Psychic TV, Aug 24, 2007 San Francisco by V. Vale, RE/Search
Psychic TV, Aug 24, 2007 San Francisco by V. Vale, RE/Search
Aug 24, 2007: Psychic TV (PTV3) at the Independent, San Francisco. With “The Dilettantes” and DJ Crack Whore. 628 Divisadero St.
I received an email from Genesis P-Orridge informing me that they were playing San Francisco Aug 24, Los Angeles the next day (Aug 25), and then flying to Europe where they were scheduled to do a 20-city tour starting in Russia…
My friend Gary Chong in L.A. called me up and asked if I were interviewing Genesis P-Orridge tonight. Which was a good thing – it prompted me to take my tape recorder. And next time I’ll take my digital camera with a completely blank memory card, mainly so I can shoot some low-fi video clips… Stephane, who worked on my first publication, Search & Destroy (1977-79) picked me up in her red-and-white truck…
The Independent is on Divisadero St one and a half blocks north of Fell St, and it has gone through various incarnations over the past several decades: the Kennel Club, etc. We’re guessing it holds about 600 people, including the rear balcony. As you face the stage, the bathroom is to the right, where the “merchandise” table/wall is located: T-shirts, CDs, etc. The interior paint is black.
It took about forty minutes to find parking – literally missed five spots. The logo for the Independent reads INdependent (but in all caps) and there’s a white neon marquee reading, at least tonight, “PSYCHIC TV.” People were in front smoking and talking, and a huge maroon tour bus was parked in front. We got our tickets plus yellow wristbands reading “The Independent” – I asked what they were for and the person taking tickets said, uncondescendingly, “They allow you into the balcony,” and then told me where the stairs to the balcony were. It turned out they weren’t “backstage passes.”
As soon as we entered the darkened interior we spotted Li Alin and Naut Humon – Naut knew the singer of the first band, the aptly-named “Dilettantes.” The singer had been with the Brian Jonestown Massacre. In his present “look” he wore a black wool cap, very dark glasses, and had short thick facial hair covering his cheeks and chin – kind of like a bear. But the songs seemed… boring, and worse, the volume was oppressively loud. Naut explained that this music was part of a traditional (70s?) “rock music” revival, but i thought, “So what?” After about ten minutes I finally said, “Let’s go outside,” and even though the weather was a bit too cool, this was infinitely preferable to being inside. I wondered why every club doesn’t have a “quiet room” for people who just want to talk, or escape from the loud volume / “bad” music of the main room.
Li started screening the people outside waiting in the ticket line, selectively giving them invites to a forthcoming Blixa Bargeld performance. Outside, I could actually see her – she was wearing a thin black coat with a tiny bit of red Chinese silk trim hedging the collar and front. We agreed that, if you wanted to commit a crime, it would be handy to have a reversible coat that was red on the inside and black on the outside… reversible clothes could be useful in many situations – especially, traveling. It was cold, so Stephane loaned Li her heavy coat, claiming she didn’t need it.
Various people were hovering around; a very tall woman with the largest Queen Bee beehive dreadlocks I’ve ever seen (must have weighed 10 pounds); another very tall woman with two black schoolgirl “pigtails” and wearing a red dress with enormous black platform boots; a pageboy blonde wearing long buckskin fringe, a woman in a tight sparkly red minidress, a red-haired girl wearing an army green jacket with a Psychic TV shoulder patch, a gray-haired man (with a younger woman) wearing a dark leather vest with a big, homemade (?) Psychic TV emblem on the back, other people mostly in dark colors. A friendly Doobie Brothers-looking man was waiting for his friend, and talked about another Psychic TV show he had seen. One man came up to chat to Naut, heavily tattooed, and he said, “If only Boyd Rice were here – then it would be a perfect evening.” I said, “I don’t agree,” and he said, “Yeah, that fascist Nazi stuff…” as though he had instantly changed his mind. Li and I agreed that there really was a very mixed crowd attending…
In the tour bus outside Naut and I thought we were watching Genesis P-Orridge put on some make-up, but it turned out to be the blonde bass player, Alice. Everyone else had gone inside, including our friends Birch and Sara, plus my niece Laura, and the first band had seemingly stopped playing, so I went in, too.
Li, Naut and I started passing out flyers for the Blixa Bargeld show – various people stopped me: “John,” who always sees me at APE Shows; another John, a shaven-headed young Asian man – friend of computer artist Richard Ross; another couple (the blonde woman had met me at —). Finally Li said, “Why don’t we go upstairs?” so we did. It turned out there were no (or virtually no) chairs, but at least we could be quite close and lean on the guard railings.
The Psychic TV cross was being projected on the huge movie screen behind the stage, and some very fast tongue-clicking rhythmic a capella “music” started – quite interesting to me at least, as I had never heard it before. (Was it postmodern Tibetan?) Apparently PTV had “dictated” the “transition” music playing before their live stage appearance. The content of the video footage / visuals throughout the show was interesting: footage of GPO and Miss Jackie Breyer (his companion) taking the subway (in Manhattan?), both receiving plastic surgery (or some medical procedure for making lips fatter, etc – this was a bit “gruesome”); some beautiful stills of Miss Jackie in various archetypal nude Steichen-like poses, through the magic of computer software whirling around in space, zooming toward you, etc; various slogans or aphorisms or words like “HATE” and “LOVE”; what looked like artfilm clips; and more. Was I imagining things, or was there a slow long zoom deep into a human vagina decorated with three piercing rings? Of course, there was a still of GPO (nude, with an apparent penis extension – or maybe he had some surgical enhancement?) floating off into Outer Space. (There were a lot more “loaded” images – Oh, to have a perfect “photographic” memory.)
As you face the stage, the dressing rooms are on the left, and finally we saw six band members ascend the stage and take their positions: first the bassist and tank-top-clad drummer, then the tall thin frizzy-haired guitarist; the blonde surfer-haired angelic-boy-faced keyboardist Marcus, the tall thin violinist / tambourinist, and Miss Jackie, tall and thin in a minidress with leggings, red hair (not blonde), sitting at the back at a small electronics set-up (she later told me she was “triggering samples,” although in one of the last songs I saw her playing percussively as though on an small electronic drum set-up). All the “stage outfits” bore different Psychic TV crosses, and the violinist had a jet-black Psychic Cross tattooed next to his right eye… that’s commitment! (It turns out that 20-year-old Hannah, one of the tour personnel, also had a big gray Psychic Cross tattooed on her left forearm. She made some of the Psychic Cross “jewelry” for the tour, etc.)
After the band started playing, Genesis P-Orridge came onstage with a Dynel blonde 60s poufy shoulder-length hairstyle, skinny tattoo-covered arms, sleeveless camouflage top, mini-skirt and leggings – very skinny legs – with black unisex booties about 7″ high.
The first song was one of the band’s “best” songs: “Are you really, really free?” but a much different version than I saw two years earlier at the DNA Lounge. It seemed slower and built and layered more gradually, but still, this is one of my favorite song lyrics, ever – a good question to ask yourself at least once a day, if not hourly.
It was too dark in the balcony to take my “traditional” notes, so I must rely on non-linear recall. A song that was both ironic and sincere at the same time contained these lyrics: “I like you…you’re very nice; I like you…you’re paradise” etc. Sang staring right at the audience, left and right. Another one of their best.
Midway through the concert, GPO announced, “The next song is for Dick Cheney, George W. Bush” [and etc]. “I never thought I’d write an anti-war song, but here it is.” Behind the band, a collage of old black-and-white “war” footage – reminiscent of first-generation “Industrial” live concerts – was projected behind. The lyrical hook was “What the hell are we fighting for?” – the best question, indeed…
A number of the songs started out more quietly or slowly, but suddenly slammed into full-bore hard-rock rhythms. The songs were long enough so that quite a few people seemed to almost go into a kind of trance state, dancing for eight or so minutes without stopping. Unfortunately, early in the evening a kind of “mosh pit” formed in the center front, causing some of the more attractive girls (including the blonde in the long buckskin fringe) to move to the side or disappear. The slam-dance virus refuses to die…
I have no idea how long the full set was, but it must have been at least an hour and a half, if not more. About halfway through, Naut came up and said that “they” were leaving – Li Alin was really tired and there was no place to sit down. Later, I was sorry she had missed the entire performance, because overall, it was an extremely variegated, well, “variety” show, really. From extreme noise to classic Rolling Stones-type rock music to almost New Age atmospherics… And lots of vocal effects, noise samples – a big variety of sounds and tonalities, often very musical – especially from the violinist, but really, from everyone.. The guitarist proved he could play with a band like the Rolling Stones and not be upstaged…
Near the end, the band members retired from the stage except for the violinist and GPO, who picked up a bottle/talisman and a black guitar and started playing pure noise and rhythm attacks, to the rather beautiful harmonic background (at least initially) provided by the violinist. It transformed into just pure noise and percussive sonics – which was resoundingly applauded by the audience. I felt GPO had “gotten away with something”…
One of my favorite songs’ lyrics could not be remembered by me, but it sounded very Sixties, with doo-doo-doo-doo harmony by GPO and the bassist – very pleasing song structure… At some point, GPO got very close to the audience and began holding hands, whispering (or shouting?) and kissing people – especially the more outrageous-looking girls in front. At one point there was a slightly “shocking” moment when a girl gave him a cigarette, lit it (big lighter flare) and he inhaled a puff, held it for a minute, then threw it down to the stage floor (the guitarist snuffed out the ash with his boot). GPO, after all, doesn’t smoke, but presumably accepted this “gift” as a symbolic, sympathetic-magic bonding of some kind…
At the end, GPO announced, “They tell us this is our last song… but they didn’t say how LONG it could be.” They played a long song, all right… exited the stage. After shouts, cheers and applause, they returned, led by the bassist, and did “I’m Suspicious,” whose basic harmonic structure pays homage to “Take a Walk on the Wild Side,” but mutates. Decidedly different musical hooks and melody lines were juxtaposed against the basic G-major to C-major chord background (or whatever it was). Genesis repeated, “They’ll let us play one more song… but they didn’t say how LONG it could be.” Another long improvisatory, transformative, song. Great.
After the show I ran into CUP who brought me to DUSTIN – both are in I AM SPOONBENDER who just improvised a live soundtrack to a screening of David Cronenberg’s CRIMES OF THE FUTURE at the Roxie Theater two weeks ago. Dustin said, “This film is a direct rip-off of Ballard. Cronenberg just ripped off Ballard.” I said I didn’t mind; Cronenberg has made a number of great films.
Dustin asked if I were still “into the Occult” and I said I was “thinking of getting back into it.” He seems “really into” Manly Palmer Hall – he has the centennial edition of Hall’s magnum opus SECRET TEACHING OF ALL AGES, and told me he has about 70 books by Hall – of the 200 written; although a lot of the “books” are really just 40-page pamphlets. Dustin is friends with the guitar player [?] in PTV who presumably put them on the guest list, and said he had been so busy recording “somebody” he could barely make it to the PTV show. He spoke of some “Republican” conspiracy involving hundreds of young children who disappear on Saturday and return home on Monday claiming they were taken to the White House and submitted to some occult rituals. He urged me to go see the “free” films at the Scientology Center on Columbus near Washington St but I said I would never go there; I’m afraid of the Scientologists. We talked about mind control and clearing engrams and subliminals and William Burroughs and Brion Gysin and how the Bush administration really has some major occult “magic” going of the blackest and worst kind, in their think-tank campaigns to brainwash the American “public.” I Am Spoonbender tries to infuse “subliminals” [presumably "good" ones] into their recordings. On some level they’re related to PTV – they opened for PTV a couple years ago at DNA Lounge…
Went backstage and realized anew how much I hate digital cameras – it takes forever to turn them on and be able to take a photo, and by then the moment is lost. Genesis was on a couch snuggled next to 3 young girls (maybe one was a tranny; couldn’t be sure) but by the time I got out my camera two of the girls had gotten up to leave. I sat down next to GPO and turned on my tape recorder … and the rest will be, someday, transcribed … [end] – v. vale, RE/Search & Search&Destroy founder, 1977 [Note: interviews with Genesis P-Orridge are in V. Vale’s Search & Destroy No. 6, RE/Search No. 1 (tabloid) Modern Primitives, the Industrial Culture Handbook,, and the latest V. Vale / RE/Search interview with Genesis P-Orridge appeared in MODERN PAGANS, still available here
