Art Sex Music Page 10

  The music scene in Hull was really thriving and we knew one of the key figures, Barry Nettleton, from when he booked bands like T. Rex and Yes, but mainly because he also booked bands for Phase Two and ran the Freedom Folk Club at the Bluebell Inn, where Ray had first performed ‘Blue Suede Mud’ with COUM. Barry teamed up with Rick Welton to form Hull Brick Company, booking bands in and around Hull. They’d started a new venture in a refurbished old Methodist chapel in Baker Street. It was named the Brickhouse and operated as an alternative music venue by night; by day it was a great gathering place with a Saturday market, record shop and cafe. As well as playing host to Uriah Heep, Hull Truck, Hawkwind and Haydn Robb’s Outsiders charity fundraising disco, it was also where COUM performed ‘Fairyland Powder Puffs’ – for which we set up a living room as the stage, including our carpet and armchair. To Barry and Rick’s surprise, a large audience turned up, which, to their dismay, included some of our Hells Angels friends, who became a recurring problem and part of the reason the Brickhouse had to close after just nine months.

  There’d been a growing, simmering tension between Snips and Gen, and it was at the Brickhouse that it came to a head. We went along to see Nothineverappens play there; Barry had become their manager. They’d started their set and Snips was singing, when Gen walked to the front of the stage and started fawning at Snips in a faux adoring-fan fashion, stroking his legs and saying, ‘Oh, Snips, you’re so, so wonderful.’

  It wasn’t meant in fun; it was a cynical attempt to provoke Snips – and it did. Snips got pissed off at Gen interrupting the band. When Gen wouldn’t stop, Snips lashed out and kicked Gen under the chin, sending him staggering backwards and inflicting a small bleeding gash (that left a scar). But Gen didn’t leave it there. He got up on stage and spat at the drummer, saying to one of the band, ‘What do you think of your hero now?’

  Gen thought he’d proved some point. What it was I didn’t know, but I knew that my alliance with Gen meant my long friendship with Snips was probably over.

  We spent a quiet Christmas in Hull and visited my mum, Pam and Tim Poston and his wife, Rebecca, and friends dropped by to exchange presents. One of Gen’s presents to me was a diary inscribed with ‘A last special surprise pressie to Cosmosis P-Orridge from her little sad hubby. Gen xmas 1971.’ I don’t know why he was sad or what made him add beneath it a rather depressing verse about Christmas, friends and people. One line read, ‘People crack people split most of ’em just squirt out shit.’

  Gen encouraged me to draw and express myself in that book, and he expected to read it too. He sent me a letter when he was visiting Tim just two weeks later: ‘How is your diary? A little sad E [his terminology for ‘I’] bet and mentioning me too: Don’t do the coy “no you can’t read it E am too embarrassed” when E get back.’ It didn’t seem right, but I loved my diary and I collaged, drew and coloured my way through its pages as I recorded my life every day that year, and in every diary I kept after that.

  It’s difficult to lock into those times when my diaries seem to reflect the constant struggles to eat, keep warm, look after Gen and maintain our relationship as well as my resolve in pursuing COUM objectives. There wasn’t much spontaneous fun and laughter.

  11 January 1972

  Such a bad day today, it makes me dread what might happen next. For the first time I saw dislike (I dare not write hate) in Gen’s eyes when he looked at me.

  Gen had a thing against vacuum cleaners, and wouldn’t have one in the house. I had to clean with an old carpet sweeper and broom, usually while he was out. With so many animals it was inevitable that my attempts to control their fleas were doomed to fail. I was bitten so much that, in the end, I had to have the house fumigated. The men came with their toxic, stinking chemicals and sprayed everywhere, all over our bedding, food, pots and pans, etc. I tried to stop them but they were hell-bent on a deliberate quest to ruin all our meagre belongings. Gen went mad at me for what they’d done. I spent the rest of the day doing penance, cleaning up and visiting the social security office to put in a claim to replace everything they’d contaminated. Word must have got round about the fumigation squad because a week later I came home from visiting Mum and Pam to find the words LAZY LOUSY scrawled in purple on the front wall of the house. I cleaned them off before Gen got home. Animosity towards us was growing.

  Amid the pressures felt by antagonistic outside attentions and interpersonal trials and tribulations, the main focus remained on COUM – to spread the word, expand our activities and horizons. Gen went away a lot, meeting people we’d written to, sometimes a week at a time. I stayed at home keeping everything running, either working or looking after the animals, attending to COUM business, doing my mail art, typing up and compiling more COUM slogans and making things in readiness for upcoming projects. He knew I hated being left alone and would write me letters. But he never told me the full ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’ of his trips. The flow of information was economical.

  One of his trips was to London for a four-day stay with Lindsay and Nicholas from the Gay Lib Street Theatre. It was way past midnight on the day he was supposed to return and I was worried sick. Then, at 4 a.m., he arrived with Nicholas and Lindsay in tow, hungry and cold from hitch-hiking. I made us all porridge and we sat together eating and chatting, then fell into bed. We spent three fun days together, talking about Nicholas and Lindsay’s planned commune, Harmony Farm, and arranging to see them again in London. Nicholas (aka Sergei – he had a thing for Russian ballet stars) was an ex-dancer from Ballet Rambert and had started working for Madame Tussaud’s, making waxwork busts and wigs. He was flamboyant, very glamorous in drag with his shoulder-length golden hair, so slim and lithe, and prone to launching himself into pirouettes and high leg-kicks at the most unexpected moments and in the most inappropriate places.

  When we stayed with them in London, we all went with some of their friends from the Gay Lib Street Theatre to see the film The Boy Friend. As the Busby Berkeley-type dance sequences came on screen, the Gay Lib crowd all shot to the gangway and joined in. It was a glorious sight. We stayed with Nicholas and Lindsay in their flat in Colville Terrace, just round the corner from Powis Square, one of the locations used for Nicolas Roeg’s film Performance. It was ideally situated, close to Portobello Road, Ladbroke Grove and the incredible Electric Cinema, and smack in the middle of Notting Hill, which at that time was a cheap place to live or squat and known for its heady, spirited and powerful mix of radical fringe groups: socialists, Marxists, a strong, politically active Afro-Caribbean community, poets, dancers, writers, artists, the Gay Liberation Front, the Women’s Liberation Front, lesbian radical feminists and more. Lindsay was a poet and white witch, a friend of Fitz from Transmedia and the very talented mime artist Lindsay Kemp (who was a huge inspiration to Bowie). There were so many people coming and going, an extravaganza of gay, straight and transvestite, all buzzing around. It was wild and I loved it.

  Before we’d left Hull, Gen had advised me what I should wear for my first trip to London. He was worried I’d embarrass him by dressing too ‘provincial’. I ignored him and took the clothes I liked. He needn’t have worried because it seemed my clothes were irresistibly desirable – someone stole them.

  I was back on the dole, having left both Humbrol and my subsequent job at a car-parts factory. It wasn’t long before we felt the pinch from my lack of pay packet and we had to rethink our financial priorities. I relied on the meat-market stall as my source of cheap meat for us – and often free leftovers for the dogs and cats. The butcher guy there was really kind and would set aside a carrier bag of lights (lungs) and small bits of spare offal and bones for the animals. I had a large pan specially for boiling the lights. The process was pretty grotesque to see. The lights would hiss as the heat forced the air out of them and there was many a time the cats would drag the pan off the stove to get at them before they were cooked, hissing themselves because the lights were too hot to eat. It was a very bleak winter; 31 January 1972 was said to be t
he coldest night in seven years, with 3–4 inches of snow on the ground. The water pipes and toilet froze up and we couldn’t always afford coal for the fire, plus the miners went on strike for the first time in almost fifty years. That meant coal, the main source of heating and power, was in short supply. Then a three-day week was imposed. It was pretty grim.

  *

  1971 and 1972 had turned out to be very busy and defining years. COUM started getting more offers and articles in the press, Gen and Spydeee mainly doing the interviews as I was usually at work when they took place. Bob Edmands, a friend of Gen’s from university, wrote a piece on COUM in Torchlight and his connections with Radio Humberside helped spread the word and get COUM coverage on radio. Our increased letter-writing to people and groups of interest and the start of our foray into mail art lead to many contacts far and (world-) wide.

  The flamboyant presence of COUM on the streets of Hull also drew a lot of attention, which in turn brought many people to our door, and COUM recruitment accelerated at quite a pace. We now had a substantially larger group of COUM members who became regular visitors to Prince Street, like Harriet Straightlace and of course Fizzy (Pete Waudby), so named after both his personality and a disastrous perm that ‘fizzed’ his hair; Ian Goodrich (aka Lord Biggles), who often took on the role of a very pregnant Mrs Askwith and also was ‘pilot’ driver for COUM; Foxtrot Echo; and art student couples Richard and Elizabeth and Sean and Sarah.

  Some of the ‘1001 Ways to COUM’, number one being ‘COUM Are Fab and Kinky’, were used as slogans; ‘COUM Your Local Dirty Banned’ was for publicity and for soliciting bookings acquired by word of mouth or through inclusion in Arts Council or other art directories like A.I.R. and Groupvine, which listed small touring theatre companies and was infiltrated by the radical fringe groups. Those points of contact made a huge difference. We received invitations to various events, both locally and across the UK, which we seized with great fervour. Invites from abroad were beyond our financial means at that time.

  But what had the biggest impact on COUM was mail art, which initially led to us connecting with artists who sat on a panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain that dealt with ‘experimental theatre’. COUM was difficult to define and it was a mail art friend of ours, Michael Scott (of 11th hour artworks), who suggested we should go under the category of ‘Performance Art’ and apply for grants. Mail art was the catalyst that expanded our horizons and activities to a whole other level.

  Mail art was in keeping with COUM’s ‘Anti-Art, Art is Life’ fun approach. Sending art through the postal system, gifting artworks directly from one person to another, circumvented the gallery system and commerciality of art. Mail art wasn’t a new concept; it can be traced as far back as 1962, to George Maciunas’s Fluxus movement, which was influenced by Dadaists like Marcel Duchamp and by the futurists. Fluxus-affiliated artists included John Cage, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, Takako Saito, Joseph Beuys, George Brecht and La Monte Young, to name but a few. We became involved with Fluxus through our mail art activities. Maciunas collated and published Fluxus membership and mailing lists that were then published by Ken Friedman and Dick Higgins. Around 1970, Image Bank was formed – the term taken from William Burroughs’ book Nova Express. Image Bank was an artists’ network set up by Ray Johnson, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov (aka Mr Peanut). They all hooked up with AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal (aka General Idea). In April 1972, General Idea produced the first issue of FILE magazine (a parody of the look of LIFE magazine), with Mr Peanut resplendent on the front cover. But crucially they published the Image Bank artist and request list and also included the Fluxus lists. That’s the point at which we came in.

  We received a copy of the first FILE magazine and saw the list of invitations to contribute art and the artists’ mailing addresses. We were already corresponding with some of them but others on the list were new and exciting. The doors were suddenly flung wide open. That issue of FILE magazine precipitated copious letter-writing and mail art, which led to us corresponding with and meeting people from around the world who would play significant roles in our lives. Among them: Anna Banana of the Bay Area Dada Group (Dadaland), who introduced us to Monte Cazazza, Skot Armstrong (aka Science Holiday), Ray Johnson and Al Ackerman (aka Blaster, and a friend of Philip K. Dick), one of whose letters formed the lyrics for Throbbing Gristle’s ‘Hamburger Lady’. Robin Crozier led us to Fluxus and ‘Fluxshoe’, and Gen eventually met William Burroughs, Hans Clavin of Subvers magazine, and, importantly (for me), Robin Klassnik, who addressed a letter to me as ‘Cosey Fanni Tutti’ – which I subsequently adopted.

  My mail art collages and works differed depending on who I was sending them to. I used materials from miscellaneous sources – found objects, newspapers, magazines, books, everyday ephemera and rubber stamps both found and bespoke from my own designs. Rubber stamps became a big thing within the mail art movement. We were initially inspired to use them by our visits to the dole office, where the rubber stamps signified our social status as ‘unemployed’. I also began to use sex magazines in my collages. Sex was a focal point of COUM. The COUM Orgeees were important to Gen and took place largely at his behest. The first ‘COUM Orgeee 1’ was on the evening of 14 January 1972. I recorded it the next day.

  15 January 1972

  Slowly but surely Gen has managed to break down one of my hangups? … the way is open for whatever comes next for us. Under the supervision of Gen.

  After such an enjoyable ‘free’ time I didn’t expect to receive a put-down from Gen the very next day when he came home. It seemed nothing pleased or appeased him for long.

  16 January 1972

  ‘Back to the Prison’. A very truthful quote from Gen about our life together. I know I make it that way for him, one day the crunch will come and I will go. Until then you’ll have to be imprisoned Gen. What you don’t realise is that I’m imprisoned too; because I could never go or tell you to go, I love you too much … Maybe I don’t even know you that’s what you mean when you get angry and upset.

  I’d been ‘guided’ into group sex by Gen and also by my interest in Aleister Crowley and the subtext that our relationship was ‘open’. Although I was initially reluctant to indulge (I was happy with Gen as my lover), my interest in Crowley and enjoyment of sex with other guys awakened a curiosity and triggered a desire to explore my sexuality. Whether Gen realised that it would have this effect on me, I don’t know, but inevitably I tended to compare one lover to another. Some were, let’s say, more skilled at certain things than others. A person’s touch, skin and body evoke their own distinct sexual responses and enjoyment … or not. Consequently, when future chances were presented to me for repeat indulgences with someone I felt good with, or fancied, I didn’t need Gen’s persuasive tactics. But it was best all round to let him think he was in charge.

  Gen’s moods and sometimes violent outbursts were a feature of our relationship, and because I loved him so much at that time I accepted them as being part of who he was – alongside his intimations that I was usually to blame for his anger and sadness. When he got frustrated or annoyed he’d go crazy, and it didn’t always take much to trigger him. That’s how the ‘Infra Red Bucket’ artwork was created. I’d just come back from a tough interview at the dole office.

  4 February 1972

  Gen was typing to the Arts Council and I put him off. He threw the typewriter on the floor twice and smashed it up and then started throwing everything else around. Then he broke down in tears … I always make him do things like that.

  I blamed myself. We took the smashed-up typewriter (a gift from Les) to the Arts Centre, painted it brick-red and called it the ‘Infra Red Bucket’. From then on we had to go to the Arts Centre or Alan Worsley’s place to type anything.

  It wasn’t a good start to what was a busy day, seeing as ‘Thee Alien Brain & Mass Panic’ was to take place that night. Les arrived in readiness and brought with him a copy of the Hull Times, which had an interview with Gen unde
r the heading ‘COUM: They are here to perplex you’. It listed the current members as: ‘Genesis himself plays drums, Spydee is the vocalist, Haydn’s on bass, Brook is the “secret weapon” and lead guitar at 16 years old, Jonji is guitarist and singer from Bridlington, and Cosmosis is the costumier, conductor and spasmodic vocalist.’ And we had another ‘new’ member – Eduardo Romero R., flamenco guitarist (another alter ego of Les’s). Les was a consummate guitarist. The article quoted John Peel commenting on the COUM Bradford gig: ‘Some might say that COUM were madmen, but constant exposure to mankind forces me to believe that we need more madmen like them.’

  That cheered Gen up. We returned home from the show to find Pinglewad had arrived for what would be one of his last visits. Just before he left the next day he commented to me that ‘Spydeee doesn’t seem very happy’ – something I’d noticed for a while but I couldn’t work out why.

  17 February 1972

  Jim’s chimney caught fire and stunk the place out. Omar called the fire brigade because he thought it was his club that was on fire. Who should turn up but my dad. I felt very sad when I saw him he looked worn out and as older people do, he had shrunk in size and his eyes looked heavy and worn out. He just looked at me and walked back to the engine. I cleared off to the pier cafe to save him any more embarrassment.

  It was the first time my dad and I had seen each other in two years.

  The fire crew had to inspect the adjoining houses to check if the fire had spread. Dad hadn’t expected to bump into me; he didn’t know and didn’t even want to know where I was, and Mum wasn’t allowed to talk about me, so he was taken aback to see me walk out the door. We both stood looking at each other, not knowing what to say – if anything. What was there to say? If he’d spoken to me his workmates would’ve known who the hippy girl from the derelict building was and asked him uncomfortable questions. I chose to let him save face – he had something to lose if I made any move to reconnect with him. I walked away. It was the last time I saw him.