#von lmo

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".

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I'd like to read Jim Sclavunos' "No" fanzine and Barbara Ess' "Just Another Asshole" publications as well, but they're quite hard to find...

Von LMO - Crash Landing 88

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.

 Chicago clubs in July/August 1981, and I only became aware of Chicago’s Coolest Retard fanzine from that era this year, 2024. Thank you Todd N. Once I got the lowdown on it and was allowed to see – and touch! – a couple of copies of the thing, I resolved to track down a copy somehow, and Coolest Retard #15 is the one I chose as “the one to grab”. I mean, that cover, right? 

Somehow the tribute piece to Mark E. Smith as “Retard of the Year” is even better than expected. Grotesque is the newest Fall record at this point, and like Kickboy Face, editor Craig Schmidt totally gets it. (At least I think it’s Schmidt – the piece is uncredited, but it’s the best writing in here, and who else but the fanzine’s editor gets to bestow the honor of coolest retard?). 

One of the great tabloid fanzines of all time, Damage published thirteen issues in San Francisco from 1979 to 1981. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with you in this forum about it before: Damage #6 and Damage #7. Now let’s take a peek at the very first issue, Damage #1 from June 1979, even if it does have Jello Biafra on the cover. Trust me, my copy wasn’t “complimentary”, as you can see stamped along the top here, but it leads me to believe that my copy belonging to a previous owner once was. 

Damage #1 also talks to bands, I assure you. There’s a rare one with The Urge, an all-female band that included Jean Caffeine, who did New Dezezes fanzine (which I wrote about here and here) a year or two before this band, and who, along with her bandmates, went to Washington High in the Richmond (two members are still there at the time of this interview). There’s a talk with No Sisters, a band of brothers, all of whom wear nerd glasses. There are strange utterings from Coum Transmissions, i.e. the Throbbing Gristle folks, a collective very popular with a certain San Francisco archetype of the era, as you may well know. Craig and Alice from The Bags do a perfunctory Q&A, and MX-80 Sound, who’ve just moved to SF from Bloomington, IN, get their own small grilling here.

60s issues of the original Crawdaddy! – “The Magazine of Rock” – and I’m quite aware that it wasn’t a true self-published fanzine, as weren’t the magazines Rock Scene, Teen Screen, Trouser Press, Cheetah, Beetle, Sounds and a few others I’ve bantered about here. It’s a great window into the “rock as culture” movement of the late 60s, in which rock music was dissected as intellectual fodder, the whole “but-what-does-it-all-mean” ethos that was part & parcel of the era’s zeitgeist. It’s still a point of chagrin in my house just how picked-over Bob Dylan’s lyrics were at the time, but I know Bobby Z has his fans, and who am I to say they were wrong to do so.

Puncture #9

 the best San Francisco music fanzine of the second half of the 1980s? I feel like the contenders were probably BravEar, Wiring Dept and Puncture, right? Unless I’m forgetting someone. These three fanzines were the most adventurous in terms of traversing the wider underground and going deep where necessary, and yet all three suffered a bit for their overtly sleeve-wearing left wing politics, and for pandering a bit too heavily to quote-unquote college rock at times. But listen, I did myself at the time, no question. That’s why I still own copies of all these mags that I bought during 1984-87. I think it’s probably a pretty easy call at the end of the day: Wiring Dept, then BravEar, then Puncture. 

Said the guy who’s here to talk about Puncture #9 from Spring 1985! We’re not talking about Forced Exposure or Conflict levels of quality, taste and information here – those east coast zines really set the standard during this period in my unforgiving eyes.

New Zealand’s Alley Oop for years, and so hats off and a big thank you to Brendan, who made it happen. Aside from Garage, which I’ll likely never see an original copy of, it was the NZ mag I’d most seen quotes pulled from and reviews swiped from, and upon the evidence presented here in 1988’s Alley Oop #5, there was ample reason for doing so. 

While no formal editor is presented on any masthead here, at least judging by the amount of content contributed, it looks like Paul McKessar helmed the fanzine or at least was very deeply involved. He apparently got #me-too’ed a few years ago. Right away there’s a very NZ-centric gossip page, with some excited early Xpressway news. Heads-up is provided about the Dead C’s forthcoming The Sun Stabbed EP,

 NY Rocker collection, and I’ve been making good on this important promise (to myself). Yet I’d never, ever seen any ones with this typeface, one of the first four mythical issues, in the wild – that is, until I came upon New York Rocker #4 and struck up a bargain with its seller at the 2025 San Francisco Art Book Fair. This 1975-76 era is one of my favorites for rock music writing due to its anticipatory excitement, with much undefined underground exploration in the air and on the fuckin’ streets, with absurd decadence and drug bottoming-out the norm. Nowhere was this more the case, of course, than in New York City. 

When punk first hit North American consciousness in 1977, I get the picture that unless you were living in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco, or perhaps Seattle and Cleveland, the records you were coming across in stores and were hearing on late-nite “new wave” radio programs were almost entirely English in nature. This 1977 Montreal fanzine, Twist & Shout #2, certainly aspires to be Anglocentric in the extreme; or, whether it aspires to be or not, it most certainly is. Canada is part of the queen’s commonwealth, of course, but just based on the features and records reviewed here, it feels a lot like a Canadian version of Trouser Press, who were proud Anglophiles, and/or one informed very much by Britain’s own Zigzag. 

 “my cup runneth over” fanzine from 1977. It’s somewhat amazing to even be allowed to look at it. I was not aware of the existence of New Wave #1 until I found a way of procuring a copy on eBay – nor was I aware of the absurdly great bounty within it, save for a drunkenly-written Lester Bangs piece about punk that ended up being sadly uneventful once I actually read it. 

I’m 99% sure that this is the only issue of this San Francisco-based newspaper-style fanzine ever created, and I’m just as assured that a 1-issue run was not at all what the editors had intended when they excitedly put this together in August 1977

we discussed Tim Ellison’s Rock Mag, there really wasn’t a music fanzine quite like it before, and there definitely hasn’t been since. I mean, I’ve subsequently come to have read much of the strange, erudite and serious rock writing of the 60s and 70s, but even that stuff in Crawdaddy or Beetle or Cheetah doesn’t really have the potent mix of over-the-top earnestness and below-the-surface humor of Rock Mag, and of course, none of those mags were tied so utterly to the outlook and informed worldview of one single rock-obsessed man. 

Rock Mag #6 doesn’t call out its time of publication, but I believe just by the records covered that it’s probably late 1996 or early 1997. It starts off with a bang: “Having gotten so far away from what Rock originally (and for the better) meant, this is probably the worst ever period for Rock”. “If I were running a major label I could enquire about signing many artists: VON LMO, maybe Silver Apples and The Godz if they were up for it, The Fall, The Red Krayola, The Dead C, Ghost, Ruins, High Rise, Fushitsusha, Cheater Slicks, The Dirt Bombs and The Inhalants, Run On, Satisfact, Los Cincos, maybe old-timers like Blue Oyster Cult and Voivod

came out in 1998 I was of two minds about these guys, David Dunlap and Giles Palermo (aka Andrew Earles) and their The Cimarron Weekend. I felt perhaps they were getting a little too high on their own supply, going a bit too “gonzo”; writing whilst drunk; over-revering the 70s rock critic aesthetic (Bangs/Meltzer/Saunders et al) and so forth. But they truly did make me laff repeatedly, and I was highly pleased by their off-the-charts snark and snidely dismissive takes on modern indie rock. I busted out The Cimarron Weekend #6 this past week and have come to find that it’s aged far, far better than I’d imagined, and I’m now ready to put it in an upper-tier 1990s fanzine pantheon that exists only in my head.

Forced Exposure from the blessed day in 1986 when I bought Forced Exposure #10 at Rockpile Records in Goleta, CA until they wrapped it all up in 1993, I’ve struggled over the years to procure one of the mag’s “hardcore era” issues and hold it in my trembling hands for any longer than a few minutes. These would be FE issues #1-5 from the early 80s, all of which appear to have been somewhat better-distributed than most punk fanzines, yet still really hard to come by, particularly on the US west coast, where I’m from. These issues had been disavowed, more or less, by editor Jimmy Johnson by the time he’d teamed up with Byron Coley and edged more fully into the deeper rock, psych, noise and experimental underground. Back issues of these five were long said in no uncertain terms to be “thankfully out of print”.

 Coolest Retard #15 earlier this year and promoted my logghorea about it on “Instagram”, it turned out to be the single most popular thing I’d ever posted. That Mark E. Smith cover somehow slipped its way into the algorithm, and all of a sudden I’m right up there with the Kardashians or Britney Spears or whatever it is that’s popular with you kids today. And let me state that I was so smitten with this collectable Chicago fanzine from 1981 that I went right out and collected another one, Coolest Retard #13 from April/May ‘81.

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.