Prostitution Tapes
What's New from Broken Flag
Various Artists. Morality (Expanded Edition), 2xCD, Fourth Dimension, 2026. Originally released on cassette in 1985 (BF41).
Kleistwahr. The Battlefield Is Everywhere. CD. Fourth Dimension, 2025.
Steve Underwood. Even When It Makes No Sense: The Broken Flag Story. Book. Korm Plastics, 2024.
I was around Broken Flag HQ (Debbie Thomas’ flat in the South End of Croydon) one day in 1983 and Jerome Clegg (Debbie’s boyfriend and Gary’s then-partner in Ramleh) was cobbling together the artwork for a sleeve, most likely the duo’s upcoming “A Return To Slavery” release. He was using as “inspiration” the sleeve of Throbbing Gristle’s “Mission of Dead Souls” album, recently released in the Fetish Records 5-LP TG retrospective box.
I wasn’t that impressed with Jerome’s magpie aesthetics. I’d been an early fan of TG, to be sure, but they’d drifted into insincerity and whimsy, and with P.-Orridge’s increasingly embarrassing antics with the nascent Psychic TV, I didn’t think this was the sort of thing you should be tipping the hat to. Gary wasn’t that much of a TG fan anyway, but he had a full-time job and was happy to delegate the task to perpetual student Jerome. I liked Jerome as a harmless dope-smoking hippy, but when he introduced a violin into the Ramleh armoury (P.Orridge’s weapon of choice, remember) and started to drift into more esoteric directions (The Hand of Glory) I began to slightly despair at his influence on my favourite band outside of Whitehouse.