Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the day with my favorite godfather, Michael Campagna, and his friend Larry Thrasher. I was especially excited to talk with them about their involvement with one of my favorite albums,
Trip Reset by
Psychic TV. This 1996 recording was done by a new incarnation of PTV, though still spearheaded by Genesis P-Orridge.Michael played lead guitar and guitar synth, while Larry co-produced the record (along with Genesis) and had a musical hand in almost every aspect of the album (playing guitar, bass, analog synth, tabla, percussion and backing vocals). "Trip Reset" is a trip all right. The album harkens back to the glory days of English psychedelic music, melding hints of Krautrock with PTV's "Deep Lounge" sound. The following quote from the liner notes explains the music best: "Trip Reset quite simply, diminishes the psychic impact of even the most potent psychedelics to an order of magnitude scarcely surpassing that of afternoon tea and crumpets. The visionary and transformative power of this music not only makes drugs laughably obsolete, but listening to it is even better than sex! Having authored "Better Sex Through Chemistry" and having been acknowledged by Dr. Timothy Leary himself as "well-respected in sex and drugs", I feel sufficiently qualified to venture the proposition that "Trip Reset" is even better than lots and lots of sex and lots and lots of drugs all mixed together" ( - Dan Joy)The album was recorded at Genesis' "Lifesource" studio in Cazadero, CA on relatively primitive analog gear. When I asked Michael about the recording conditions, he responded with a Mark Twain quote: "The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco". "The whole studio and house was heated by a tiny wood stove. We had a pound of unbelievable pot and wore our scarves and jackets all week long. Gen and Larry would give me a drumbeat and I would just go off with my guitar. The actual song structure and lyrics were created later."Larry: "The title 'Trip Reset' came from pushing the odometer button back to zero and starting over. The sound of this record came from early Syd Barrett and English psychedelic garage pop. Some of Gen's ancestors came from the indigenous English, so the idea of that heritage came into play as well."Cleopatra Records was doing a
Pink Floyd tribute album and they asked if Gen would contribute something. Larry thought "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" had a very PTV vibe, so a deal was struck. As long as they could put the song on "Trip Reset" as well as the Cleopatra tribute, they would do it. The result is a Pink Floyd song that actually goes somewhere new and interesting.I also asked Larry to talk to me about what he knew of the early days of industrial music and
Throbbing Gristle. "In 1975, Throbbing Gristle would hold shows where they basically terrorized the audience. All the doors would be locked, insanely bright floodlights and pulsing red beams would be shone into the audience as brain-numbingly loud white noise was blasted from the stage." What I found illuminating was who attended these shows: "Malcolm McLaren, Siouxsie Sioux, Bauhaus. The Sex Pistols were afraid to come see Throbbing Gristle play." Hmmmm.... How history gets rewritten. I have yet to see the mention of T.G's hand in helping form English punk by introducing noise terrorism to a whole generation of people. What is now considered "Industrial Music" is basically pop compared to T.G's almost psychological warfare as music."Trip Reset" is available from Amazon.com and other very un-punk rock locations.
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