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Forgive Us Our Synths
Sounds, Jan. 10th 1981
Writer: John Gill
Pictures: Mike Laye
This might have been titled: 'We Come To Bury Electronic Music, Not Praise It'. A meeting of the grandiose and grotesque from different areas of electronics, brought together to poke, pry and, maybe, present some explanation for electronic rock. What had tottered as the electronic edifice fell noisily about our ears. Some parts were fun, some vicious. Much of it would have fascinated a rock psychoanalyst. Not much of it would fascinate a musicologist, as the subject of style and lineage was quickly ditched in favour of an argument about such basics as motivation and integrity.
But anyway, the cast, and apologies for absence: Karl Blake of Lemon Kittens, Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle. Danielle Dax of Lemon Kittens, John Fothergill of Nurse with Wound (silent presence), Phil Oakey of the Human League, Genesis P. Orridge of Throbbing Gristle. Boyd Rice of Non, Nash The Slash (sans mask), Cosey Fanny Tutti of Throbbing Gristle. Anthony and Paul of the Two Daughters, Tremble and Tanith, alias Throbbing Gristle's dogs (sniffs and rustles), Adrian Wright of the Human League. a photographer, a DinDisc press officer and me.
OMITD were on tour in Europe, Fad Gadget was on his honeymoon, John Foxx was recording an album and Daniel Miller was struck down by 'flu. Gary Numan was asked, but we think he had a flying lesson. The balance between formal and experimental was weighted towards the avants, merely by chance, so this should be taken into consideration. And, for their sake and mine, it should be said that this is not a verbatim transcript. From around three hours of tape, some parts are barely audible in the chatter, others lost because people were whispering across the room to the central tape; obvious excisions and editorialisations have also been made.
Now I ain't no teacher setting Form 4a discussion subjects, nor am I Russell Harty: the visual similarity is pure coincidence. This was their chat show, so l only offered as a starter for ten, a thumb-nail theory of how electronics might have leapt over the fence in the Sixties into rock. Which I still find surprising.
"Do you?" The first confrontationist volley from Genesis. "It's obvious." West Coast experimentalist Boyd says. "It would seem obvious that someone would take it electronics and water it down to make it commercial. I think there were certain people in electronic music who made it more repetitive, like Kraftwerk, they made it a bit more ordinary. And people took that as a point of departure."
"I think the music follows the technology," Genesis counters. "Musicians see things around them and play with them, like toys, to start with. Some of them push it to extremes and mutate it, or stick it together in a way no-one else did. I think that all the people who are here do is play music that is amplified. I don't think it's electronic music. That implies some kinda Stockhausen."
Why?
"It all started with Stockhausen," Boyd risks. Genesis adds: "The phrase electronic music implies, to me, a very intellectual, academic approach that goes into the very precious classic Deutsche Grammophon (thing)." Boyd continues the duet: "People seem to be too conscious that they're working with electronics and they get too involved in electronic music. It's like surf music or something, singing songs about surfing or about electronics or technology. It seems real kind of trite. It seems like a lot of them are either pretending to be alienated by technology, or to love technology."
Genesis couldn't have got a better cue to fire across the League's bows, and he asks: "Was it you (The League) in the daily papers a year ago saying you'd heard of this great new instrument called the synthesiser?"
It was probably Gary Numan. But the League don't answer anyway. But doesn't anyone see some link back to the avant-garde?
"It's mostly rock people using electronics to produce rock stuff," Nash offers. You mean they've just appeared and sound like the antecedents they claim the don't have? "l'm sure." He continues "some of the main people in the electronic scene were more different, form-wise and stuff, and I think the popularisers. Numan and Foxx, just take a few of the elements and add them to the commercial."
"That's the way it's going" Boyd charges "And it's probably going to get worse and worse. Now there's a whole market of people listening to stuff like that and they're going to be thinking I want to do something like that".
The far from Kittenish Karl has even grimmer news. "A lot of the 'movement' is a money-based thing, in that a lot of the equipment to make the sounds has become a lot cheaper". Genesis sings the praises of the budget-priced Wasp synthesiser, which has "liberated" both the music and the musician by its cheapness and availability. "The great thing about the Wasp is that… people like us, we haven't gone on about it being ten years on the road, paying your dues, learning the chords. So they (the kids) don't feel intimidated. You don't need any great knowledge before you can twiddle on a Wasp. But that doesn't mean they're all going to produce something wonderful."
To drag you all back to the original subject, would any of you care to agree with, disagree with or completely ignore the possibility that there are two distinct steams in electronics - the populist and the experimental?
Characteristically, all but Chris Carter (one of the few Voices Of Reason present) choose the third option. "There are definitely two camps in the so-called electronic music field," Chris says. "You've got the John Foxx, Gary Numan, Orchestral Manoeuvres type, and you've got... the people in this room and they're completely different, I don't know about the Human League."
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