Heaven is Her/e: Genesis Goes Further Still
When I first came online at BB, a few people kindly asked for me to share some of what it was like to play keyboards for Psychic TV. It was magnificent, life-affirming, a bit grueling, but as total an experience as transcendent sex. For me, rehearsals were actually more fulfilling than performance - it felt like we could experiment more freely there than onstage with real paying people listening and watching. Plus, it's a hell of a harder harder to hear what you're doing in most stage settings with monitors and everything going on than it is in a little rehearsal room with an amp and a beer. But still, onstage with Genesis, there was this overwhelming sense of fun. Pure joy, even during the most aggro songs. That was unexpected. This sense of being part of a family of weird, loving, geeks just trying to bring everyone into the spirit of shared celebration and experimentation. Very much the way I see BoingBoing. But it was scary as well, and having a front man as self-assured and quick-witted as Gen made us all feel safe. He was the interface between us and the potentially unruly crowd; in the realm of musical performance, which was quite new to me, his was a very welcome presence.
I managed to co-write and record one song, "Lies and Then." Then responsibilities of new fatherhood forced me to pass the keyboards onto to Marcus, who has been with the band for the past two years, and bringing the sound to all sorts of new places.
Last year, Gen's partner in art and life, the amazing Jackie Breyer P-Orridge (Lady Jaye), died of a sudden seizure. Gen and I met to speak shortly after - he wanted to get down a lot of his first feelings before they changed. That whole conversation will appear in The Believer in January. They've kindly given permission for me share an advance snippet from the part where we're talking about our first PTV show after Gen's "big change."
Rushkoff: And when we played that first PTV show at the Coral Room, right after you got the breasts - to be on stage and see those guys' faces then they have to come to terms with seeing Gen like this. They were all modeling what they thought was Gen’s - for lack of a better word, machismo. ‘Oh, he can stick a spike in his balls and survive… Okay, now, the person I’ve been ‘modeling on’, whose tattoos I have on my skin, is now crossing a boundary that is really frightening to me. That was sort of the greatest gift, I thought…Genesis: "Even further…"
R: Yeah…"even further."
G: Well, that was one of the reasons we terminated the ‘Topy’ project in 1991 was exactly that; the people who were doing the whole ‘accessorizing’ again; just as we did ‘industrial’ 10 years before… and the final postcard that we sent out, as you know, just said ‘changed priorities ahead’. Which was a traffic sign I saw as we were driving along one day and I looked up and there was this sign and I thought ‘That’s it’!
R: I wonder what that even means in the context of traffic. It's a great sign off, though: changed priorities.
G: …and that was it; that was the last message. Oh, I though it was great; it was an enigmatic final message from this huge network which says ‘change priorities ahead’.
R: And now the priorities change again….
G: Yes.
G: Yes.
R: We don't have to.
G: No, it's hard, but I should.
R: Maybe we should start at the beginning. For those who might have no idea what pandrogyny is about. I mean, you have big breasts and wear women's clothing. What's the difference between pandrogyny and transvestitism or transgender?
G: Well, the main difference is that pandrogyny is not about gender it’s about union. The union of opposites. One way to explain the difference is very easy: with transgender people the man might feel that he’s trapped - the person feels they're a man trapped in a woman’s body, or a woman trapped in a mans body. Where as in pandrogyny you’re just trapped in the body. The body and DNA are a real concern as is the breaking down of consensus or as we would say consensus reality. So pandrogyny is very much about the union of opposites, and through that reunion the transcendence of this binary world and this illusory, polarized social system.
R: Doesn’t that happen in sex, anyway?
G: Of course the orgasm. When people have an orgasm together that’s a moment of pandrogyny. And when people have a baby, the baby is pandrogynous, sexually. Because it is literally two people becoming one.
R: So then these memes - this ability to transcend polarity and gender - are already at our disposal. Why do it the way you are, through surgeries and implants and all this medical activity? All the social challenges of getting into the ladies' room as a pandrogene. How does the literal cutting and pasting of gender traits dissolve these polarities any more than it underscores them?
G: Well as you know it went in steps. In the beginning it was very much romantic. Jay and I decided we didn’t want to have children. But we still got that urge to blend, to merge and become one. I think the heart of a lot of the romance in couples, whatever kind of couple they are, is that they want to both just be each other - to consume each other with passion. So we wanted to represent that. First we did it by dressing alike. Then we started to do minor alternations to our bodies. Then we decided that we would try as hard as we could to actually look like each other in order to strengthen and solidify that urge. So it was initially a very self-centered thing to do.
But once we started to think about it we realizee that it was a bit like William Burroughs and Brion Gysin in The Third Mind, where they said the two of them together, will no longer be the writer of the piece, where it’s the two things cut up and being reassembled. That was the product of the Third Mind…when they did cut-up’s. Well we thought if we use each other as separate artists, or individuals and we cut ourselves up maybe we can create a third entity, which is the padrogyne, so that’s very much the third being…a new state of being.
Burroughs always used to always talk to me about how you short-circuit control. And Jay and I talked a very long time about that. And we decided that DNA was very much the recording - the tool of control. Perhaps even DNA is a parasite and we're just the vessels at its disposal.
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wow, thanks for the read and bit of music historical context.
During an estate sale I found a small box of cd's (mostly trashed stuff) but one of the best things I've found in there was Jack the Tab. There was no box and it was just in a plain paper sleeve. For some reason no computer or more modern car system has been able to read and/or rip it so I rarely listen to it. For me it was one of those truly unique things in life that invited and fostered change.
(P.s. your links aren't working)
Thank you
Thank you for the great interview.
I had the chance to see Psychic TV shortly before Lady Jaye's passing and it was a beautiful performance, one that I will always remember.
Serious question: what is "transcendent sex"?
Thanks Doug, I think Gen is a fascinating individual. If he didn't exist I fear that we could not invent him. A true original.
"Perhaps even DNA is a parasite and we're just the vessels at its disposal. "
Nah, that's crazy talk.
Aha! Now it makes sense. I got hold of a copy of "Ecstasy Club" a couple of years after it came out and thought it was a pretty good read, but the acid house and rave scene had already run its course. parties were either safely indoors or hounded out of existence (though I did go to a nice little rave outside Valencia about 9 years ago.) I didn't realize you'd actually been in "Renn A. Sanz"'s band.
If it ever got made into a movie I'd enjoy it, but I think we need more time to get 9/11 out of our systems so we can relate to cultural oddities like the late '80s / early '90s rave scene.
Anyway, great piece. Gen is probably the only leader of a movement who who ever called it quits when it started turning into a cult.
Rushkoff, you are hot stream of water pouring into the tepid boingboing bathtub. Thanks for warming it up in here.
I know that that compliment was intended sincerely, but it seemed a little, uhm, lukewarm.
Sorta reminiscent of Vogon poetry.
by transcendent, i meant the kind of experience where you lose the sense of your personal boundaries and feel as though you are connected to something bigger than yourself.
#3
I felt the same way about seeing Coil play in Dublin at DEAF 2004.
John Balance's performance that night was so inspired and so vital. He made an intense connection with everyone in the audience. It was shocking to hear of his accidental death.
I had similar feelings when the Albany, NY based multimedia artist, writer and musician James Kopta died in 2002.
They both hammered the bars of reality's cage hard enough to make it shudder and ring. Cherish them for this always.
I, on the other hand, merely warm the pool when it is stone cold. Hence the beer.
@JDJ: If you have to ask....
Having been at your Coral Room show, as well as the gig at Bowery Ballroom, you seemed to be having a blast, and I hope the two of you get to directly collaborate again before too long.
I don't know if it's verboten to say or think in light of the tragedy of Jaye's sudden death, and I'd hope Gen would be the last one to poohpooh an idea, so I'll out with it: As long as Gen and Jaye were attempting semantic fusion into a single entity, might that "program" have meant that at least one of their physical persons would become defunct? At the end of most forms of fusion I can think of, there's only a single item left. Has that thought occurred to Gen, and if so, does he feel somewhat responsible for that consequence? Why or why not?
Takuan, peeing in the pool does little to warm it.
seen my bladder? In any case, thanks for showing me this music.
@14
I actually thought a lot about that, too, and nibbled around the edges of such questions. Gen doesn't see it that way, and if he feels responsible at all, it's more in the more typical ways a spouse might wonder if he could have had more influence over her lifestyle decisions.
From the outside, it looked to a lot of us like Jackie was being more absorbed into Gen's trip than Gen into Jackie's. Still, you have to remember it was Gen getting a majority of the surgery, and taking the greater personal risks in his transformation.
And Gen has since dedicated a lot of time to showing people what sort of artist Jackie was in her own right, even if she was a bit less front and center when the press came around.
I can definitely attest to her contribution to the work, even if it was a more subtle and receptive influence. She really could just give a look that made you realize you were onto something great or totally stupid.
repost, but perhaps apt;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YO9FpWX57E
Late to the party, but as others' have said - thank you for this.