#mofungo

No wave was an avant-garde, anti-art movement and music scene that emerged in New York City's decaying Downtown during the late 1970s. Predated by bands like Suicide and Jack Ruby, the original, short-lived scene hailed from pre-gentrified SoHo art world and working-class East Village/Lower East Side neighborhoods, encompassing bands that were active in nightclubs and art galleries — such as The Kitchen, Tier 3, CBGB, Mudd Club, Max's Kansas City, Artists Space, White Columns, Hurrah or ABC No Rio — between 1976 and 1980.

The musical background of the artists involved varied greatly, ranging from classically trained theatre composer Jeffrey Lohn and minimalist composer Rhys Chatham; through conservatory dropout James Chance; to self-taught musicians of Mars, DNA and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks. Although only the latter four were featured in the Brian Eno-produced No New York compilation, this was one of the first studio albums that propelled the scene's recognition, gaining attention from labels ZE Records, Lust/Unlust Music and ROIR. However, few bands left recordings behind, and thus no wave remained an underground scene.

The contradiction inherent in no wave's negativity and nihilistic outlook hinders classification and eludes narrow-minded definitions, encouraging to describe it 'in opposition to' rather than by its own characteristics. The term itself was allegedly coined by either Jim Sclavunos' "NO" fanzine — distinguishing itself from "Punk" magazine — or Lydia Lunch in an interview as a pun rejecting any association with New Wave bands and their style [1], but wasn't used by the artists to describe themselves or their music as part of the scene. In addition, despite sharing time frame with the emergence of Punk Rock's first wave and unlike its close relative Post-Punk, the no wave postmodern attitude broke away from New York Punk tradition, reacting against it and the Rock continuum. Three-chord progressions, recycled Blues riffs and Rock & Roll conventions were banished in favor of sheer experimentation, a deconstruction within the frame of rock instrumentation against itself, disengaging from commercial mainstream pop culture.

Given its experimental nature, no wave music changed significantly during its brief existence but often delved into atonality, dissonance, non-unified tempos, abrasiveness, angularity, noise, improvisation, distortion, cacophony, atavism, reductionism, emphasis on texture, buzzing guitars and skronk, tribal drumming and a general disregard for virtuosity; earning a 'clear the room' reputation due to its menacing sound and sonic assault. The vocal delivery was part of this aggression as well, with misanthropic, sexual, alienating, abstract and dadaist lyrics drawing from Beat Generation authors such as William Burroughs, who popularized the cut-up technique. Influenced by Fluxus and Viennese Actionism, some bands adopted a transgressive and confrontational performance style, interacting with the audience or even engaging in violent physical altercations, thus blurring — when not shattering — the performer/audience barrier.

Since the mid-1970s the punk ethos [2] encouraged female musicians to stand on equal foot with their male counterparts, whether in all-female bands — such as The Bloods, Y Pants and UT — or mixed gender bands, as frontwomen or instrumentalists. In this regard, the no wave scene proved to be one of the most inclusive, featuring drummer Nancy Arlen and guitarist Lucy Hamilton from Mars, drummer Ikue Mori from DNA, vocalist and guitarist Lydia Lunch from Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, keyboardist Adele Bertei and slide guitarist Pat Place from James Chance & The Contortions, keyboardist Margaret De Wys from Theoretical Girls, bassist Barbara Ess from The Static or guitarist Nina Canal from The Gynecologists.

Pushing the idiomatic limits of the genre, no wave artists explored a diverse array of cutting-edge music that appealed to their experimental traits, such as Free Improvisation, Industrial & Noise or Electronic. Mars, DNA, Theoretical Girls and Red Transistor experimented with Noise music, playing a pivotal role in the development of Noise Rock, bridging the gap between 1968 The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat and 1980s seminal noise rock bands Sonic Youth, Rat at Rat R, Live Skull or Swans. SoHo avant-gardists such as Rhys Chatham — minimalist composer turned punk — and Glenn Branca — punk composer turned minimalist — started fusing Minimalism with the energy and instrumentation of rock, developing Totalism through a greater rhythmic complexity and an increasing number of electric guitars in their ensembles [3]. Concurrently, the interest in Free Jazz — particularly saxophone blasts à la John Coltrane, Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman — brought the unlikely fusion known as punk jazz, pioneered by The Contortions and The Lounge Lizards. Furthermore, incorporating influences from Funk, Dance and Disco rhythms into punk's energy and no wave ethos, they developed an original offshoot of Dance-Punk in New York City by the likes of The Contortions, James White and The Blacks, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Liquid Liquid, ESG, The Bloods, Material or The Dance.

Regardless of its short-lived existence and shifting nature, the intensity of the no wave scene proved to be a significant milestone in the history of Downtown music over the course of the next decades. For instance, some Avant-Prog and Avant-Garde Jazz musicians took an interest in the scene: after being recruited into Daevid Allen's punk-flavored New York Gong, bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher moved on to form Material, being later joined by ex-Henry Cow multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith to found Massacre [4]; whereas Elliott Sharp was a long-standing unofficial member and producer of Mofungo. In a similar fashion, while not part of the original scene, posthumous bands would associate themselves with or adopt the no wave label indebted to its influence; notably, Sonic Youth and Swans — whose debut studio albums were released through Glenn Branca's Neutral Records label — or, since the 1990s, revivalist acts such as The Flying Luttenbachers, Erase Errata, Gilla Band, etc.

[1] Mind that until the 1980s most music critics used new wave and punk as interchangeable terms. [2] With a little help from New York Dolls' gender-bending aesthetic and Patti Smith's androgynous look. [3] Rhys Chatham's "Guitar Trio" debuted in 1977 on Max's Kansas City, Glenn Branca's "For Six Guitars" followed in 1979 on the same music venue. [4] After Henry Cow's disintegration, Fred Frith had moved to New York City in 1979, soon becoming acquainted and collaborating with Downtown's avant-rock and free improvisation music circles.

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For further information I highly encourage to read Marc Masters' "No Wave", Thurston Moore & Byron Coley's "No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980", Simon Reynolds' "Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984", Steven Blush' "New York Rock: From the Rise of The Velvet Underground to the Fall of CBGB", Phil Gilgunn's doctoral thesis "Distillation and Synthesis: Aesthetics and Practice in Rhys Chatham's Music for Electric Guitar" and Kyle Gann's "American Music in the Twentieth Century" or "Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice". Which along with no wave living encyclopaedia, Weasel Walter, are the basis for most of my 'academic' knowledge on the subject. (Though I reject the widespread notion that relates it with post-punk. It's a negation of punk, not its aufheben in the hegelian sense.)

In this list I aim to bring equal parts the original No Wave scene, including forerunners and rarities, plus every album I've listened to with a significant influence on it to make me feel that deserves a place here —notably, free improvisation and avant-garde jazz ones—, artists with a significant influence from no wave guitar SKRONK, that sound like "x" no wave band or straight experimental beyond rock / punk conventions.

Proto-no wave: a variety of influences that led to No Wave music, pre-dating the movement itself: from punk, through the avant-garde, to improvised music.

No wave: the music genre itself in the New York City scene and — to a lesser degree — beyond, between 1976 and 1979 / early 1980. Original NYC no wave scenesters include: Jack Ruby, Boris Policeband, The Scabs / Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Beirut Slump, 8 Eyed Spy, Lydia Lunch, The Raybeats, James Chance & The Contortions, James White and The Blacks, James Chance with the Pill Factory, Bush Tetras, China / Mars, Kongress, Red Transistor, Von Lmo, DNA, Arto Lindsay, R.L. Crutchfield's Dark Day, Rotating Power Tools / The Lounge Lizards, N. Dodo Band, Theoretical Girls, Daily Life, The Static, Disband, A Band, Y Pants, Glenn Branca, China Shop, Circus Mort, The Clothespins, Terminal, The Gynecologists, Arsenal, Tone Death, The Tenant, Rhys Chatham's Guitar Trio, UT, Love of Life Orchestra, Communists, Chinese Puzzle, NNB, Blinding Headache, Information, No Group, Mofungo, The Girls, New York Gong, Material, Sick Dick and the Volkswagens, Liquid Idiot / The Idiot Orchestra, Model Citizens, The Dance, Rosa Yemen, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Suicide / Martin Rev, The Futants, Ike Yard.

Post-no wave: the decaying original scene past their prime time, plus the subsequent wave — no pun intended — of adepts who furthered the experimental traits and merged its sound with other genres in the 1980s and 90s. During this period many VV.AA. compilations proliferated: "Noise Fest" (1981), "Just Another Asshole #5" (1981), "Peripheral Vision" (1982), "State of the Union" (1982, 1992, 1996), "Tellus" (#1 1983; #2, #3, #5 and #6 1984; #8 USA/Germany and #10 All Guitars! 1985), "Speed Trials" (1985), "Island of Sanity: New Music From New York City" (1987), etc. but none achieved the same success as "No New York".

As grandchildren of a jewish anti-zionist I feel in the need to share this article, given the appearance in the list of some artists who have played live in Israeli-occupied territories or recorded for the labels Tzadik and Jewish Radical Culture: http://www.furious.com/perfect/zornzion.html By the way, I don't believe in the so called jewish "ethnicity", it's just a religion and a culture, get over it.

•••• musique jaune ••••

V/A

"Peripheral Vision"

(LP. Zoar rcds. 1982) [US]

Mofungo

A couple of years ago I realized I probably needed to procure as many NY Rocker issues as I might be able to afford, before they started being priced like Slash currently is. Even now there are pathways to getting these for $15-$25 a pop, so that’s what I did a few years back – and then I wrote reviews of them here, here, here and here. Even now, I’m just catching up to the half-dozen or so I bought. I actually remember first seeing this while it was actively being published at Rasputin’s in Berkeley, CA, probably in 1981, but I was too broke and too much of a teenage dumb-dumb to be able to buy it.

NY Rocker, including in this December 1980 issue, brought together heroes like Don Snowdon, Byron Coley, Ira Kaplan, Don Waller and later Don Howland – a lot of Dons – along with guys who loved Chic and disco-dancing or whatever, and weren’t afraid to tell you. It never really reads to me as quite hitting the quality level of Slash or even Damage most of the time, but that’s irrelevant. It’s still absolutely stacked with the maniacal explosion of underground music that defined the times, both across the USA and in the UK, much of which NY Rocker pays close attention to, as well as anything else interesting beyond Manhattan’s borders.

First up after the table of contents, Ira Kaplan talks about how Robert Frank’s Cocksucker Blues finally screened in New York after years of legal purgatory, and how tough it was to get into one of the screenings. “Ironically, it’s possible that the only people more disappointed than those who didn’t get in were those who did….Cocksucker Blues’ strength is that it makes the fabled lore of the road – the drugs, the sex, the destruction of hotel rooms – look not merely ugly, but as we’ve been assured touring is, boring – a combination I’ve never seen pulled off before”. Bingo. My thoughts precisely on this film, which is a “watch once, discuss, then forget” sort of viewing. 

Cover star Captain Beefheart is interviewed with Doc at The Radar Station having just come out. If you’ve read Van Vliet interviews before, his style was give a millimeter, take an inch – so it’s difficult to get a bead on him aside from his eccentricity, which frankly, is enough for me. You just need to know what to expect going in. I suspect a collection of all his late 70s/early 80s interviews wouldn’t add up to much in terms of new revelations on, say, the creative process – but he’s just daffy enough and moderately confrontational that it’s still a fun read.

Jeff Hayes has a piece on a bunch of heavy metal teens going to a Molly Hatchet show, and about their subculture of booze, partyin’ and metal. The obvious comparison, of course, would be Heavy Metal Parking Lot from six years later. There’s an embarrassing Delta 5 interview by Jim Anderson where he wants to commit the 3 women in the 5-person band to a sort of “women in rock” solidarity with The Raincoats and the Slits and they’re having none of it. In 1981, when I was really diving into college radio for the first time, my initial favorites were the funk/bass-heavy, female-sung, post-punk rhythms of the Delta 5, Au Pairs and Bush Tetras, all sitting at ground zero in this December 1980 issue. It’s amazingly still a sound that hasn’t gotten old for me, likely because it was as formative as it comes (even though I rarely listen to anything else like it).

So much else going on! Jah Wobble is now driving a cab in London and figuring out his next move – which merits an entire short piece on him. “Lightnin’ Jeffrey” Lee Pierce has his own section on reggae records; the cream of the crop has already risen, and he knows it. He was doing these sorts of reviews and roundups for Slash too. There’s a takedown of the Times Square film, which I’ve never seen because I’ve never wanted to. And there’s a great interview with the band Information, plus later, an ad for their Tape #1 with Mofungo and Blinding Headache, a tape recently unearthed again here. Rick Brown from this band is still killing it with 75 Dollar Bill, 44 years later.