Sleazy Christopherson Dies At Age 55

Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, member of the highly influenced industrial/experimental groups Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, and Coil, died yesterday in Thailand at the age of 55. No cause of death has been disclosed. I was never much into Throbbing Gristle, despite their clear and often-cited lineage to Nine Inch Nails, one of my favorite bands ever. But it was Coil's horrific and funereal 1985 cover of Tainted Love, a caustic indictment of the treatment of AIDS patients, that made me a fan of Sleazy Christopherson (and partner/bandmate John Balance, who died in a fall in 2004.) The Sleazy Christopherson-directed video for Tainted Love is now on permanent display at New York's Museum Of Modern Art.