before which was pretty mind-altering and then to follow that with this experience was something else.”
While some students responded well, and there were wolf-whistles (complimentary) for Fanni Tutti and (derisory) for P.Orridge, others were horrified; at one stage a group started singing Blake’s Jerusalem as a protest against what they were seeing and hearing.
TG viewed the Oundle performance as among their best. “They went crazy,” P.Orridge later recalled. “The little ones from prep school were there, and because they had no preconceptions and just felt the energy of the sound, they loved it. I think some of the teachers were a little confused.”
View a taster of the performance with footage shot by TG at the school and in its grounds here and below:
The entire Oundle concert has been released as part of The Video Archive Of Throbbing Gristle, available here.
Thanks to Nick Viv for drawing my attention to this incredible event.
rob jessup
April 5, 2017 at 2:48 pmIm on fascination street ! this piece is brilliant to think also that Gen was a former boarding school boy this gig must of had him going through all the memories and emotions, whats particulary rattling is the intro as well the spooky eerie feeling of the school , and thanks for pointing out who the person who booked them was , Nigel Jacklin, I read on a youtube comment it was John Balance from coil – anyway I have just been on a thoroughly enjoyable morning reading up on all this after watching this vid last night and then finding your article . TG and Genesis as important as the pistols , in my book anyway 😉 thanks again im now a rabid fan
Richard Page
March 28, 2018 at 9:27 amI have been meaning to read Cosey Fanni Tutti’s autobiography Art Sex Music for some time now and definitely will having listened to her and actor Maxine Peake in conversation on R4 this morning (worth checking out on Listen Again: Only Artists). Hearing this programme took me back to this performance at Oundle school which was one of the most curious events I have ever attended. I was 17 and remember positioning myself on the steps at the front left leading onto the stage so I got a good view of both band and the audience. It was an extraordinary event and I realised then and there that is what it was. It had me totally bemused, while the music was so much noise to me then (I didn’t and don’t care so much for machine made music and at that point had maybe only just begun to appreciate Kraftwerk, plus I think Nigel may have played me The Normal, but maybe I imagining that), the confrontational element had me hooked. Teh finale where Genesis was goading the boys, maybe engaging in a chant of ‘willy wank’ over this industrial grind while some boys responded by singing Jerusalem was fantastic. It wasn’t rock’n’roll but it was something worth witnessing and processing. I wasn’t particularly happy at school and got a funny feeling watching those opening shots – the past is another country – but in many ways I had a good education at Oundle, including being able to say that I had supper with Genesis P Orridge. He was charming then, though I hear he does not come out so well from Cosey’s book. By the end of that year I had moved to London to start Univeristy and was happy in the anonymity of the smoke, it was a liberation. Girls, gigs, pubs, politics. Oundle was in many ways progressive but I still felt incarcerated there.
A Nonymous
June 24, 2018 at 10:37 amThis indeed was a seminal gig. The video was taken by Stan Bingo, later of Last Few Day, now fairly successful film maker (Daniel Landin). Other guests included Allen Adams (a local TG fan involved in Nigel’s Alien Brains non-collective) and a few other people who came down from London. There were two gigs a year at the school with outside bands…Nigel tried to get Swell Maps for the second one, but they were busy and recommended The Barracudas…with a film (Led Zeps the Song Remains the Same) in the third term. There was also a concert featuring school bands, an excerpt of which appears as the intro on the Alien Brains LP ‘It’s All History Now’ in which all you hear is his (punk) friend ‘Elvis’ saying “there’s gonna be a riot soon…I fucking hope so anyway” whilst the crowd is heard shouting “bring on the Stan band” (asking for a more conventional rock offering). Nigel invited the Industrial Records crew down for lunch; as he already knew TG fairly well he had support act Monte Cazzazza and Tanya Emelo sit with him, whilst TG went to other houses.
Throbbing Gristle | WitchesBrewPress's Blog
March 29, 2020 at 12:56 pm[…] Throbbing Gristle continued on their subversive mission. Their first gig abroad was performed in front of the Berlin Wall, before the unification. In 1980, the four piece performed a concert at an English all boys boarding school. […]