Author: Mark

Memories of a Teenage Throbbing Gristle Fan
Memories and memorabilia, the distant dreams of a naïve teenage T.G. fan including a 1979 Genesis P. Orridge letter.

Introduction

One Saturday morning late in 1978 the postman handed me my vinyl copy of D.o.A – The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (TG). I was excited and confused. In an era of neither internet nor online shopping, you posted a cheque to the record store and once your cheque cleared, they posted you the album. If this was the third and final report what about the first and second annual reports, were TG about to split? I was sixteen and confused about far more than this band. I gravitated to them because they were described as ‘dangerous music’. Taboo warning messages are marketing for teenagers.
- “Stunning, but dangerous music” (John Gill)
- “The very dangerous visions of Throbbing Gristle” (Jon “Tesco” Savage)
- “These people are the wreckers of civilisation” (Daily Mail)
I remember an interview in which Genesis P. Orridge asserted that if he kicked somebody in the face and they woke up for fifteen minutes, he would kick them in the face. In a non-violent way, I took on board the creative importance of provocation throughout the rest of my life. However, others responded violently to being provoked. Side Two of D.o.A contains a track “Death Threats” taken from the Industrial Records answering machine. These chilling death threats were real and made by fellow musicians, hostile to TG, this was never going to be easy listening.

In the late seventies, I wore my D.o.A button badge with pride and there was a large Music from the Death Factory poster on my bedroom wall. Today some of the imagery and ideological referencing which attracted me repulses me. TG were undoubtedly musical and cultural pioneers and forty years on their legacy is as evident as ever. On, a personal level, TG and the groups that they splintered into considerably widened my musical and cultural interests. I am glad that I attended those TG – Music, Art and Provocation 101 classes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Today with the hindsight of a lifetime I better understand their desire to provoke, question and subvert everything.

Industrial Music for Industrial People (Music Newspapers and Fanzines)

The NME hate us … They decided that young people should not be encouraged to listen to us, that was their policy and I have proof of that.
(Genesis P. Orridge quoted in RE/Search 4/5)

Music newspapers were extremely influential in the 1980s. It was a bit tribal in that you would align with a newspaper. New Musical Express was big on culture and Marxism. Sounds didn’t take itself as seriously. Melody Maker had the longest pedigree as the newspaper for musicians, though often it appeared to look backwards, rather than forwards.

1970s punk rock gave birth to underground fanzines. I have kept many music newspaper cuttings, but it is the fanzines which capture the distant spirit of the age for this fan. Advances in photocopying made these hand-made publications easier to produce. Fanzines had an enchanting innocence and randomness (please see image).

Fanzines featuring Throbbing Gristle

Whereas the music newspapers were commercial ventures, which eventually all went out of business, the fanzines were labours of love. Often made in bedrooms, with no budget, yet fuelled with enthusiasm ready to be sold at venues and/or by mail order.

Industrial Records

TG was four equals, each bringing their unique life experiences, talents and abilities to the melting pot. And we were strong individuals who, once united, formed a solid unshakeable whole – which had its setbacks.
(Art Sex Music, 2017, pg.185)

This insight is from Cosey Fanni Tutti, the other three members of this unshakeable quartet were Chris Carter, Peter ‘sleazy’ Christopherson and Genesis P. Orridge. I had just missed out on the punk rock era and at sixteen, I was ready and willing to surf the industrial music wave. I was curious about life and TG was made for curious male teenagers. It was the right music at the right time. If you wanted to buy a single or an album you wrote a letter to a specialist record shop or in the case of TG to Industrial Records. The slow pace was oddly preferable to the on-demand culture of today.

Industrial Records were based at Martello Street in Hackney (before Hackney apparently became cool). All communications with the band and purchases went through Industrial Records. There was an art to their choreographed communications with fans. They appeared to offer far more than information which becomes evident when reading three issues of Industrial News (please see image).

Three Industrial News Covers

It has been a revelation going through memorabilia from four decades ago. Some pages would be black and white cut-ups and collages, this was particularly the case with Issue 2, a Monte Cazazza special. In a pre – General Data Protection Regulation era, Industrial News contained many names and addresses of fans, musicians and other relevant enterprises, as well as, song lyrics. There were pen pictures of TG band members (favourite colour, favourite drink, food etc) which appeared to parody the teen magazines of this time.

Live TG approximate attendance numbers + IRCD 05 Brighton Polytechnic Cover

In the image above it was fascinating to see the approximate numbers attending the earliest TG concerts. At Brighton Polytechnic on the 26^th March 1977 approximately 300 people attended and they also played Brighton Polytechnic on the 28^th February 1978. Apparently Brighton Polytechnic was the place to be!

I started work at Brighton Polytechnic in 1987 specializing in change yet paradoxically remaining there for the next three decades. My employment location was by default rather than conscious design (although TG were interested in subliminal messaging). Whenever I found myself in the Salis Benney Theatre for institutional events I would imagine that I was at those very early TG concerts. I acquired IRCD 05 which was part of TG 24. This CD provided audio accompaniment for my time travels. That early Brighton Polytechnic concert was exceptionally confrontational, in later years institutional management embraced such confrontation though without the art.

Another interesting insight gleaned from this copy of Industrial News (Sept 3^rd 1979) was the names of bands/musicians sending prospective tapes to Industrial Records; S.P.K, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, Matt Johnson, and the Lemon Kittens.

Industrial Music for Industrial People (Fan Mail)

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, industrial people (fans) could connect with industrial musicians (TG) through letter writing. Today, it sounds alien, when did you last write a letter? These letters were far more than the ‘thank you for your interest in our band, here are some signed photographs’ style letters, that you might imagine. These were engaged and engaging letters. Four decades later I still have three of these letters from TG.

Part of a letter from Cosey + IR Invoice

Oddly, I have kept very few other letters from my earlier life. Two of these letters were from Cosey and one was from Genesis. Cosey begins one letter, “You ask many questions”, but goes on to answer them in a friendly and thorough manner. I squirm imagining the letters I sent to TG and the naïve nature of some of my questions. In mitigation in those days, I was genuinely curious, today that youthful curiosity has largely burnt out.

Older and wiser, I have recently read Art, Sex, Music. Today, I appreciate how much ‘other work’ Cosey was engaged in at this time. I am grateful for the time she took to write to this overly enthusiastic teenage fan. In the image above, hopefully you noted the Cosey embossed writing paper, it meant the world to my teenage self.

In the image there is also an Industrial Records invoice. IR 0016 was the William S Burroughs – Nothing here but the recordings album sold at the very reasonable price of £4.00. The band were closely aligned with William Burroughs. They introduced me to his writings and art, as well as, other beatniks such as Bryon Gysin and Jack Kerouac at just the right stage in my life. Novels such as Junky and On the Road spoke loudly to me about counter-cultural possibilities, though jumping British Rail goods carriages was never going to happen.

1979 Letter from Genesis P.Orridge

Genesis conjured up the most controversy within the band (please see Art, Sex, Music) and beyond the band. As a fan I was never close enough to know what was actually going on. That said, I have decided to make his letter public, as it offers a window on a warm, human and patient side to his complex personality. I don’t think he will haunt me for sharing a gentle letter to an enthusiastic fan. Incidentally, some of the letters I received appeared to have been opened and resealed in transit, this may have been my paranoia or an extension of the GPO vs GPO investigations. In those days, mail interceptions were the equivalent of the widespread electronic eavesdropping of today.

I am asking about how I can get a copy of Metal Machine Music and about the Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd. I did manage to secure the double vinyl Metal Machine Music, though to this day I have been unable to listen to all of the album. I also became a fan of the Velvet Underground and early Pink Floyd and these interests were initiated through wanting to listen to the music which influenced TG. I purchased and enjoyed Live in 1969 by the Velvet Underground, but it didn’t fit with the sound of TG music. I think that is what we are talking about in the letter.

Genesis explains loops and feedback which were not as mainstream as they are today. I remember the arrival of Jesus and the Mary Chain like a breath of fresh air, but they were mining a much deeper musical feedback seam. Since the letter, I have seen many live bands ending their sets with feedback loops, including Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Genesis was patiently in his letter giving me a musical education, I just didn’t realize it at the time. I have a feeling Genesis’s outlook changed from 1979 and mine certainly did. In this context, his final sentence is very poignant.

‘Don’t worry we are too awkward to ever get very successful, and we don’t want careers in music anyway.’
Genesis P. Orridge (12/11/79)

The Sound of Throbbing Gristle Music

There is something important within ‘we don’t want careers in music anyway’, but the sound of TG music was a big part of the story. In honesty, I rarely listen to TG music these days. Mute billing the band as ‘…one of the most politically and sonically antagonistic bands of all time’ is not an exaggeration. Decades ago, as a teenage fan, I did enjoy the confrontation of ‘Blood on the Floor’, ‘Hit by a Rock’ and ‘Discipline’. Although even then it was the more melodic contributions by Chris Carter which appealed, such as Distant Dreams Pt.2 and AB/7A. The Throbbing Gristle: Mission is Terminated album included a track Damaru Sunrise which was a personal favourite, though inaccessible on vinyl at present.

Throbbing Gristle Vinyl Sleeves

There were strong elements of improvisation and experimentation particularly in live TG shows. I did enjoy the Heathen Earth album recorded live at Martello Street, whereas I found the Second Annual Report based on the Brighton Polytechnic concert hard work. Even Mute Records who were licenced to subsequently sell the album chose not to sugar the pill.

The Second Annual Report came out originally on 4 November 1977, the first album from Throbbing Gristle, one of the most politically and sonically antagonistic bands of all time.
Mute Records Website

The header image for this post is a photograph of the cover of 20 Jazz Funk Greats. The band appeared to confront media stereotypes of their evil and dangerous nature with this benign image. However, Beachy Head the photograph setting is known locally for suicides, so not as benign as it first appears. I live fairly close to Beachy Head and often walk along the nearby Seven Sisters cliff tops. Whilst typing I play the Beachy Head track from 20 Jazz Funk Greats. It is a very eerie track laden in emotion. It has aged very well, echoes of electronic film music of today. I am not sure if the seagulls are on the recording or my neighbourhood seagulls and have to open a window to check? Regardless, 20 Jazz Funk Greats remains the most accessible album by the band, though equally not the most representative.

Punk bands encouraged/empowered anyone to pick up a guitar and become three-chord wonders. TG picked up and carried the Do-it-Yourself baton on from the punk bands. However, reading the letter from Genesis reminded me that in 1969 Pink Floyd were very experimental, in essence playing with sounds, subverting sounds. I am not a musician, but over the years the technology has become available and affordable to make subversive sounds myself.

UNO Synth, Teenage PO33 and FM3 Buddha Machine

Genesis in his letter to me wrote about Lou Reed, as well as, the Velvets making loops of music. Years back, I bought a little pocket FM3 Buddha machine which enabled me to play back these weird loops (see also the Gristleism machine). During the pandemic I bought myself a Teenage Engineering – Pocket Operator 33, to save my sanity as much as anything else. The PO 33 enabled me to sample sounds in a manner similar to my favourite bands. Recently I was able to buy a UNO synth and pretend to be Chris Carter as I noodled grooves to my heart’s content. Today, I even have access to PO Pixel and Koala samplers on my mobile phone. I collect found sounds on the phone recorder and odd video images for subsequent use as artistic materials. For example, listen and watch music sampled and manipulated from a video of silver birch trees here.

The sound of TG music was troubling and provocative, but also pioneering and inspiring. This band inspired many musicians and even myself as a non-musician. TG visual and audio cut-ups and collages fascinated me and today I enjoy such creative experiments myself. As Cass Elliott sang many decades earlier ‘make your own kind of music’. The objective was to sing your own song, and make your own music, even if nobody else sang along. I do not think I would be singing my own song (writing this post) and making my own kind of music (birch trees grooving) if I hadn’t encountered TG as a teenager.

The Mission is Terminated

A postcard dated 23rd June 1981 informed me that TG had ceased to exist. In reading Art, Sex Music (Tutti 2017) Cosey offers a window into the artistic and romantic tensions within the band. In this sense, the end of TG was predestined. However, at the time it was a surprise to this teenage fan. The black edging around the wording Throbbing Gristle: The Mission is Terminated was very powerful and very final.

Mission is Terminated Postcard

My old address is hidden beneath some button badges purchased from Industrial Records. I’ve featured the back of the termination postcard, for information, as often it is the front image which is featured. The archetype had been investigated and the information stored. The moment for myself had passed. TG later performed live at Camber Sands and recorded new material, but I was no longer interested, the information was already stored.

I never saw Throbbing Gristle perform live. I was fortunate to attend the Art, Sex Music (Tutti 2017) book launch at Rough Trade East. The added highlight was that I was within touching distance of Chris Carter, though decided against stroking his arm. The late Peter Christopherson in person was a complete, though wonderful enigma to me.

Flyer for Genesis P. Orridge Lecture

On the 18^th of August 1990, I attended what was billed as a lecture by Genesis P. Orridge at the Scala Cinema. The evening included Coum Transmission and Dream Machine films. At the end of the evening, Genesis did his vicar bit, individually saying goodbye to each of us. I jumped when I encountered him at the exit doorway and he jumped in playful mimicry, it was a special moment. I saw and enjoyed watching Genesis and Psychic TV quite a few times live, no longer a teenager now roaming freely in the big bad world, making my own metaphorical music.

The termination of the mission was accompanied by creative splintering. Industrial Records and their mailing lists for a time provided an important communication channel concerning what happened next. Genesis and Peter formed Psychic TV. Subsequently, Peter departed to form Coil. Chris and Cosey became a band in their own right. I remember being bewildered, not knowing which way to turn, so in the end I followed all of them. If there is sufficient interest in this post and I have the inclination, I will share memories and memorabilia about these musicians post-TG.

And finally, the names Sinclair/Brooks were very evident in my dealings with Industrial Records and the credits on TG recordings. They did sound like smartly dressed business types. I imagined them as the business-orientated and disciplined Ying to the creative and experimental Yang of the band. Whilst researching this post, I visited the informative Discogs site only to discover that Sinclair/Brooks was a pseudonym used by TG for production purposes.

Not everything in this world is as it seems.

Links

A quick Google search suggests over two million TG hits (not the musical kind). I have not attempted to offer a comprehensive account, but rather a personal account. These links may be helpful, if you want to learn more.

Art, sex music by Cosey Fanni Tutti

This book offers a fascinating and very readable account of the evolution, life cycle and demise of TG and the creativity and turmoil inherent within the band.

https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571328529-art-sex-music/

Chris Carter and Cosi Fanni Tutti

The website of the two surviving members of TG is worth checking out. On their homepage they neatly capture their musical identity ‘sometimes we are Chris & Cosey, sometimes CTI & Carter Tutti Void & sometimes we are Throbbing Gristle.’

https://chrisandcosey.com/

Discogs

The site ‘about us’, neatly sums up the site as ‘a platform for music discovery and collection’.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/778177-SinclairBrooks

Mute.com

Throbbing Gristle music is licenced to Mute and is available at this link.

https://mute.com/artists/throbbing-gristle

RE Search

I was pleasantly surprised given the ephemeral nature of the artefacts featured here that RE/Search publications are still thriving. I have copies of RE/Search 4/5 and 6/7 which both feature Throbbing Gristle.

https://www.researchpubs.com/

Throbbing-gristle.com

A wonderful information resource about TG’s past and present and curated future.

https://www.throbbing-gristle.com/
Memories of a Teenage Throbbing Gristle Fan
August 21, 2023
The Pogles: Banned by the BBC?
The children’s television programme The Pogles banned by the BBC and if so why? In this nostalgic post I reflect on what happened, or at least what I think happened.

Introducing The Pogles

This post will not be impartial, The Pogles made a huge impression on my formative early childhood years in the sixties and I believed that they were real. Many memorable children’s television programmes of the sixties and seventies were produced by Small Films. The creative forces behind Small Films were Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. Musical accompaniment came from Vernon Elliott and his Ensemble only adding to the magic. On the Small Films website, Oliver Postgate captures the essence of their enterprise.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there were two overgrown boys called Oliver and Peter. And Peter lived on a farm. It was a rather unusual farm because it didn’t grow any crops and there were no sheep or cows, but it was the home of Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog, the Clangers and of course Bagpuss. And there they made the most beautiful, the most brilliant, funny old Small Films in the whole wide world or so we like to think.
Source: Small Films website

Small Films produced The Pogles and Pogles’ Wood for the BBC between 1964 and 1968. The Small Films site evocatively describes these programmes as “the story of woodland folk, who lived in a tree with a magic bean plant.” The farm in Kent in which The Pogles was filmed, incidentally backed onto a woodland. I was fortunate to see Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin in person at the National Film Theatre in 2004. I have included a link at the end to footage taken by an audience member of this event.

The Dragons’ Friendly Society

Today, it is fairly easy to access clips of television on YouTube-type sites. If we go back twenty years, you had no access to these programmes. You were reliant on programmes being rebroadcast (unlikely to happen with banned programmes). This was a fertile context for urban myths to grow.

In shamanism, you access other worlds through holes in the natural world. You visualize yourself going down the hole en route to the lower, middle or higher world. The Dragons’ Friendly Society provided the portal to revisit The Pogles and Pogles’ Wood. This enabled me to rewatch episodes I had not seen in many decades. When I revisited the site to write this post, I had very mixed emotions. The proclamation on the homepage reads:

Congratulations! You have found the secret treasure of The Dragons’ Friendly Society.
Source: Dragons’ Friendly Society website

Originally, it did feel like discovering treasure. Today, the homepage sadly remembers the passing of the two key players in this story – Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin.

You can purchase DVDs of The Pogles and Pogles’ Wood series (and Pogles’ Choice and Pogles’ End), but also there is freely available information to access on the site. In searching the site for information pertinent to this post, I stumbled across a poignant reference to The Witch.

Oliver Postgate will be telling us more stories of the Witch soon… please watch this space. There were a number of stories written for the Witch which were never filmed because the BBC considered them too scary.
Source: The Dragons’ Friendly Society website

A unique sadness surrounds a storyteller’s untold stories. However, his stories of woodland folk live on, reimagined in the retelling. Before exploring the BBC ban, I needed to re-watch the six episodes in question.

Pogles’ Wood DVD Cover

Watching The Pogles today

It’s 2023 and I have just watched all six episodes of The Pogles series again. Watching television programming from over fifty years earlier is weird. In my imagination, The Pogles exist in the most verdant of technicolour. However, Pogle reality is a much duller black and white. We have been spoilt with the evolution of special effects over the past fifty years, probably at the expense of our imagination. That said, rewatching the episodes made for charming viewing and still captivated this viewer.

A listing of episodes will often preface the storyline, but as you will see the titles below were very oblique even innocent (possibly intentionally, discussed further in the next section). The Magic Bean, A Silver Crown, Pogle Go Home! A Flower for Wishes, The Singing Bird and King of the Fairies.

Mr Pogle goes into the wood in search of broad beans for Mrs Pogle, but all he can find is a very big bean. As it transpires this is The Magic Bean. They plant the bean and the magic plant subsequently bears the baby. Mr Pogle’s interaction with Mrs Pogle is very sexist. For example, at one point in this first episode, he threatens to tip Mrs Pogle out of bed if she doesn’t make his breakfast. The subtler learning is that Pogles do not seem as obsessed with the need to work and consumerism as everyday folk outside the woods.

A beautiful notion runs through the series that it takes a hedgepig (aka a hedgehog) to wake a Pogle because they are deep sleepers. However, in the second episode, they are woken by noisy fairies chattering too close to their home. Unable to quieten the fairies, they investigate why they are being noisy. They find a baby cradled in the magic plant wearing A Silver Crown.

Mr Pogle on journeying into the wood meets an old lady whose cart is stuck. She asks for help and leaves saying ‘blessings on you, kind sir.’ However, the old lady (aka the witch) has stolen the baby and hidden it in her cart. The fairies warn Mr Pogle, urging Pogle Go Home! However, he is caught by the witch.

Mrs Pogle troubled by the baby being stolen and the absence of Mr Pogle, turns to the magic plant for help. The magic plant explains that the old lady is a witch and suggests A Flower for Wishes which will grant Mrs Pogle two wishes. Her first wish is to be with Mr Pogle, but it transpires the witch has trapped him in a wooden cage with the stolen baby nearby. The witch then also places a wooden cage around Mrs Pogle.

The witch wants the silver crown because it is the crown of the king of Fairyland. However, Mrs Pogle had cleverly hidden the crown inside their tree. The witch threatens to turn them into frogs unless Mrs Pogle reveals the location of the silver crown. Mrs Pogle uses her second wish to wish the witch into a bungle of twigs, all alight and burning.

Mr and Mrs Pogle return home with their baby. The fairies bring them The Singing Bird. A jug of milk is left for the baby, but it is a trick. Mrs Pogle states ‘I don’t like it!’

The jug is part of the trickery of the witch. In the final episode, The King of the Fairies, the witch takes the form of an old boot attempting to kick down the door. Mrs Pogle shouts at the witch “You’re a horrible thieving hag!” The singing bird places the crown on the head of Mr Pogle giving him the power to banish the witch. They want to turn her into something, but the concern is that she will just turn back into herself. Mrs Pogle concedes ‘It looks like there is nothing’, but this gives Mr Pogle an idea ‘nothing – be nothing at all.’ They turn the hag of the night into nothing.

So, what’s not to like?

Banned by the BBC?

The logical place to start is with the BBC’s account of what happened. On the 5th November 2015, the BBC site referred to banning The Pogles for the following reason.

The first series was shown in 1965 and never shown again. The witch was considered far too scary for younger viewers.
Source: BBC website

The article was linked to the launch of the now-defunct BBC Store explaining that some television programmes previously banned were now being made available.

Here’s a collection of a few programmes that were in their time on the BBC’s “do not show under any circumstance” list and a few that will probably never appear on the store.
Source: BBC website

An internet search reveals other commentaries which go beyond the official stated BBC position. The musician Andy Bell offered another reason for the BBC ban “…because Mrs Pogle drank too much elderberry wine.” This is an intriguing notion. Though, Mr Pogle drank as much bilberry wine as Mrs Pogle. There was even an episode in which Mr Pogle shouts “Wife where’s my bilberry wine?” Running with Andy Bell’s reasoning The Pogles were drinking bilberry wine for breakfast certainly not a good example for young children even in the permissive sixties. At this time, I was a big fan of Camberwick Green and my hero was Windy Miller. I remember an episode featuring him getting drunk on cider and falling asleep at work, not a good example for the young flour millers of tomorrow.

Image of Mr and Mrs Pogle at home

In searching the internet, the challenge is that the search engine wants to tell me the story of why the BBC banned A Fairytale of New York by The Pogues, close but not close enough. I discovered the wonderful The Anorak Zone site with a ranking of The Pogle’s worst to best episodes. Episodes were ranked from least scary to most scary. The ranking provided a very creative device to tell the story, as well as, the back story of why the BBC banned the series. I concede that the quality of this ranking negated my desire to write this post, but as we say in television land – I’ve started so I will finish.

I have included a link at the end to The Anorak Zone and it is recommended reading for Pogle scholars out there. I found it intriguing that according to Postgate’s autobiography Seeing Things it was explained by the BBC Head of Family Programmes that evil supernatural elements, including witches, were not welcomed. The third episode Pogle Go Home is ranked as the scariest although with the caveat that there isn’t much to differentiate the scariness of episodes.

The Spooky Isles account of the BBC ban majors on the magical aspect of Pogles’ Wood. For anyone still trying to grasp what these woodland folk were all about, Simon Ball on the Spooky Isles site neatly captures their essence.

…the eccentric magical whimsy that was Pogles Wood, featuring a tiny woodland family who lived in a tree stump with their incomprehensible rabbit-squirrel hybrid pet Tog and a heroically alcoholic plant who played the violin, so long as he was plied with bilberry wine.
Source: Spooky Isles website

Simon reminds me that they were magical anarchists living in a woodland commune, at one with the wood and its other inhabitants. They were the antithesis of role models for children and all the better for that. Simon highlights The Pogles series being sold to the BBC unseen. Remember this was the early days of children’s television programming and much of the content had already been repeated too many times. The other issue he highlights is the scheduling was just before the children had their afternoon nap, so it had to be relatively soporific. However, he highlights aspects of The Pogles that would have troubled a young mind:
- Fairies hiding the fairy king’s baby in the boozy plant’s flower,
- A terrifying witch, who bundles Mrs Pogle up into a sack and hides her under the floorboards,
- A witch who kidnaps the baby,
- The witch transforms herself into a boot to kick in the Pogles’ front door and
- A magic wishing flower that in Mrs Pogle’s hands is used to burn the witch to a crisp!
He cites Peter Firmin “However, we were asked to do another series, so long as we lost the magic element. We introduced a son Pippin and his pet Tog and replaced the magic with educational material about the countryside, showing documentary footage of things like honey gathering and this revised show became Pogles’ Wood.”

The Pogles was scary, but it was also magical. In the successful and very enjoyable Pogles’ Wood, we lost the witch and some of the woodland magic. That was the trade-off the BBC mandated to enable further commissions of Pogles’ Wood and other Small Films productions.

Conclusion – The Trouble with Magic

The Trouble with Magic – CD Rom Cover

The merit of the BBC ban is contingent upon how you view Pogles’ Wood. The BBC probably fielded complaints from parents, so, on behalf of the audience, they were saying – too scary. Oliver Postgate conceded in his autobiography with hindsight that the first series was probably – too scary. I watched all six episodes again in writing this post and could understand the scary banning rationale. Equally, The Anorak Zone and Simon Ball (Spooky Isles) acknowledged what it must have been like for a small child – too scary. Children sometimes have fears about not waking from sleep. So, the wonderfully existentialist notion of turning the witch to nothing would not have been ideal preparation for their afternoon nap.

I believe that as well as the reasonable psychological child safety rationale for adding Pogles’ Wood to the BBC do not show under any circumstance list, there was a more cultural rationale. Witches and witchcraft have been demonised throughout history. Whilst today witches and wizards are very prevalent in children’s and adult television programming, this was not the case fifty years ago.

Pogles’ Wood: The Trouble with Magic was a CD Rom of stories told in the Pogles annuals between 1967 and 1974. It offers us glimpses of shamanic consciousness way ahead of their cultural acceptability today; journeying, the power animal, the connection with nature and the magical uses of plants. The CD Rom which is still available from The Dragons’ Friendly Society offers a poignant ending to this tale of woodland folk, simultaneously celebrated and censored. You see the colourful illustrations from Peter Firmin accompanied by audio of Oliver Postgate telling the stories. His earthy and otherworldly voice tells the eighth and final story The Witch. The storyteller’s story is no longer untold. We have a happy ending and if the BBC had allowed it, Pogles’ Wood would have had a happy ending. This concluding quotation is taken from the Introduction to The Trouble with Magic.

…the central character was a particularly evil witch, and the BBC did not care for her. Had the BBC but known, the story cycle ends with the witch ceasing to be evil and becoming a friend.
Source: Pogles’ Wood – The Trouble with Magic

Links

BBC releases programmes it had previously banned

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34726735

Camberwick Green (Series One, Episode Two) Windy Miller

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1256751/

The Anorak Zone – Worst to Best The Pogles

https://www.anorakzone.com/poglesrank.html

The Dragons’ Friendly Society

http://www.dragons-friendly-society.co.uk/

From the desk of Erasure’s Andy Bell: Children’s Shows and Movies from the 60s and 70s

https://magnetmagazine.com/2010/06/10/from-the-desk-of-erasures-andy-bell-childrens-shows-and-movies-from-the-60s-and-70s/

Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin National Film Theatre 2004

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIJ-CpLvww4

Watch with Mother: How the Pogles Traumatised a Generation by Simon Ball

https://www.spookyisles.com/pogles-watch-with-mother/
The Pogles: Banned by the BBC?
July 13, 2023
Psychedelic Consciousness at Breaking Convention 2023

Summary – A verdant reflection on participating in the Breaking Convention 2023 conference at Exeter University and exploring magical worlds within nature.

Introduction

I enjoyed Breaking Convention 2019, so much that I resolved to attend the next one, Breaking Convention 2023 (BC 2023). The venue shifted from the historic naval buildings of Greenwich to the more rural setting of Exeter. BC 2023 brought together researchers, therapeutic practitioners, philosophers, historians and many others interested in psychedelics and psychedelic consciousness. My interests are around shamanism/nature religion, meditation and gently disrupting my too-often sleeping consciousness.

I attended two headline talks (Graham Hancock and Paul Stamets) and three sessions. In total fifteen thought-provoking talks. I know it isn’t about quantity. My point is that there wasn’t one that I regretted attending, which is not normally the case when attending academic conferences. Every speaker spoke with enthusiasm, rather than instrumentality. I was repeatedly gently provoked to step outside my everyday consciousness and think differently.

Communitas: Psychedelic Dance Culture and Emergent Spiritualities Session. On Thursday, five papers took us from the apocalyptic poet Terence Mckenna through to a radically different vision of how to undertake a funeral. In between we learnt about raving in Welsh forests, spirituality within festivals and that Tekno definitely is not Techno. My epiphany was Giorgia Gaia referencing Genesis P.Orridge, his spirit was with us in this countercultural session.

Mind and Metaphysics Session. On Friday I was primed and ready to go deeper. Susan Blackmore asked us repeatedly and poignantly – are you conscious? I have slept-walked through too much of my life and her question had real personal meaning. The William James invocation to apply the requisite stimulus to access other worlds was highlighted during the session. All five presentations unified around the ethereal/illusionary nature of psychedelic experiences and the challenges of meaningfully studying this field. I enjoyed bathing in this fascinating ontological world these presentations conjured up, even if a few times I was out of my depth.

Psychedelic Semantics Session. On Saturday, we began preparations to return to everyday reality with three very able guides. Patricia Pisters reminded us to think about what we don’t see as much as what we see through the medium of film. Rosalind Stone encouraged us to think about how through language and metaphor consciousness is repeatedly framed and mediated in different ways and with different agendas.

Andy Letcher offered the summation of the whole convention rhetorically asking – are psychedelic experiences actually ineffable? I had enjoyed his talk at the 2019 conference warming to his blend of humility and authority, quite rare in the academic world. His differentiation of extrovertive mystical experiences from introvertive mystical experiences offered a gateway. In terms of psychedelic consciousness, it is the extrovertive, oneness with nature consciousness which particularly fascinates me. Ineffable captures it, but I will attempt to share some of the other worlds I experienced in parallel to BC 2023.

Forgotten World – A Woodland Path Less Travelled

My magical place is a path by the River Teign at Steps Bridge near Exeter. I discovered this path over thirty years ago and revisit it whenever I am in the area. On a sunny day when the river is low, the light shines through the trees and bounces on the rocks, the river changes colour with dappled reflections of trees. Birds sing and water sounds contained within the woodland canopy are amplified by way of accompaniment to this natural psychedelic show. On the Thursday morning I visited, the Teign was quite high, dampening what was still a magical walk.

Steps Bridge (nr Exeter) on a misty morning

The next bit was unscripted, the two hourly bus which would return me to Exeter was involved in an accident. It was time to go over to the other side of the B3212 until hopefully, another bus arrived. I ventured into Bridford Wood on the other side of Steps Bridge uncertain of where I was going and outside the certainty of my usual Steps Bridge walk.

As I ventured deeper into the wood, I found myself on paths far less travelled than my usual walk. I had no real route or plan, just a desire to explore. I found myself on magical paths used mainly by animals and only a few people. The photograph does not do justice to the experience but remember we are in the realms of the ineffable/illusionary. An accident had taken me into a forgotten world of less travelled footpaths.

Bridford Wood – Footpath less travelled

Overlooked World – Garden on a Wall

The university was at the top of a hill and I was staying at a budget hotel at the bottom of the hill. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky encouraged strenuous exercise to access mystical states, but the demanding climb up the hill didn’t enable me to access these worlds. However, as I climbed the hill, I discovered an overlooked world. Slowly walking up the Howell Road I noticed a garden growing on the top of an old brick wall. There was this whole ecosystem with a diversity of plants growing along the top of the wall. This wasn’t the work of a gardener, some other universal gardener was at work.

I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us. (Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden)

Each day I would stop to photograph the garden, yet everyone else seemed to be oblivious to this garden. What they made of the bloke preoccupied with the top of an old wall I do not know, yet I was reminded of liminal worlds out there, yet often unseen.

Another World – University Gardens

In my academic life, I visited many university campuses. Over the last decade, they invariably appeared to be building sites. It went like this, knockdown functional buildings and build even larger and even shinier buildings. In parallel big banners proclaimed environmental credentials without any reflexivity around their destruction/construction fetish. Celebrations of elite status and league-table successes attempted to exorcise all humility from their campuses. Higher education became transactional – would you like our student accommodation package with your qualification?

University of Exeter Gardens

I am certain there is some envy of elite institutions and elite academics on my part, but beyond this, I cherish my recovery from academia and the adventure of exploring other worlds. I enjoyed the presentations on Saturday morning, but felt in need of some respite from the large powerful phallic buildings, before the final headline speaker. I ventured into the university gardens and it was like stepping through a portal into another world within a world.

The gardens go back to the 19^th Century. I wondered what the long established trees made of buildings being repeatedly destructed and constructed in the name of progress. These gardens are accessible to all regardless of wealth, very different to higher education today. These gardens are nurtured and cultivated by gardeners, a different world to Bridford Wood.

Walking around the gardens I was reminded of The Well Gardened Mind book. That book and these gardens offer a metaphor for another world a very different higher education. My message to University Vice Chancellors would be that it isn’t about the size of their big and shiny new buildings. It is about the students and staff in those buildings, how they grow together and how knowledge is exchanged and cultivated.

Final Reflections on the Breaking Convention 2023 Conference

I found myself empathising with those presenting as the numbers in a presentation room inevitably ebbed and flowed. I empathised with their sometimes anxious non-verbal communications just before they shared with us their enthusiasm. Equally, I empathised with the organizers and how effectively they made the magic happen. The metaphor of a swan comes to mind on such occasions, certainly from a participant’s perspective I largely perceived the serenity above the surface.

Hoffman Hall (staging celebrating the natural world)

In the university gardens, I met a fellow traveller and we happily talked for half an hour about big stuff and little stuff and our conference experiences. What you might call a two person Final Plenary orchestrated by our shared passion for nature.

For me, it was a therapeutic break from the everyday challenges of modern life. An opportunity to glimpse other worlds and imagine possible futures. I talked with some lovely people who I will never meet again, yet their warmth reminded me of the promise that awaits when you wake-up and explore other worlds. Thank you to the organizers, presenters and participants for making it such a successful conference.

Links

Breaking Convention Site

https://www.breakingconvention.co.uk/

The Well Gardened Mind Book

https://www.suestuartsmith.com/book
Exploring Nature and Psychedelic Consciousness at Breaking Convention 2023

April 27, 2023
Pocket Operator for Pixel Sampling

Introduction

Creative experimentation using the Pocket Operator for Pixel, developed by Teenage Engineering.

Teenage Engineering PO Pixel – Birch Trees Sampling

I love music, but I am not a musician. I am sharing some embryonic work in progress using videos of trees to create new sounds and new images.

I purchased the Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator 33 KO (PO 33) as a distraction during the darkest days of the COVID lockdown. Favourite bands such as Cabaret Voltaire, Coil, Test Department and Psychic TV all employed sampling along with video mixing. I never imagined such electronic trickery would be accessible to me.

Last year the PO 33 was made accessible via an application on later Google Pixel phones enabling mixing videos with samples. The video clip in this post offers a flavour of what happened next.

Hall Mural of Silver Birch Trees

The Sampling Material

In my hall, there is a large silver birch tree mural, a source of pleasure arriving and departing my home. It often speaks to me, although until recently, not literally. The first part of the process involved making short video tree clips on my phone.

Pocket Operator for Pixel Processing

You can load up to four tracks using video clips as the sampling material on the pocket operator for pixel. Once loaded you have a range of options. You can adjust the volume of each track using the coloured pencil icons. You can adjust both the tempo and swing up and down. What is fascinating is how machine learning translates the images loaded up into sounds. Creatively, the sounds are given symbols such as TNT or a motorbike. I am not sure what images generate more sounds than others, but discovery is part of this experience.

In the next phase, you can play the sampled symbols as either drums or keypad melodies. Once you establish a melody that you like you can record it. You can also copy patterns from the sixteen melodies/drums and also link tracks. I concede this is a bit of a learning curve, for this older user, but the learning is enjoyable and the technology is fairly intuitive. Projects can be loaded, unloaded and/or deleted. Anything you want to share you can render and export these.

Silver Birch Sampling

The YouTube video at the top of this post includes three clips using the pocket operator for pixel. What intrigued me was that these trees seemed to be communicating. The machine learning somehow conveyed the leaves on the trees moving rhythmically. If we could hear trees talking this is how I imagine they might sound. The first clip eavesdrops on the birch leaves grooving. In the second clip, the silver birch has an autumnal tinge hence the label Autumnal Mix.

In the third clip, I use the FX facility, which turns the autumnal mix into a psychedelic mix, providing some wonderful mandalas generated out of nature. I like the partying trees, I am biased but I love the carefree way these trees jam. I could listen to their jamming for far longer, there is something hypnotic in their rhythms.

Fly Agaric mushrooms are often found close to silver birch trees in a symbiotic relationship. These red mushrooms with their white spots are hallucinogenic and I suspect they influenced the third clip. More mundanely, it might have been my pressing the FX button which enables sixteen sound and visual effects. Again, I find the sound and vision that the trees reveal very hypnotic, it is worth a look.

Sylvan Reflections

William Burroughs believed that cut-ups revealed new insights into our worlds. Brion Gysin his collaborator even developed a Dream Machine to facilitate special cut-up experiences in association with Moroccan shamanic drumming. Today, for this space cadet hypnotic visuals and sounds are provided courtesy of Teenage Engineering.

In these alchemical cut-ups, new sights and sounds are revealed, transformed and cut up. As well as, Teenage Engineering the significant contribution of the sampled trees requires acknowledgement. I don’t think that they are merely partying, I suspect that they are trying to tell us something.

In the old musical Paint your Wagon, Clint Eastwood sang ‘I talk to the trees’, though lamenting that they do not listen. The trees have been listening and today they sang to me via the pocket operator for pixel.

Link

If you are curious about the PO for Pixel further details are available HERE.
Teenage Engineering PO for Pixel: Silver Birch Sampled

February 12, 2023