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January '79 - I was sixteen.
Throbbing Gristle were playing the Centro Iberico,
an abandoned 1950's school
and an anarchist haunt
in part of London where tourists don't go.
On the way in the back of my hand was stamped.
I wasn't sure what the design was.
It was green.
The wall was decorated with
a stark image of a suicide by hanging,
amongst other things.
The place stank of hash and urine and burnt metal.
The room was small and dark.
I was right at the front, in the centre.
The band largely ignored the audience.
The sound was hard to ignore. It was loud. Very loud.
That was how the Wall of Sound started.
Very loud.
Slowly the volume cranked up.
After ten minutes of inexorable increase
the sound was beyond loud - it was a physical presence
moving through it was like walking though ... treacle.
The speakers bounced around the stage.
And still the band found more ways
to layer sound over sound and ramp it up further.
In the background
a digital clock counted down towards zero.
At zero all the sound stopped
instantaneously.
It was that vertiginous moment
when the bus rocking on the cliff edge
creaks ominously
and no-one moves.
Not quite all the sound.
As the ringing in our ears cleared
a portable radio was still playing.
Abba. Dancing Queen.
The band played a short film,
After Cease To Exist,
named for the Beach Boys song by
Charles Manson.
The film was a very graphic, very realistic
castration performed with kitchen scissors.
I left part way through. I had to.
Not that I remember leaving,
but my friends tell me I turned
an interesting shade of green
and the crowd parted before me like the Red Sea.
What I do remember is sitting outside
on the cold, hard concrete
breathing the fresh air,
well, fresh by London standards,
and looking at the green entry stamp on my hand.
Now I knew what it was.
Severed testicles.
I don't know what was more important about that day.
That no-one was there to see the band,
they were there, they were all there to hear the band.
TG weren't stars.
They didn't put on a show.
They played music.
They were musicians. They still are.
There's a difference.
Or perhaps it was that music wasn't limited.
I really learned that day
that music could be anything.
And I learnt that you could do it too.
I could do it too.
That thought lay dormant for
nigh on thirty years,
but when it was opportune,
I started making music.
And I remember
a cold January afternoon
in 1979
every time I play.
I call myself Beat Frequency
because I play the theremin.
You might like to check out my YouTube channel.
If you're into Old Style Industrial,
I'd start with Void Ship,
Iron Sun, Gently Drowning.