Speaking of the book. Looks great and is generally very well researched and highly recommended. For me, the COUM Transmissions part was the most interesting 'cos the least documented - even so it would have been interesting to hear from other COUM participants such as Fizzy Paet and Foxtrot Echo, also to find out what these people are doing now. The TG part told few stories that I hadn't heard before but did confirm that, sometime around 1979-1980, Genesis P-Orridge seriously lost the plot: I'm afraid the comments on Hitler and Nazism from this period are ill-informed, naive and plain stupid - not worthy of a man who, I have on good authority, is actually an extremely nice person. All in all, I was left feeling rather sorry for Gen, who seems a bit too artistic and sensitive for this nasty old world of ours.
While TG has been the subject of quite a lot of writing before, in two of the RE/Search books and many music mags, the performance art COUM period has had very little attention and critique. This is fully rectified here. When TG put out their first LP, you're more than halfway thru the book. Ford's unfolding chronological work is strong on both personal biographical detail and assessment of COUM/TG's place in art history.I see TG/GPO as much stronger conceptualists than actual artists, much like their mentor William Burroughs. But as such, they have wielded an extremely strong influence on others, and sown the seeds of whole new genres of art and music. The unorthodox use of synths, «industrial» noise and cut-ups are now commonplace, while in the 70's it could cause riots when presented to an audience most used to the popular music of the time.The COUM group's extreme use of bodily fluids and food in performance could be viewed as a continuation of the ground-breaking work of people like Hermann Nitsch and Otto Mühl. Coum did some far out stuff, but were in my opinion not as much pioneers in their field as TG was. But the scandalous 1976 «Prostitution» show at the ICA in London must have been a lot of fun. Backed by tax-payers' money, Cosey Fanni Tutti tore out nude pics of herself from men's magazines she had posed in, and presented them as art. If it's in a gallery, it must be art, right? Not quite. The exhibition created a massive moral outrage.For record-collecting geeks, a full discography listing ALL releases (official, semi-official and bootlegs) is included in the back of the book, but in the book itself only the recordings released while TG was active are discussed. Which is a perfectly valid decision, as these are the original «manifestos» authorized by all TG members.An indispensable book for anyone with an interest in 20th century art and music history.