No wave
No wave | |
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Stylistic origins | |
Cultural origins | Late 1970s, New York City |
Derivative forms | |
Other topics | |
No wave was an
The movement was short-lived but highly influential in the music world. The 1978 compilation No New York is often considered the quintessential testament to the scene's musical aesthetic.[10] Aside from the music genre, the no wave movement also had a significant influence in independent film (no wave cinema), fashion, and visual art.[11]
Overview/characteristics
No wave is not a clearly definable
There were, however, some elements common to most no-wave music, such as abrasive
No wave music presented a negative and
Etymology
There are different theories about how the term was coined. Some suggest
Early forerunners
The Godz were a New York City-based psychedelic noise band connected to ESP-Disk. John Dougan opined in AllMusic: " the three squalling bits of avant-garde noise/junk they recorded from 1966-1968. Sounding like a prototype for Half Japanese or the Shaggs.."[This quote needs a citation]
Cromagnon were a 1960s New York City band whose sole album Orgasm was cited by AllMusic's Alex Henderson as foreshadowing no-wave.[26]
Yoko Ono, a Japanese multimedia artist who was associated with fluxus and was married to John Lennon of The Beatles at the time, released an album called Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band in 1970, the record was later assessed as a precursor to punk, post-punk, new wave and no wave – "It's a record dense with ideas and sonics; the personal and the political".[27]
Suicide were a New York City band that was formed in 1970 by Alan Vega and Martin Rev, they've been cited by Pitchfork's Marc Masters as having "the biggest influence on no-wave".[24]
Jack Ruby were a New York City band that formed in 1973, they were an early influence on Sonic Youth and Thurston Moore, and are seen as early pioneers of the aesthetic, philosophy, and sound of no wave.[28]
The no-wave music scene
In 1978, a
In 1978,
By the early 1980s, artists such as
Other art mediums in the no wave scene
Cinema
No wave cinema was an underground film scene in Tribeca and the East Village. Filmmakers included Amos Poe, Eric Mitchell, Charlie Ahearn, Vincent Gallo, James Nares, Jim Jarmusch, Vivienne Dick, Scott B and Beth B and Seth Tillett, and led to the Cinema of Transgression and work by Nick Zedd and Richard Kern.[43]
Visual art
Visual artists played a large role in the no wave scene, as visual artists often were playing in bands, or making videos and films, while making visual art for exhibition. An early influence on this aspect of the scene was Alan Vega (aka Alan Suicide) whose electronic junk sculpture predated his role in the music group Suicide, which he formed with fellow musician Martin Rev in 1970. They released Suicide, their first album, in 1977.
Important exhibitions of no wave visual art were
No wave art found an ongoing home on the Lower East Side with the establishment of ABC No Rio Gallery in 1980, and a no wave punk aesthetic was a dominant strand in the art galleries of the East Village (from 1982 to 1986).[42]
Legacy
In a foreword to the book No Wave, Weasel Walter wrote of the movement's ongoing influence:
I began to express myself musically in a way that felt true to myself, constantly pushing the limits of idiom or genre and always screaming "Fuck You!" loudly in the process. It's how I felt then and I still feel it now. The ideals behind the (anti-) movement known as No Wave were found in many other archetypes before and just as many afterwards, but for a few years around the late 1970s, the concentration of those ideals reached a cohesive, white-hot focus.[48]
In 2004, Scott Crary made the documentary Kill Your Idols, including such no wave bands as Suicide, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, DNA and Glenn Branca as well as bands influenced by no wave, including Sonic Youth, Swans, Foetus and others.
In 2007–2008, three books on the scene were published: Soul Jazz's New York Noise,[49] Marc Masters' No Wave,[50] and Thurston Moore and Byron Coley's No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976–1980.[51]
Coleen Fitzgibbon and Alan W. Moore created a short film in 1978 (finished in 2009) of a New York City no wave concert to benefit Colab titled X Magazine Benefit, documenting performances by DNA, James Chance and the Contortions, and Boris Policeband. Shot in black and white and edited on video, the film captured the gritty look and sound of the music scene during that era. In 2013, it was exhibited at Salon 94, an art gallery in New York City.[52]
Music compilations
- No New York (1978) Antilles, (2006) Lilith, B000B63ISE
- Just Another Asshole #5 (1981) compilation LP (CD reissue 1995 on Atavistic # ALP39CD), producers: Barbara Ess and Glenn Branca
- Noise Fest Tape (1982) TSoWC, White Columns
- Speed Trials (1984) Homestead Records HMS-011
- All Guitars (1985) Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine #10, Harvestworks
- N.Y. No Wave (2003) ZE France B00009OKOP
- New York Noise (2003) Soul Jazz Records B00009OYSE
- New York Noise, Vol. 2 (2006) Soul Jazz B000CHYHOG
- New York Noise, Vol. 3 (2006) Soul Jazz B000HEZ5CC
Documentary films
- Scott Crary, Kill Your Idols
- Céline Danhier, Blank City
- Coleen Fitzgibbon and Alan W. Moore, X Magazine Benefit
- Ericka Beckman, 135 Grand Street, New York, 1979
See also
- Tier 3, short-lived no wave Tribeca nightclub
References
- ISBN 978-0-8223-9085-5.
- ^ Leone, Dominique (20 June 2004). "Black Dice: Creature Comforts Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
- ISBN 9780312063245. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
- ^ ISBN 0-684-81044-1.
- ^ Masters 2007, p. 5.
- ^ Pearlman 2003, p. 188.
- ^ McLaren, Trevor (17 February 2005). "James Chance and the Contortions: Buy". Retrieved 17 September 2013.
- ^ a b "NO!: The Origins of No Wave". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
- AllMusic
- ISBN 978-1-906155-02-5.
- ^ a b Masters 2007, p. 200
- ^ ISBN 9780312113698.
- ^ a b Reynolds 2005, pp. 269.
- ^ "Beth B: War Is Never Over". IFFR. 16 January 2020. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
- ^ O'Brien, Glenn (October 1999). "Style Makes the Band". Artforum International.
- ^ Kalat, David. "Ch 20 The Story of Chabrol". The Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse: A Study of the Twelve Films and Five Novels. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2005. not pag. Print.
- ^ "NO!: The Origins of No Wave". Pitchfork. January 2008. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
- ^ "Mofungo". Perfect Sound Forever. August 1997. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
- ^ Lang, Dave (July 1998). "The SST Records story – Part 3". Perfect Sound Forever. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
- ^ "Conversations with Thurston Moore: No Wave". June 2008. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
- ^ "The Nihilist Spasm Band invented noise rock in 1965". 10 February 2017.
- Breznikar, Klemen (24 October 2014). "The Nihilist Spasm Band Interview". It's Psychedelic Baby! Magazine. Archivedfrom the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
- ^ Breznikar, Klemen (24 November 2014). "The Nihilist Spasm Band | Interview". It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine. Retrieved 29 April 2023.
- ^ a b "NO!: The Origins of No Wave". Pitchfork.
- ^ "How Captain Beefheart changed rock music forever". 15 January 2021.
- AllMusic
- ^ "Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band – Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band". johnlennon.com.
- ^ "Thurston Moore on Jack Ruby: The forgotten heroes of pre-punk". The Guardian. 25 April 2014.
- ^ "James Chance interview | Pitchfork".
- ^ Reynolds 2005, pp. 140.
- ISBN 978-1-906155-02-5.
- ^ Nickleson 2023, p. 159.
- ^ Nickleson 2023, p. 158.
- ^ Nickleson 2023, pp. 151–152.
- ^ a b c Reynolds 2005, p. 146.
- ^ Reynolds 2005, p. 147.
- ^ Reynolds 2005, pp. 268.
- ^ Reynolds 2005, pp. 139–150.
- ^ Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-punk 1978–1984 (2006) Penguin
- ^ John Rockwell (6 May 1983). "Art Rock: 6 Groups Play". The New York Times.
- AllMusic
- ^ a b Carlo McCormick, The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984, Princeton University Press, 2006
- ^ "Luxonline". www.luxonline.org.uk.
- ^ Masters 2007, p. 19.
- ^ "Times Square Show Revisited". www.timessquareshowrevisited.com.
- OCLC 972429558.
- Village Voice16, June 1980, pp. 31–32
- ^ Masters 2007.
- ^ "Soul Jazz Records – New York Noise – Art and Music from the New York Underground 1978–88".
- ISBN 978-1-906155-02-5.
- ^ "Harry N. Abrams, Inc. No Wave". Archived from the original on 7 April 2015. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
- ^ "Pulse Generator Pastry, NY Mix—Salon 94". Salon94. Archived from the original on 28 January 2021. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
Sources
- Masters, Marc (2007). No Wave. London: Black Dog Publishing. ISBN 978-1-906155-02-5.
- Nickleson, Patrick (2023). The Names of Minimalism: Authorship, Art Music, and Historiography in Dispute. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472903009.
- Pearlman, Alison (2003). Unpackaging Art of the 1980s. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Reynolds, Simon (2005). "Contort Yourself: No Wave New York". Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-punk 1978–84. London: Faber and Faber, Ltd. pp. 139–157.
Further reading
- ISBN 1-55652-098-0
- Moore, Alan W. "Artists' Collectives: Focus on New York, 1975–2000". In Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945, edited by Blake Stimson & Gregory Sholette, 203. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
- Moore, Alan W., and Marc Miller (eds.). ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery. New York: Collaborative Projects, 1985
- Taylor, Marvin J. (ed.). The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984, foreword by Lynn Gumpert. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-691-12286-5
External links
- New York No Wave Photo Archive Archived 6 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- Official MySpace page for Kill Your Idols, a documentary about the Cinema of Transgression & the No Wave scene
- Video of Thurston Moore talking about his book "No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976–1980"