Psychic TV – Interview with The Face magazine 01/83

7 comments

1. 

   Martin C

   September 21, 2009 at 10:43 am

   The journo changed her mind about PTV somewhat, earlier this year…

   http://newhumanist.org.uk/2095

2. 

   TonyEhrfucht

   September 21, 2009 at 1:59 pm

   Heh heh funny,
   That tickled me… cheers for that. Anyone else got any At Home With The P-Orridges memories they’d like to share? I for one would love to hear them.
   Psychic TV were an awesome band at their peak though, around Live in Glasgow/Allegory and Self I would say. The Bardens Boudoir gig this year was hit and miss tho. David and Morrison hadn’t even bothered getting changed out of their tour bus gear. Come on guys, make an effort! Good venue tho and a great friendly crowd. Did anyone else go?

3. 

   john eden

   September 21, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   I went, first time I’d seen them for about 10 years. I thought they were pretty great.

   (first time was 87 at the Hackey Empire – write up here: http://www.uncarved.org/blog/2009/09/the-tenth-gig-i-can-remember-going-to/ )

   New Humanist published my response in their latest issue – and it looks like I’ve won half a dozen bottles of wine for my troubles!

4. 

   TonyEhrfucht

   September 21, 2009 at 3:59 pm

   Just tried to find your response John but couldn’t. Do you have a link to it?
   The Bardens gig was the first time I have ever managed to see them live, to my shame…

5. 

   john eden

   September 22, 2009 at 5:15 pm

   Hi Tony – the response isn’t online but basically I thought it was a bit odd that a humanist/rationalist/atheist mag would publish such a slag off without even mentioning the role that evangelical christians had in the C4 Dispatches programme which lead to the p-orridges exiling themselves from the UK.

   Anyway, more positively, I saw pretty much every PTV gig in London from the late eighties onwards and whilst they weren’t always amazing they were always fun. Keep an eye on the uncarved blog – there may be some more memories in there in due course 😉

6. 

   TonyEhrfucht

   September 23, 2009 at 9:17 am

   Thanks John,
   Would love to have seen those shows… I was up in Leeds at that point being well catered for gigs-wise by the punk circuit. And the fact that Red Lorry Yellow Lorry used to play all the time to supplement their housing benefit heh heh. Only ever ventured down to that London for marches etc.
   Aaaah, I didn’t know about the C4 Dispatches programme….
   I’ve always had a very sketchy knowledge of the reasons for their exile…
   I remember the really appalling Cook Report episode that led to the Sorcerers Apprentice in Leeds being firebombed.
   That was a strange time looking back, that satanic abuse hysteria, hard to believe it now. Read a great book about it at the time, wish I could remember the title… Witchcraft on Trial or something??
   Will keep an eye on your blog.

7. 

   Fiona Russell Powell

   November 4, 2011 at 8:41 am

   Hello boys! Someone just alerted me to the fact that you posted this interview of mine 2 years ago. Wish I’d known about it then and intrigued to know how you got your hands on it (although I can imagine). I know this is a bit after the event but I’d like to set the record straight for those who have commented on my 2009 piece in The New Humanist. Due to limited space, the editor had to cut out more incidents and anecdotes I recalled from the days when I knew Gen and Paula, although I preferred Sleazy and Geff who were charming company despite their little peccadilloes such as inviting one to a very proper English afternoon tea full of witty and stimulating conversation before Sleazy would get up to nail Geff to a cross and masturbate him (as you do). God rest their sweet souls. I met Gen and visited the Beck Road house several times between early 1983 and late 1984 while I was going out with Gen’s pal Mark Manning aka Zodiac Mindwarp and writing for The Face. I must confess I’d forgotten all about the interview you dug up. Now I’ve found my tapes too and it’s all come flooding back. After much courting and pestering by Gen, who was desperate to be in The Face, offering all sorts of incentives and constantly ringing me at my Old Street council flat to discuss “the interview” (annoyingly letting the phone ring off the hook until I was forced to get out of bed only to be told, repeatedly, that he “knew” I would answer the phone “on the 23rd ring”!), I agreed simply to get him off my back. I knew The Face had no interest in publishing an interview with him as I had already asked but I went through the motions simply to shut him up (recording it just in case someone, somewhere, would be interested). It took 26 years but you finally came through! I never wrote a word and didn’t take much of it seriously as I think is fairly clear. I don’t like to disappoint or to say I will do anything if I know I can’t deliver but I had tried my best and there was zero interest at the time by the most influential youth style and music mag in the UK. However, Gen was so persistent he just wouldn’t take no for an answer. In many ways, Gen reminded me of Aleister Crowley: the same burning ambition, the same compulsion to escape their backgrounds, the same schoolboy obsession with shocking suburbia while simultaneously courting notoriety, the attempts to hide such base desires with discourse, spectacle and flimflammery, an unpleasant habit of latching onto useful people and sucking them dry (in every sense), the uncanny ability to exploit the zeitgeist of the time then later proclaiming themselves to be the originators. Yes, the similarities are unmistakeable, except that Neil – to his infinite sorrow, I suspect – has always lacked the towering intellect, sexual charisma and formidable presence that Crowley naturally had. I don’t know why Gen behaved like such a tit when I went to interview him before the Bardens Boudoir gig. Maybe it was payback for the-interview-that-never-was from so long ago that you unearthed two years ago? Who cares? He’s an odd little man but one thing’s for sure, he’s VERY good value! All the best, FRP xxx