Tag Archives: throbbinggristle

Women In Revolt (Art And Activism In The UK 1970-1990) @ Tate Britain

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Behind the shiny, fun, tabloid version of the 1980s, there was an undercurrent of protest, upheaval and misogyny.

In the latter camp, how about the following astonishing UK laws still enshrined at the dawn of the decade: men had a right to have sex with their wives without consent. Welfare benefits were paid to married women via their husbands.

A fascinating new exhibition at London’s Tate Britain investigates the woman artists and activists whose work was a reaction to these and other issues. There’s a strong presence for punk, post-punk and industrial musicians: Gina Birch of The Raincoats, Throbbing Gristle’s Cosey Fanni Tutti and Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex. We see fanzines, posters, gig excerpts.

There’s groundbreaking video art – Vivienne Dick’s ‘Two Little Pigeons’ and Birch’s scream are particularly memorable. We see banners, collages, sculptures and newsletters produced by the women who marched from Cardiff to Greenham Common in September 1981, challenging the decision to house 96 nuclear missiles on the site.

There’s a focus on the British Black Arts Movement, a group of artists who gathered in the wake of various uprisings in the early 1980s, from Toxteth to Brixton, and also Four Indian Women Artists, the first UK exhibition organised by and exclusively featuring women of colour.

Margaret Thatcher cut arts funding drastically in the mid-’80s, a decision which ushered in corporate sponsorship and prompted a backlash from many woman artists who began to show their work in local spaces, community centres, libraries, cafes and homes. We see much of this material and learn about its contexts.

And then of course there are the famous sexist advertising billboards, wittily defaced.

The exhibition constantly undermines Thatcher’s comment to Woman’s Own magazine in 1987 that ‘there’s no such thing as society’. And there’s a surprise around every corner. It’s moving, amusing, disturbing and educational in equal measures, and a reminder that protest and assemblage can create change. But the exhibition is also very large and probably takes two visits to really appreciate.

Women In Revolt! runs at the Tate Britain until 7 April 2024. A new podcast interviews some of the key artists.

The Movers & Shakers Of 1980s Music: Their Real Names Revealed

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Captain Sensible, AKA…

During the punk era, musicians often chose stage names so that the dole office wouldn’t identify them from album covers or gigs.

One wonders how much of an issue that was for Gordon Sumner, Paul Hewson and David Evans, AKA Sting, Bono and The Edge, but you never know.

But as the 1980s wore on and the post-punk era became the hip-hop era, a whole new generation of rappers, DJs, producers and musicians felt the need to create pseudonyms.

But what did their mums call them? Here, for your dubious pleasure, are some of the most intriguing real names. It’s fair to assume that most probably don’t like being reminded of these, for various reasons. YOU go taunting Ice-T with his real name (Tracy Marrow). But, on the other hand, kudos to The Cure’s Robert Smith for not using a pseudonym…

Terminator X (Public Enemy DJ): Norman Rogers

Jet Black (Stranglers drummer): Brian Duffy

W. Axl Rose: William Bruce Rose Jr.

Divine: Glenn Milstead

MC Lyte: Lana Moorer

Kate Bush: Catherine Bush

Sun Ra: Herman Blount

Sade: Helen Folasade Adu

Adam Ant: Stuart Goddard

Ozzy Osbourne: John Michael Osbourne

Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV frontperson): Neil Megson

Cosey Fanni Tutti (Throbbing Gristle co-founder): Christine Newby

Jamaaladeen Tacuma (Ornette Coleman bassist): Rudy McDaniel

Howard Devoto (Magazine singer/solo artist): Howard Trafford

Wilko Johnson: John Wilkinson

Jah Wobble: John Wardle (named by a drunken Sid Vicious, whose real name is John Ritchie…)

Prairie Prince (Tubes/XTC drummer): Charles Lempriere Prince

Sydney Youngblood (‘If Only I Could’ singer): Sydney Ford

Yazz (‘The Only Way Is Up’): Yasmin Evans

Belouis Some (‘Imagination’ singer): Neville Keighley

Hollywood Beyond (‘What’s The Colour Of Money’ singer): Mark Rogers

Tommy Vance (legendary DJ): Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston

Melle Mel: Melvin Glover

John Martyn: Iain McGeachy

Tom Verlaine (Television frontman): Thomas Miller

Johnnie Walker (DJ): Peter Dingley

Kim Wilde: Kim Smith

Midge Ure: James Ure

Elvis Costello: Declan MacManus

Adrian Belew: Robert Steven Belew

Princess (London soul singer of ‘Say I’m Your Number One’ fame): Desiree Heslop

Dweezil Zappa: Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa (The LA hospital nurse wouldn’t let Gail and Frank name him ‘Dweezil’ so FZ named him after his early collaborators Ian Underwood, Captain Beefheart, Carl Schenkel and ‘Motorhead’ Sherwood. Dweezil’s name was legally changed when he was five years old.)

Mick Mars (Motley Crue guitarist): Robert Alan Deal

John Foxx: Dennis Leigh

Trugoy (De La Soul rapper): David Jolicoeur

Cheryl Baker (Bucks Fizz vocalist): Rita Crudgington

Grandmaster Flash: Joseph Saddler

Kidd Creole (Furious Five rapper): Nathaniel Glover

KRS-One: Lawrence Parker

Pauline Black (Selecter singer): Belinda Magnus

Siouxsie Sioux: Susan Ballion

Geddy Lee: Gershon Eliezer Weinrib

Sebastian Bach (Skid Row singer): Sebastian Bierk

Marilyn (‘Calling Your Name’ singer): Peter Robinson

Don Was (Was Not Was co-founder/superstar producer): Don Fagenson

Falco (‘Rock Me Amadeus’ one-hit wonder): Johann Holzel

Steve Severin (Siouxsie and the Banshees bassist): John Bailey

Budgie (Siouxsie drummer): Peter Clarke

Dave Vanian (Damned singer): David Lett

Lydia Lunch: Lydia Koch

Flavor Flav: William Drayton

LL Cool J: James Smith

Tone Loc: Anthony Smith

Bonnie Tyler: Gaynor Hopkins

Yngwie Malmsteen: Lars Lannerback

Young MC: Marvin Young

Ice Cube: O’Shea Jackson Sr.

Shakin’ Stevens: Michael Barratt

Donna Summer: LaDonna Gaines

Captain Sensible: Raymond Burns

Rat Scabies (Damned drummer): Christopher Millar

Vanilla Ice: Matthew Van Winkle

MC Hammer: Stanley Burrell

DJ Kool Herc (hip-hop pioneer): Clive Campbell

Duke Bootee (hip-hop pioneer): Edward Fletcher

Afrika Bambaataa: Lance Taylor

Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue bassist): Franklin Ferrana

Skip McDonald (On-U Records/Sugar Hill guitarist): Bernard Alexander

Billy Idol: William Broad

Bill Wyman: William Perks

Fish: Derek Dick

Fee Waybill (Tubes vocalist): John Waldo

Billy Ocean: Leslie Charles

Posdnuous (De La Soul rapper): Kelvin Mercer

Maseo (De La Soul rapper): Vincent Mason Jr.

Chris De Burgh: Christopher Davidson

Kool Moe Dee: Mohandas Dewese

Dee C Lee (Style Council vocalist/’See The Day’ solo artist): Diane Sealey

Steve Strange (Visage frontman/Blitz pioneer): Stephen John Harrington

Youth (Killing Joke bassist/superstar producer): Martin Glover

Geordie (Killing Joke guitarist): Kevin Walker

Doug E Fresh: Douglas Davis

Propaganda: Wishful Thinking

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ZTT Records – under the auspices of Trevor Horn – really used the remix format.

No throwaway, rush-released projects for them. Their remixes were petri dishes for sonic experiments and situationist pranks, many worthwhile and innovative.

And of course several remix albums were released on ZTT – Grace Jones’ Slave To The Rhythm was essentially one song done eight different ways, and there was also a whole Frankie Goes To Hollywood LP dedicated to ‘Two Tribes’ remixes.

But maybe a lesser-known example is Propaganda’s Wishful Thinking, a reworking of the Düsseldorf unit’s seminal 1985 album A Secret Wish, originally produced by Stephen Lipson (with one track – ‘Dr Mabuse’ –  helmed by Horn). A Secret Wish’s stock seems to keep rising year after year, gaining more fans and sounding better than ever. But Wishful Thinking is a weird project, to say the least.

Co-remixer (alongside former tape op Bob Kraushaar) Paul Morley’s absurd liner notes quote Goethe and boast that the album is the result of ’39 studio hours’, which, by ZTT’s painstaking standards, doesn’t actually sound like much.

But it’s a thrilling, epic collection just the same, regurgitating many of the original album’s sonic motifs but in a different order and a different place on the stereo spectrum. ‘Machined’ reimagines ‘P-Machinery’ as a mid-tempo minimalist piece, featuring mainly Claudia Brucken’s vocals and gentle drums.

‘Jewelled’ fuses the two versions of ‘Duel’ from the original album, mixing her ‘angry’ vocals with the backing from the ‘pop’ version. It’s pretty funny and genuinely surreal. Hidden elements embedded in the original mix are subtly revealed, like Lipson’s chiming guitars on ‘Laughing’. ‘Loving’ exposes and amplifies Andy Richards’ gorgeous piano and synth from ‘The Murder Of Love’, finally revealing it as the fantastic pop song it is.

The two versions of ‘Dr Mabuse’ bring out Horn’s genius and natural flair for the dynamic, showcasing not one but two brilliant bass vamps and a whole host of other sonic delights (thrillingly, one version is used in the absurd opening credits of John Hughes’s 1987 movie ‘Some Kind Of Wonderful’).

But possibly the best track on Wishful Thinking is the closing ‘Thought’, an excerpt of the band’s version of Throbbing Gristle’s ‘Discipline’. All in all, it’s an epic, exciting hour of music, and a real one-off. For anyone still fascinated by A Secret Wish, as this writer is, it’s required listening. The band probably hated it, though Brucken did donate one of her paintings for use on the cover (but then she was married to Morley at the time…).