Extract taken from: WRECKERS OF CIVILISATION.
THE STORY OF COUM TRANSMISSIONS AND THROBBING GRISTLE
by Simon Ford, Published by Black Dog

Chris Carter was born in the City of London Maternity Hospital, Islington, London on 28 January 1953. His father; Albert Edward Carter, at this time owned and ran a small glass shop, Carter's Glass. He later started up a construction company, A. Carter & Son. Chris's mother, Rose May Carter (nee Draper), helped out in the glass shop until the early 1950's when she left to become a beautician for Estee Lauder. "My parents were, and still are, pretty outgoing," Carter recalls, "and before I was born were, apparently, dance hall jive champions, winning all sorts of dance competitions and trophies. I can't dance to save my life, so! don't know what went wrong there!"
Along with his younger sister; Victoria, Chris and his family lived in a series of flats and houses in north London. Whilst his parents were out working in the shop, the young Chris spent much of his time being looked after by his Aunt Pat and Uncle 'Big Ernie' (a successful boxer, and now trainer). Chris, under the influence of his father, began to take a keen interest in art and electronics. "From the early 1950's, until the present day, my dad always had the latest in hi-fi systems. Just before we moved from Muswell Hill in 1964) a friend of the family (called Curly Day, would you believe) gave me my first reel-to-reel tape recorder. A small Japanese battery-operated thing that would speed up and slow down something chronic. My dad had this really expensive Bang & Olufsen tape deck with a sound-on-sound feature and he would hook the two machines up together and we (including my mum) would make these crazy recordings with everybody just talking, singing and laughing. He would then add funny echo effects, speeding things up and slowing them down, totally weird shit really. When I was 11 or 12 my parents bought me a DIY electronics construction set for Christmas and when I was 13 they bought me my first decent tape recorder; a Phillips mono cassette machine and it was then that I got really serious about recording and electronics and started combining the two."
In 1967, whilst still at school, Carter played bass guitar in a band called The Dragsters. Just before their first gig, though, the drummer was knocked down by a car, breaking an arm and a leg. According to Carter the most important event in his teenage years took place on 8 November 1968.- "A whole bunch of us went to see Pink Floyd play at the Fishmonger's Arms pub in Wood Green, North London, a pretty dire venue, small and dingy, certainly by Floyd standards. I took either some speed or acid. It was one of the first gigs I'd been to that had a really good light show, and the combination of the trippy music and powerful visuals totally blew me away. It was then that I realised how much impressive visuals could complement and influence music."
Together with a friend, Chris Panayiotou, he set up a small mobile light show business called Orpheus Lites. With savings from Saturday jobs they just managed to collect together enough coloured lamps, oil wheels, slide projectors and a strobe light for their first gig. "We had some black and gold business cards printed ('Light Show for hire, groups, dances, parties etc.') and initially started on light shows for local bands and private parties. Until I was 17 and we bought our own van, transport was a bit of a problem. We had to rely on lifts from friends and family or jumping on buses with cases full of lamps and projectors. For the first year or so we would turn up for expenses only."
Carter attended Friern Barnet Grammar School between 1964-1966, before moving on to Winchmore Hill County School which he attended until April 1969. He liked and was good at, English and art, but disliked maths. He also enjoyed socialising with his classmates (girls in particular), seeing bands, going to discos and visiting the cinema. Rather than stay on at school, and go on to art school, Carter decided to take up an apprenticeship with a freelance sound engineer called Ted Ball. The work was interesting but it was very badly paid and Carter left after a year. His next job was in a photographic studio in Kingly Court, behind Carnaby Street. "Initially I was just picking up films and delivering prints to clients, but within six months I had worked my way up to developing, printing and then on to retouching. After about a year I was promoted to doing `special jobs'. This was a side of the company that I had been totally unaware of, and consisted of developing and printing hardcore porno pictures and spreads for clients in nearby Soho. This suited me fine because it involved a lot of overtime and more cash, which I spent on lighting equipment for our lightshow." Carter enjoyed his work and the seedy atmosphere and ambience of Soho, but it all came to an end when he took a month off to drive around the country with Panayiotou and some friends visiting summer music festivals such as Plumpton and The Isle of Wight.
By this time the Orpheus Lites lightshow was working exclusively for a band called Willa. Panayiotou, however, soon grew tired of the scene and left. The lightshow was then incorporated into the band and Carter became a member, sometimes playing a lighting keyboard on stage. But he also eventually became disillusioned with the group and left Willa at the end of 1974. His first solo gig, under the name Waveforms, took place at Thurrock Technical College on 13 March 1975. He then toured the show around the university and college circuit. Although billed as solo performances, John Lacey, usually, or Chris Panayiotou, occasionally, would help operate the lighting and special effects whilst Carter played his self-built synthesisers and keyboards.
Carter reciprocated Lacey's help by assisting him on his projects, including various multi-media presentations and experimental films. Lacey, born in 1952, studied Fine Art and Painting at Goldsmiths College, London, from 1971 to 1974. His father was the artist Bruce Lacey, the creator of disturbing robotic sculptures, performer with The Alberts and caretaker at Martello Street studios. John Lacey often met P-Orridge and Tutti at the studios and had performed with COUM using the pseudonym John Gunni Busck. Lacey told P-Orridge and Tutti about Carter and they were immediately intrigued; he sounded perfect for the group. They arranged a meeting, everything clicked, and from then on Carter became a regular visitor to the studio. They met every weekend and spent much of their time experimenting and recording with old and new equipment to see what kinds of effects they could achieve. And so it was, during the summer of 1975, that the COUM story became complicated by, and intertwined with, the TG story.