There’s been a glitch in the matrix, as the text accompanying this blog entry is not the original. What happened to what was written back on this day in 2005 is lost in time nor does Archive.org have a copy.
Sunset
From our front balcony looking west, the sun sets on a cloudy winter day in the desert of Phoenix, Arizona.
Steven Stapleton
Steven Stapleton is Nurse With Wound. The macro above is from a streaming video of Steven introducing his farm home to viewers of his website. Nurse With Wound was started in 1978 and has been going forward from Industrial to esoteric undefinable genres ever since.
Caroline Going to Work
Caroline heading into her office at Interactive Sites in the Scottsdale Airpark.
Throbbing Gristle Live at Camber Sands
I received Throbbing Gristle’s Live at Camber Sands this afternoon in the mail from Mute UK. After hearing TG Now studio recording from earlier this year I was impressed with the effort put into the recording from a band who hadn’t worked together in 23 years. Upon completing this last live gig, the band released a recording of the show 10 minutes after the end of the show; that is the CD that arrived today.
It was great to hear the chemistry of the Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Peter Christopherson, and Chris Carter meld after so many years of acrimony between them. Their feeling for the time is right on the mark; after hearing the new CD, I felt that they had taken the 70’s style of Industrial Music and brought it forward to 21st-century Industrial music. Instead of the manufacturing and grime of the ’70s, the soundtrack was transformed as an accompaniment to the service sector Kinko’s and Starbucks’s landscape of today.
Unfortunately, the group revisited old grounds when they performed a few songs from the old days; I suppose to keep the fans who attended the show feeling they got their money’s worth. For me, I would love to hear more of their interpretations of the current moment. From TG Now, the songs Splitting Sky, Almost Like This, and How Do You Deal are three of the best soundtracks I’ve heard this century; only X-Ray leaves me flat. On Live at Camber Sands, the band delivers a sobering show which, knowing that their good friend Geoff Rushton (Jhonn Balance of Coil) had recently died, is understandable. The mood of the performance was heavier than and not as focused as the TG Now studio or the live recording that was made immediately after TG Now was recorded. I still have a profound interest and great respect for the new recording as it is an absolute snapshot of our times via TG’s view of things but TG Now is more precise and far more prescient.
Camber Sands setlist is as follows as it is not printed on the CD and is not the easiest list to find: P-A D, What A Day, Greasy Spoon, Live-Ray, Hamburger Lady, Almost Like This, Splitting Sky, Convincing People, Fed Up, Wall of Sound.
My only wish is that this not be the last ever recording of Throbbing Gristle.
Balcony Snail
This rusting snail keeps plants on our balcony company and puts a smile on our faces as we walk by.
44th Century Sweden
Burned and worn-out shells of city blocks with broken streets are all that is left of civilization. No one over 50 can be seen. Going out can be problematic, but my guide, a woman about 30-something, has no problem maneuvering the landscape. She takes me to where she lives through a series of broken-out walls past other squatters who are living with the best shelter they can find, typically on the floors below the long-gone roofs and off the ground floor as a measure of safety. A school has been set up to try to preserve the language, logic, and civility skills, but the situation is precarious due to crimes committed in the effort to get things to trade. One of the students demonstrates, while in the woman’s living space, a glass device with two substances that come together to create a plasma containing electricity that flows over the flat piece of glass inside the glass bottle. Communication between species has changed as two animated lions are going on about something or other while lying on their backs, talking back and forth with one another.