6

1 January 2002

It’s all rained down on me at once. I feel like I’m stuck on one of those knife thrower’s boards and someone’s throwing knives at me. I can’t dodge, I’ve got to accept and assimilate.

The events of 2001 had a huge effect on me: endings, beginnings and reconnections, as well as facing the dreaded menopause and everything that big hormonal change presented me with. I threw myself into my art, preparing ‘The Kiss’ photographic work for a show at the Marc Foxx Gallery in LA, and was over the moon to be told I’d made my first sale with Cabinet. The thrill was short-lived: the buyer died from a heart attack and the work was returned – sold then unsold. I shrugged it off with some relief. Selling my work was a new thing I wasn’t totally happy about. My work was so much a part of me that I was reluctant to let go of it.

Simon’s Wreckers book had made COUM and TG visible again. My friend André Stitt also had a new book out and I was asked if I’d do an ‘in conversation’ with him for the launch at the Courtauld Institute. The event wasn’t quite what I’d anticipated. I thought I’d mainly talk to André about his work but I ended up being asked to talk about my own. Sarah Wilson, a professor at the Courtauld, gave an introduction in which she presented André’s book, then delivered a long, detailed and interesting description of my solo and COUM work, mentioning Simon Ford’s book in glowing terms.

It was largely through Skot and his friend Russell, who worked at Disneyland on sound design, that my art action there was made possible. Skot knew the place so well, having done his own guerrilla puppet shows there when he was fourteen. Russell had got us in for free and we arrived early in the morning to avoid the crowds. To our utter amazement it was all but deserted. We were expecting to operate around hordes of tourists and noisy, excited children but I only saw about six people and the park was eerily quiet and calm. How perfect for me. I was very aware of security and surveillance cameras and had made sure that the action was something that fell within the context of ‘usual behaviour’. Nothing that would draw unwarranted attention and get me thrown out. I wasted no time and executed my action next to the twelve-foot ‘C’ of ‘California Adventure’, Chris and Skot filming and taking photographs.

I was instilling myself into the fabric of the site. I’d made a homeopathic solution from pure, distilled water and the burned tampon ashes of my last-ever period, decanted into a water bottle. I poured the solution on to the ground in the shape of my ‘4’ tattoo. As the solution ran away, soaking into the dry, sloping pavement, it mutated, rather appropriately, into the anarchy symbol. It was all over so quickly and we moved on as regular tourists to go on the rides. To document the piece, and as an added essential element, I purchased a commemorative hexagon paver inscribed with my name and the date of ‘Self lessness One’. That paver now sits among many others on the entrance concourse to Disney California Adventure Park.

Back from our LA adventure, we returned to working on the TG24 box set. Chris had already completed the transfer of all the cassettes and mastered them for CD. The four of us working together again had quickly descended into a disappointing experience. It was a vexing process at times, with limited communication from Gen. Many of our emails to him about the box set went unanswered. Sleazy was better but, considering we were on a release schedule with Mute, he wasn’t as prompt or helpful as we’d have liked. It seemed that only me and Chris were willing to prioritise TG above our own work, removing other projects from the timeline to facilitate TG matters.

Maybe we were wrong to do that, but I don’t think so. It was important to do it right or not at all – which would have happened had me and Chris not been so bloody-minded and driven about preserving the TG legacy. It seemed that, for whatever reason, Sleazy and Gen elevated their own projects over and above TG. That was their prerogative. But with that attitude came an underlying subtext that TG, which included each of them working with me and Chris, was inferior to them and their other work. It was an odd denial of the past (and present) that I had trouble understanding. I was happy to acknowledge that TG had a cultural importance that was different to, and in some ways greater than, Chris & Cosey or CTI. Me and Chris were aching to record our own material but were realistic that TG offered a solution to our struggling finances, and to Sleazy’s, as he’d started doing Coil gigs to help fund his and Geff’s indulgent lifestyle. When he wasn’t giving all his attention to Coil, he got on board with us and worked on patch and badge designs and sorted through his TG 35mm negatives for photos to use. Sleazy’s work practice was very much based on only working on the project most immediately at hand. Consequently we’d done most of the work by the time he’d joined in. But Sleazy being ‘sleazy’, he had the knack for ingratiating himself back into your good books.

12 April 2002

This is my first foray back into that phase of my life and I’m still uncovering things I’d put well into the back of my mind. I don’t know what to think about how I feel. It’s so long ago and I’ve come so far since then.

I’d started Confessions, a new work based on one of my 1970s magazine actions. It proved to be an intense period and writing a postscript text for the edition was uncovering all kinds of buried feelings. I was hit by the double whammy of revisiting TG as well as my sex-magazine experiences. As I read my diaries and looked at myself in the magazines, I’d veer from being curiously interested to being drawn back into my feelings from that time, and the vivid memories of the turmoil in my life back then.

This all coincided with a Richard Kern exhibition at the ICA and my being invited to a panel discussion with him and Lucy McKenzie, who had done nude modelling for him in his book, Model Release. Our individual perspective on the nude model experience was an interesting topic for debate and the difference between how each of us had approached, performed and realised our work had potential for a good talk. Richard and Lucy had both worked as artists in the art world to produce their photographic works, whereas I’d operated outside to procure mine and bring them into the gallery. We each had our own perspective and opinion on the roles we played: Richard as artist and photographer, Lucy as an artist taking on the role of artist’s model, and me as an artist adopting the identity of a regular nude model within the sex industry. I found Richard beguiling and disarming and I could understand why girls surrendered to his creative requests. The techniques of negotiating and persuading played a big part in the sensitive and sexually charged collaborative process between nude model and photographer, whether it be for art or in the sex industry. The persistent manipulation was endemic in the sex industry and the techniques blatant and unsophisticated, which (for me) often directly accounted for some tense, creepy experiences that all that time ago had instigated my suggesting the topic of ‘persuasion’ for what was now an infamous TG song.

The discussion centred on the usual: how, back in 1976, ‘Prostitution’ had nearly closed the ICA, with me replying ‘Yes’ to a question on whether the title (a jibe at the art world) was as relevant today as it was then. That received nods of agreement and critical mumblings from other corners of the room.

I met Diana, the editor of Taschen’s erotica publications, a very nice, exuberant woman who had worked on Oui magazine in the USA in the 1970s, who told me the editor had been over the moon when he’d received photos of me for an issue, saying how the Americans didn’t realise who they had in the mag. Apparently he’d added, ‘It’s Cosey Fanni Tutti – she’s an icon in the UK. You have no idea how important she is.’ I was embarrassed and had no reply to that, so I showed her my dummy copy of Confessions, which was the main reason for our introduction as she was working on a book on 1970s porn. She loved it and was going to follow up with Cabinet.

The next day I went to Cabinet and we decided on what form Confessions would take: a limited deluxe-edition, white, hardback facsimile (printed by me) in a black slipcase with a black-and-white signed photograph of an outtake from the original ‘Confessions’ magazine photo shoot – plus that postscript text which had reawakened deep-seated memories and emotions.

I was being thrown into my past and facing head-on the reality that my work had influenced and inspired some people – especially as that weekend was also the opening of Cosey Club, a new London venture named after me and run by Richard Clouston, Sara Burn, Caoimhe McQueen and Jon Butterworth. What a tribute.

Chris was going through discomfort of his own. Having the house reverberating with the sound of twenty-four hours of TG for months on end took its toll on him. He was getting regular migraines and sleepless nights, with the grating sounds whirling round and filling his thoughts.

He’d been ill with backache for months, then he was finally diagnosed with kidney stones and underwent unpleasant and very painful lithotripsy ultrasound shock-wave treatment. He was engaging with sonics on a whole other agonising ‘wavelength’. I was so worried for him – he was in theatre far longer than any of the other day patients – and when he came out he looked white and strained. ‘I’m glad that’s over. It was like being relentlessly fist-punched in the kidney,’ he said when I drove him home.

He recovered well and we decided to keep to our plans for my next action, ‘Self lessness Two’, at Beachy Head, Eastbourne. Fizzy lived nearby, was still working as a psychiatric nurse, and had lost a few patients who had killed themselves at Beachy Head. Back in 1999, me and Geff had talked about going there to do a ritual blessing for those who had committed suicide – what he called an ‘exorcism’. I realised after three years of talking that he was never going to be together enough for it to happen as a joint work. Besides, I had my own personal reasons for using the site, beyond its reference as the front cover of TG’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats album. Beachy Head is a notorious suicide spot, a site where people choose to end their lives, a heavily loaded, deeply personal place that encapsulates a sense of self.

Although so vastly different from Disneyland (the first ‘Self lessness’ site), it has one incongruous thing in common: it’s a tourist attraction. When me and Chris arrived mid-morning to do my action, there were coachloads of tourists making their way to the famous suicide site. We turned round and drove back to the hotel, rescheduling for dawn the next day. At 4 a.m. we made our way back to the cliff. As I walked along, I gathered symbolic flowers and plants to bind with those I’d brought from my garden. It was a misty morning, the place was deserted, and there was a profound sense of peace. Even if I couldn’t understand suicide, I could understand why people came there. It was beautiful and the white cliffs breathtaking and strangely enticing. I traced the outline of a prone figure on the ground, overlaying it with the flowers and plants, then began the ritual. The gestures and handmade objects, which included a part of me, represented many cultures and symbolised male and female as one, life, death, immortality, blood, remembrance, paradise, sorrow, truth, protection and the sleep of death.

The ritual complete and documented, we left the site. When we returned later that afternoon the packs of tourists were back. Groups of people were stood looking at my ritual site, which resembled a cross between a crime scene and a memorial tribute. They were respectfully walking around the action relics. Everything was intact – no one had disturbed a thing.

25 August 2002

We’ve lived and breathed ‘TG24’ for months now. Also many emails back and forth … it’s gone far better than we expected. Sleazy seems to have relished collaborating with us and invited us to stay at his place to work on the TG installation …

After numerous Cabinet and Mute meetings, it was decided that Cabinet Gallery would host the TG24 launch and curate a related exhibition and installation. The visit to Sleazy’s never happened. He’d been hard to get hold of, having had to sort out what he called ‘distractions of late’. Geff had announced that he and Sleazy had split up for good. I spoke with Sleazy and he apologised for not being in touch and seemed cheery and resigned to the split. Coil were to continue and he took on gig bookings. That situation brought his work on TG to a halt.

4 September 2002

It’s funny to think that if we ever meet up again (all 4) that it may be Gen and Sleazy that find it more difficult than me and Gen. The thought of doing a gig together got put to me yesterday (rumours of TG reunion). When I thought about it I realised that would mean getting together quite a few times prior to the show etc.

13 November 2002

Gen has been very kind. If he continues like this then working together shouldn’t be too bad. He wrote to say he was nervous about playing together again for a number of reasons, he’s not the same angry Gen and doesn’t want to ‘act’ out as someone he isn’t. That’s fine.

The thought of a TG reunion held different reservations for all four of us. At the same time as holding back ‘that thought’, we were talking about performing and recording together, and Chris and Sleazy were working on a TG website. It was as if TG regrouping was inevitable.

Yet our own ongoing projects were what each of us were most connected with. Me and Chris had started DJing and were loving it – and seriously thinking about dropping Chris & Cosey and moving over to the moniker of Carter Tutti. Our new music had changed and was a far cry from the classic C&C sound. Chris wasn’t keen on doing any gigs at all, seeing as we were already overloaded, but what with my health and OU degree studies I’d been on an enforced lockdown from creative activities for so long that I wanted to take opportunities while I felt OK-ish.

We’d turned down a lot of gig offers but accepted one for 23 November at Luchtbal in Antwerp, Belgium, and designated it as our last gig playing C&C material. We spent a month putting together a special video and C&C set. Nick took a break from art college to come with us as our roadie and ended up designing the cover of the ensuing live CD. Dropping C&C felt like a positive step forward, freeing ourselves from our earlier music. Which is odd (or not) considering we were revisiting the past work of TG.

The C&C gig was largely uneventful, another episode in the timeline of our ongoing body of work. Three days after our return from Antwerp we were in London installing the TG24 exhibition at Cabinet Gallery. Sleazy was still distracted but back in touch, and all four of us were about to meet again in just a few days’ time.

2 December 2002

3pm and we had just unpacked and were putting the kettle on for a cup of tea when there was a knock on the door.

We’d just arrived at the Express Holiday Inn in Old Street, London. Chris answered a knock on the door. He was gobsmacked to see Gen stood there, smiling from ear to ear. At first he’d thought it was an Asian chambermaid.

Gen looked so different: well dressed, slim, with a dark shade of foundation and gold-and-silver eyeshadow. We knew he was transgender – he’d ‘come out’ some months earlier – but my eyes were constantly drawn to his face, trying to figure out what had happened. Then I remembered he’d had cosmetic surgery. He was quite hyper too. His hands and feet constantly danced, pitter-patter, and he fanned his long, red, false fingernails as he talked. We were all cheerily saying ‘hellos’ as a kneejerk response to the weirdness of the whole situation.

‘This is weird, isn’t it?’ Gen said.

‘Yes, it is,’ me and Chris replied in unison.

He was edgy but full of smiles and very nice. We hadn’t expected such excitement from Gen but coming face to face with each other after over twenty years, given our troublesome history, was always going to be a bit tricky for us all. Better to be cheery than solemn. The first face-to-face introduction had been brief and Gen went back to his room. We’d all agreed to get together privately when Sleazy arrived in an hour or so, for a coffee to ‘break the ice’.

Reception called to say they had a delivery for me: a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Mute, along with a ‘Hello’ letter from Gen that he’d left at reception for us (and one for Sleazy) earlier in the day. Sleazy arrived from Weston and dropped by our room to have a few words before the group meet with Gen. He’d also had a visit from Gen. As well as the letters to us three, that was a nice gesture.

Gen’s new wife, Jackie, had come over with him and we all met up at the Real Greek restaurant just behind the hotel. We sat around a table and ordered coffee. Before anyone else could say anything, Sleazy bristled and began to lay down the law, saying that before we went any further he would like to make some things clear. At this point, Gen’s hands started shaking and Jackie put her arm around him. Sleazy continued, directing his words at Gen and saying that it was important that we must not start up together as TG without acknowledging that Gen had said and done some horrendous things to us, and we mustn’t act like nothing had happened or that we were all best friends again.

Me and Chris were quite shocked at Sleazy’s outburst. I tried to calm things a little by quietly suggesting that, bearing in mind our past, we should all be honest with each other – to say so if anything irritated us, not to let it fester but instead to accept any criticism as something positive for the good of TG. Gen nodded but then said that we all have our own perspective and memories of what happened. Sleazy’s eyebrow went up at that, then into a frown, but he said nothing.

Gen’s response was a veiled refusal to acknowledge his past bad deeds. Sleazy’s request had effectively been denied. We moved on to the big question that had been floating round for over a year. Would TG regroup and play live again? All four of us had been discussing the possibility for a few months and decided that, in principle, we could do it. I hadn’t wanted to regroup and had held out as long as I could, but TG being a democracy I was outvoted three to one.

The initial meeting came to an end and I passed Jackie my camera and asked her to take a photo of us all on this historic occasion. We all left the restaurant. Chris, Sleazy and Gen were in front as I walked along behind them with Jackie. She suggested that ‘we girls’ go shopping and let the guys get on with all the group business. It was nice of her to be so friendly but I realised that she didn’t appreciate what TG was actually about or my role in both it and the TG24 exhibition. I didn’t know what Gen had (or had not) told her. I politely said no as I had TG interviews, meetings and a photo session to do. We were facing a busy week ahead.

Me and Chris spent the next day relaxing and resting before a group meal that evening. It was a business meal about Mute and TG releases and we’d said Jackie was welcome to come along. We wandered over to the Real Greek restaurant to meet everyone. Sleazy, Paul Taylor from Mute and Paul Smith were at the bar. We were led to the small private room reserved for us and were subsequently joined by Gen and Jackie, who placed her video camera on the table and pressed ‘Record’. It was inappropriate and insensitive not to ask if any of us minded. Gen noticed us all looking at the little red ‘Record’ light and assured us that it would be turned off when we got to any serious discussions. That wasn’t the point, and him making assumptions and decisions on our behalf didn’t go down well. The serious discussions didn’t really get far because of the disruptive antics of Gen and Jackie.

Daniel was late … Someone said he was with Cherie Blair at 10 Downing Street, talking about the future of the Roundhouse. But no sooner had Daniel sat down at the table than Jackie took hold of the video camera and put it about six inches from his face and started ‘interviewing’ him: ‘Who are you? Where have you been?’ It was a performance for the room and made for a very awkward moment. Daniel was polite but everyone else (except Gen) was getting pissed off.

Food was ordered and delivered to the table, at which point Jackie stood up with her camera and shouted at everyone to look up and smile. I was simmering inside, ready to boil over. I could just see her from the corner of my eye, hand on hip and huffing at me for not doing as I was told. She shouted at me again. I told her to fuck off and carried on eating. She sat down, put the camera away and began fawning all over Gen … then the waiter, and then Paul Taylor. It was embarrassing. Gen saw nothing wrong with what was going on. They both seemed to be in their own world.

The meeting was far from constructive – a lost opportunity on many levels. Outside the restaurant, me, Chris, Sleazy and the two Pauls were laughing and joking together, imagining the scenario of TG being put in a house like on Big Brother and what the consequences would be. If anything, Gen’s performance that night had put us on high alert.

I never take pleasure in being right when it’s about something bad. I wish I could have bonded with Jackie, as it would have made life easier in the TG camp. Gen acted up when she was around, showing off as if he were commander-in-chief of TG. We didn’t see her again until the exhibition opening.

Mute had lined up a whole day of interviews in a small conference room at the hotel. Chris was quiet and happy for Sleazy to do most of the talking, and I piped up to balance things out a bit. I think Sleazy’s strategy was to keep a check on Gen’s input, just in case he started wrongly claiming to have invented acid house, or some such nonsense. Paul Smith came along at noon to whisk us off to Kingsland Road for a Vietnamese meal and to discuss TG gig offers from Tate Britain as well as an offer to curate at an ATP festival at Camber Sands. Gen told us all that, by the time we played Camber Sands, he’d probably be a woman and it would be Chris and Sleazy at the side of the stage, with ‘us two girls in the middle’.

We all agreed that Mute would handle the merchandising and finances. Gen had wanted Jackie to do it all. We three wanted it to be as simple and stress-free as possible – wishful thinking.

After the last interview, we all prepared for the TG24 box set launch, which was in conjunction with the TG24 exhibition at Cabinet Gallery. I’d worked hard with Andrew and Martin selecting, collating and installing the show. We’d all loaned from our TG archives to bring together the first comprehensive display of TG and IR material relative to the release, and had a listening room set up that played the full twenty-fours hours’ audio six hours a day for four days.

Me and Chris were the last ones to arrive at the private view. As I walked into the foyer the first person I saw was Kim Norris, who was now very outgoing and looking good. We hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in years. ‘Hello!’ she screeched, as if she’d seen her best friend. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ I said, and walked straight past her.

The place was absolutely packed with Cabinet artists, people from Mute and Rough Trade; the list of familiar (and unfamiliar) faces was endless and the excitement was tangible. I didn’t see much of Gen all night. He held court in the listening room with his invited entourage. I think he might have been uneasy about the number of people in the other gallery room that he’d pissed off over the years. Jackie had been drifting around, videoing and photographing everyone and fawning. But worst of all, she and Gen had been talking to people about the proposed TG gigs when we’d all agreed to keep it under wraps. Alex Fergusson came up and told me Gen had asked him to do some work with him for when we all played the following year! I couldn’t find Gen to tell him to keep his mouth shut – he’d left shortly after a fracas when a drunk guy had apparently tried to lift Jackie’s dress. She’d pushed him away, which sent wine up the wall of the TG listening room and all over the floor, just missing the display. To finish off the evening, we were greeted by the sight of more red wine having been thrown up the entrance-hall walls and all over the door. Not nice for Cabinet’s first show in their new gallery space but at least it was authentic in being a typical TG event.

Another heavy morning of interviews till noon, then we went to Tate Britain to talk about TG playing in the Duveen space as part of a Mute series. Sleazy said no, that we would have to be invited to do something at the Tate as ‘artists’. We all walked round the Turner Prize show. We went from there to Cabinet for an interview for Muzik magazine with Andrew Weatherall. It was the best interview of them all: he delved into all kinds of subjects and we were happy to sit there for two hours just chatting. Then the Muzik mag photographer shot off three rolls of film of us. Sleazy was so funny – he suddenly just stood there, arms folded, looking down.

‘What are you doing?’ Then it clicked. ‘Oh, you’re posing,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said. How utterly endearing he could be, and he’d probably hate me for saying that. I could have squeezed him to bits.

Our official TG promo photo shoot was with Brian Griffin at Holborn Studios. It turned out that Sleazy knew him from his Hipgnosis days. While Brian was setting up, we sat and signed some TG24 box set certificates. Gen was in a good mood and said he thought it had all gone very well and how we’d all slotted back into TG rather easily. I said I wasn’t surprised, because our basic characters hadn’t changed that much, that friends had told me he had, but I didn’t think he had at all. His face fell. He seemed to take it as an insult. Sleazy took over and we ended up with him at the front, looking like Daddy Sleazy with his three kids. I was past caring, really, and I couldn’t be bothered confronting Gen about his attitude and behaviour over the last few days. It seemed that, after the niceties of that first face-to-face meeting, he was looking more like the Gen of yesteryear. For all his wanting to build bridges and work together, he wasn’t interested in actually being together. In such a short time he’d annexed himself from us three, not joining us for breakfast or hanging out. I wasn’t sure how, under those conditions, the proposed TG gigs or recording new material could be feasible.

That looked even less likely when, back at the hotel, Sleazy came banging on our door and charged in all red-faced and in a furious frenzy. He stood at the end of our bed, gesticulating as he told us how he’d had a phone call from a friend who was writing a book on Coil and had spoken to Gen just two weeks earlier. Apparently Gen had reiterated a lot of awful things about Sleazy and dissed TG – Sleazy waved a press cutting at us as proof. ‘What you went through when you left Gen was nothing compared to what me and Geff went through,’ he said to us.

I wasn’t sure he knew everything we went through but it was obvious by the few things he mentioned that his experience must have been very nasty and hurtful to have such a lasting effect on him. Then he added, ‘Right, this is what we must do: treat Gen like a Prague rent boy – make him earn his money and don’t trust him an inch.’ He hadn’t finished … He said he was going to tell Gen that if he got up to any tricks he’d pull out of the TG gigs. It was beginning to look like TG the second time around could be a replay of the first.

Despite all that had gone on, Sleazy saw the potential for a TG regrouping and was excited about gig possibilities. He’d already started sourcing material and going through ideas for ATP. As curators of the weekend we were to play as TG, as our individual groups and select other acts. All under the title RE~TG. The regrouping of TG had been set in motion.

Gen returned to New York, Sleazy holidayed in Thailand and we went back to Norfolk. TG24 was officially released on 23 December and as a special TG Christmas gift was broadcast in its entirety on Resonance FM on Christmas Day, along with a group ‘Happy Christmas’ message from us all.

10 April 2003

Camber Sands was a very pleasant weekend. We got to meet the organisers and see all the facilities and possibilities of the site.

The date of the TG-curated ATP had been changed. Paul Smith, me and Chris all went to check out Camber Sands for RE~TG and see Coil play there. It seemed well organised and we met up with Sleazy backstage after his soundcheck … which never materialised because the Magic Band seemed to think a soundcheck was as long as they felt like playing for. Geff was nowhere in sight and Sleazy was grateful for that small mercy. He said he wasn’t even sure Geff would turn up to go on stage and it could be the last Coil gig. He’d had enough, saying that nothing could compensate him for the grief he had to go through with Geff. He’d lightened up by the time we left him.

Coil did an introspective and dark set, which was to be expected, interrupted at one point by Geff’s interesting audience banter. Someone accused him of being drunk. ‘I have no alcohol in my blood at all,’ he said.

‘LIAR!’ someone else shouted back.

‘No, I’m not lying. Well, yes, I am a liar, but I’m not lying about this. I have a horse tranquilliser for later …’

Meanwhile Sleazy and the other three band members played on. We went backstage afterwards and Sleazy’s face lit up when he saw us. With Geff on one side of the dressing room and Sleazy on the other, I didn’t know which way to go. Chris went to Sleazy and they had a big hug, and I went to Geff, then we both sat with Sleazy for his post-show wind-down.

I’d taken lots of photos of the site to email to Gen. Just as I sent it, an email came in from him asking if we’d been to Camber Sands yet because he needed to let his friend at Art Monthly magazine know what was happening with RE~TG. I had to quickly fire off an email saying, ‘Don’t say anything because NOTHING is finalised yet.’

4 June 2003

Paul Smith called yesterday to say we were all meeting on Friday at the Columbia Hotel. Chris asked Paul if he wanted him to bring anything. Paul sighed and seriously said, ‘Yes there is, I could really do with you bringing a sense of humour.’

In light of the success of the TG24 exhibition and the Tate’s interest in TG, we had discussions about the TG archive. The sensible thing to do was to view it as one and not four separate archives, pooling them together to ensure the complete TG/IR source material could be safely stored in an institution and be accessible to all. Me, Chris and Sleazy agreed, and Gen had been amenable to the idea but had since begun the process of cataloguing the items he had in his possession.

A meeting was arranged to talk about it further, as well as Mute business and the live shows. We tied it in with my being in London for the opening of a group show I was in at the South London Gallery and Gen coming over at the same time. We all made our way to Gen’s hotel, the Columbia, and were waiting for him in the lounge. Then I saw him go to reception in his denim miniskirt and bright yellow tights. He waved, came over to us and said, ‘Hi! What are you all doing here?’

What?! He said he didn’t know anything about the meeting and it was purely by chance that he and Jackie had been waiting for ‘Wheatley’ (Andrew) and even saw us, and anyway he and Jackie were off for breakfast now. He left us sitting there.

He was back half an hour later, a little breathless and puffing on his inhaler. By then the two Pauls had arrived, Paul Smith explaining to Gen that he had actually spoken to him three times since Sunday. ‘I don’t remember,’ was Gen’s answer.

The meeting about many TG matters commenced.

Paul Smith began by stating that he was acting on behalf of TG and not us as individuals, and he needed assurances that no one was going to walk out before the ATP or Tate events next year. Gen said he had no intention of pulling out. And neither had we three. As the finer details were discussed, Gen seemed bored. I got the impression that he couldn’t be bothered with anything other than performing on stage and the money – that we three could do all the work. Maybe the intervening years of being a lead singer in a rock and roll band had instilled in him a new approach to working that was far from what was involved when working in TG. He was jibing Paul Smith again, and tapping his feet and hands constantly as if irritated, which in turn irritated Sleazy, who had trouble containing himself.

But finally we got the Mute business done and dusted. There was to be a ‘Best of’ TG album and, to accompany TG24, a TG+ box set of the remaining historic live TG tapes, complete with metal cut-out cards that would form a TG flash. Chris faced lots more remastering and Sleazy more artworks. To avoid delays, Gen agreed to be contacted for his input at the latter stages of production, the same working practice as for TG24.

All that remained was the sticky subject of pooling the TG archive. I asked Gen what his intentions were. He announced that he would be selling what TG- and IR-related materials he had as part of HIS life archive, that to take it out and pool it with ours would mean his life’s work would be incomplete. Which begged the questions: What about our life stories inherent in the jointly created items he was selling? What about the protection and retaining of the complete legacy of TG we’d all spoken of at the beginning of our regrouping?

We three were appalled and angry that he felt he could disrespect us and TG and still expect us all to continue this renewed ‘relationship’. But there was no way out, having signed to Mute, and we felt a huge obligation to TG fans and everything TG had come to represent. There was little we could do about how Gen chose to behave towards us other than adopt a philosophical approach and rise above the personal negative band dynamics (as so many bands do) with a determination to enjoy the opportunity of the regrouping and to deliver the best we could as TG … After all, the first incarnation had been turbulent. Gen, intentionally or not, had provided that undercurrent of tension second time around too.

25 June 2003

The contracts for Camber are being processed now. So at some point things will get more hectic. I’ll make the most of the relative calm till then.

Whether or not ATP was actually going to happen, new TG material had to be created for a new TG studio album. I’d booked myself into a weekend’s healing voice workshop in London, primarily to learn the technique of Mongolian overtone chanting for my music and art projects. So Chris said he may as well tie in my being away with him going to Sleazy’s for a week to work on TG material. He packed his laptop and the bits and pieces he needed for the first Chris and Sleazy RE~TG sound workshop and we both set off, me for London and Chris to Weston-super-Mare. He dropped me off at the train station and began the long drive to Sleazy’s.

While I was intermittently in New Age workshop hell, Chris and Sleazy had had a great time together. That made me happy. Chris had worked on RE~TG sounds and rhythms for a few weeks before he went to Sleazy’s. Lucky he did, because Sleazy admitted that he didn’t know where to start. It worked out better than they could have expected. They got the beginnings of about ten tracks down.

Me and Chris had missed each other so much and got straight back into recording some of my overtone chanting and overlaying it with the ambient audio recordings from my Beachy Head action piece. Everything had worked out so well and just in time to be broadcast on Resonance FM one year to the day after the original action took place.

28 September 2003

We just want the gigs to be over with – to take a deep breath and suck in the sweetnesses of life again.

After months of work putting together a new set, me and Chris played our first two sold-out shows as Carter Tutti at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and in Barcelona, Spain. Much as they were a great success, they were overshadowed by the death of Chris’s uncle, Big Ernie – better known outside the family as Ernie Fossey, the legendary boxing matchmaker. The whole family was bereft. Nick was inconsolable. Ernie had been such a huge personality, the mainstay of our very close-knit family, and the thought of never seeing him again was unbearable. He and his wife, Pat, had taken Chris to their hearts and been a part of his life from the day he was born. Ernie was like Chris’s second father. I clung to the memory of him as the lively, laughing Ernie I knew, who always called me ‘darlin’’ and greeted me with a ‘Come ’ere, you’ as he gave me a Big Ernie hug and kiss. Pat and Ernie were inseparable, like me and Chris, and I felt her pain so acutely.

Tributes and obituaries were in the press and television, with reports that Frank Bruno had taken Ernie’s death badly (they were close friends). Ernie was as loved in the boxing world as he was in his family. Sky Sports dedicated the light-welterweight title fight in Manchester to Ernie, with the reigning champion, Ricky Hatton, saying how Ernie had been instrumental in his success: ‘Please give a minute’s silence for my dear friend Ernie Fossey.’ Then a picture of Ernie filled the TV screen and the hall went silent.

The private funeral was torturously sad. As we stood by all the flowers, I remembered the previous funerals for Chris’s nan and grandfather, when me and Ernie had stood together and he’d nudged me, saying, ‘Look: everyone’s thinking who will be next.’ Neither he nor anyone else ever expected it would be him.

A memorial service was organised by Frank Warren, so all the boxers and boxing-world fraternity could pay their respects and celebrate all the fun, light and love Ernie had brought to us all. Frank and Ernie were very close and Frank, his wife, Sue, and their children were part of our extended family. Ernie had worked with Frank, matchmaking and more, for twenty years. The service was held at York Hall in Bethnal Green. We got there early to prepare ourselves. When me, Rose, Pat and Debbie walked into the hall, we were floored. It was like a shrine to Ernie. The walls were lined with large photos of him as boxer, trainer, cuts man and manager, and hung above the boxing ring was a huge photo of him smiling down on us. It was heartwarming to see so many who loved Ernie come up and give Pat their condolences. Me and Chris returned home feeling emotionally drained.

1 December 2003

What a month … again I moan but bloody hell. The RE ~TG gig looks set to be called off again.

Getting back into work was difficult; with so much happening we were thankful for the positive events but reluctant to drag ourselves into anything negative. We needed to be lifted out of our sombre mood and what better way to do that than by plunging ourselves into DJing at Cosey Club. We DJ’d until 2.30 a.m., when Andrew Weatherall took over.

Returning home tired but decidedly more cheery, we were brought back to reality by emails from Paul, Sleazy and Gen. The RE~TG-curated weekend at ATP for 14–16 May was under review again. For whatever reason, Gen blamed the problems on Mute/EMI and Paul Smith not doing enough and said that, because me and Chris were in the UK, we should make ourselves available 24/7 for TG.

I was livid. For one thing, Sleazy also lived in the UK, and Gen didn’t seem to have any idea just how much we’d already done for TG in the past two years – and continued to do, with Chris presently mastering TG+.

Gen wanted in for RE~TG, saying he needed the money. Our Mutant TG remix album was going down extremely well and we were beginning to feel the press pressure, delaying all but urgent interviews until all of TG were together. Regardless of the ongoing stop-start-stop RE~TG business, we carried on with the TG plans we’d made and hoped ATP could be worked out.

Sleazy returned from holidaying in Thailand and me and Chris drove to his place to do the final tweaks to the TG gig material, ready for rehearsing with Gen. Sleazy had lost weight and was looking good but not feeling happy about being in the UK, describing it as being back in ‘grey England’. I had imagined his house to be an isolated Victorian building on a hill, akin to the Psycho house, but it was in a street of similar houses, with a large front garden and snaking drive, and a small, grim, walled rear yard that backed on to woods. Being an old boys’ school, there were about thirty rooms in all, a basement, two separate staircases and an elevator, as well as two self-contained flats, one used for ‘adventures’ and the other for archive/art storage.

Sleazy had made up a room for us and put a vase of fresh flowers in there. It was nice to be with him and his two basenji dogs, Pan and Moon. Poor Pan was fucked up, had started snapping and biting people for no apparent reason and wouldn’t go up the stairs. Sleazy put it down to Geff’s drunken binges while he was away. It had got really bad at times, with Geff having fallen down the stairs more than once – the worst being when their housekeeper had found him at the bottom of the stairs. He’d been lying there for days with the dogs by his side, unfed. She’d cleaned up Geff and put the dogs in kennels until Sleazy got back.

We set up all our gear in Sleazy’s studio. It was dusty, especially the harmonium in the corner, and strewn with packaging from recent acquisitions and cables in tangled heaps. I made a space for my set-up close by the bay window, which had an amazing view of the sea. We worked all day and into the night on rhythms and sounds for the live performance, giving them the acid test by all jamming along. They felt good so we put them and the old TG tracks aside until we met up with Gen, to see how he felt about them all. Mute had given us a deadline for the new TG album of 23 April and we were booked into their studio in a week’s time to start recording it, hoping to complete it in two weeks and hand over the master when we left the studio.

Maybe that was ambitious but we cracked on with sorting out the rest of the new material, going for anything that excited and ignited a spark in us. We shared the cooking of meals and in the evenings we’d watch TV in Sleazy’s massive high-ceilinged living room, often falling asleep together on the big sofa. Sleazy had little time for the basics – he always had ‘someone who does’ to do those things for him. He just got on with life. He ignored bills and correspondence too. There was a carpet of unopened mail in the front porch that lay where it had fallen through the letter box. He’d just kick it to one side as he came through the door. It was intense working all day, but we got so much done that would otherwise have eaten into our time at Mute Studios. We composed nine new TG tracks to work with for the new album.

28 February 2004

Let’s hope we can get some order into things or we won’t have the album and gig material finished.

After twenty years, the four of us were about to go into the studio together to record a new TG album, and people were getting excited. Working at Mute was a far cry from our Martello Street studio (or our own C&C and Coil studios), where we had all our gear to hand and all the time in the world. It was important to use both the studio time and our being together efficiently.

Me, Chris and Sleazy arrived at about 11 a.m. and set up our gear. We’d brought what equipment we needed to London and rented an extra effects unit to mangle Gen’s vocals. Gen arrived late with Paul Smith. He’d brought his violin from New York but not his bass guitar, offering to pay to hire one. One was bought for him, to be delivered to the studio the next day. We played the tracks to Gen before jamming together, which was our usual TG way of working. Gen sat and listened to us but didn’t join in. He said he had jet lag and wasn’t feeling good. We three carried on trying out ideas for a while, then stopped to talk to Gen about the material and which tracks he’d like to focus on first. He decided to leave early and went back to his hotel in a cab, with us saying that we hoped he felt better tomorrow.

Day two in the studio, and we were going through tracks when Paul Smith called us to say Gen would be along later. We continued working on our own until Gen and his bass guitar arrived. The guitar was quite heavy – he dropped it twice and couldn’t get his effects pedals to work. Dave, the studio engineer, went home and brought his own Boss pedal for Gen to use, and we finally got to do our first jam session together.

It was sounding good – very TG but crucially and deliberately a step forward from the old TG material. I had no interest in regrouping if we weren’t going to explore and create new work together. We had a strategy in place to help us avoid making music that sounded like our past or present individual music projects: we were using new equipment specifically for the TG regrouping. Mute had facilitated this by advancing each of us the money to buy new gear. Me, Chris and Sleazy had each bought a new laptop, music software (including Ableton Live) and an audio interface, and I bought myself a Roland multi-effects unit and a new Hohner headless lead guitar. We’d stuck to the plan but it seemed Gen wasn’t quite on board. He kept mentioning how he hated ‘laptop bands’ – whatever they were supposed to be. We pointed out that TG had always been into new technology and innovative ways of working, that Sleazy had in fact used a computer back in TG in the 1970s, so using a laptop now wasn’t new or alien to TG – it was just a computer in a more portable form, another instrument for generating sounds.

Despite my earlier reservations and the many ‘issues’, I was excited about TG. Once that collective energy and raw power kicked in, it was impossible to resist, like hitting a reflex. I was on a roll, exploring new ways of producing sounds, buying new gear to experiment and throw into the TG mix. Chris and Sleazy were the same. Sleazy was perplexed by why and how making music just ‘worked’ so readily with us but not with anyone else. I knew what he meant. We just had that deep connection, ability and willingness to open ourselves up to collectively surrender to the ‘third mind’.

By the fifth day we were making slow progress, with Gen mostly absent. It was frustrating but we managed to get some work done and were all sat having a coffee in the studio lounge. Vince and Andy from Erasure were next door in studio two, working on their new album. Andy came into the kitchen and asked if he could take a photo of us all together. Gen blurted at him, ‘And who are you?’ as if he were some random souvenir-hunter. It was embarrassing.

‘He’s Andy Bell from Erasure,’ I said.

When Andy had gone, I told Gen how rude he’d been. He apologised to Andy. We needed some time out. We left for the day and took the next day off – then back in the studio, hoping we could pull everything together in time. Gen’s repeated lateness made us feel that he wasn’t that interested in or committed to working with us, especially when, after my working on lyrics with him, he said he wanted the next day off to get the words together and insisted on us giving him a CD of the raw tracks to take with him. None of us were happy about new TG material leaving the studio and we’d already reluctantly given him a CD a few days earlier. Sleazy told Gen that on no account must he play it to anyone. Gen agreed.

We three worked on our own the next day, sorting out the gig and album tracks and putting the new recordings, ‘Almost Like This’ and ‘Splitting Sky’, to one side and preparing ‘How Do You Deal?’ ready for Gen’s return to do vocals.

We finally got the vocals recorded for ‘How Do You Deal?’, sorted out the gig’s running order and jammed the first four numbers to see how they felt. It went well and we made plans to mix the vocal tracks over the next two days, then run through a full set twice the following day. Gen mentioned that he had two art projects starting in the two weeks before the TG gig at ATP so he wouldn’t be available to do anything for TG.

Paul Smith entered the studio to discuss the TG Artist Development Meeting that had taken place over at Mute. It was so weird to think of people talking about us like that. While at Mute we’d done group interviews for the Guardian and some magazines, Sleazy and Gen had done a phone interview, and me and Chris were interviewed by Paul Morley at the BBC. We’d been busy but rumours were circulating that we weren’t actually working together and that ATP might not happen, so we shot a thirty-second video of us all in the studio to put on the Mute and TG websites to prove we were together.

Me, Chris and Sleazy spent the last day in the studio working until 7.30 p.m. on mixes for the album, while Gen went shopping, leaving us all disgruntled, particularly Sleazy. ‘I presume the publishing will be twenty-five per cent each again, despite the fact he’s done fuck all?’

After a full day’s studio work, we got a taxi straight to the Royal Festival Hall restaurant for a meal with Paul Smith, Barry Hogan (of ATP) and Cerith Wyn Evans to discuss the TG gig. Gen turned up dressed to the nines in a leather skirt, stilettos and full make-up, and proceeded to behave as disruptively as he had at the Real Greek meal. He sat next to Cerith, which wasn’t a good idea. They both got blind drunk. We tried to discuss as much as possible but it wasn’t happening. By the time dessert was served I was tired and ready to call it a night – but then, just to put the finishing touches to a trying day and evening meal, as I looked up from putting ice cream in my mouth I was greeted with the sight of Gen with one of his breasts out and Cerith feeling his nipple. Sleazy sighed in resignation at the situation, visibly flagging under the effects of a bad cold. Me and Chris left at 11 p.m.

As we rose to leave, Gen asked, ‘Oh, are you going?’

‘Yes, it’s late,’ Chris said.

‘You call eleven late?’ Gen laughed.

I felt the anger rise in me. ‘It is when you’ve been working in the studio all fucking day!’

Gen went into scolded-dog mode and politely asked what time he had to be at Mute the next day. Chris said 11 a.m.

‘What time are we meeting, then?’ said Gen.

We gave up. He was too drunk to understand.

The Cabinet Gallery official launch of my limited-edition book, Confessions, brought some respite from the preceding few weeks. It was refreshing to be out meeting new and interesting people, discussing and being invited to contribute to their academic and art projects. We’d coordinated the book launch with our DJ set at Nag Nag Nag. The club was run by Jonny Slut and had been described as the new Blitz, except it had a non-elitist door policy: those first in line got in. It didn’t matter whether you were a frequent celebrity visitor like Boy George, Kate Moss or Björk or the guy at the supermarket checkout. There was a diverse crowd, some dressed in the style of Leigh Bowery, some in drag, some dressed down, but all hugging, dancing and laughing. A great atmosphere – the dance floor was a riot. Such a great stress-reliever. At least we offloaded some before a shitload more arrived.

24 April 2004

I’ve been in a state of shock really. We went to London to an urgent meeting at the Groucho Club with Paul Smith and Barry. RE ~TG has been postponed until April 25th next year.

Just ten days before we were due to play ATP, the whole RE~TG event was off. Sleazy, me and Chris met Paul and Barry at the Groucho Club. After all the work we’d done, to say we were pissed off would be an understatement. We wanted an explanation as to what the fuck had gone wrong. It all boiled down to basic mismanagement, resulting in ticket sales not covering costs.

Me and Chris agreed with Sleazy’s damage-limitation proposal of doing a filmed live recording session (like Heathen Earth), free to all ticket holders, who could also either get a refund or transfer their tickets to next year’s rescheduled RE~TG at ATP. Barry would cover the cost and we’d sell the RE~TG merchandise and TG Now album to pay back the Mute studio costs.

I felt so deflated. We three thought the live recording idea was our best option, all things considered, and it assuaged our consciences about letting down the fans. But when we told Gen he (understandably) did his fucking nut and (not so understandably) demanded £5,000 be paid into his bank account or he wouldn’t do the gig. That upped the stress levels. Gen got his £5,000, and me, Chris and Sleazy performed for free. I didn’t like the precedent that had just been set but we’d been forced into a corner by the cancellation and Gen’s demand. TG’s democracy and united front had fallen at the first hurdle but at least we could deliver something that compensated the fans.

18 May 2004

Phew! Sunday TG recording session … what can I say? All aspects of it were immense – emotional, logistics troublesome, ‘interesting’ interrelations, sound so physical and so much more I just don’t know where to start. I’m shell shocked really.

Because we had an early load-in scheduled for 10 a.m. on the day of the show, we’d all arrived in London the day before so we could sign merchandise posters and listen to tracks to agree a running order for the set.

Gen had brought his own merchandise with him to sell at the venue – something we’d all agreed not to do. TG was the focus and only the TG merchandise was to be sold, specifically to recoup as much as we could to pay accrued TG costs. Sleazy started the discussion off, being very diplomatic about it. Silence. I seemed the only one willing to say what we all felt – ‘I don’t want any of the merch you’ve done to be sold at the Astoria’ – and I reminded Gen that it was agreed in emails before he came that none of us were to sell our own merchandise. Unlike him, me, Chris and Sleazy hadn’t received any payment to turn up and were hoping our own merchandise losses could be offset by any shared profit from the RE~TG merchandise sales after repaying Mute. Then Gen told us he’d done a ‘Hamburger Lady’ T-shirt and a TG badge as a surprise. What happened to working and agreeing TG things together?

He was still a little sulky when we went back to our hotels. I told him not to dwell on the merchandise issues, that we’d sort it out tomorrow. He said, ‘OK’, but I knew he wasn’t OK about it.

The next day, with the help of the crew, we set up our equipment, leaving the stage stark, with nothing fancy and all the house lights up. The camera crew of eight were given their instructions by Sleazy. Chris set up an Alesis twenty-four-track recorder at the side of the stage to be manned by MJ, a technician from Mute. Gen arrived in a miniskirt and low-cut blouse, blowing his ‘Hamburger Lady’ duck horn, with Jackie keeping her personal distance from us but once again with video camera, recording the soundcheck. None of us wanted to escalate the already compromised atmosphere over merch issues by telling her to stop. Soundcheck done, we went backstage to get something to eat.

After our lunch break, Chris, Sleazy and I went into the empty auditorium to get a feel for the place. At 3.30 Gen appeared on the deserted stage, unplugged his violin and guitar and started sounding off about people being two-faced and how he’d complied to all wishes and done what he was supposed to do, that he was sick of it all, and was now going to do what HE wanted after twenty-five years. I said his walking off wasn’t a good thing, with over a thousand people waiting outside for TG to play in an hour.

Kirsten, our trusty assistant, stepped in to prevent a full-on huge row between me and Gen. She took him backstage and I called Paul to let him know what was happening. While Paul and Kirsten tried to calm Gen down, we three waited in the auditorium. Jon Whitney (of Brainwashed) was there and casually asked Sleazy when he was going back to Weston. Laughing, Sleazy said, ‘In about ten minutes, I think. Taxi for Mr Christopherson, please!’

We were told that Gen was upset and crying backstage. Paul took us to the communal dressing room to discuss what Gen’s outburst was about and what to do to make sure the gig went ahead on schedule. There wasn’t much time. Paul asked me if I could deal with it. In what way? Could my heart trouble withstand it? Yes … but what Paul actually meant was that he thought the situation was really about me and Gen and our history. I was flabbergasted. After twenty-five years? The other thing was that Paul knew I wouldn’t compromise over Gen selling his merchandise. I knew we’d live to regret giving Gen the ‘sweetener’ payment and that submitting to more of his tantrums and demands would give him the wrong idea that he could ride roughshod over the three of us.

Sleazy always avoided confrontation and Chris wasn’t getting involved. The event had to go ahead so I said I’d talk to Gen. He joined us, walking in like the injured party. Sleazy apologised for any hurt he may have unintentionally caused and Gen accepted that and thanked him for being so adult – whatever that meant. Then Gen looked at the floor as he talked, avoiding eye contact with me as he said that my telling him last night not to dwell on things was intended to make him do exactly that.

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa – stop right there,’ I said, ‘and look at me when you’re talking about me.’ I reiterated that my intention was to reassure him. I wasn’t into playing games.

Then he mentioned my conversation with one of his friends about the TG T-shirts, saying things that weren’t true. It had all the hallmarks of turning into a petty ‘he said, she said’ argument, so I called his friend in to confirm the truth of what I’d said to him – that I’d not said what Gen had just implied. At that point Sleazy agreed that what I’d said about TG merchandise having to be a joint decision was correct, that the TG house style was the four of us together and that was and is how it should always be. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, Gen giggled and cuddled up to Sleazy.

As we were about to go on stage half an hour later, someone said, ‘Group hug.’ A tentative attempt was made, with Gen saying, ‘We’re legends, you know. And it’s twenty-three years since we last played together.’

At that moment all I could think was that this would be the last time ever – but walking on stage blew away all the preceding wranglings. The atmosphere was charged with expectation and joy, the place heaving with people thrilled to see us together. It was an immensely emotional moment. After a brief technical hitch we started playing and the place erupted. The musician Susan Stenger had loaned me her guitar strap in the hope that I’d stand and play guitar to make my presence felt. I had a feeling that, if I stood up, Gen would come over to me acting like a rock-star lead vocalist, playing up to my guitar sounds. But this was a recording session and sitting best suited the way I used and abused my guitar. So I stayed seated until I played cornet, when a great cheer went up. That was nice.

I set aside Gen’s antics – these people were who mattered. This was TG magic in action. I felt such affinity with the audience as the TG beast was unleashed. When we played ‘Discipline’, Chris’s descending sub-bass sent me and the crowd into raptures … and apparently the bar staff shut up shop, fearful that the building would collapse as it was shaking so much.

The session ended in a climactic frenzy, with the audience all but hysterical. One young guy with pink hair directly in front of me was so far gone, his eyes rolling back then staring at me as he head-banged to the rhythm. I sped up the rhythm on my guitar in response. I felt wicked but good too. People went crazy, stripping off, crying and clawing at themselves. The effect we had was extraordinary. It was one of the most intense one and a half hours I’d ever played. We left the stage stunned, with our ears ringing.

14 August 2004

This week has been absolutely terrible. What we may have been guessing for months now happened … World Serpent went bust and owe us somewhere in the region of £8,000.

Just as our Carter Tutti album Cabal was getting radio play and gigs were coming in, World Serpent collapsed. They’d sold thousands of our CDs and we were to receive nothing. We weren’t the only ones. Coil were owed more than us. We’d talked to Sleazy about our World Serpent worries when we were in Amsterdam for a Kink FM gig. The line-up was Carter Tutti, Coil and Whitehouse. An odd mix, considering the animosity Sleazy and Geff had towards William Bennett. But good to see Coil in action … even if Geff was slumped out of his head at the back of the stage for most of their show.

The way World Serpent handled things was bad, keeping us hanging on and taking more of our stock at a time when they weren’t able to pay us. I’d only spoken to Gibby a few days before he walked out and he gave me no inkling what was about to happen. Alan had left the previous year and now Gibby was gone, leaving only Alison to deal with everyone. She called me to tell me the bad news. She told us she had some of our stock in her garage and we could collect it. We drove there in our car. The garage was at the bottom of her garden and was half falling down with a leaking roof. A lot of other people’s stock had been water-damaged but we were lucky that ours was in a dry part. We loaded up as much as we could and slowly drove home with the car so loaded down that the body was nearly touching the wheels. We talked with Sleazy about suing them but the cost and hassle weren’t worth the aggravation.

We were panicking about how we were going to get our work distributed. Paul Taylor came to our rescue, suggesting Mute Distribution, and Paul Smith put us in touch with Cargo Distribution. Having lost money on TG and now this, the offers of TG gigs were looking more likely as an option to solve our dilemma. But the TG gig saga was rolling on in the same confused and raggedy fashion, with Gen annoying us all by playing TG tracks ‘Discipline’ and ‘How Do You Deal?’ as part of his own band’s ‘Best of’ live set, then Sleazy talking to Barry about TG and confusing Paul Smith’s negotiations. That was the point at which Paul started to take on TG managerial duties.

Setting aside the disappointment and chaos, I continued with my own projects and returned to Hull to do a lecture on my work to media technology students. I wasn’t sure how I’d be received after so many years. It went well and I was especially pleased Pam had come along with Les. Neither of them really knew the details about my sex-magazine work so I didn’t know how they’d take it. Pam had a tear in her eye and said how proud she was of me. From there I went to the Frieze Art Fair, where my work was profiled on the Cabinet stand and duly sold to collectors.

That side of my life was on track and I felt good. I’d completed the second ‘Self lessness’ action in the Sandringham woods, the Queen’s country estate. Me and Chris had found a secluded area that felt suitable for a short ritual. The piece referenced my historic connection to the Queen: as reigning monarch she owned the building that housed the ICA, the site of the sex-magazine-and-tampons scandal. I’d collected some leaves from the site and used them as a template for leaves made from the cache of my last tampons, which I’d crushed and pulped into papier-mâché. The different sizes, shades of white, spots of pale blue (tampon string) and varied hues of dried red blood looked beautiful. On the day of the action we drove to the Sandringham Estate, parked in the tourist car park and took our video camera, tripod and all my materials to our designated spot. The woods were pretty much empty other than the occasional dog-walker who passed by without noticing us. It was so still, with only birdsong, the rustling of squirrels and other woodland creatures, and the ground gave off a musky, earthy, composting-leaf-mould smell. It felt warm and comforting, evoking memories of my childhood, when I’d sit in solitude among the long grass, feeling at one with nature. I hung my tampon leaves from the branches of the nearby trees and shrubs, which had supplied the leaf templates, and placed some among the layers of fallen leaves. A token, an imprint of myself.

The TG gig at ATP was cancelled yet again, causing another all-round freak-out in the TG camp. We accepted another compromise from Barry. TG would headline at Jake and Dinos Chapman’s curated ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ ATP weekend on 3 December.

Sleazy was behind with the TG Astoria video and artworks – Geff had been on a drinking binge again. At 6.30 p.m. on 14 November I received an email from Sleazy to inform us that Geff had died. I shouted downstairs to Chris, ‘Geff’s dead!’

Not being able to take it in, we both read Sleazy’s email again together. After what Sleazy described as ‘a three-week dip into the oblivion of vodka’, Geff had fallen over the upstairs banister, hitting his head on the hard tiled floor below. He was rushed to hospital but his head injuries were so severe that he was pronounced dead soon afterwards.

We were bereft and kept thinking of Sleazy and how he must feel in that huge house that screamed Geff from every corner. Although Sleazy had left Weston in many ways, going to Thailand at any opportunity, it was still the hub of Coil and supposedly the place where Geff could find himself and be free from his dependency on alcohol. But it had become the site of his death.

I called Sleazy and offered to come to Weston but he had others there and wanted to spare me. I said the TG show would of course be cancelled, but he said he wanted to do it. I kept thinking about when me and Chris walked with Sleazy along the Harrow Road after the TG Mute meeting just eight weeks earlier, when he’d been a bit melancholy about Geff, saying that he blamed himself for Geff’s demise, that he didn’t think it would be long before Geff would die. That had turned out to be tragically prophetic.

Sleazy was devastated and he understandably couldn’t talk about the accident. I doubt that the full story of the circumstances of Geff’s death will ever be known. Sleazy refused to discuss it or why Geff’s most recent (ex-) lover inherited such a large share of his estate.

Geff’s private funeral took place ten days later, with about a hundred invited close friends and family. The small chapel was festooned with flowers, vegetables and fruit, a truly beautiful setting that wasn’t too heavy with sadness. Sleazy sobbed uncontrollably at times as he led the ceremony. He said at the beginning that he didn’t think he could get through it without tears and that he wanted people to know that they too should feel free to cry. We did. It wasn’t reverential or formal, just very, very personal. Geff’s soft nature was countered with a reminder by Sleazy that ‘Geff could also be a nightmare, bless him.’ As much as he had at times been an utter pain with his drinking, I, like Sleazy, remembered the person inside. The sweetness Geff had about him, the fact that he was so lost and desperately trying to find himself. When that got too difficult he drank, and that killed him. I was so sad and angry he was gone.

Sleazy stood beside the open silk-lined wicker coffin and Geff’s mother and sister sat beneath a large photo of Geff as a child. The contrast of such innocence and his tragic death was heartbreaking. There were readings and selected recorded and live music, including Coil’s ‘The Dreamer Is Still Asleep’ and their version of ‘Going Up’, the theme tune to the TV programme Are You Being Served? Maybe a weird choice to some but it felt anything but to everyone there. The ceremony was powerful and emotional, especially when we all lit a candle and walked up to say our final goodbye to Geff and lay a token of our love beside him in his coffin. Me and Chris saw it as the greatest and last Coil performance.

The ceremony over, we watched as the black, glass-sided, horse-drawn carriage disappeared into the distance, taking Geff for cremation, his ashes to be scattered under a hawthorn tree. Sleazy was bent over crying, then let out an enormously loud, heart-wrenching wail as Geff left us forever.

Everyone gathered in a hospitality room for the wake, where a spread of food and fruit was laid out, with a centrepiece of a huge heap of broccoli forming a ring around the largest bottle of vodka I’d ever seen. Everyone noticed it but no one mentioned or touched it. Sleazy entered the room, walked straight up to the table, smiled, grabbed the vodka bottle, poured out a glass and drank it.

Still reeling from the ceremony, I was on stage the next evening playing a solo gig at Spitz club in London. I dedicated it to Geff and did my best to transcend the deep hurt inside. Chris recorded the show but I’ve never listened to it.

A few weeks later TG was about to kick off again, starting with us all meeting at Mute Studios to run through the set, then drive in convoy to Camber Sands to finally play the ill-fated ATP gig at a Pontins holiday camp. The ‘TG family’, as it became known, arrived safely and took up residence in chalets, with Sleazy and Gen either side of me and Chris. Sleazy was pretty isolated from us to help him to get through the evening, and was tearful when I was discussing with Gen the idea of dedicating the gig to Geff.

After soundcheck we went back to the band chalet area. Sleazy and Gen were discussing drugs and I made my way to hospitality to get some food. It was dark and the light on the corner was broken so I couldn’t see the step. I fell to the ground with such a thump. In a split second, I’d managed to put my hands out to save me from going face-first on to concrete. There was nobody around so I got up and made my way back to the chalet. I was shaking with shock. ‘I’ve just fallen over,’ I said to Chris. My wrists and knees had taken the brunt of the force when I fell. Both my wrists were throbbing with pain and swelling up, and my knees were bleeding and felt like they’d been hit with a hammer. Chris called Paul, who came with Susan and Kirsten to assess the damage and whether I’d be able to play my guitar. A paramedic was called but was useless. I ended up telling him to just leave some support bandages for my wrists and I sat on the bed waiting and hoping it wasn’t as bad as it felt.

The decision was made for me to do the best I could within the limitations of my pain threshold. Mitch, our roadie and tech assistant, was wonderful. When we got on stage he put my guitar over my shoulder for me, placed my plectrum between thumb and forefinger and stayed knelt at my side to help me at any time. TG were ready to go even if I was the worse for wear, with my bandaged wrist and aching knees. Sleazy wore his white-fur mirrored Coil costume in memory of Geff and as a tribute to Coil, who should have been performing on the same stage the next night but were now no more. He held his head down to weep whenever he was overcome with sadness. The gig started with Gen’s dedication to Geff and we all focused in on the sound. Sleazy managed to transcend his difficulties and I endured the agony with the help of painkillers.

The concert was recorded and mixed by Live Here Now, immediately burned on to CD-Rs and put on sale just ten minutes after we’d finished playing. Sleazy disappeared really fast after the show, throwing all his gear into his bag, retreating to his chalet and dropping acid to enter another world for the rest of the evening. Gen stumbled into his chalet and we didn’t see him again. Our room filled with sweet, warm-hearted people helping me re-bandage my wrists and asking if there was anything I needed. We said our thanks and goodbyes and settled in for the night, with Chris having to wash me and brush my hair and teeth for me. I couldn’t sleep – the painkillers weren’t effective and I was in agony with my wrists, which had ballooned in size. I spent the night propped up, resting my arms on soft pillows.

We left for home early the next morning. Chris drove straight to our local hospital. I was relieved I hadn’t broken anything but it took nearly a year and many visits to a chiropractor to put things right.

1 January 2005

I think many of us are thankful that 2004 is over when we think back on all the traumas that it delivered in abundance. But then I have to also consider that it was the most successful and inspiring year we have had in decades.

Our new guise as Carter Tutti had gone so well, with radio play, reviews and live work all tumbling into our laps. My art was forging ahead too, with sales to museums and collectors and forthcoming exhibitions in Europe and America.

I felt so elated and blessed, not least because our music was to be part of the ‘Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since 1900’ exhibition at MOCA in Los Angeles. I was to give a lecture on ‘Synaesthesia’ and Carter Tutti were to play at REDCAT, a theatre inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Once again I was performing in a Disney space. The theatre was ideal for our audiovisual work, so technologically advanced and versatile, offering a huge screen that filled the wall behind us and a sound system and acoustics we could only have dreamed of. The concert sold out fast and there was a second concert offered for the fans that had missed out, but this wasn’t a ‘gig’ as such – this was a different context altogether.

9 May 2005

I got back from Eindhoven late last night and am still a bit worn out from it all. It was amazing to work there for a week and gradually have everything emerge so beautifully and seem so right in that library setting.

Andrew and I had been going through my sex action works, sifting through the archive to put together the first comprehensive presentation of the material ready to install for the exhibition ‘In the Vitrines’ at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Holland. I was absolutely thrilled and excited, but scared when I thought of how much work was involved. It was the first time I’d fully engaged on such a scale. Re-viewing and analysing my magazine works and all the related letters, model cards and photographs was a strange (but not unpleasant) revisiting experience. Andrew’s assistance and informed critical gaze were invaluable and we worked with one of the museum curators, Diana, who was totally committed to helping us bring the show together. We worked in the library reading space for a week, forming coherent readings from the vast amount of material laid out in six vitrines and accompanied by captioned informational text and a four-piece framed magazine work across one wall. We put out a desk with reading matter on it: my Confessions edition and a transcript of an email conversation between me and Lucy McKenzie on our work, the exhibition and about being pornographic models – she’d worked exclusively for Richard Kern. It looked serene in its simplicity and so elegant in the quiet setting.

The library itself consisted of two walls of art-related printed material, spanning two floors and twelve shelves high. I had appeared in over two hundred sex magazines and as part of my show I placed my magazines in one stratum of the library shelves. It looked great to see all the colourful glamour covers, my art taking its place alongside so many other printed works on art.

Everything had gone so well, then on the eve of the opening an ICA moment raised its ugly head. One of the museum staff took exception to the framed work in particular as being too confrontational and said that the museum could be closed down by complaints. I couldn’t believe that revisiting the ‘Prostitution’ works had resulted in the same censorship issues. Me and Andrew remained calm but firm and suggested a warning sign stating that the lower-floor area of the library contained pornographic material, and that there was no access to anyone under the age of sixteen. What made the situation worse was that there was a retrospective of a male Dutch artist in the main museum space, which included pornographic collages. There was no demand that he install warning signs for his work. That male/female artist hierarchy prevailed. Just one guy had caused the unnecessary angst. The other museum staff and the director were very apologetic and supportive. The opening went ahead with very discreet signage for my show.

3 July 2005

I was so shattered when we got home from Turin on Thursday, well we all were. It took us until today to feel anywhere near normal.

TG gigs had been offered, assessed and declined or accepted. A gig in Turin was agreed but attached to the deal was what I’d expected – a demand from Gen. He wanted a return business-class air ticket from New York. TG was certainly not a stadium band and the budget was tight. Sleazy was pragmatic and just said, ‘He can fly with a coach and horses as long as HE pays.’

Gen’s demand (without which he wouldn’t play) pissed off all three of us, as well as the promoter who’d recently seen Gen in Spain and knew that he had flown economy and seemed healthy and well. That ran contrary to the health issues Gen had given as the reason for the extra cost. The promoter thought Gen was being opportunistic at his and TG’s expense.

Turin was to be a performance with some additional time booked in a recording studio – a chance to do some recording together for a second TG album and finish Gen’s vocal and instrumental parts for the album Part Two: The Endless Not. Sleazy had come to stay at our house and work in our studio to prepare. We hadn’t heard from Gen, either about the album or the gig. He was on tour in the back of a van doing ‘Best of’ gigs with his band – and, much to our annoyance, still playing some TG songs. He got in touch two weeks before the Turin show to let us know that he was now going on holiday to Mexico. We kept things civil and focused on the bigger picture, hoping that Gen would work ‘with’ us at some point, as he repeatedly said he wanted to.

The festival organisers had decided TG would play in an ‘industrial setting’ on an outdoor stage with ‘the cement men’, all thirty-six of them underneath us throwing cement all over the place as we played. That wasn’t going to happen. Paul insisted TG play in the indoor theatre but because it only held 1,500 people, TG would have to play two concerts with an hour’s turnaround between sets to get the second audience in. It was Italy, is all I can say.

Back at the hotel for a rest and there was a crisis with Gen. He was jet-lagged and without his usual ‘medication’. He was in a bad way and was eventually taken to the emergency room at the hospital to be ‘fixed up’ with legal pharmaceuticals. TG wasn’t top of his to-do list. Rather than being in the studio with us preparing for the show and recording for the new TG album, he was out dining and shopping for a dress to wear for the gig.

The first day in the ‘studio’ was absolute hell. It was what you’d call a ‘project studio’, a small space with no air conditioning or fans and the temperature gauge topping forty-two degrees. We were sweating buckets and the gear was turning itself off as it overheated. As arranged, we arrived at 11.30 a.m. with Charlie, our TG sound engineer. Gen showed up at 4.30, did six minutes of vocals, then wanted to leave because it was too hot. By that time so did we, as we’d been there for five hours, so we all left.

Backstage was heaving with people before the shows. John Duncan was there, so glad to see Nick, who was about to see TG for the first time. Sleazy’s Coil friends, Massimo and Pierce, were there, as was one hard-core Coil fan who had their logo carved across the full expanse of his back. Gen displayed his breast implants to the room, blurting out to the women present, ‘It’s all right for you, you’re lucky you were born with them. I had to work hard to get these.’ But, ever the showman, once Gen had a stage he delivered the goods.

8 August 2005

Well onwards with the new album … which sounds great!

Sleazy came back to our house from Turin to work on the Part Two album. Having Sleazy stay again was a total pleasure. He slotted in so easily, as if he’d always lived with us. He wanted to get as much done on the album before he got distracted by moving house. He’d sold Weston and was moving to Thailand to set up home there, taking his two dogs, Moon and Pan, with him. Chris was to mix the album, ready for an end-of-year release in time for the next TG gig in Berlin.

One element was missing. All we’d got from Gen out of the two Turin studio sessions was six minutes of vocals and a few minutes of bass and violin. Plus we were all doing a solo track. We three had finished ours but were still waiting for Gen’s contribution and for him to record the vocals on the title song, ‘Endless Not’. We managed to get that finished but then were informed that the lyrics he’d sung were from a song he’d already recorded with his other band. He didn’t seem able to keep his different music projects separate. That attitude came across to us three like a refusal to fully engage and commit to TG, most blatantly displayed by his choice of dress being far from what we’d all agreed, and always placing his other band’s logo prominently on the TG stage. That sent conflicting messages to us and our fans. But the most troublesome thing was him (re-)using already published lyrics for TG songs (which happened more than once), even though the TG album was contracted to Mute and Mute Song Publishing. We were left trying to make some sense of his tangled web of confusion, which was becoming very wearisome, as well as having to salvage what Gen material we could from live gig recordings to use on the album as a substitute for the lack of any studio recordings by him. It wasn’t easy as we couldn’t use vocals from the Turin gigs because he’d sung the wrong lyrics to the wrong songs.

The deadline for delivering the album was getting so close that Chris finished as much as he could (bar Gen’s vocals and solo track) and sent a copy to Mute, Paul, Sleazy and Gen. Everyone thought it was fantastic … but no word from Gen. I’d been ringing him to try and bring him back into TG reality about the now-urgent deadlines. Then I finally got to speak to him. He sounded pretty ill. He’d been put on medication and a strict diet and advised to rest. It was difficult to figure out whether what he told me was true or exaggerated because the list of ailments was so long: possible cancer, pneumonia, heart trouble, diabetes, arthritis, brittle bones … Then he added that he’d broken his shoulder and some ribs when he was pushing his laundry down the street in a trolley a couple of days earlier. That prompted questions in my mind. If he’s so ill why isn’t someone helping and doing his laundry for him? I guessed we’d only know what he wanted us to. If what he said was fact, then I could understand why he’d not been in touch. He told me he was awaiting test results and said he would be scaling down his activities. But two weeks after our conversation we got an email from him to say he was free of all the possible illnesses, and giving us his feedback on the new TG album: ‘Put bluntly, as it is I am ashamed of it and would never play it to anyone as being anything connected voluntarily with my body of work. Having said that I am prepared to work hard to help it become perfect. Ironically I think it’s really close and everyone has done a great job.’

To have that slap-down after all the work we’d done (and the little Gen had done) was too much for Chris, particularly Gen’s generous offer to ‘perfect’ it for us all – he still hadn’t sent us his vocals or solo track. To cap it all, he said he’d mislaid his CD of the new unreleased album, possibly in a local studio. That set alarm bells ringing as to whether it would appear on the internet before it was even released.

Chris went ballistic. He’d spent so much time on TG already, having mastered the TG DVD surround mixes of the TG sessions at the Astoria and for Berlin, and two months finishing tracks and mixing the new album. He was blunt in his reply: ‘Gen, if you wanted more involvement in this album why on earth didn’t you get involved? We asked you to send us a solo track, you didn’t. We asked you to send us voice, guitar, violin parts, snippets, ANYTHING we could work with, you didn’t. If you wanted MORE voice, violin, bass you should have helped us out a bit more in Turin. What did you expect, a classic TG album with 10% input? I half expected this kind of response. You reacted in a similar way to TG Now and you told us (more than once!) you hated all the tracks on Mutant TG. Two TG albums that were well received and successful I might add. So I guess your response is par for the course.’

Chris’s email tore apart Gen’s points of criticism one by one, reminding him that this was one of two albums contracted to Mute, and that, if things couldn’t be resolved, he and I were ready to walk away from TG. Sleazy stepped in to try and find a solution, couldn’t, then stepped back and left it to me, Chris and Paul, who was so patient and tenacious in his determination to bring us all together again.

It wasn’t just the album that was giving us angst-ridden days and sleepless nights. The forthcoming TG Berlin gig, which was to act as promotion for the launch of the new album, took a lot of preparation as it involved two live shows and an exhibition, ‘Industrial Annual Report’. That had been another source of friction between us three and Gen, who’d made noises about supplying material from his archive but didn’t deliver. After meetings with Paul Smith and Markus Müller from Kunst-Werke in Berlin, me and Andrew (Wheatley) worked on collating the material for the exhibition. Sleazy sent items from his archive and I delved into ours, scanning and supplying print files for enlarged photographic prints of classic TG images to include in the show. Gen had expressed no interest in the exhibition. I forged on, giving only a fleeting thought to whether he’d give a similar ‘ashamed’ critique as he had with the album.

Me and Chris took the train to London for a meeting. On the station newsstand, Chris saw the cover of Zero Tolerance magazine advertising an interview with Gen. Out of curiosity he looked inside, only to read Gen saying, ‘I’m committed to my own projects, but I’m not really committed to TG any more. I’ve written new songs with TG, though – I had to. We had to. It’s just not possible to be a caricature of something that you’re not any more. The new stuff is more ambient, more peaceful, because with me being the voice, it has to be how I really feel, and that’s different now to how it was twenty-five years ago …’

That was a body blow but confirmed what all three of us had been feeling about Gen’s (non-) commitment to TG. As for Gen being the ‘voice’ of TG, none of us agreed with that. The overall impression he gave was that TG was secondary and we fit ourselves around him. ‘When there’s something interesting to do, and I have spare time, then I’ll do TG with the others,’ he said. It was not only demeaning to us and TG but it was also disinformation and didn’t reflect the real situation.

7 October 2005

I feel like I have sold my soul to the devil and he is poisoning my life. I can’t see us sitting down and having a talk through our past misgivings because he has continued to be worse than he ever was. Where would you begin and end? He couldn’t face it or handle it. He’d shut down immediately. TG would end there and then … The fat cheque means nothing to me. At the beginning of all this I said I couldn’t be bought but was outvoted. I should have stuck to my guns. I am in the Faustus zone.

As Gen travelled around the world disseminating his views on TG and doing a pretty good job of obstructing and undermining our ongoing hard work in his absence, I was feeling like I’d paid a high price for allowing his malevolent presence back into my life.

There were also great things going on that went a long way to negate the drip feed of Gen’s disruptive actions. I was to be included in the Tate Triennial and me and Chris had contributed a sound work, ‘4:16:16’, for European Radio Day: four images converted into four audio pieces arranged to present the linear sound of the visual pixels of the four images. I loved those non-TG activities and the escape afforded by everyday symbiotic moments of gentle beauty, like sweeping up the autumn leaves in the garden joined by a robin redbreast just feet away, picking up the bugs as I unearthed them.

The TG exhibition came together. Word had been sent to us that Gen was too busy with an exhibition of his own. It turned out that he screened the COUM films including me and Sleazy and music by Chris and John Lacey. The gallery apologised as they had assumed Gen had our permission, but he’d not consulted any of us beforehand. One thing after another.

We started calling Gen’s emails ‘hand grenades’, as he’d be silent for months then hurl a ‘bomb’ of demands or statements of intent (or not) our way. One such hand grenade arrived just a month before the Berlin shows. After a prolonged silence, with our emails going unanswered, which was driving Paul and us crazy, Gen emailed to inform us that he had a new manager and that ALL TG matters must go through his manager first. That included the Mute contract, which had been months in the making and was about to be signed, and which could now face Gen’s new manager’s amendments – as could the Berlin schedule. He also laid his cards on the table as to his commitment to TG – it would come after everything else he ‘may’ get offered. Placing TG secondary to as yet non-existent possibilities led us to think that he didn’t want to do TG at all.

There was a lot of money at stake. The new Mute deal with TG came with an advance and obligations that had been discussed and largely agreed, including further gigs that Gen’s new manager saw as an area of potential conflict. Sleazy lost his will to bother with Gen, even suggesting we work without him in future. He’d been working hard on the TG merchandise and preparing the many component parts for the TG limited-edition Berlin Uber (Super) ticket, to get it all manufactured in time to bring with him. Each ticket came in a red velvet bag containing a silver box, inside which was a 3" CD-R of live tracks from Turin, two ‘Endless Knot’ badges (gold and enamel), four postcards, four totemic gifts, a signed poster and a lanyard laminated ticket decorated with gold foil.

Paul as ever saved the day and somehow made it all work out for the greater good, and as always was magnanimous towards Gen. Me and Andrew packed the TG exhibition materials, and me and Chris got down to working on TG live material for the gigs.

6 December 2005

Poor Paul Smith, he’s worked so hard for TG and Gen has made his life hell. I did warn him and Sleazy at the beginning of all this that Gen would undermine TG and manipulate the situation as an act of revenge but I think they thought I was being bitchy and vengeful.

I was being philosophical about it. Maybe it was a mixed blessing … that Gen could have possibly engineered the scenario of Throbbing Gristle’s final spurt coming to a sticky end. The release of the album had been postponed, on top of the concerns with the contract, which was now on hold. When we arrived in Berlin it was covered in snow and Christmas decorations, a stunningly festive, welcoming scene. We were staying in a large hotel at the Alexanderplatz in the former East Berlin. A 1970s timewarp. We dropped our bags off in our room and went down to the lounge for quick hellos. Sleazy had flown from Bangkok and Gen and Jackie from New York.

The photographer Paul Heartfield and his partner and assistant, Alix, joined us a few days later to document the whole TG trip. The two shows at the Volksbühne were to be on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and the TG Astoria film premiere was to be screened on the 29th, then the TG exhibition. To make best use of us all being in one place at the same time and to fulfil Gen’s request ‘to be all four in the studio together’, we’d booked time in a recording studio.

Breakfast on our first day in Berlin, and the start of what we expected but didn’t want … Gen wouldn’t be at the studio until much later. It was a pattern that continued throughout the ten days in the studio, which was costing us a fortune on top of the extra hotel expenses. Gen’s alcohol and drug use had got worse and we were having to work around his highs and lows as best we could, gently but persistently steering him towards producing material for the new second album. There were concerns over his health, as he was drinking a lot in addition to taking what was referred to as his ‘arthritis medication’. As well as him being irritable, easily distracted or spaced out, the drink and drugs created a disconnect from us when we were supposed to be working in unity. I found it upsetting to witness.

The studio we’d hired was at Funkhaus Berlin, situated in the former East Berlin and housed in a 1950s building used as the broadcast headquarters of the GDR’s state radio. Not only was it a massive complex with purpose-built recording studios for all kinds of genres of music, even for whole orchestras, but it also had the most fantastic foley facilities we were likely to get access to. It was an incredible place, a warren of corridors leading to offices, acoustic rooms, textured floors of every description, cave and cellar spaces, listening booths, with an array of instruments at our disposal. The engineers and technicians were so very nice; it was a great atmosphere to work in.

Rehearsing for the gigs took priority for the first few days. The TG gig set was sorted quickly, then we started working on ideas for the live Derek Jarman soundtrack. Sleazy, Chris and me had bought some new equipment – Sleazy a cheap child-size guitar, and all three of us had a sex toy to use as an instrument. My sex toy was a clear-glass dildo, Chris’s dildo was stainless steel, and Sleazy’s was a steel vibrating penis probe. I got a really great sound using the dildo on my guitar, and my effects pedal fitted well with what Chris and Sleazy were doing. I was pleased to play that and bring in my sampled sounds and cornet.

Gen had been in the hospitality room while we worked – he didn’t seem to know what to do for the soundtrack. He asked to see Sleazy’s sex toy. Sleazy handed it to him (switched on), and Gen got an electric shock and jumped, spilling his cup of coffee all down his dress. I rushed him off to clean it, leaving Sleazy laughing. Later he did apologise and Gen took it very well, considering it was his favourite outfit. We all went back to the hotel to wash and rest before the TG exhibition private view at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art.

The exhibition looked wonderful and we received tremendously good feedback. The show focused on the development and strategies of TG and Industrial Records, with newsletters, badges, patches, audio and visual releases, artworks and posters. It was a great night all round, a full house. There was also a viewing room, where the floor was covered in carpet featuring a huge TG flash logo, and where TG live videos were screened. The Mute and Cabinet contingent were on fine form, as was Richard from Cosey Club. We stayed till late. Gen and Jackie stayed about an hour and were sociable and pleasant. Gen didn’t comment to me personally about the show. It was a shame he hadn’t been involved but that was his choice and he had supplied us with nothing from his archive. People probably didn’t notice, other than the absence of his portrait print from the Heathen Earth display.

We later found out why he hadn’t cooperated. He’d sold his archive to the Tate, including TG tapes, artworks and other related TG and IR items. He never mentioned that he was doing it either before, during or after the time we discussed needing his materials for the show. For me, I’d worked on two TG exhibitions, which had provided the provenance that had no doubt contributed to the value of the TG archive. I felt he took advantage and sold what he held at the opportune moment and before any of us had a chance to question his actions or amalgamate all of our archives to ensure the full TG/IR story was safely stored away for posterity. Once again we all felt deceived.

31 December 2005

Then the New Year’s Eve gig … it was true theatre I suppose but not as you know it.

The day of the first gig, we had a big interview arranged for Rolling Stone magazine. Jackie walked into the room where we were all sat waiting for Gen and announced that Gen wouldn’t be coming, that he was too debilitated to take part and that she would be his representative, because, as she said, ‘I know enough about the criminal mind to speak for TG.’

Where was Gen’s head at – or Jackie’s? We were all taken aback, including the journalist. None of us understood what her reasoning was or why Gen would even think it was OK to treat us like that. We all looked at each other as Jackie plonked herself on to a chair. Sleazy looked over at me and nodded his head to signal for me not to go mad, that we’d deal with it. I held back, but the journalist showed his lack of interest in what Jackie had to say by cutting her short whenever she spoke. In spite of being set up by Gen, the interview went well. What was most infuriating was that, for the last fifteen minutes of it, Gen, in what looked very much like a drug-induced state, was leaning against the door smirking and watching us. The journalist left and Paul Smith returned from sorting out things with the PA crew. When he was told what had happened he went to Gen and Jackie’s dressing room and had a very heated conversation, which was audible down the backstage corridor. The pre-gig relaxed ambience had taken a battering.

Susan Stenger’s band, Big Bottom, with Susan, Mitch, Cerith and Alex Hacke (from Neubauten) all playing bass guitars, performed first to a seated auditorium and I watched them do a great set. When they finished the stage was broken down by the crew and the audience were asked to return in twenty minutes for the TG show.

They came back and took their seats to see no TG, just an empty stage. The red curtains at the rear of the stage were then drawn back, revealing a larger empty space for them to enter that had a high stage at the far end and a thirty-foot black rubber backdrop. That was the TG quad PA zone. We were watching it all unfold backstage on surveillance monitors – people making their way into the quadraphonic zone, with some changing their minds and taking an auditorium seat – and in doing so they became an audience watching an audience about to watch TG. I said that this could all turn very weird if, as we were all watching them, they mounted the stage and nicked everything – then the show would just be a myth because it couldn’t take place.

When the audience settled down, we entered the stage to an uproarious cheer and began the set with a trumpet and cornet herald, which was sent to each corner of the space. There were technical problems. I had issues with my mic not being turned up and my monitors cutting out. Then the whole PA cut out, leaving us with only the stage monitors. Halfway through, my gear stopped working altogether and the show was brought to a halt for a good ten minutes until Chris managed to sort it out. Some of the audience thought it was intentional, others not, but it made the gig what it was. The usual TG mayhem. The show was intense and VERY physical, with sounds hitting the stomach and head and being spun around the space.

The response was unbelievable, so much so that Gen suggested we do an encore – which TG had never done before. ‘Just “Hamburger Lady”,’ he said. Me and Chris preferred to leave it as it was but Sleazy was up for an encore too so we said OK – but just the one song. Then, on the way to the stage, Gen announced that he hadn’t got his duck horn, which was integral to the song. Kirsten searched but couldn’t find it so I had to fill in on my cornet. The impromptu encore caused chaos for Sleazy because he had to frantically reconnect and start up his laptop again. By the time it was up and running the encore was over so he actually never did it. I don’t think anyone noticed with Chris on rhythm and synth, me on cornet and guitar and Gen doing vocals.

Another day, another show. We were understandably a little fragile so we all took the morning off before an afternoon soundcheck for the TG live soundtrack to Derek Jarman’s film In the Shadow of the Sun. We’d had a new print of the film made and the quality and richness of the colours was breathtaking. Projected so large behind us, it looked fantastic. Sleazy and Chris wanted to be together at one side of the screen so I shared a large table with Gen on the opposite side. With it being dark, we also had to make the stage safe for Gen as he had to get up at some point to play the massive gong we’d hired for the second half of the film. I made sure the sharp edges on the gong stand were padded so Gen couldn’t inadvertently hurt himself.

The Jarman soundtrack was to be totally different from the previous TG night and would be a lot more ambient. Me and Chris had worked on some things before we set off for Berlin and then got together with Sleazy and Gen in the studio a few days before. Gen had his customary bottle of wine next to him on the table – I dreaded him knocking it over and soaking my equipment. I kept checking on him, that he was OK, as he didn’t play much. At one point he was leaning across the table staring into space and absent-mindedly flicking his violin with a battery, unaware that it was making a noise and coming through the PA. When he got up to play the gong, he knocked a bottle of water off the table and on to the stage, narrowly missing my guitar pedals. That made for an unexpected ‘sound’. At first the gong sounded amazing, then Gen really got into it, staring trance-like and hitting it like he was beating a carpet, not really playing ‘to’ the film. When he stopped, he came back to the table to sit next to me.

It all worked out tremendously well and everyone adored the evening and was amazed at the transformation in sound that TG could create in comparison to the previous night.

4 January 2006

Our last day in the studio … I feel and look so awful and I have to do extra photographs today. I told Paul H he’d have to do some serious photoshopping on me to get anything decent.

By the time the day had come to a close, we’d managed to record some of Gen’s bass, doodling piano and two lots of vocals. In the sound booth, with a bottle of wine to hand, Gen tried out different vocals for some of the new album tracks we’d put together during the week, descending at one point into a Beefheart impression and exorcist screaming. He emerged pleased with himself, saying how he’d brought the track together for us – like we’d needed his magic touch to get the job done. I said nothing and left the room thinking that we still had a long way to go as far as the second album was concerned.

There’d been ongoing talks about a TG/Kraftwerk/Aphex Twin ‘5 Cities’ project. A venue had been suggested: an old power plant in Berlin that was due to be renovated (now called Atonal). The first ‘5 Cities’ performance would also be the inaugural event for the newly repurposed building. We were invited to look around, to get ideas for the show. Gen said he didn’t like Kraftwerk and wasn’t interested in coming along.

The power plant was phenomenal, an immense derelict space, the epitome of ‘industrial’, and could provide a fitting end to the TG regrouping. That evening all TG personnel and friends had a last TG supper together in a nearby restaurant. Gen and Jackie turned up late with glazed eyes and puffy faces. Gen was slumped across the table or leaning on Jackie’s shoulder. He didn’t offer anything in the way of conversation or discuss the TG events or the business at hand – that Markus wanted to tour the TG exhibition. In the end, Markus directed his proposals to the three of us and Paul. Gen and Jackie left, saying they had an early flight, so we said our goodbyes. At breakfast the next day Sleazy said he’d had a slurred, ‘out of it’ call from Gen at 1 a.m. to thank him for everything … A parting morsel of niceness.

17 January 2006

The Nico project seems to have become the possible last album of TG. We have Robert Wyatt and Antony in mind to ask for vocals alongside Chris, Sleazy, me and Gen … Hoping to get this done in a live situation built around the ICA plan in June. None of us wants to go into a studio with him again.

TG in Berlin had been something to behold. There was so much – maybe too much – going on. Every day had been full-on, with rehearsals, the exhibition, the film premiere and ‘in conversation’, gigs, photo shoots, interviews and behind-the-scenes challenges. But it was the best New Year’s Eve I’d had and I’ve got treasured memories of it and everyone who made it so special.

On balance the trip as a whole was positive, with many offers and interesting projects to consider. The best of which came from Sleazy while we were all in a taxi together: ‘What do you guys think about TG doing a cover version of a whole album?’ He said it would be totally not TG, which ironically made it very TG. ‘How about Nico’s Desertshore, my favourite album?’ he said.

3 February 2006

Well I’m in Art Tate mode now as I’m printing new text pages ready for dry mounting, the shippers have just collected the box of Cosey works and I’m beginning to get excited.

The theme of the Tate Triennial, ‘New British Art’ (curated by Beatrix Ruf): appropriation of cultural material. My sex-magazine actions were selected and I was working like crazy and travelling back and forth to London for meetings with Beatrix, Andrew and the Tate’s associate curators. I stayed in London for three days, installing my works and carefully writing the captions, with assistance from Andrew. My work had a large room to itself, and much like the show at the Van Abbemuseum, the presentation was kept simple, a perfect backdrop for the heavily loaded pornographic imagery and text.

Being in London and away from other distractions, I was able to focus on my art and be with Andrew and Martin for extended lengths of time rather than my usual swooping visits between other projects. Having that precious uninterrupted time to talk with them in depth about my work was so important and inspiring. They made me feel good about working in the art world again.

Nick came to the private view with us. It was a fun evening that went on into the early hours. We returned home feeling elated. The press had reported positively on my ‘re-emergence’ in the art world. The Evening Standard front page announced: ‘Tate to show porn star 30 years after ICA outrage – A classic of British art? Welcome back Cosey Fanni Tutti’. And in my hometown newspaper, the Hull Daily Mail: ‘I’m back, decades after the scandals’. Maybe that was what triggered another Gen ‘hand grenade’.

9 March 2006

I’ve had enough. I can’t see how I can share air space with someone who quite clearly seems hell bent on causing mayhem in pursuit of his own needs … but we need to discuss TG contractual obligations and anything else necessary for the benefit of TG.

A few days after the official opening of the Tate Triennial, Gen sent an email to the Tate press office claiming my magazine works as his own, saying, ‘Cosey was only the supplier of my work by default’; that ‘All Cosey did, at my request, was legitimise them as “art” by signing the corners’; that ‘She was embarrassed and uncomfortable about it for a long time and appalled when it became public knowledge via the ICA.’

Gen had also asserted that he’d secretly bought the magazines and had them framed himself, in silver high-art frames. But it was common knowledge that the magazines had been put into clip frames. Contrary to what he said in the letter, there I was, well documented for all to see in newspapers and magazines (and in my own diaries): NOT embarrassed, NOT uncomfortable, NOT appalled, but stridently confident, modelling for years and collecting my sex magazines, and being photographed smiling on the box of CLIP-framed magazines in the ICA in 1976.

I saw his sending the letter as a vindictive and malicious ploy to demean me as an artist. Everyone was incredulous when they read it. There were so many lies in it that I thought he’d finally lost the plot. But I took it as him trying to rewrite history, an attempt to exclude me, to place himself in the limelight to be credited for works he hadn’t done. It was beyond reason as to why the hell he thought he could do that when the truth was so well documented as art-historical fact. His claim of ‘appropriation’ in his letter was not quite in the same spirit as that of the works in the Tate show. His denigrating me as subordinate to the ‘male artist’ (him) who (he claimed) used me to make the magazine works smacked of a male chauvinistic attitude and suggested he wasn’t quite the supporter of feminism or egalitarianism he purported to be. In my opinion, as someone ‘now transgendered’, his spurious claims and actions against me (a woman) didn’t cut the mustard as far as true ‘sisterhood’ was concerned.

I had support from every quarter. The Tate replied to Gen on my behalf. I didn’t respond to him. I gave him and his delusional email the attention it deserved. None. I didn’t want to work with him again. For me, the TG regrouping was over.

Sleazy corresponded with Gen about the consequences of his letter on TG. What had made matters worse was that Gen had also sent a (slightly amended) version of the letter to the editor of Art Monthly magazine – which was published. His letter went public. TG fans (rightly) started suspecting unrest in the TG camp, asking how Gen could insult me at a time when he was supposedly working with me and expect me to just accept it as his opinion. Sleazy at first put it down to Gen being disruptive. Monte said, ‘Gen just can’t bury the hatchet plus it’s another way to get publicity … I just think he has lots of animosity.’

Gen eventually made a statement on his website which wasn’t very helpful but revealed his mindset towards TG. There was no apology to me, just further indirect belittlement in the form of a ‘get over it’ attitude, with him stating, ‘Just because a minor point was made in a letter to a magazine … Thee [sic] idea that ANYONE should COUMhow [sic] exponentiate a minor letter to a major issue is ridiculous.’ He didn’t see that his letter should affect TG at all: ‘We do not need to agree, love each other, speak to each other, or respect each other for TG to still remain a force to be exalted.’

I was again dumbfounded. How do you work with someone who doesn’t feel respect for you, or who feels that speaking to you is not important as far as sharing personal space and the creative process is concerned? I sensed an undertone in the to and fro of emails that I was overreacting, which in turn put me in a defensive position (to prove Gen wrong) when I was the one who had been ‘attacked’.

I sent Sleazy my ‘evidence’. He was seething that Gen had misled him on a number of counts, while the public nature of Gen’s dissing of me brought back his and Geff’s own past experience of being on the receiving end of Gen’s public maliciousness. He fired off a tirade of facts about both my and Gen’s accounts of ‘Prostitution’ in the Wreckers book, contradicting what Gen had said in the Tate letter: ‘your email to the Tate contains lies, fabrications or at the very least a deliberate distortion of the facts on your part. Presumably intended to be malicious and/or extend your own perceived role.’ That email hit a nerve with Gen. He replied in passive-aggressive mode, turning the situation around to him being the victim – we were all ‘having a go at Gen’. But he did want to carry on with TG and would give it his best, accepting a ‘code of conduct’ we’d all adhere to that would enable TG to carry on.

15 April 2006

I don’t want to lose anything TG could achieve because of one malicious little man so I would hope he does the right thing.

The timing of the latest Gen chaos wasn’t good, as Paul was negotiating for TG to play the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern and we still hadn’t agreed the TG/Mute contract.

I should have seen the writing on the wall back in 2003, when Gen did an interview with the Independent about his gallery show in London and talked about how ‘he’ had made my magazine actions into art by placing them in a gallery. His retrospective view of COUM and omitting me was also reinforced by a statement on his website. I’d been careful to include and credit him when supplying COUM material for exhibitions. He didn’t afford me the same courtesy. That had infuriated me but I didn’t rise to the bait or ruffle feathers as it was so early on in the TG regrouping. I wanted an apology, or at least a conversation so he could explain his actions. Sleazy felt that this was ‘the bottom line’, and that Gen’s excuses were ‘only believable if followed with a conscientious desire to make good’. There didn’t seem to be any such desire. For the benefit of TG/Mute and other obligations, the dust was left to settle. Communications between me and Gen ceased.

17 March 2006

Where would you begin to try and fathom (if you wanted to bother)? All that angst, insults and wasted time.

We’d reached stalemate with the TG/Mute contract. Another ten points had been added by Gen’s manager – one being that there could be no TG release within three months on either side of any of Gen’s solo releases. That was unacceptable as it effectively meant Gen alone could control the timing of TG releases. His manager said he just wanted to make sure Gen got a fair deal for all the time and artistic effort he’d put into the TG project … No comment.

But then, out of the blue, Gen asked for the TG/Mute contract to be sent ASAP for him to sign. After months of arguments over Gen and his manager requesting unrealistic amendments, Gen had OK’d the original contract. The release of the TG album Part Two was pencilled in by Mute for October, but Gen informed us that he’d decided to release his own band’s new album around the same time. Not only was that a clash but we also discovered one of their tracks had lyrics from a TG song. In light of potential copyright issues and other promotional considerations, the TG album release was moved to 2007 … keeping the fans waiting even longer.

17 May 2006

Hello new day! Exploding heads and all else that challenges us when we wake to perhaps enjoy natures glories.

Carter Tutti melodies were flowing – soft and melodic, rather laid-back, a little bit jazzy. Recording the new album, Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether, was our haven, an untainted stress-free zone where we could fully immerse ourselves in making evocative, uplifting music.

Our Carter Tutti and Chris & Cosey work was hardly ever mentioned or acknowledged by Sleazy or Gen. It was as if it didn’t exist, an irrelevance of no interest to them. TG continued to interrupt our other activities. Chris was mastering the audio and Sleazy the videos for the TG DVD box set, TGV, and there were emails and phone calls between them, with me raiding my archive for photos and relevant images for the accompanying booklet. There was still the unresolved issue of that Tate letter. Sleazy saw potential in TG working together and was sad but resigned that it may come to an end. I was happy to be working on more of my own exhibitions and to let TG live performances slip away, even though the Tate was supposedly about to confirm a 2007 TG show.

8 July 2006

I haven’t written for ages because of all the work piling up. I do so many emails too so I tend to exorcise things in them and not in my diary.

After the Tate Triennial show, I’d been selected to be part of an exhibition at Migros Museum in Zurich, ‘It’s Time for Action (There’s No Option)’ – the title being a quote from a Yoko Ono song. There were censorship problems about the pornographic material – internal politics that Heike the curator worked hard to overcome. The selection process had to be revisited. I was determined to take the problem as something to run with rather than fight. The biggest issue was that, like Andrew had said, we had established (via the Tate and other institutions) the magazines were art and not pornographic. They were my art-sex actions, and as such their presentation in a gallery resisted their original context. That was key to the concept of the magazine actions. It seemed acceptable for Jeff Koons to do a hard-core pastiche like ‘Made in Heaven’ using the porn star Cicciolina and her reputation, but as a female artist who revealed all, my work was still a problem. Sensitivities seemed unrelenting but had inadvertently made things turn out for the better. The final material encompassed all aspects of my work and made a great exhibit. I included the first presentation of the ‘Self lessness’ Disney action, ‘The Kiss’ magazine work and my music in the form of the Time to Tell album special edition.

15 December 2006

I have had morose thoughts of thinking I would sooner die than go through that again. Life is too painful and my pain threshold has been breached.

I had a feeling of dread about the whole thing. Nick had been ill and I’d been calling him for five days to check on how he was. From the symptoms he had, I suspected it was appendicitis or, worse, peritonitis. I’d told him to go to A&E but he held on, just saying it was probably food poisoning as his doctor had said. After more anxious phone calls and him being in such pain and vomiting, I finally got him to go back to the doctor, who told him to take a taxi immediately to A&E. I waited for Nick to call me to let me know what was happening. In the meantime I followed my instincts and made up his bed and got ready in case we had to rush off (he was seventy-five miles away at uni in Nottingham). I didn’t hear from Nick so I called Nottingham City Hospital and was told that he’d been admitted and would be going in for surgery as soon as possible. My instinct had been right.

As I rushed around locking up the house and telling Chris to get ready to drive to Nottingham, I got a phone call. It was a surgeon from Nottingham City Hospital, informing me that Nick was being taken straight into theatre. My stomach turned over; my throat almost closed up. ‘Is it peritonitis? How serious is it?’ I asked.

There was what seemed a long silence, then he said, ‘Just get here as soon as you possibly can.’

That sounded grim and made me fear for Nick’s life. The traffic was horrendous and it took us nearly four hours. We didn’t talk much – neither of us wanted to voice our fears. I’ve never felt such overwhelming relief than when I saw Nick safely out of theatre, doped up but alive. We hugged and kissed him, then left him with his girlfriend, Laura, and drove back home, saying we’d be back in the morning.

When we saw Nick the next day it was obvious he’d gone downhill. He was pale, sweating, in pain and didn’t look at all well. I booked into the hospital hotel so I could look after him, with Chris driving back and forth through fog, ice and sleet and keeping everything going back home. I saw the surgeon who’d operated on Nick when he came to do a follow-up examination. He said how pleased he was the operation was successful because it was the worst case of peritonitis he’d seen. The gangrenous appendix had ruptured and they’d had to remove part of Nick’s bowel. Nick had only just made it, mainly because he was young, fit and strong. The surgeon marvelled at Nick’s pain threshold but said ironically that he’d have been better off it were lower as the appendicitis would have been caught sooner.

A mother’s love is cruelly all-consuming. I felt at times I would die from the heartbreak of being so helpless to end Nick’s pain, my fears for him and fatigue, but I couldn’t show that to Nick. I had to be strong and ooze confidence for his sake. There were nights in the hospital hotel when I thought I would die, my heart was racing and skipping so much.

Christmas was approaching fast and Nick didn’t want to stay in hospital – he wanted to come home. I wanted him home too but knew he wasn’t really ready to leave hospital. He was discharged. I arranged for a district nurse to attend to Nick’s wound at home, hoping that they still worked over the Christmas period. The journey back home was agonising for Nick and by the time we arrived his wound had opened up. I called the doctor, who sent our assigned nurse, the most wonderful Nurse Dot. As fate would have it, she’d been a surgery theatre nurse and specialised in wound dressing – and had worked at St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney, opposite Beck Road, at the time I lived there. We got on so well and she was fond of Nick and cared. I saw the surgery wound for the first time – a long cut above his groin that opened into a cavernous hole – as Dot flushed it with sterile water then packed the cavity with special dressing. I tried not to react but I was taken aback. It was an education seeing her work so gently and expertly, administering drugs that didn’t make him throw up and adjusting antibiotics at each stage of the healing process. We were so lucky to have her. I believed two people had saved Nick’s life: the surgeon and Nurse Dot.

6 April 2007

There’s a whole load of shit involving Gen that bores even me.

A change of scene and sunshine can work wonders. I went off on another solo trip to Los Angeles, installing my work at MOCA in the exhibition ‘WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution’.

While I was away, Chris and Sleazy had been talking about whether TG could carry on in light of the problems we were having internally as well as with the 2007 TG live schedule that was in place. There were TG crisis calls with Paul Smith, as he’d received emails from Gen’s manager to say that Gen was not available for the TG schedule we’d all agreed months earlier, that he was only able to do Donaufestival at Krems in Austria, despite the other TG shows at the Tate and the Desertshore recording sessions at the ICA in London having been confirmed.

We were thrust into another maelstrom of contradictory information, unreasonable demands and unnecessary aggravation from Gen and his manager. Sleazy and Paul repeatedly tried calling him but got no answer. Eventually Sleazy got through and had a long conversation, which Gen insisted was ‘off the record’ – which wasn’t much use. Then Gen’s manager went over Paul’s head and called the Tate saying Gen wasn’t doing the show, contradicting the TG confirmation. Appeals to Gen about addressing the conduct of his manager went unanswered. Then, just as the TG album Part Two was released, Gen sent a long email informing us that we must discuss his availability for TG only with his manager and not with him.

That email was followed by one he sent to the Tate, allegedly demeaning Sleazy’s film work as ‘not art’. Sleazy swallowed the insults and replied pragmatically that, because Gen was no longer available for the TG shows, we three would honour the agreements and perform them without him. The venues agreed.

TG was falling apart. We prepared a statement for the website. Time was getting tight and Sleazy was flying to our house in two weeks to start working with me and Chris on the material for the shows. We gave Gen a deadline to confirm before we announced his non-attendance in TG. Gen confirmed he would do Krems. All that crap had largely spoiled any enjoyment we could have had from the release of the first TG full-length studio album in over twenty-five years.

19 May 2007

I’ve been in a ‘neutral zone’ while TG has taken place. It’s the only place to be to limit damage from unwanted energies … Suffice to say Gen was as polite as he needed to get his money …

The two TG shows in Krems had taken months of work by Chris, Sleazy and me, with our sound engineer Charlie jumping on board to facilitate a recording of the ambisonic performances. We’d also co-opted Hildur Guðnadóttir, a brilliant Icelandic cellist, to write a piece for a choir as part of our live Derek Jarman film soundtrack. The choir was to perform alongside TG, with her conducting them. There was a lot to cope with on each gig day, soundchecking a twenty-piece choir as well as TG and ensuring the eight-channel ambisonic PA system worked as we’d imagined it could. Hildur did an amazing job – she and Sleazy had worked closely together and he signalled to her across the stage when to bring the choir in and out as we all played. It was something totally new and left-field for TG, but worked so well.

In the dressing room afterwards, Gen asked what Paul thought of the show. Paul said he thought it was beautiful. Gen smiled and replied, ‘That’s because I wasn’t playing. I stopped after fifteen minutes and just watched the film. Easy money for me.’ Even though we knew it to be true, Gen voicing his joy at getting money for doing little after all we’d gone through to get him there wasn’t an easy thing for any of us to hear.

The TG show itself differed slightly from previous TG gigs, in that me and Sleazy did vocals – he on ‘The Old Man Smiled’ and me on ‘Hot on the Heels of Love’. I was getting levels at soundcheck when Gen came over to me to offer me advice on using a microphone … Did he not know I’d been singing live C&C vocals for over twenty-five years? I let it pass.

20 May 2007

Well this extended TG period is proving weird … preparations for TG have been horrendously draining but great also in regard to the work we three have created. It’s been wonderful and Sleazy has been an absolute pleasure despite him missing his home so terribly. Gen meanwhile only asks about his hotel and ticket – no word on what we are doing, have done or he is expected to do.

Sleazy came back to stay with us after Krems. There was a lot to do for the Tate Turbine Hall show as we were playing a live soundtrack to another of Derek Jarman’s films and having Hildur perform with a choir again – plus the Desertshore live recording sessions at the ICA were to happen just a week after the Tate. We’d made site visits to both venues and there was to be new related TG merchandise on sale at both the Tate and the ICA. Sleazy went into ‘merch mode’ once we’d discussed what to do. He sat at his laptop putting together artworks, sourcing items and generally ordering me and Chris about to get quotes from local printers, to upscale images for posters, etc. He was a sight to behold, seemingly inexhaustible once he had his merch hat on. The Tate poster was based on the TG ‘Death Factory’ poster, replacing the original death factory with the Tate Modern building (art factory).

26 May 2007

In fact this Tate performance is the nearest to what I had hoped we’d do when we re-grouped.

The Turbine Hall was ram-packed, with hundreds unable to get in and people stood like zombies from The Living Dead, pressing themselves against the glass entrance doors to feel the sound. We knew that the Turbine Hall would be particularly challenging, with its extended reverb. The sounds we used had to take that into account. As we played and sent the sound out, it returned many seconds later. The room became our reverb unit. We started with a tone that matched and enhanced the constant hum from the old turbine. The sounds resonated throughout the building, travelling up into the vast cathedral-like space and vibrating throughout the upper floors. It was overwhelmingly emotional, with the choir and the physicality of the sounds we used and the massive projected visuals of Derek’s films.

At the end we came off stage and were immediately taken to the green room – when we noticed Gen wasn’t with us. He’d stayed behind on stage to take a final bow during what we were told was a ten-minute standing ovation.

The after-show party proved eventful. We had to pack the gear and didn’t get there until 12.30, by which time some of our friends had gone home thinking we weren’t bothering. Andrew was there, waiting and looking ecstatic, and gave us huge hugs. So many happy, congratulatory people. We were pretty tired but sat enjoying some well-deserved downtime. I saw Gen briefly, then he seemed to disappear into the night.

After about an hour, Paul came over and discreetly told us we had to leave immediately as there’d been an incident with Gen that he didn’t want us to get involved with. Within minutes the security alarms went off, echoing all around the Tate – the next stage would be lockdown. We were quickly taken out of the building to where a taxi had been ordered for us. We’d got out just before they locked the Tate doors and we stood and watched as police cars arrived. It was 3 a.m. when we finally got back to the hotel and Paul filled us in on what had happened.

The story was that Gen had been dancing around and accidentally knocked a Warhol painting off the wall, damaging one edge of it. Apparently he and his friend were leaving the building, got lost and wandered into a gallery where the Warhol paintings were hung. The CCTV footage didn’t really fit that version of events. Gen was arrested, held for questioning and charged with minor criminal damage, to appear in court that week. Paul looked after him. Jackie thought she and Gen could get some great publicity from it – which would be the worst thing for everyone concerned. The situation had to be handled carefully as any publicity could have an adverse impact all round and also jeopardise the forthcoming ICA event.

As far as I was concerned, Gen had spoiled what was a tremendous coup for TG. Tate curators Will and Stuart and so many others were overwhelmed with enthusiasm and glory for what we did. Gen had ruined that euphoria and TG’s achievement.

27 May 2007

We arrived home at 1.30, Chris went straight in and threw up and retired to bed with a severe migraine. Sleazy and I watched a mundane 1980s Agatha Christie while we had toasted cheese and salad sandwiches then went to bed. Nice quiet evening with the cats.

We took a few days to rest from the Gen drama at the Tate and to allow Chris’s migraine hangover to clear, then set about the final preparations for the ICA ‘Desertshore Installation’ live recording sessions, which were to be twice a day for three days – 12–2 p.m. and 7–9 p.m. – and take place in the ICA Theatre, with Charlie as sound engineer. We’d had an area sectioned off for Gen to do vocals and had sent him Sleazy and Chris’s rudimentary reference backing tracks to practise singing to before he came. He did really well to get vocals done for every song from Desertshore over the three days. Some of the audience requested I do some vocals too but I could do those at home – the priority was getting Gen’s done.

Providing Gen with a stage and audience worked far better for getting some recordings from him than a studio setting – which had failed to provide us with much material to work with and cost us a small fortune in the process. Right from the beginning the concept of the album was Sleazy’s – for TG to rework Nico’s songs and use a number of guest vocalists. As Sleazy described to me back in April of 2006, ‘For this I expect to use mostly vocalists other than Gen, by all means including you if you like, but Chris or I should prepare just a few backing tracks with just sufficient information for Gen to sing over as before that we can THEN make those songs into something completely different for the actual record.’

We all suggested guest vocalists but the music was crucially important too. The ICA setting provided us with the means to jam together and get some recorded instrumentation from Gen, and jamming together was a means to collectively explore ideas for the Nico backings.

Like the historic Heathen Earth recording, we kept the setting informal, a very relaxed atmosphere instead of the required silence signalled by a red recording light. Unlike Heathen Earth we had Desertshore merchandise, including a poster and T-shirt that were a 2007 reworking of the original ICA ‘Prostitution’ poster – a reference to our last ‘installation’ there in 1976. TG had a large running buffet to one side of the stage, with hot and cold drinks supplied on demand. When we ended the sessions we chatted with the audience and signed posters or albums that they’d brought along. I was sat at the merch table when a young guy asked me to sign his ‘Death Factory’ poster. I glanced at it and said, ‘My signature’s already on it.’

‘Yes, I know,’ he said, ‘but that was Gen. He signed your name.’ He looked embarrassed to have to say it.

I scribbled out what Gen had written and signed my own signature. ‘There. You have the genuine Cosey now.’ He seemed happier.

We didn’t know at the time but the ICA recording sessions were the last time all four of us would record together. The ICA was the site of the launch of TG and also hosted the last TG working group gathering. The whole three days of sessions were recorded on video but will probably never see the light of day. As a document of the creative process of recording Desertshore, we produced a limited-edition twelve-CD wallet set of the entire three days.

24 June 2007

So I’m up in the office while Chris tweaks our cover version of ‘Lucifer Sam’. Sleazy comes back on Thursday to do the ‘TGV’ 5.1 audio and to collect his degree. Then we are free of TG until whenever, seeing as Gen has said he can’t do Frieze and Bologna.

From the ICA to Nottingham Trent University to see the final degree show. Nick had graduated with a BA Hons in fine art and me and Chris went to see his final work – a sound installation. We had no trouble finding him: we just followed the low bass rumble. He’d taken over a small space and made it into a science laboratory, with his research materials, electrical components and writings scattered on a desk and a whiteboard above it covered in his notes and various schematic diagrams. He’d borrowed an amp and speakers from us, as well as the original TG audio generator and oscilloscope. Dressed in a white laboratory coat with clipboard in hand, he was questioning people as they came into the space, adding their responses to his work. A week later we and half the family attended his degree ceremony. It was such a fantastic emotional moment for us. We were all smiles watching him receive his degree and so proud he’d done it in spite of his surgery and other difficulties he’d faced along the way.

Nick wasn’t the only one to graduate: Sleazy had been offered an honorary degree for his work with Hipgnosis. He asked us if he should take it. I remembered the incident with Gen’s Tate letter about Sleazy’s film work not being ‘art’ and Skot saying, ‘Gen was always using me to make Sleazy jealous. Sleazy was ashamed of how commercial his art output was, and Gen tortured him about “real artists” (using me to belittle him).’ I think that had an effect on how Sleazy valued his work.

‘What? Hell yeah, you should. You’ve been recognised for all your incredible work. So take it!’ I said. He immediately broke out into a giggly wriggle of joy.

He went to the ceremony and was conferred, and had his official portrait taken as a souvenir. He came back to stay with us for a while longer so he and Chris could finish the TGV surround-sound audio. He’d been away from home for months and could hardly contain his excitement when he set off back to Thailand. He was due back in the UK for TG’s October shows at the London Frieze Art Fair and in Bologna to continue promoting the new album. They’d been timed to coincide with a major TG article in Wire magazine, along with us on the front cover, but Gen decided to do a tour with his own band to promote their new album instead and the TG shows were cancelled. That left the three of us in the lurch and disappointed, but at least we could get on with our own projects and pick up with proposed TG live events in 2008.

13 September 2007

There’s always many things running in parallel but I find it invigorating and exciting – new territories and experiences are pure nectar.

Our studio was once again reverberating with Carter Tutti sounds and I was working on a collaborative project for the Raster-Noton label for release in 2008. The new Carter Tutti album, Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether, was mastered and put into production, and was due to be delivered to our distributor, Cargo UK, and through Sleazy we’d secured a US release with John Deek of Divine Frequency. We were relaunching our CTI mail order system and sorting out promotion in readiness for the release of the album. The reflective mood of the music and songs was heavily influenced by the emotionally charged events that had dominated our lives in the preceding few years. Some tracks were more obviously deeply personal, like ‘Woven Clouds’, which was about us nearly losing Nick. We were so pleased about the positive feedback for the new album. It meant such a lot to us. I could safely say that if, for whatever reason, we didn’t do another Carter Tutti album, we’d be happy that Feral Vapours stood as testament to our work.

23 September 2007

The whole TG situation is getting fragmented and fractured to boot. Sleazy hasn’t contacted us for over a month. We were busy with our own album and needed space from TG …

We resisted getting embroiled in anything TG-related but then a series of unexpected events thrust us back into the centre of it. Having cancelled the TG shows to prioritise his own band’s gigs, Gen’s tour collapsed due to what they claimed on their Myspace page to be ‘mismanagement and agency incompetence’, blaming and sacking Gen’s manager, who in turn claimed it was lack of fans and ticket sales.

Then, just over a week later, on 9 October, Gen’s wife Jackie died. Everyone was so shocked and rallied round Gen. Paul and Susan met up with him in New York to provide support. Me, Chris and Sleazy sent our heartfelt condolences and offered our help. We were all empathetic and sensitive to his needs at such a terribly sad time.

I was torn by my feelings of sadness for Gen and guilt at wanting to enjoy the reviews and great reception our new album was receiving. It was hard to reconcile Gen suffering at a time when things were going so well for us. Chris had started a new solo project, Chemistry Lessons, and was building sound-making gadgets. It was great to see him lit up with excitement again, beavering away with his wiring and electrical tools scattered on his worktop.

25 October 2007

This has made me feel that it seems grief as ever is touching us all and I can’t help but think of ‘what if’. Each day I keep thinking I must hold and kiss Chris just in case. It’s no way to live but at the moment the events are constant reminders of one’s fragile mortality.

Gen’s sudden loss brought me up sharp and I felt lucky me and Chris were still together. Sleazy was affected in a different way, as Jackie’s death was within a month of the anniversary of Geff’s fatal fall. He always found that time of year hard to deal with and every anniversary since Geff had died Sleazy would go away for a week – ‘up country’, as he called it – indulging in such wildly excessive hedonistic drug-fuelled sexual activities we feared he’d never return. As worried as we were for him, such a frightening prospect held a perverse appeal for him.

Talking of perversity … Me and Chris went to Rome. I was doing an ‘in conversation’ with the writer Daniela Cascella at the British School at Rome, a prestigious archaeology, history and arts research academy housed in the beautiful British Pavilion, where we were accommodated. Not far from the pavilion was a park with an enchanting grotto where we’d take afternoon walks. On one of those walks we noticed a man staring our way. We moved on – there he was again, stood still, fixing his gaze on us both. It felt weird. It was weird. He slowly opened his raincoat to reveal his semi-erect cock. He was naked from his waist to his knees, with a shirt and braces that held up the cut-off trousers. He was dressed in what was a classic flasher’s outfit you’d see on a Benny Hill show. I looked at Chris, he at me, and we both laughed in disbelief, wandering off to have coffee, with me commenting on why flashers and perverts seemed so attracted to me.

I also wondered how many women had had more than one encounter, like me. There was my childhood incident of the flasher in the woods, but others too. When I was about eleven, me and Jo went to a football match in Hull. As we were leaving, squashed in the crowd I felt a hand slowly moving up my inner thigh. I looked down, thinking it was a small child holding on as best they could, but it was a little middle-aged man, about four foot high, smiling up at me with his hand up my skirt. He’d already had a feel of Jo. We both pushed our way out of his reach. I’ve never been to a football match since.

Short skirts are most definitely not an open invitation to sexual assault but mine appeared to be irresistible to opportunistic perverts, like the one who put his hand up mine as I waited in the bus queue in Hackney. I had my dancing bag with me, which was pretty heavy. I swung it at his head, shouting, ‘You dirty bastard!’ at him and knocking him stumbling across the pavement. The people around me hadn’t seen what he’d done and looked at me as if I were mad. ‘He put his hand up my skirt,’ I explained. The bus pulled up and he tried to get on it, but no one would let him.

But by far the worst case was on the Tube in London when I was travelling home one day. A man was sat opposite me with a newspaper on his lap, which started moving rhythmically, then a spurt of semen shot down the front of the seat. Before I could react, the train pulled into the next station, he got off and a woman sat in his vacant seat with her long coat soaking up the wet patch he’d left behind.

22 January 2008

I’ve just returned from the doctor as I’d been getting more ill by the day.

I’d had a bad cold and didn’t seem to be recovering. I was listless and easily exhausted. While standing cooking the evening meal, I got a sudden high-pitched tone in my left ear, then went deaf. I called my GP and got a locum, who told me it was nothing to worry about, but the next day, when the deafness was still there and I had numbness on that side of my face, I went to see my preferred GP.

He recognised the symptoms and acted immediately. I had shingles in my left ear canal, with an added complication of a condition called Ramsay Hunt Syndrome that causes paralysis of the facial muscles. He put me on a regimen of bed rest and specific medication to try and limit any nerve damage. When I was told that recovery could take between three and sometimes up to eight months, with full recovery from facial paralysis and deafness being unlikely, I was speechless. I went on to the internet to see what information there was on self-help and found facial exercises that ‘may’ assist in regaining some facial-muscle control, and practised them three times a day, monitoring any slight improvement in a log I kept. I’m glad I did because, when I eventually went for my follow-up assessment months later, the consultant was impressed by the extent of my recovery.

Chris had been incredible at looking after me, so encouraging and lovingly attentive to my many needs. I couldn’t have got through it without him. I was a physical wreck, impaired by the illness and the different side effects of the drugs I’d had to take. So many negative thoughts flooded my mind about what degree of recovery I would have, whether I’d have the facial problems and be deaf forever. If so, my public life could well be over, and my work in music would be affected. I certainly couldn’t blow my cornet and wondered if I’d ever be able to again, and I couldn’t sing either, as even pronouncing some words was impossible.

With TG live gigs in the pipeline I had to break the news that I was too ill to do them. Paul, Sleazy and Gen wished me well and everyone awaited my availability for TG.

21 June 2008

Well where do I begin with all this 3 weeks of activities? My brain is buzzing with it all … The inner circles are shifting and they slip into deliberate acts of celebrity and opportunism and we pull back even more in disgust.

It took me three months to feel anywhere near well enough to consider working. The facial paralysis and deafness had improved slightly. I was determined to play my cornet again but I just wasn’t able to pucker up my lips enough to deliver the powerful blast of air needed. To help my rehabilitation I bought a small ‘pocket’ cornet, which was used by beginners. During my recovery, TG plans went ahead largely to assist Gen’s financial situation in the wake of Jackie’s death. It was all hands on deck to help Gen at such a sad time.

Then we learned of him going on tour with his band around the time of the TG shows – the usual debates over clashing with TG dates hadn’t abated. Nevertheless we provided support for him and made allowances based on him still grieving. He said he was feeling fragile and wasn’t sure about being able to deliver vocals for TG. That was understandable under the circumstances so we reassured him that the TG set-up was based on the more instrumental Second Annual Report.

Sleazy came to stay with us to get ready for the two TG shows – one at the Primavera festival in Spain and one in Paris at Villette Sonique. We were going to play (and record) the performance as Thirty-Second Annual Report, a reference to the release of TG’s first album, Second Annual Report, thirty years ago. We designed merchandise: TG pocket knives, a numbered limited-edition poster and large banners to drape on each of our stage tables.

The TG outing was strange. It was the first time we’d seen Gen since Jackie died. He seemed to be coping well; he had a film-maker friend with him making the documentary they’d started prior to Jackie’s untimely death. There was a difficult moment when he asked for the TG gig and backstage to be filmed for inclusion, as well as for Sleazy, me and Chris to be interviewed on film about our working experience with Gen. As I was still struggling with the aftermath of my illness I wasn’t comfortable being filmed with a partially paralysed face, so I declined. Chris said no. Sleazy accepted. As much as we sympathised with his personal loss and how Gen chose to cope with it, it seemed like business as usual – his extracurricular activities planned around our two TG shows seemed more important to him than the TG shows themselves and smacked of opportunism, using TG as a platform to further his own activities, with us three as facilitators doing the lion’s share of TG work. We also screened our film After Cease to Exist and were told that the castration scene with me and Chris had caused fainting and vomiting among at least six members of the audience, and ambulances had been called.

Barcelona had been a rather restrained TG concert in comparison to Paris. I think it may have had something to do with me, Chris and Sleazy recording the contemplative music for the TG audio sculptural collaboration with Cerith (Wyn Evans) – a work entitled ‘A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N’. Chris worked hard on the concept, which was based on using multiple highly directional speakers that he’d reviewed for Sound on Sound magazine back in 2004. He and Paul researched further options, finally deciding on the thin, flat, circular panel Audio Spotlight speakers invented by Dr Joe Pompei, founder of Holosonics. TG was going to use them in a live show but it never panned out, so they were suggested as the basis for the work with Cerith. He was to design the huge sculpture (requiring a space 9×9×10 metres high), using the speakers as part of a suspended ‘child’s mobile’-type structure. TG composed the audio, with Cerith providing Gen with the lyrics. Chris, me and Sleazy spent a week at our studio recording the sound.

Chris took another two weeks to complete the audio, editing, manipulating, adding further recordings of additional parts from me and Sleazy, time-stretching some of Gen’s vocals, and he finally mixed the material to a length of nearly three hours. Sleazy was happy to have the piece on stereo ‘playback’ through the speakers, not wanting to spend too much time on it, but Chris and I saw the obvious potential to use all sixteen speakers and sub-bass speaker in a more interesting and innovative way. Chris developed a multichannel complex playback method using Ableton Live that would, as he described it, ‘simultaneously move each individual channel of the TG multitrack audio “through” each of the sculpture’s Audio Spotlights every three to five minutes in a sequential and relatively seamless process’.

He, Paul and I took all our parts and audio gear to the fabricators for a trial run with Cerith, where we brought the sculpture together with the sound. It worked beautifully. The speakers were finished in highly polished aluminium, with mirrored backs that not only looked amazing but also added another interactive aspect. When fed through the speakers, the directional sounds shifted slowly, reflecting off the speakers’ mirrored surfaces, the sounds constantly moving from one suspended speaker to another as they slowly rotated. It all contributed to an indefinable, ethereal experience, with the sounds seemingly hovering in the air and each person’s experience being unique to them and never the same twice.

Gen didn’t ‘get it’ and wasn’t interested. His only involvement was recording Cerith’s lyrics, which took five minutes. But us persisting in getting him to take part paid off. He received an equal share of the substantial amount of money when White Cube Gallery sold it to the Pompidou Centre.

26 July 2008

We’ve really pushed ourselves this year and after a month ‘off’ we’re only just getting the hang of relaxing. We’re promising ourselves that we won’t take on so many projects again … but we get so excited by things that we can’t resist them. But our illnesses have been due to fatigue and stress so it’s not a choice option anymore really.

There were still unfinished TG matters to deal with – like the official reactivating of Industrial Records Ltd that we’d discussed during our last TG get-together. I wasn’t keen as, after a brief period of Sleazy managing the payments and not being reliably contactable, it was looking more and more like me and Chris may have to step in. Sleazy and Gen told us that being directors of a UK limited company could complicate their status in their adopted countries. As UK residents, me and Chris were proposed to be the registered directors. I didn’t want the responsibility and I knew I would incur the workload of doing the accounts and Chris the other admin connected with running a record label.

But, with the eventual agreement of all four of us, the decision was made to go ahead. IR Ltd was registered in August 2008 and the first release was to be a framed, limited (777-copy) edition of Thirty-Second Annual Report. I was giving a talk at Frieze Art Fair and Cabinet were including the TG release on their Frieze stand in October, and we wanted it released in time for Christmas that year (in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of The Second Annual Report). Gen suggested we all did ‘a mix’ but, it being a live album, it wasn’t that kind of ‘remix’ project and we only had three months to get masters and artworks done.

It was Halloween. Gen wasn’t in the UK when we had a TG meeting at state51 in London. We were all sat eating bags of chips when Paul and Susan arrived. Paul’s face looked grey and he’d been having chest pains and trouble breathing as he came up the stairs. We were all concerned, particularly Susan, but he’s not someone to fuss and dismissed our worries for him.

Meeting over, we went off to a nearby pub to meet S.C.U.M., a very young band that me and Chris had initially seen play at Mute’s Harrow Road closing party in March 2007. The band were interested in TG and wanted us to remix one of the new tracks they were working on. They had a good restless presence about them and seemed to know a lot about TG. Having all said our goodbyes, with promises to be in touch, me and Chris headed home to do a final run-through of our Carter Tutti set for a gig we had in Poland.

I was still worried about Paul and before we left I emailed him to see how he was. He said he was going to see his doctor, but before he could he had a massive heart attack, followed soon after by successful bypass surgery. We nearly lost him and it shook us up badly, and more so poor Susan.

11 February 2009

I gave Chris a big hug and kiss of appreciation from Sleazy … the audio is consuming us and I didn’t want to have to think of anything else being added to the already overwhelming TG workload on top of our non-TG lives.

Paul was irrepressible even after his heart surgery, and we each received an email from him outlining TG live offers for the USA in April and Europe in June. Gen had been in touch with Paul asking if there were any TG shows in the offing. Sleazy could be persuaded out of his Thailand paradise. Me and Chris had many things on the go but TG had only ever played two shows in the USA, back in 1981, and an opportunity to play there again was appealing, especially as Paul had secured the elusive, expensive work permits for us.

We’d had emails from Gen informing us that he was not only incapacitated through ill health but also very busy and had another new manager, who we must discuss all TG matters with. We saw this as hopefully avoiding previous problems and lapses in Gen’s memory (which appeared rather selective as far as TG was concerned) – especially as Gen was now going on holiday to Nepal for a month and wouldn’t be available.

The TG gig sets and merchandise (to help finance the USA tour) had been mostly agreed but needed to be designed, sourced and ordered. Sleazy, me and Chris put all the essentials together. Chris did all the live TG rhythms and single-handedly put together the Third Mind Movements album using multitracks from the TG ICA jam sessions. That in itself was a substantial project and ended up being the final TG studio album.

Paul coordinated and sourced the enamel badges, T-shirts and CD pressing for collection in New York. It was a frantic few months as Chris was also corresponding with an American guy who was reproducing the legendary TG Gristleizer effects unit. We got my original Gristleizer unit out of the archive cupboard for Chris to run some tests on it. We didn’t get far. I turned it on, it spluttered, then stopped working altogether. My first and only Gristleizer had died. A sad, sad moment.

I, meanwhile, was trying to meet the continuing demand for my art, giving a talk with Andrew at the Stanley Picker Gallery in London and preparing work and catalogue material for a large exhibition called ‘Pop Life: Art in a Material World’ that was opening at the Tate Modern later in the year.

17 April 2009

Last night’s show was full on like the Astoria. Phew! Felt good amongst all that positive energy.

The first TG New York show, at the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn, set the bar for what the USA audiences would be like. Their excitement was palpable and beyond anything we could have anticipated. I’m sure that contributed to the overall amicable feelings between us all as we flew from one state to another over the two weeks. Old fans and new filled the venues each night and we fed off their energy, driving into full-throttle TG mode then pulling back for the live film soundtrack performances we were all doing alongside the regular shows. We were a small team: Paul, Susan, Charlie and the four of us. I’d been worried about the stress having an adverse effect on Paul so soon after his heart surgery, but he was incredibly efficient and everything went so well, considering the mammoth task and all that came with a TG gathering. There were some annoying and unnecessary moments when Gen gave Paul a hard time, only talking to him ‘through’ Susan. Paul was as professional and pragmatic as ever, and got on with the job at hand. The gig that had made the whole tour possible was next: the Coachella Festival in Palm Springs.

19 April 2009

Jet lagged in Palm Springs awaiting the show tonight. Cure, Paul McCartney, Yeah Yeah Yeahs etc … VERY hot indeedy.

We were driven by minibus from the swish hotel to the huge sprawling Coachella Festival site. On arrival we were directed to the artists’ gate to be dropped off. We moved on through security into the artists’ dressing-room area. It looked like a holiday camp, full of caravans and trailers, each with a white picket fence. There were fairy lights everywhere and a central chill-out zone, where occupied hammocks swung gently amid the heavy smell of hash.

Our dressing-room caravan was cute and had been decorated specially for us, with gifts laid out on a table of drinks and food. But the air conditioning unit didn’t work and the heat was stifling – then got worse under the lights of the film crew who were interviewing us. We were slowly getting more red-faced and sweaty, so when my and Gen’s make-up started to slide down our faces we called a halt to the interview and headed out to our little fenced garden for some fresh air.

As night fell the atmosphere changed. The heat, stillness and the distant sound of music, bangs from fireworks and being in the open air created a sense of detachment, which was further enhanced when we were transported to the stage by a golf cart, passing uniformed armed security guards with guns at the ready, keeping a keen eye on the ‘payment’ office where the band fees were dispensed. Sitting opposite each other in silence as the cart trundled along, we all looked around, then at each other, sat there like unwilling victims being delivered to a place that was alien and assaulted our sensibilities and principles. It felt like the Playboy Bunnies scene from Apocalypse Now, where acts are dropped in to play and transported out again.

‘What the fuck are we doing here?’ we all muttered. We knew, but this was so very un-TG … An industrial-factory approach to entertainment production, yes, but not ‘industrial’ as we perceived it.

The band before us were still playing when we arrived at the back of the stage. A riser was awaiting us, with a table each to set up our gear on. We were to just get a line check, and not a proper soundcheck. There’s a first time for everything, I guess.

I hadn’t expected anyone to come to Coachella but Sasha Grey had said she’d try to come along so we could finally meet. We’d been in touch for a while, discussing, among many things, our sex-industry experiences. I was plugging everything in when Sasha arrived with her then partner, Ian. I was so, so happy to see her. Not the best place for a first meet but she lifted me out of the weird Coachella-zone mood. It was like we’d known each other years – there was a mutual unspoken understanding between two strong, driven women and it was wonderful to meet someone new and young who had such strength, spirit, warmth and humour. We talked as I set up and arranged to meet for lunch.

As the band finished, their risers were moved back and ours pushed forward. It was time to go … Chris tweeted we were about to play and within a split second a huge cheer of ‘YES!’ went up from the audience as they held up their phones in answer. The audience dispersed any reservations we had about being there. The gig was mad in every which way, and we smiled throughout, hugging each other at the end, wet with sweat as we all were.

22 April 2009

LA was a blast last night. Now we’ve just settled into our hotel room in SF and looking forward to a night off – shattered after a late night and early start.

TG moved on to San Francisco. Refreshed from our relaxing tiki evening, we arrived midday at the venue. The ballroom was a very old but beautiful building and held just over two thousand people. While the video crew set up, we put our gear on stage ready for soundcheck and were shown to our dressing rooms. We had one each and Sleazy’s was up four narrow steps. I was walking behind him when he suddenly stopped after the second step. He was out of breath and panting quite badly.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

He took a deep breath and replied, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

He clearly wasn’t and I thought first of how similar it was to Paul before his heart attack, and then about the way Sleazy had been walking so slowly through the airport, lagging behind us all. I’d thought it was him being cool and casual, in preference to being on the ‘hurry up’, but it must have been because he wasn’t well. He wouldn’t talk about it. I knew he’d been on warfarin for deep vein thrombosis some time ago but he never mentioned illness unless it actually impacted on his plans. I kept a discreet check on him from then on.

The ballroom was full to capacity and the welcome cheer as we appeared on stage was as fiercely enthusiastic as at all the other shows so far. Although Gen’s ex-wife Paula lived nearby, she didn’t come to the show (as requested by Gen), but their younger daughter, Genesse, did. We didn’t see her until she appeared in the middle of the set, when Gen brought her on stage to introduce her to the audience and wish her happy birthday. That was a ‘What the fuck?!’ moment for the three of us. Gen hadn’t told us beforehand, he’d just thrown Genesse into the TG performance mix. We wouldn’t have begrudged her a happy birthday at all, but would have appreciated being told and having some say as to when it would happen. TG run on the fly, creating music very much in the moment, so to have that connection between us interrupted by a ‘Happy Birthday’ announcement wasn’t the best thing to do. What could we do but smile and wish Genesse well?

4 May 2009

What a weird 4 days it’s been since I got home. The jet lag, fatigue, TG head cold and euphoria combined to put me in another space for a while – between sleep and consciousness. I’m gradually coming round and assimilating the magnitude of the experiences I had in the US. The shows and audiences were overwhelmingly wonderful.

During the USA tour, sales of the merch CD Third Mind Movements started to trail off pretty quickly. Then we found out why. Someone had put the whole album up for free download. The merch sales made up a big slice of the overall income to cover costs for the tour, so although it was considered ‘de rigueur’ and cool to offer everyone a new TG album for free, it felt like we were being well and truly fucked over. It should always be the decision of the artist whether to give their work away or not. I didn’t agree with it then and I still don’t.

On top of that we’d recorded all the TG USA shows and were planning to release them, much like the TG live shows of old were made available, but the mindset of those who host torrent sites and provide other people’s work for free scuppered our plans, and robbed TG fans of an official USA live 2009 box set.

Having been bootlegged to oblivion over the years, we did a bit of lateral thinking … What could we release that wasn’t easy, or was nigh impossible, to bootleg or give away for free? Happenstance stepped up with the solution. As pre-TG gig ambience, Charlie had been playing his little FM3 Buddha Machine – a small, iPod-sized, battery-operated loop player with built-in speaker. Chris tweeted about it and the inventor of the FM3, Christiaan Virant, got in touch with him. Then Chris, Paul and Sleazy asked Christiaan if he’d be interested in a ‘TG Machine’ version. He agreed to collaborate with us and we began work on the ‘Gristleism’, a self-contained, looping playback unit embedded with TG sounds – a physical object that was unbootleggable.

As with all TG releases, and for Christiaan, the sounds had to be registered with our publisher for copyright reasons. That flagged up a problem when Gen sent his loop suggestions. We didn’t recognise the sounds or track titles he’d sent us. It turned out that they were from a bootleg release. How ironic that he’d sent bootleg material and had missed the point that the concept of the project was all about countering TG bootlegs. Why would we include them? He took our reasoning as to why we couldn’t use them as a personal slight and wrote a tirade of spurious accusations about me and Chris bootlegging TG. A fiery email exchange followed. To get things back on track, we stuck with the official registered TG sounds.

With Gen and Sleazy living abroad and Christiaan travelling to and from the UK at that point, as well as time factors related to factory slots in China (where the Gristleism was being made), me and Chris were the ones who worked closely with Christiaan and brought the project to fruition. Chris and Christiaan put together the final audio loops and worked out all the other necessary technical considerations. It was a complex but terrifically fulfilling experience working with Christiaan, who was so incredibly gifted and a stickler for detail.

The Gristleism packaging was an equally exciting and intricate process, with Christiaan (working in conjunction with Jonathan Leijonhufvud) coming to our house to discuss designs and us making tweaks and further suggestions. It was decided that the Gristleism would come in three TG-related colours – red, black and chromed silver – as would the outer packaging, which was in two parts: a spot-varnished solid inner sleeve with a wraparound outer sleeve die-cut with the ‘Endless Knot’ design. Both sleeves had spot-varnished text and designs so if you had more than one unit, the sleeves could be interchanged. We had ‘messages’ included on the inside of the units as part of the mould itself – to be changed with each subsequent production run. We purposely made it easy to disassemble to encourage modification, hacking and experimentation. We wanted people to be inventive, to get inside, where they’d discover our messages. In its simplest form it was an interactive TG release but it had potential for so much more. It was a beautiful object that people could carry around with them, have in their home or workplace to create a TG ambience – which many found strangely relaxing.

As well as the single Gristleism we produced a Tri-Colour edition of one hundred, presented in a bespoke, dark-red, silk-covered box with an embroidered gold ‘Endless Knot’/flash that included all three colours, enamel Gristleism badge and card with numbered authentication certificate. Gristleism was later included in one of the broadsheet colour supplements’ recommended Christmas gifts of the year, but by then it (and the limited edition) had sold out and the next single Gristleism production run was under way.

6 June 2009

I’m feeling pretty damn good and energised again. Lots has been happening in other areas of my work/life … Mainly in the art world with being in the Tate Modern exhibition … music projects are coming together now which will take up all my time for the rest of this year. It’s all VERY exciting and fulfilling especially working with new people. For now, I’m back in the studio working on the upcoming TG shows.

Sleazy arrived at our house to work on the TG European shows. There was a new set to put together. We were performing a TG set and a live soundtrack to Cerith’s short film The Sky Is Thin as Paper Here at Tramway in Glasgow, then taking the soundtrack concert to Statens Museum of Art in Copenhagen, culminating in two TG shows at Heaven in London, where Cerith would do a DJ set. Cerith was to travel with us. He didn’t cope too well with the pace of an on-the-road schedule. He was still drinking heavily, so we had double the usual alcohol problem to deal with, as well as both him and Gen vying for the spotlight. Susan and Paul managed things wonderfully well.

The hotel in Copenhagen seemed to cause the biggest upset for Cerith. It was in the ‘boutique’ style. Each room had a different theme, which was quirky, to say the least. Paul and Susan were lucky – they got the modern room that was perfectly adequate. Gen got the bridal suite, which suited him just fine. Sleazy had the grandiose Napoleon Room, which was so perversely Sleazy. He flopped happily on to the huge four-poster bed and sank into the pale-blue satin bed cover. Me and Chris moved on to our room quite excited at what we’d find. We were on the top floor of the hotel. Our hearts sank when we opened the door. We’d got the Hansel and Gretel room. Everything was child-size. The bed was only two foot off the floor – it looked like they’d sawn off the legs. Likewise the chairs and table. The ceiling, being part of the roof gables, was low and sloped at one end, the wood was all dark brown, and the curtains, bed linen, cushions and towels all red-and-white gingham. We dumped our bags and left the room not really wanting to go back, but there were no other rooms available for us. Poor Cerith felt worse than us – we heard his shouts of protest and horror. He’d been put in the ‘Boys’ Room’, which was decorated with huge images of monster trucks and had a bunk bed to sleep in. He wasn’t having any of that and an alternative was offered – a boxing-gym-themed room, which we thought might be more up his street. We all had a go on the enormous punchbag that hung in the middle of the room. He was still upset. We showed him how bad our room was and he felt better.

By the time we got back to London, Cerith wasn’t at all well. His skin had broken out into what I suspect was a stress rash from the hectic schedule. He didn’t make it for his DJ set at Heaven. Paul got a call to say Cerith had collapsed and was extremely ill in hospital. That was upsetting news.

TG were back in Heaven, to play two shows where Derek Jarman had filmed us playing way back in 1980. That link in our history wasn’t lost on us or on all those who came to the gigs. It felt good too. Being a rare TG London show, Heaven was heaving, both shows sold out. The matinee gig with S.C.U.M. as support was more restrained than the evening gig, which was furiously intense and I loved every minute of it.

We had an army of friends backstage afterwards. The atmosphere was fantastically ‘up’, with so much laughter and love in the room. Sleazy was very tipsy and jolly but slumped on the sofa unable to get up without great effort or a helping hand – which made me think he still wasn’t well. His friend expressed his worries about Sleazy’s health, asking if I could help in any way, that maybe Sleazy would listen to me. Sleazy had put on a lot of weight. That aside, I loved rubbing his Buddha belly, and I’d already tried to find out what was wrong with him, but he refused to talk about it to anyone. Sleazy was as Sleazy did. He wasn’t into being ‘fit’ – he preferred a less-than-healthy, very indulgent lifestyle, and, finances allowing, nothing would stop him pursuing further excessive pleasures.

5 July 2009

Feeling pretty chipper after an extended time out after the TG activities. I’ve been relaxing (alas with interruptions) … Too much to do really what with all the mundane stuff as well. I need a Cosey clone to do the mundane and keep me sane.

Having the summer off from travelling and performing gave me the chance to ground myself by getting into the garden and down with nature, growing vegetables and spending love time with Chris, Nick, Les, family, friends and all our precious cats. Chris, the cats and our garden were my saviours during the madness of being on the road and meeting demands that, at times, seemed insurmountable and unreasonable.

I looked on a trip to Tramway Glasgow for the showing of ‘A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N’ as more of a summer break than a work obligation. Paul and Susan were going along, as was Cerith. He was out of hospital and feeling better, but facing some hard lifestyle changes. The sculpture looked and sounded wonderful. It was the first time we’d seen it since the fabricators’ test run. Sleazy had gone to Yokohama when it was shown there and sent photos saying how awesome it was. He was right: you had to experience it to appreciate its beauty and uniqueness. I was so proud of it but especially of Chris for persevering with his concept of a complex multichannel audio feed. It was sad some years later to be told that Cerith had produced works very similar to ‘A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N’ off the back of our hard work. We felt betrayed and ripped off, particularly Chris.

13 September 2009

I’ll be installing my work for the Tate exhibition ‘Pop Life’ in 2 weeks time then going for the PV with friends. I’m really looking forward to the show … As it gets cold outside I’m longing to get back to recording in the studio. I’m itching to get cracking.There’s three sound projects in progress and all so very different to each other.

Summer was receding. I always looked forward to autumn – it’s one of my favourite seasons. I love the riot of colour that leaf-fall brings and watching as the farmers and gardeners go through their routines of putting the land to bed for the winter. Then there’s the added pleasure of hot, buttered crumpets and snuggling up to watch some good films. As autumnal gardening jobs ended, it gave me more time to work in the studio.

There’s nothing more frustrating than being in the studio on a glorious summer’s day – which was where we always seemed to be. We have to run with the creative spark and ideas when they emerge, as moments of inspiration know no seasons or boundaries. I went to stay in London to spend two days with Andrew, installing my work at the Tate Modern. The exhibition ‘Pop Life’, curated by Catherine Wood, was to run until January 2010 and included some great works. The show was about ‘Art in a Material World’, using Andy Warhol’s provocative statement ‘Good business is the best art’ – I don’t agree, but that provided a great platform for discussion on art as art and/or art as business.

The artists in the show had engaged with the market in different ways. It was a theme that had legs, as far as I was concerned, bearing in mind the ‘engagement’ with art and business courtesy of White Cube Gallery. There were advisory notices for three rooms, which all contained works of a ‘sexual nature’ – including mine. For once I wasn’t the target of press porn outrage. It was Richard Prince’s portrait of a very young Brooke Shields that instigated a police visit to the Tate.

Context is everything, no more so than with the selection of the five-frame Knave magazine work I showed, ‘And I Should Be Blue’. It comprised the whole magazine, which included my action of a set of lesbian photographs of me and another girl, naked and painting each other red and blue, with the caption, ‘When they’re finished their colourful claspings, our two artistes will still be left with the problem of the wall. If they’re smart, they’ll leave it as it stands, and try and palm it off on the Tate for vast sums of money.’ Priceless – in a manner of speaking. How wonderfully serendipitous that the sex action was now hanging in the Tate as part of a show on ‘art as business’. But I was (and still am) open to further exploring and extending the interesting contexts which the magazine actions continue to present me with. The inclusion of the Knave magazine work in ‘Pop Life’ provided such an opportunity. I received an invitation, instigated by Skot, to do the artist ‘guest lecture’ for the next (‘Sex and Art’) issue of the Los Angeles art magazine Artillery. I wrote an accompanying text for the Knave images that were published – extracting centrefold sex-magazine images and transposing them as the centrefold of an art magazine.