uncarved.org blog

well, not a lot of people know that

Alistair on Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV and the progression from the former to the latter.

Very interesting for me as this is way before my time, but also because Alistair wasn’t completely immersed in that scene (tho connected to it) and so has a first hand, yet detached, view of what it was like.

Talking of FOPI, their site now includes a recent interview with Alaura O’Dell aka Paula P-Orridge reflecting on her time with Gen, PTV and TOPY, which I found very interesting.

And also some amusing anecdotes from the recent PTV3 tour…

Nicky Crane grew up in Crayford. He was an archetypal bonehead in the 70s, becoming the Kent organiser for the neo-nazi British Movement by the end of the decade.

A photograph of Crane ended up on the cover of the “Strength Thru Oi!” LP which was complied by Garry Bushell for Sounds and released on Decca in 1981:

“Under looming deadline pressure I suggested using a shot from a skinhead Xmas card which I believed was a still from the Wanderers movie. In fact it had been taken by English skinhead photographer Martin Dean. It wasn’t until the very last minute, when Decca had mocked up the sleeve that the photo was sufficiently clear to reveal Nazi tattoos. We had the option of either airbrushing the tattoos out or putting the LP back a month while we put a new sleeve together…”

There was an expose by the Daily Mail a few months later, also revealing that Crane was then doing a four year stretch for racist violence. Decca deleted the record and Bushell got all indignant:

“Me, at that point in my life a dedicated socialist (used to having ‘Bushell is a red’ chanted at me at gigs), accused of masterminding a right-wing movement by a newspaper that had once supported Mosley’s Blackshirts, Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia, and appeasement with Hitler right up to the outbreak of World War Two…”

On his release from prison, Crane hooked up with Ian Stuart Donaldson, the leading “light” of the rubbish band Skrewdriver, even writing the lyrics to their song “Justice”, about (as Donaldson later put it) “when he was sent to jail for four years for leading a British Movement gang who were retaliating for attacks by blacks upon themselves.” (a nice bit of logic there – an organised political gang dedicated to racial violence is somehow “retaliating”, against anybody who happens to be black).

Crane and Donaldson went on to launch “Blood & Honour” in 1987 – basically a network of bonehead bands and zines which produced “Hitler was right” stickers, released godawful records, organised gigs and promoted the politics of race war and racial violence.

Blood & Honour organised clandestinely because of pressure from anti-fascists. Their gigs were secret affairs for those retarded enough to be “in the know”, often featuring an elaborate series of redirection points, venue bookings under false names, etc. Even given all of this cloak and dagger stuff, B&H were regularly humiliated by Anti-Fascist Action, categorically the most important (and militant) anti-fascist organisation in the UK during the 1980s and 90s.

Two major London events were completely stymied by AFA at their redirection points at Hyde Park (1989) and Waterloo (1992) respectively. Blood & Honour had staked a great deal on these gigs, inviting people from all over Europe to attend. Their credibility took a nosedive and the network soon descended into faction fighting, rip offs, etc. No large scale events have taken place in the capital since.

So far, business as usual for the far right (and a very lucrative business at that, despite all the stuff about doing it for the kids/race). But what most people didn’t know at the time was that Nicky Crane was leading a double life. He was gay, he worked as a bouncer at S&M clubs and even appeared in gay porn videos. In 1992 he finally came out in a programme on Channel 4, subsequently dropping out of the far right and settling down with his partner, an older man, who was apparently Jewish.

Nicky Crane died in 1993 of an AIDs-related illness. He’s now routinely condemned by the hard men of 21st century bonehead-ism, who (despite all the uniforms and male bonding) are always a little too zealous in distancing themselves from anything less than 100% hetero… hmmmm.

Crane is also an icon of “rough trade” for gay porn - just do a google for his name (not at work!) and you’ll find dozens of sites which use his name as a keyword, but don’t seem to have anything relating to him in the content. A strange legacy following a mixed up life.

End of story? Not quite:

“NAZI FARTSY

Earsay’s [A Channel 4 magazine programme iirc] snippets on Genesis P-Orridge et al featured an unexpected guest - a certain Nicola Crane. Crane, the neo-Nazi who by a series of errors made the front cover of ‘Strength Thru Oi’, turned out to be one of the ’stars’ of a Psychic TV video film. Let’s hope the media are as quick to condemn this obviously deliberate airing for Crane as they were with that accidental airing three years ago.”

Sounds, 22nd September 1984

This press clipping recently came to light on the PTV-related FOPI discussion list. I’ve not seen the actual issue of Sounds it is supposed to originate from, but it looks a bit like a “gossip column” article. Nor have I seen any follow ups / retractions / etc. Psychic TV were no strangers to the letters pages of the music press, though…

The video is question must surely be for “Unclean”, a track which was released as a 12″ single on Temple Records in 1984.

Nobody seems to have seen any credits for the production of the video. In 1984, Crane would have been fresh out of prison. Did he earn a crust for one of the many people who directed films for PTV?

Is it actually him?

My copy of the Unclean video is pretty knackered, but looking at it again, one of the featured skinheads does resemble Nicky Crane. He appears in two shots - the one as in the picture above (but only from the shoulders upwards) and one in front of a backdrop of Piccadilly Circus. In the latter shot, he clearly has some tattoos on his arms, but they aren’t clear.

If that skinhead was Nicky Crane, complete with nazi tattoos, I find it peculiar that this was allowed to slip through the net - especially in the light of all the dirt which was thrown at Throbbing Gristle for their supposed (and nonexistent) fascism. It’s all very odd indeed.

Coil was Jhonn and Jhonn was Coil, so for obvious reasons Coil cannot continue…

I think the first Coil track I heard must have been “The Wheel” on the crucial Some Bizzare compilation “If you can’t please yourself, you can’t please your soul.” It was amazing - electro pop gone badly “wrong”. The inner sleeve of the album had photos of the album covers of the Some Bizzare roster which became my first serious trainspotter wants list (and I never did get a copy of that Renaldo and the Loaf LP…)

Weirdly, the 1st Coil LP “Scatology” showed up in my local library shortly afterwards. I caned it on my crappy plastic “music centre” and pored over the all too exhaustive sleeve notes. Classic corruption and subversion - what was a 17 year old doing checking out little pieces about fetish magazines, alchemy, and nodding his head to tracks like “Cathedral In Flames.”? John Balance’s mania on tracks like “Panic” were a shot in the arm… another doorway opened.

Appropriately enough, the chronology is a bit blurry… “Horse Rotorvator” came out around the same time. I went down to Rough Trade in Ladbroke Grove to pick it up and at some point got hold of an autographed 12″ of “Anal Staircase” there as well.

“Rotorvator” blew me away - the same manic vocals, twinned with some more relaxed stuff - strings, sound effects from the bowels of the earth… perfect. “Ostia” was my favourite song for years and years and will probably always be in the top ten.

And of course you could write off and get… stuff. More raised eyebrows from my Mum when I got back from school. Balance would even write little notes on the back of the newsletters or answer questions. You’d get little stickers, newsletters, beautifully produced flyers for zines like Kaos, or the R&D Group’s Coil Booklet. Now the doors which were opening were more like a long corridor… a bit like the hotel in the Shining.

The newsletters had the obsessional quality which was really attractive - lots of ideas being played out, projects which you hoped would come to fruition that never did… hints at limited pressings, live appearances, books to check out.

When “Gold is the Metal” came out in the same week as “Hairway to Steven” by the Butthole Surfers, I was so urgently in need of hearing them that I bunked off college (where I was retaking my A levels, partly because I’d chosen subjects I was crap at originally and partly because I was spending all my time listening to Coil records instead of revising!) to head down to Rough Trade once more.

I had to have that clear vinyl pressing, goddamnit! I think Paul trumped me there by getting the 55 only edition, but I didn’t know him then - and had no idea who these mystery people were who could spend a hundred quid on an album…

By the time “Love’s Secret Domain” came out I’d been in London for a few years. Psychic TV had released about 6 billion albums in the time that Coil had released none, which I think outlines their approaches pretty well (and I think both are valid). I was in regular contact with Justin Mitchell of Cold Spring records who was having a pop at journalism on the side and had blagged an interview, with Coil, at their house.

Scatologically speaking, we were both cacking ourselves. But it turned out alright. They indulged us. Balance was lovely, trying to answer even my most retarded, fumbling questions.

“The Dark Age of Love” - the ‘twin’ album with LSD came out I guess a year or so after. I got sucked into dance music and other stuff after that - Coil splintered into what seemed like a million different projects which I kept meaning to check out but never did.

I bumped into Balance a few times after that but we never really spoke. Everyone raved about the gigs they did in 2002 and like an idiot I never went. So seeing them at Ocean recently was a blast, all sorts of things from my past coming back, a chance to reflect and to enjoy Coil being Coil in public.

I never really knew John Balance, but I know he did things that will stay with me forever.

Farewell, Jhon.

I know I’m always going on about how the NME of the 1980s was far superior to the current version. Part of that is nostaliga, part of it is the sheer breadth of stuff that was covered, which couldn’t be catered for elsewhere. All fair enough, and done to death here. But then I remembered Smash Hits! I put it to you, dear reader, that Smash Hits of the 1980s was better than the NME of right now. Admittedly I don’t have any copies to hand, but I do remember it being a hotbed of debate, funny but interesting pieces on people as diverse as Bronski Beat and King Kurt. Debates on censorship…

Also, slightly amazingly, this little lot:

Questions, questions! What were L.A.Y.L.A.H. Antirecords (who were, incidentally, based in Belgium) doing sending records to Smash Hits? What were Smash Hits doing giving them coverage? What sort of media climate is it that allows vast numbers of teenagers to be made aware of these records even existing?

All I’m saying is that the first NWW record I bought, some years later, was Brained by Falling Masonry. And I’ve still got it, and it’s ace, especially the B-side “A Short Dip in the Glory Hole”.

Is the NME currently covering the modern day equivalents to Nurse With Wound? My guess would be “no”.

Nick Gutterbreakz’ brilliant piece on Robert Rental complete with context and mp3s. Excellent stuff - like a mini documentary on the web.

Another great post from Beyond the Implode, this time on Herman Nitsch and the like. I was actually involved in showing one of his films at the Scala a while back. It was pretty good from what I can remember (I was doing my usual trick of organising great events and then spending the whole time running around the venue sorting stuff out rather than just sitting down and enjoying it). Loadsa insane black and white cow dismemberin’ and religious image desecratin’ and all that.

It was one of those nights, the Scala. Some bloke complaining about how it wasn’t extreme enough, other people walking out because it was. We had a bit of a Vienna “theme” with some ambient industrial bizness from Immolation by Scum, who were great (the projectionist at the Scala just spontaneously mashed up all this insane porn, riot and other weird footage whilst they were on, which was a fantastic surprise). Some other bloke was giving the guy selling their tapes a hard time before they even went on:

“Well what if I don’t like it?”

“Eh?”

“What if don’t like the performance?”

“Fucking DO something about it - don’t come whining to me, mate.”

“Er… oh…”

Never been that excited by the prospect of the Nitsch music itself, tho. The Aktionists were barking though, weren’t they? Schwarzkogler with his bandages and schizophrenia and Muhl (sp?) with his freaky german sex communes and stuff. There’s definitely scope there for a performance art version of Spinal Tap, I reckon… didn’t a crew including Germaine Greer try to disrupt one of the ICA shows they did?