Psychic TV

Psychic TV (sometimes spelled Psychick TV) or PTV, is an English experimental video art and music group, formed by performance artist Genesis P-Orridge and video director Peter Christopherson after the break-up of Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV signs to Some Bizzare Label working along with Alex Fergusson, musician and producer from Alternative TV.

The band began publishing a monthly series of 23 live albums in 1986, but stopped without explanation after only 17. The tenth, a picture disk most commonly referred to as Album 10, could only be obtained by submitting tokens contained in each of the previous nine releases. The band subsequently earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for most records released in one year.

Contributors to Psychic TV have included artists such as Coil, Current 93, Hafler Trio, The Cult, White Stains, Soft Cell, Fred Giannelli, XKP, Master Musicians of Jajouka, Matthew Best, Daniel Simon Black, Bill Breeze, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Derek Jarman, John Gosling, Timothy Leary, Rose McDowall, Stephen Kent, Vagina Dentata Organ, Andrew Weatherall, Larry Thrasher, Z'EV, Zef Noi$e, Jeff Berner, and many others.

The Band

The Band was a Canadian-American roots rock group, originally consisting of Rick Danko (bass guitar, double bass, fiddle, trombone, vocals), Levon Helm (drums, mandolin, vocals), Garth Hudson (keyboards, saxophones, trumpet), Richard Manuel (piano, baritone, drums, vocals) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, percussion, vocals). The members of the Band first came together as they joined rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins's backing group, the Hawks, one by one between 1958 and 1963.

In 1964, they separated from Hawkins, after which they toured and released a few singles as Levon and the Hawks and the Canadian Squires. The next year, Bob Dylan hired them for his U.S. tour in 1965 and world tour in 1966. Following the 1966 tour, the group moved with Dylan to Saugerties, New York, where they made the informal 1967 recordings that became The Basement Tapes, which forged the basis for their 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink. Because they were always "the band" to various frontmen, Helm said the name "The Band" worked well when the group came into its own. The group began performing as the Band in 1968 and went on to release ten studio albums. Dylan continued to collaborate with the Band over the course of their career, including a joint 1974 tour.

Psychic

A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses. The word "psychic" is also used as an adjective to describe such abilities. Psychics may be theatrical performers, such as stage magicians, who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot reading to produce the appearance of such abilities. Psychics appear regularly in fantasy fiction, such as in the novel The Dead Zone by Stephen King.

A large industry and network exists whereby psychics provide advice and counsel to clients. Some famous psychics include Courtney Davy (famous psychic detective with her partner in crime) Edgar Cayce, Ingo Swann, Peter Hurkos, Jose Ortiz El Samaritano,Miss Cleo,John Edward, and Sylvia Browne. Psychic powers are asserted by psychic detectives and in practices such as psychic archaeology and even psychic surgery.

Critics attribute psychic powers to intentional trickery or to self-delusion. In 1988 the U.S. National Academy of Sciences gave a report on the subject and concluded there is "no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena." A study attempted to repeat recently reported parapsychological experiments that appeared to support the existence of precognition. Attempts to repeat the results, which involved performance on a memory test to ascertain if post-test information would effect it, "failed to produce significant effects", and thus "do not support the existence of psychic ability," and is thus categorized as a pseudoscience.

Just Drifting

Just Drifting is a single by Psychic TV for their album Force The Hand Of Chance. It was on 7" and 12" vinyl.

The B-side run-out groove reads: BREAKTHROUGH IN THE GREY ROOM.

Personnel

Some Bizarre Records / Warner *Music performers: Alex Fergusson, Peter Christopherson

7" vinyl notes

Some Bizzare Label "This is a Zuccarelli Holophonic TM recording made with the assistance of Mike King. This system gives 360 degree sound or Three Dimensional sound. For best effect place speakers opposite each other and sit in the middle, or use headphones. Close your eyes, play quite loud and try and read the pictures. Walk through the rooms of The Temple Ov Psychick Youth."

"If you sit with fear, a star too far, almost lost in this storm of Life. A blazing ghost can become the host, and you breakthrough to the room of dreams."

12" vinyl notes

"Ov Power - A method to be used by the Individual to break through to their deeper consciousness, where fantasies, ambitions and real wishes reside, the place where all dreams meet."

Stolen Kisses

Stolen Kisses (French: Baisers volés) is a 1968 French romantic comedy-drama film directed by François Truffaut starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Claude Jade. It continues the story of the character Antoine Doinel, whom Truffaut had previously depicted in The 400 Blows and the short film Antoine and Colette. In this film, Antoine begins his relationship with Christine Darbon, which is depicted further in the last two films in the series, Bed & Board and Love on the Run.

The original French title of the film comes from a line in Charles Trenet's song "Que reste-t-il de nos amours ?" which is also used as the film's signature tune. The film was nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

The film begins with a pan onto the locked gates of the Cinémathèque Française then based at the Palais du Chaillot. On the gates there is a sign 'Relache' ('Closed'). This is Truffaut's reference to the Affaire Langlois when the head of the Cinémathèque had been sacked by the French government. He was eventually reinstated after filmmakers like Truffaut used all their wiles to foment protest.