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I can't remember the last time Cosey and I were this busy, probably during our early to mid Nineties period. But then it was recording, performing and working on projects almost exclusively related to Chris & Cosey. And although we've always had Cosey's solo Art career running in parallel with what the two of us work on together it's since 2002 that we've had to factor in ever increasing amounts of Throbbing Gristle and Industrial Records related work and projects. But during the last 12 months TG & IR has at times almost taken over our lives (well mine & Cosey's at least) and has impacted our own solo and CarterTutti projects pretty drastically.
Even if you haven't read the TG book 'The Wreckers of Civilization' you may know that the core of TG/IR (the TG four) has always been run as a democratic co-oprative cottage industry. In as much that everything we do is decided by a majority vote, all our income is shared equally and we try keep as much as possible of what we do and how we do it 'in-house' - or 'in the family'. No matter what it may appear like to outsiders the realm of TG/IR is not a dictatorship, and it never has been. In the early days: the 1970s' & 80s', that literally meant everything, well except physically pressing records. We even ran our own cassette duplication facility, churning out thousands of cassettes and covers from a converted kitchen in Hackney. I used to rent or borrow vans and Genesis and me would deliver vinyl, cassettes, t-shirts and merch in person all over London. This was apart from all the equipment building, recording, editing, mastering, filming, videoing, performing and self-promotion we did. And for most of that period we all had regular day-jobs too.
So here we are in 2009... and there are obviously still aspects and areas within TG & IR that we individually excel at or specialise in, or are sometimes co-opted into out of necessity. But it seems a lot of what we do nowadays, to keep TG running smoothly (or at all) falls on the shoulders of Cosey and me. And if we didn't 'step up to the plate' as often as we do (which is pretty much all the time) I honestly think TG would fade out of existence and cease to exist as a living, working collective.
Just telling it like it is....
A project I'm working on at the moment is a tribute to the late J.G. Ballard. This will (hopefully) take form as a double-sided 12" vinyl release featuring a track by myself on one side and a track by Richard H. Kirk on the other. My track is about 75% complete, more release details when I have the info.
Cosey and myself are still (yes still!) working on our Feral Vapours film, currently re-shooting and re-editing various parts but ultimately getting there. I'm hoping for an early 2010 release, but then again I said that this time last year. Ho hum...
I've been getting inundated with collaboration requests lately, well since the TG tour. So if you are reading this and you've written to me with a project proposal please bear with me and I will get back to asap, I promise: even if it's to say "sorry but no".
I really can't remember a time when we've been this busy, and so consistently throughout the year. Not that I'm complaining (much) as I guess we're lucky to be earning a living in a recession. But some time off for even a short break would be nice once in a while.
I've been getting concerned emails and comments on the interweb about my 'gear sales' on eBay.
Basically saying: "are you mad?, why?, please don't, are you short of cash?, they should be in a museum, keep them, don't sell them" and so on and so on. I'm sure you get the drift.
They are all valid points, and yes I can absolutely see where these concerns are coming from and no I'm not doing it for the cash, well not at the moment at least. I have kept back some 'unique'ish' TG items: the Gristleizers, some other hand-made fx units, a Bolex movie camera, a 'blood-stained' microphone and a couple of battered TG flight-cases. But I have a history of 'off-loading gear and moving on' every 5-10 years or so and previously I'd sold (my personal) TG and C&C gear to private collectors and through specialist auction houses. This time it's through eBay and it's generated a certain amount of interest and forum chatter. I'm not going to attempt to justify what I'm doing, I don't need to but I will explain my reasoning.
Well, apart from (the not inconsiderable) space considerations, I just don't use some of this gear anymore and I'd like other musicians to 'take up the mantel', so to speak and carry on using it while it all still works (and hopefully in new and interesting ways). One of the main reasons I started selling my old gear 10-15 years ago was that much of it was failing, malfunctioning or broken and I was spending a small fortune trying to keep it all going. So I sold it to buyers who could afford to repair, cherish and use it to make music for a few years more, as it deserved. I'm not the only member of TG who's passed on 'retired' gear so that others can get something else out of owning it either.
Also one of my morbid fears is that Cosey and I (or even all TG) will die in a plane crash and our TG and C&C archive, which even apart from the gear is MASSIVE (it literally fills a whole room in our old 'school' house) will be dumped in a land-fill never to be seen or used by anyone ever again. Irrational and possibly quite improbable I know... but hey! that's me.
Now... if someone from a museum or gallery wants to take this lot off my hand's I'm sure we could come to some arrangement but they'd better hurry.
Just returned form our jolly jaunt to Italy during which we had a wonderful time in Venice and Pisa. Venice is an amazing city, plus we met up with some friends there which made our stay even more enjoyable... and the show completely sold out too! I have posted a few photos on my Flikr pages. The performances were very well received, even though we changed our Carter Tutti set slightly (from our previous LA 'quad' show) and decided to play it as an hour-long continuos set, without any breaks. Which was a bit of a gamble as it doesn't give the audience a chance to applaud between songs, but hey... we're not a rock n' roll band. Our 're-tweaked' video projections also got a very positive reaction and looked amazing. And yes... we will be releasing the visuals on DVD, hopefully this year.
Our CTI (Conspiracy International) back-catalogue has finally started to appear on iTunes and a few albums are now available to buy: click this C&C iTunes link. It's a vast catalogue of albums and we have no control in what order they appear but one of the first is a new Chris & Cosey compilation: COLLECTED WORKS 1981-2000, it features rare & hard to find C&C tracks from the last 19 years: full details are on the CarterTutti.com site. My own solo albums will also be available soon too. Click this link for what's currently available.
Just got a new Quad G5, very happy (an early Xmas pressie to myself but paid for by Sony Columbia work, and thanks' to Apple for such a generous discount). Very busy prepping new & old material for the TG Berlin shows and post-recording sessions. We're playing one show in four channel/quad so trying out lots of interesting placement ideas. Cosey's up to her eyes collating, cataloguing and packing our TG archive material for the Berlin Art exhibition, it's gonna be amazing. The C&C+CTI catalogue (ALL of it!) has now been sent off to be magically transformed into downloadable files for iTunes and such sites... hurrah! We've had to close our on-line web store due to 'technical difficulties'... Booo!. But it will be back in the New Year, just bigger and better! In the meantime most of our current catalogue can be found on Amazon and in all good records stores.
And if I don't see you in Berlin Happy Xmas and New Year!
We never seem to get any time off these days, always tired, we really need a break, or better still a holiday!
A few tracks on the new TG album have to be re-recorded/remastered, bah!
Continuing to encode metadata for the C&C catalogue downloads.
Thinking about buying new G5 Macs, we're still using our aging, lowly G4s.
Music from my 'Ear One' album has been used in the trailer for the new movie 'Into The Blue', which is nice!
Spent the whole month mixing and mastering the new TG abum. Just begun encoding our entire C&C catalogue with the metadata needed for uploading to iTunes. This is going to take some time...
Annual studio clearout !... Even more C&C (and TG) gear for sale!
Rehearsing for Carter Tutti June performances.
Compiling & tweaking material for TG live recording session.
RE~TG RESCHEDULED - ticket holders wishing to attend the TG recording READ THIS (dead link)
I've recently finished remastering some C&C back catalogue albums, a new C&C live CD and Cosey's forthcoming EAR4 album. Also for the last few weeks I have been trying to get my head around 'Ableton Live' and 'Logic 6' software. We've pretty much sussed out 'Live' now, in fact Cosey used it extensively on her new Selflessness project.
And we've finally started some serious work on our much delayed studio album, which will be released under our new monker: Carter Tutti.
Changing times ahead...
April:
It's that time of year again and I'm rationalising the studio (yet again), which means I have a bunch of gear for sale. Follow this link for more details (ebay link expired).
March:
No news updates lately as I've been busy and there always seemed to be something that needed doing more than updating this site (till now that is).
I've been editing and mastering/remastering some C&C and CTI material (more news on that soon). Also, since the TG24 launch and TG exhibition we've been involved in another TG related project that we'll be announcing in a month or so.
We've also aquired some new gear and audio & video software, which we're very excited about and once we've got to grips with it all we'll be using it for some new projects and releases in the coming year.
Our Chris & Cosey gig in Antwerp went very well. Big thanks to all of you who travelled to Belgium see us.
We will be releasing CD (and maybe a DVD) of the performance next year.
That performance was our last show as Chris & Cosey - a change of name and direction of music are coming...
Me and Cosey played another DJ set at the recent Mute IRREGULAR #9 in London. We had a really good time and we'd like to thank all those who came along to make the evening a superb event and particularly to all those bopping along to our spins.
We met up with a few faces from the past, some label mates and a lot of Chris & Cosey and TG fans too. Praise too to Vic20 and Richard Kirk for some particularly fine performances.
We've had a few more DJ offers since so maybe this could be an enjoyable offshoot of C&C.
Well we're back from our jaunt to the sunshine State and a great time we had too! We met up with many old and dear friends and also went a bit 'shopping crazy'. If I get some spare hours I'll post a few holiday pictures here at some point. We came back to a few hundred emails and the jet lag seemed to linger longer than usual but I'm pretty much back up to speed with current projects. The TG boxed set masters have been burned and approved and I'll be delivering them to Mute in a week or so.
We intend to start work on our new C&C album in the coming months, more news on that as and when it happens.
We (myself and Cosey) have finished the second track of our collaboration with Mortal Loom and it sounds fab. The completed tracks will be released on the next Mortal Loom album later this year.
Most of the CD re mastering and production work for the Throbbing Gristle 24-hour CD boxed set is completed. However, the release date has been moved back and is now officially the 23rd December 2002. This is to ensure we get the complex packaging and parts exactly as we intend. Believe me this is going to be one hell of a release and definitely worth waiting for. In the meantime there will be an announcement from Industrial / Mute Records regarding an interim TG release.
I'm currently experimenting with recording and mixing complete tracks on my Apple iBook while on the road (plane, train, hotel etc.). If all goes well the results should hopefully see fruition next year in the form of a CD release.
A review of my new EAR3 CD is available to read here. (link expired)
We've recently finished the first part of a collaboration project, a song called Fade To Black, with US band Mortal Loom. We're all very pleased with the results and hope to start work on a second track in March/April for release on their label this winter.
Last week I put together a one off DVDR of the Throbbing Gristle Heathen Earth recording for showing at the forthcoming Hotel Sub Rosa exhibition at the Marc Foxx Gallery in Los Angeles. This group show features artists represented by London based Cabinet Gallery and also includes new art works by Cosey and a rare public showing of the above TG video.
I'm currently re mastering the forthcoming Industrial / Mute release of the Throbbing Gristle 24-hour CD boxed set. This is a mammoth task and consist of wading through more than 50 original TG performance cassettes to find the best versions in terms of quality and content. Much of the first stage is done (the listening and checking part) and I'm now transferring the tapes in real time into our G4 Mac. Once the transfers are complete I will carry out some minor restoration work on the noisier sounding tapes and eventually edit each gig into a continuous 60 minute CD friendly format. For the technically inclined I'm using a Sony 'WMD6C Professional' cassette deck interfaced to a Roland VM3100 Pro mixer, which is digitally connected to the G4 Mac running TCWorks SparkXL for the transfer, recording and editing process. At the moment I'm averaging about two gigs a day and hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll be finished editing and into final CD 'red book' mastering stage.
As you can probably imagine listening to raw unedited TG material for 6-8 hours a day can be pretty brain numbing so I'm organising other occasional activities to stop myself going completely gaga. One of these is a remix for the UK band ndot. They're a very talented duo who I've done a few of remixes for in the past and I find collaborating with them very enjoyable. Hopefully you should be able to check out my finished mix and their other works and projects on their web site in the coming months.
Any techno types out there can read my review of the new Moogerfooger range of effects pedals in the current (February) issue of SoundOnSound magazine.
Lastly thank you to everyone who remembered my birthday and a special thanks to the anonymous person in Scotland who sent me a couple of exceptionally fine saucy DVDs.
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