No wave

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No wave was an

dissonance, and atonality, as well as non-rock genres like free jazz, funk, and disco.[7][8][9] The scene often reflected an abrasive, confrontational, and nihilistic
world view.

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

Glenn Branca performing in New York in the 1980s

No wave is not a clearly definable

avant-rock movement".[12]

There were, however, some elements common to most no-wave music, such as abrasive

dub reggae and world music influences.[13]

No wave music presented a negative and

nihilistic world view that reflected the desolation of late 1970s Downtown New York and how they viewed the larger society. In a 2020 essay, Lydia Lunch stated there were many problems in the years that led into the 1970s, and that calling 1967 the Summer of Love was a bold-faced lie.[14] The term "no wave" might have been inspired by the French New Wave pioneer Claude Chabrol, with his remark "There are no waves, only the ocean".[15][16]

Etymology

There are different theories about how the term was coined. Some suggest

Second Avenue Theater at 66 Second Avenue before seeing it in the press.[20]

Early forerunners

nihilistic world view and complete disregard for any sort of musical structure, as evinced by the freely improvised noise of songs such as "Destroy The Nations" and "Dog Face Man". The band plastered the word "NO" on much of their equipment and handmade instruments, and recorded a film between 1965 and 1966 entitled "NO Movie". Member Bill Exley would sometimes wear a monkey mask on stage to conceal his identity.[22] They've been cited as an influence by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.[23]

LaMonte Young), and the art world influence of Andy Warhol's Factory, this seminal band provided a comprehensive model for No Wave."[24]

avant-rock music has been cited as laying "the groundwork for post-punk, new wave, and no wave, allowing the likes of Brian Eno and David Bowie to pick up from where Beefheart had left off".[25]

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

dissonance and atonality in addition to non-rock styles.[30] The former four groups were included on the compilation No New York, often considered the quintessential testament to the scene.[31] The no wave-affiliated label ZE Records was founded in 1978, and would also produce acclaimed and influential compilations in subsequent years.[13]

In 1978,

The Ramones at CBGB via Peter Gordon.[32] This proto-No Wave concert was followed a few weeks later when Artists Space served as a site of concrete inception for the No Wave music movement, hosting a five night underground No Wave music festival, organized by artists Michael Zwack and Robert Longo, that featured 10 local bands; including Rhys Chatham's The Gynecologists, Communists, Glenn Branca's Theoretical Girls, Terminal, Rhys Chatham's Tone Death.[33] and Branca's Daily Life.[34][35] The final two days of the show featured DNA and the Contortions on Friday, followed by Mars and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks on Saturday.[35] English musician and producer Brian Eno, who had originally come to New York to produce the second Talking Heads album More Songs About Buildings and Food, was in the audience.[35] Impressed by what he saw and heard, and advised by Diego Cortez to do so, Eno was convinced that this movement should be documented and proposed the idea of a compilation album, No New York, with himself as a producer.[36]

By the early 1980s, artists such as

audio art Speed Club that was established by Nechvatal and Bradley Eros at ABC No Rio that summer.[42]

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

The Kitchen.[46][47]

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

Documentary films

See also

  • Tier 3, short-lived no wave Tribeca nightclub

References

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  2. ^ Leone, Dominique (20 June 2004). "Black Dice: Creature Comforts Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  3. . Retrieved 6 March 2017.
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  5. ^ Masters 2007, p. 5.
  6. ^ Pearlman 2003, p. 188.
  7. ^ McLaren, Trevor (17 February 2005). "James Chance and the Contortions: Buy". Retrieved 17 September 2013.
  8. ^ a b "NO!: The Origins of No Wave". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
  9. AllMusic
  10. .
  11. ^ a b Masters 2007, p. 200
  12. ^ .
  13. ^ a b Reynolds 2005, pp. 269.
  14. ^ "Beth B: War Is Never Over". IFFR. 16 January 2020. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  15. ^ O'Brien, Glenn (October 1999). "Style Makes the Band". Artforum International.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ "NO!: The Origins of No Wave". Pitchfork. January 2008. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
  18. ^ "Mofungo". Perfect Sound Forever. August 1997. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  19. ^ Lang, Dave (July 1998). "The SST Records story – Part 3". Perfect Sound Forever. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  20. ^ "Conversations with Thurston Moore: No Wave". June 2008. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
  21. ^ "The Nihilist Spasm Band invented noise rock in 1965". 10 February 2017.
  22. from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
  23. ^ Breznikar, Klemen (24 November 2014). "The Nihilist Spasm Band | Interview". It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine. Retrieved 29 April 2023.
  24. ^ a b "NO!: The Origins of No Wave". Pitchfork.
  25. ^ "How Captain Beefheart changed rock music forever". 15 January 2021.
  26. AllMusic
  27. ^ "Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band – Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band". johnlennon.com.
  28. ^ "Thurston Moore on Jack Ruby: The forgotten heroes of pre-punk". The Guardian. 25 April 2014.
  29. ^ "James Chance interview | Pitchfork".
  30. ^ Reynolds 2005, pp. 140.
  31. .
  32. ^ Nickleson 2023, p. 159.
  33. ^ Nickleson 2023, p. 158.
  34. ^ Nickleson 2023, pp. 151–152.
  35. ^ a b c Reynolds 2005, p. 146.
  36. ^ Reynolds 2005, p. 147.
  37. ^ Reynolds 2005, pp. 268.
  38. ^ Reynolds 2005, pp. 139–150.
  39. ^ Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-punk 1978–1984 (2006) Penguin
  40. ^ John Rockwell (6 May 1983). "Art Rock: 6 Groups Play". The New York Times.
  41. AllMusic
  42. ^ a b Carlo McCormick, The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984, Princeton University Press, 2006
  43. ^ "Luxonline". www.luxonline.org.uk.
  44. ^ Masters 2007, p. 19.
  45. ^ "Times Square Show Revisited". www.timessquareshowrevisited.com.
  46. OCLC 972429558
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  47. Village Voice
    16, June 1980, pp. 31–32
  48. ^ Masters 2007.
  49. ^ "Soul Jazz Records – New York Noise – Art and Music from the New York Underground 1978–88".
  50. .
  51. ^ "Harry N. Abrams, Inc. No Wave". Archived from the original on 7 April 2015. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  52. ^ "Pulse Generator Pastry, NY Mix—Salon 94". Salon94. Archived from the original on 28 January 2021. Retrieved 28 June 2013.

Sources

Further reading

External links