Genesis P-Orridge: troubling catalyst who loathed rock yet changed it for ever

With Throbbing Gristle, P-Orridge inadvertently helped invent an entire genre – industrial musicFor someone who occasionally purported to hate rock music – it was, a homemade T-shirt s/he was fond of wearing in the 1970s proclaimed, “for arselickers” – Genesis Breyer P-Orridge ended up having a vast influence on it. With Throbbing Gristle, P-Orridge inadvertently helped invent an entire genre – industrial music, its name taken from the band’s Industrial record label – which, over the years, developed and mutated from a misunderstood and frequently reviled cult into a platinum-selling concern.Intent on, as one writer put it, “bursting open the blistered lie [that] rock and roll culture was telling about rebellion and transgression”, virtually every one of Throbbing Gristle’s radical, confrontational ideas was gradually subsumed into something approaching the mainstream. Electronic producers queued up to pay homage to the band, whose resident technical wizard Chris Carter may or may not have invented the first sampler by dismantling a series of cassette recorders and linking them to bandmate Peter Christopherson’s keyboard: Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig named a 1991 EP Four Jazz Funk Classics in homage to TG’s 1979 album 20 Jazz Funk Greats. Continue reading…
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