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."

But Genesis does: "It's crossover!" Snipe, snipe. "Naah." Phil rises to the bait. "We want to be like John Foxx but we can't manage it yet.

We Are Not Amused, and accusing eyes target on the League, the poor buggers. Phil offers, as a statement more than self-defence: "We only use electronics because we can't do anything else." Maybe I should write a letter to Marje Proops, but there seems to be a little morsel in here. Don't they think it odd that anyone can buy a synthesiser and blow away the rules or rock craftsmanship?

"I hate synthesisers' says Genesis. "We don't even use synthesisers". And Cosey: "I think synthesisers are for the lazy musician, quite honestly. Anybody could use them". This is seen as important by all (barring the League) present. They say their music (having flung the term 'electronic' out the window) is produced from a variety of effect-gadgets and machines rather than the snotty little keyboard synth, which is seen as very Non-U.

"Which is why we don't use them," Genesis adds. "We don't use synths. We don't use drum machines. It's pap. Like re-runs of Soap(?) "As far as I'm concerned, if I can kick someone in the teeth, and for the rest of their life they might wake up for ten minutes, as opposed to being dead all the time, then I'll kick them in the teeth."

"But," Cosey returns to the main theme, "would these people have bothered if the Wasp didn't come out? You get all these people who would never have bothered otherwise." Danielle and Genesis become briefly involved in a discussion about personal satisfaction in music. She thinks it is attained in degrees, he sees it as a grail which, if achieved immediately, robs you of the will to go on. Are they Buddhists or something?

Phil is getting bored. "You (Genesis) shouldn't think a lot about music, there's more important stuff.

"Who does?!?!"

"You do.-You seem to put a lot into the music. It doesn't really matter, does it?"

"I put a lot into everything." "I think everyone puts as much as they can into their jobs."

Possibly averting a head-on collision, Karl steers things away. "What you were saying about the synth. I think the guitar's done that for the last fifteen years. . . at the end you get fifty versions of The Jam, or a hundred versions of the Sex Pistols."

"Yeah," Cosey takes up the Cry. "But you always get that. With every fashion in music or any other sphere there's always people who jump on the bandwagon."

The momentum wanes. Again. Paul from the Two Daughters mentions touch-sensitive keyboard synths, on which sound can be varied by touch-pressure. "That's where the synth can go from. There's a lot of potential there." Murmurs of general agreement arise, people moan about non-sensitive keyboards, except Phil.

"That's what I like. You're talking about skill there - if you press it harder it makes a different sound. What I like is the fact that it (the League's equipment) is all pre-set."

Genesis can't let this pass unquestioned. "That's bullshit, that is. You're just trying to take a particular stance to be the one on the other side of the fence."

Paul cuts in, averting another altercation. "With the synth, the only talent is organisation of what's already there. It's like having your own dictionary, or vocabulary. You're organising what's there rather than creating it. It's methodical. I think electronic music has a very powerful vocabulary that has to be developed from the beginning."

Changing course a little, does anyone have any thoughts on the way electronics/synthesisers affect Image? "You get less of an image with the synthesiser," opines Chris. "You get a guitarist, they're very macho. You get drummers with a very macho thing. Whereas synth players just have this inanimate object. It's image-less really."

This would seem at odds with Nash's persona, the bandages, the smoke bombs and (he has yet to use them here) films and projections. He seems to feel he needs to bring showmanship to what might otherwise be an uninteresting stage persona. "Yeah, on stage. (think a stage is a very important place. Any performer who gets up there with jeans and t--shirt and plays licks is doing nothing they can't already do on vinyl. So they might as well take advantage (of visuals)."

And the Throbs? "l don't," Cosey says firmly. "I just consider the atmosphere in the place."

Nash seems to sense an overview within reach and launches off towards it. "I'm just going to defend both sides of this little discussion. In North America it's very difficult to get any kind of alternative music out to the public through the airwaves. So the only way to do it is to play live. The music doesn't get enough exposure and the public doesn't hear enough of it live, and that's what turns a lot of people on. So if you can get out there and play live, through Gary Numan playing the hits or the Human League playing the hits, or if you're playing this really off-the-wall stuff, the fact that you're doing it live is the crucial thing.

"I don't think it's such a sin to give the audience what they want and it's not a sin to do something completely different. The key to it all is not to make it elitist. No form of rock music should be elitist. Electronic music, of all things, should never be elitist. It has to get right to the public and be very accessible to everybody."

Genesis replies that saying you are the only person capable of reproducing music live is elitist. He would, it seems, like to democratise the process of composition and performance. And in terms of performance, he disdains virtuosity in favour of being able to "trip over a guitar lead, make mistakes, slip on a banana skin, fall off the stage."

Nash replies: "So you think I or these guys (the League) have never fallen off the stage?"

"I'm sure you have, but I don't think they'd want to be seen to fall of the stage."

Adrian wearily explains the various accidents at their recent Hammersmith Odeon gigs, where three projectors blew up, they had to stop the set "for about fifteen minutes" and Phil's voice went. But Genesis is off: "We perform, they (the League) reproduce."

Phil: "We entertain. We just aim to entertain." Very bitchily, Genesis remarks: "No, I mean in a live situation."

Me: "That's a bit cheap, Genesis."

"I meant it."

Me: "I don't see why there has to be such animosity."

Gen: "Because they (the League) symbolise the shit of the world!"

Phil: "And you symbolise why people don't go to concertsl"

Some rather silly bitching ensues, on the level of Naah! Sucks! Yah Boo! I contemplate suggesting they threaten to smash up each other's train-sets, but resist. The crossfire eventually moves into the area of popularity and I state that the League were probably the first successful English electronic band.

Which only fires Genesis up again. "That's absolute bullshit. 'T.V.O.D.' was the most popular. They just jumped on the bandwagon!"

Adrian can't take any more. "Oh fuck off! 'Jumped on the bandwagon'! We started out just as early as The Normal."

Chris offers: "What about Kraftwerk?" What about them, indeed? An hour or so previous they'd all been content to ignore antecedents, but now the room is filled with a sussurus of "Yeah, yeah, 'Autobahn', mumble, mumble, Giorgio (Moroder), rhubarb, rhubarb."

Chris: "You had Can, Tangerine Dream, all those came before that."

Sussurus: "Yeah, 'Popcorn', ChicoryTip, Telstar, mumble mumble."

So would any of you see a movement or progression in electronic music?

Crowd: DEAFENING SILENCE. They seem more interested in trying to catch the Human League out, and start asking them leading questions, as though the horrid little commercialists will break down and confess that they're only in it for the money. Phil eventually says that the League would, if social factors changed, "entertain" their audience in any mode barring country and western which he hates.

Karl suggests that Genesis and Phil are bringing their philosophy into the music, to which Genesis replies: "You can't separate the two. What you express in public, put on vinyl or do live onstage is an expression and it has to be taken by the public as your stance on life. If it changes because of a (record company) cheque or something else, it's not a morality or anything else at all. And people do trust people, initially. It may be sad, it may be naive, but it's a fact. People do care."

And he obviously feels that certain people betray that trust and care. Cosey warms to the theme: "The approach to the sort of electronic music we're talking about, in our field, is, as far as I'm concerned, a lot different to the approach of the pop world and that is a philosophy."

"You see?" Genesis continues. "We have to keep fighting old battles because of the sort of things they (the League) do. We have to keep repeating, bashing the same walls down, because of the image that gets projected by all those easy groups."

Phil retorts: "I like ease. It's easy."

"l know you do" scowIs Genesis.

Boyd pipes up: "You were talking about these two different streams, but what these streams have come down to is the mental state. You have people who are going to go into it with the same mental state as anyone you see on the street."

And Genesis: "You said that never the twain shall meet. The twain could meet tomorrow if people stopped being conned, stopped being given the easy pap. It's as simple as that. anything in the world is commercial."

This leads us to the subject of principles and integrity. But if they're all so moral, why do they use the dirty old music biz as a medium?

"As Genesis said," Karl replies, "it's an easier way of communicating than, say, letters."

Daughter Anthony suggests: "Records are a tool for change, if the voice of your philosophy is clearly illustrated." Commercialism raises it's head once more and they prowl around watching TV for hours, saying 'This is fucking awful! Look at this shit!' But they just sit there and watch it. They won't get up and turn it off. Just like people come to my concerts and spit at me, yell at me. They could lust walk out, but they don't walk out because they accept their role as a spectator. 'I'm here, I have to be here and I have to put up with this'. I don't think people would turn off if you played experimental stuff on the radio."

And he might be right. For a week or so last year, an American radio station turned over its entire airtime to a broadcast of environmental music, consisting of a long wire strung in a shopping mall which responded to movement in the air caused by bodies, wind and so on and transformed the vibrations into droning music. The housewives and gentlefolk of the town jammed the station switchboard with congratulations and applause. But that's a far cry from our own radio network.

We all had a good laugh about playing Throbbing Gristle on Radio 1 at nine in the morning and discussing the nun who raves about 'Hamburger Lady'. Then it was Brian Eno's turn and we all agreed that not many of his ideas are original, but he had emancipated the non-musician and that was rather fine.

Things were becoming a bit spun out. The dogs were getting bored. So were we. We'd destroyed the notion of a 'movement' of electronics and come pretty damn close to destroying electronics as well. There are no solutions, it seems, while the music industry is still so frightened of risking a new sound on your ears. No-one saw any particularly strong lineage or future direction in electronics, except a general belief that it's going to get even more commercial.

Perhaps we should have gone deeper into the socialisation process which brings us all up to cling desperately to the apron-strings of 4/4 time (and you are conditioned into that state). Or maybe ways of opening people's ears. But they seemed content to consider the music as almost existing in a vacuum.

The penultimate statement must go to Karl Blake. "Hindemith said: 'Any music to an unreceptive mind is meaningless noise'. And that can work vice-versa." A nice parting shot.

Coats were donned, dogs rounded up, photographs taken. Then Mike Laye called us all into a small ante-room. On the television, in living colour, was Search For A Star and V.H.F., a sort of modernised Barron Knights, were making a bid for fame. Dressed in John Collier threads, make-up applied with a shovel, standing motionless behind keyboards, twitching occasionally, performing a take-off of Kraftwerk's 'Showroom Dummies'. The mums and dads in the audience loved it. The ramifications were just too horrible to think about.