throbbing gristle

One of punk rock’s original goals was “the destruction of rock ‘n’ roll.” While that didn’t happen, most early punk musicians were rock fans, in spite of their espoused rhetoric. Hence why most early pogo soundtracks were basically Chuck Berry with a Marshall amp. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But this is hardly […]

“When Damaged came out, it perfectly represented the depths and darkness of my particular teen angst,” Adam Grossman, guitarist for Angkor Wat, Skrew and Ministry, tells Alternative Press. “It was the soundtrack of my life at that point in time.” Any musician involved in the most extreme forms of musical expression owes their existence and […]

When it initially blasted into the world from New York’s Lower East Side almost concurrently with punk in 1977, it was dubbed no wave. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau referred to it as “skronk,” an onomatopoeia based around the general guitar sound. He uncharitably dubbed its ’80s practitioners “pigfucker” bands. This writer’s personal name for […]

Industrial-music visionary and cultural avatar Genesis P-Orridge passed away Saturday morning at he/r home in New York’s Lower East Side. P-Orridge was co-founder of the iconic British band Throbbing Gristle who in 1975, used the term “industrial” to describe their atonal, sonically abrasive aesthetic. S/he was 70. While known primarily for h/er sonic explorations in […]