Berlin Atonal

Berlin has not relinquished its grip on me just yet, I’m currently listening to Throbbing Gristle’s two consecutive nights at the SO36 Club in November 1980. Both concerts were heavily bootlegged over the years, most famously by the German Zensor label as the Funeral In Berlin LP featuring Val Denham’s great sleeve artwork. This was another album I was checking for among Berlin’s vinyl dealers but no luck. Of the two nights at the SO36, the November 8th show is the best and remains one of TG’s last great concerts, highly visceral and full of great invention with definitive readings of An Old Man Smiled, Something Came Over Me, and Discipline which I believe had its first performance on this night. The second appearance at the SO36 is less vital, the performance sounds frustrated and lacking focus but as on all TG nights there are moments of terrific psychick magick. Perhaps the group’s energy had been spent sightseeing in the dreary weather seen in the pics of TG at the Berlin Wall. The fantastic picture below is from one of the SO36 nights, courtesy of Richard Gleim and shared by the TG FB group.