MOMENTS IN NO WAVE: Liars of Brooklyn fame have been known for dark and/or dance punky stylings. Their first album is something like "they threw us in a trench..." i forget the rest of it and don't wanna look it up. clearly it had little effect on me, yet what got me loving this band at all was this little album: They Were Wrong, So we Drowned.
I got this album kind of on a whim- it was the end/summer following my junior year of high school, which was a year riddled with mono and emaciated exhaustion and thusly a year where i listened to a lot of random things. Little did i know this was going to be one of my all time favorite albums. For some reason this is regarded as the band's worst? but i say WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! it's dark and primal and on top of that its a concept album. i fucking love concept albums sometimes. the theme is about witches...primarily the witch trials in the united states. there's some lighthearted numbers like "there's always room on the broom" and "they don't want your corn, they want your kids" (the latter establishing the american landscape via indigenous crops). Then there are some of the darker songs on the album like my favorite one "broken witch", which features cryptic lyrics like "i am the boy, she is the girl, he is the bear" and "we are the army you see through the red haze of bloodbloodbloodbloodblood etc" This song is actually the opener of the album, which prompts many questions about what exactly you're going to be listening to. Perhaps it is meant to display the feelings of some sort of ungodly ritual, the kind that raises eyebrows and points fingers at your exotic slave/housekeeper from "the islands"...she's always trying to get your kids to communicate with the dead you know....and its fucking wrong....MASS HYSTERIA! plus, you know...your crops aren't growing well n' shit and it's gotta be someones fault. Nonetheless, I don't need to tell you what happens...the album embodies the mentality of it all as well as providing the succinct conclusion in its title, which gives all of those wrongfully accused, drowned witches a voice....FINALLY.
errr so musical characteristics of no wave are really varied but focus is generally on the absurd or the just slightly...or massively "contorted". I use contorted here because distorted doesn't really seem to fit the description...and after James Chance's most famous song "Contort Yourself", which remains the mantra of the movement. I would say, take the Velvet Underground's most experimental records/songs i.e. "European Son" and continue to go down this tangent...only make sure you're running...with a chainsaw....... In James Chances (aka James White and the Blacks) music, we can see elements of both punk and rockabilly in his vocals, funk-driven bass, and kind of acid jazz type horn section. All of these different styles play off of one another but most importantly they tear each other apart, yielding a sound that is fragmented, ominous and overtly experimental. Bands like DNA explored a kind of goof on New Wave, which is both dark and cheeky. The band Devo is a clear spawn of DNA in this respect. Regarding advances in electronic music, this does not mean new modes of production but rather the genre of electronic music itself- music that sounds electronic. Suicide is a notable talent in its early stages. They explored electronic drum samples and a slightly dark sound--just tiny seeds in what would soon grow into what is now known as "industrial". However, Suicide, like DNA, is still cheeky in its demeanor...as is all of these artists who are longing to do such daring things with their music. Moving on to the queen, Lydia Lunch remains one of the most prominent figures in the movement. She fronted the band Teenage Jesus & the Jerks along with countless solo projects and collaborations with the likes of The Birthday Party and Sonic Youth. She is also a star of the screen in the "cinema of transgression" movement that accompanied No Wave. What is it? I suppose it's racy, violent, disturbing...you know standard avant-garde fare....which isn't standard at all. All of this begs the question: why listen/watch this crap?
it is a valid issue and perhaps begins to explain why this movement and all of these bands were EXTREMELY short-lived. It's even weirder to think that No Wave's next generation is now some of alternative music's most successful bands: Sonic Youth, Deerhoof, Liars....Yeah Yeah Yeah's?? I can only attempt to explain this through the essence of deconstructionism itself; good music is celebrated for decades as some of the most original and tightly crafted work modern music has seen: Television has meticulous guitar work...so does Led Zeppelin...fuck so does Motorhead. Nowadays we still are in awe of bands like Explosions in the Sky and Lightening Bolt for this very reason. We can even get into classical music, particularly that of "The Enlightenment" when mathematics governed music's most finely executed works. We love this music...we appreciate its care, order and dedication. I feel this love can go both ways: we can love it when it comes together just as much as we can love it when it FALLS APART. i know i do.
The song posted here is "Computer Dating" by the Theoretical Girls, a VERY short-lived no wave band with only one album. The vocals are reminiscent of Lou Reed and then Ian Curtis of Joy Division. I really like this song for this reason as well as the fact that it has a very ominous and troubling feel to it...it is a sound that is both embracing and fearing the modern age. It's also about finding dates on the computer...a subject matter we are all familiar with when you watch tv and theirs a bunch of e-harmony and chemistry.com commercials on. Pretty weird and sad stuff....and a good song.
i've been thinking about doing this for a little while. i am in a no wave phase of things and we just watched "downtown 81 last night. it's this movie that stars the late jean-michel basquiat who is more or less famous for living out the artist cliche of dying young just as he was at the cusp of fame.
so what it is (sentence fragment form, of course): new york city, specifically the lower east side(which at this time is pretty torn-up) aftermath of mid to late 70's, which means disco hangover, which means (believe it or not) RAP music a la fab five freddy et.al. punk hangover means new wave and and early industrial i.e.joy division and suicide (2 differentbands,not referring to suicide of joy division's ian curtis) drugs are prevalent. (still....but with less of the connotation of "excess" like in the disco peak...cocaine joins weed in the whole "i do this cause it makes me creative" thing...or rather...just up your quota of creative output. think the prevalence of speed in warhol's factory.)
so all of this-----> no wave? perhaps....this is the foundation and crucial period of time where which some people might worship the ground someone like Basquiat, James Chance and Lydia Lunch walk upon.
next time: no wave itself. cinema of trangression.
so the moden lovers- there's so much to be said about them.they are favorites of some of my favorites, hannah choe and aaron trammel. there is also subject matter of embracing (or satirizing?) modernity plus the dichotomy of the city and the suburbs: "don't you love the city? dont you love the idea of a city romance?"...but pretty much i'd say their affinity draws from singer jonathan richman who's amazing 'cause he's just this guy who sounds like he's always congested, heart-broken and most importantly, painfully honest. So here's why that's really kickass- he'll mockingly idolize "the cool guy" as if its something out of reach, like Pablo Picasso who was a total slut in his day right? or rather "he walks down the street and girls just can't resist his stare and so Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole"- and he'll act like he's this hopeless case "my telephone never rings, she never calls me. i hate myself today." ya know stuff like that...but all this honesty kinda makes him...a total STUD.
i.e. "you're warm and i'm cold, so i say dance with me alright?"
"ya know the world is cold and hard in the morning- let's keep eachother warm"
stuff of this nature-its blunt, adorable and in my humble opinion, very effective...regarding studliness. even if he does spell girlfriend g-i-r-l-f-r-e-n. a lot of guys like j. richman too cause he handles this whole "emotions" thing perfectly by maintaining a little tongue-in-cheekiness with his slightly relinquished dignity. and isn't that was "modern love" is all about? loss of dignity? whatever, who knows what i'm talking about. in the meantime i'll be listening to good old john.....wistfully.
so what it is- "i'm straight". start with this one(above) cause it's just a cool song about a guy who's totally uncool....and just wants to get stoned: "hippy johnny he's always stoned, he's never straight. i had to call up and say, i wanna take his place."
"hospital"- (below)a little less light-hearted and a bit slow...but all the better to listen to the lyrics in this song. which is what its all about i.e. "i go to bakeries all day long, there's a lack of sweetness in my life". ryo loves this song.
honorable mention: um...well i guess everything but namingly "dignified & old"...i listen to this song when i get overly concerned about my wayward current state, one day i'll grow up and get it all together.
FOR THE KIDS. even those of us who aren't technically kids.
catchy and creepy this is the kind of music you can't help but get excited about-it's pretty much all about genre here. one would think that genre would make something let widely-appealling; the more specific the tone and subject matter, the more the music falls into a niche of sorts. rock n' roll funnels off into "hard rock" which then filters into punk, then rockabilly, then psycho-billy, then horror-themed psychobilly and you have most of the cramps catalog. you would think this distilation process would alienate tons of fans. however, i disagree considering the novelty affect this music tends to have on listeners: campy b-movie horror themes and off-the-wall lyrics will get people listening regardless of whether or not they are fans of rockabilly or psychobilly. i spose we can say the same of the Misfits--they attract lovers of general rock (punk and hardcore included...and people who love b-horror films) no matter how particular. And we all know punk can make people particular, which is why Motorhead was also significant in this respect. Metal that the punks would even listen to? Possible? Yes, but only if your band is fronted by Lemmy, who remains a rock icon to this day no matter what your persuation.
On the theme of distillation- i'll finally sum this up. Genre is great and necessary for all elements of pop culture. It seems like we could all benefit from artists who run with the premise a little more, make a fucking commitment, putting all your energy behind it. With that being said, the Cramps are great, especially this song.
Again, even it you hate it, just listen to these lyrics. There's a whole story going on here where the protagonist puts dissambled parts of his former lover into all of his finest household appliances like some updated Poe story. just listen to it goddam.
i can appreciate beautiful music, though there are some people i used to know who didn't think so. they're like "you should listen/own this CD cause it's really nice...you should listen to some nice music...." and i'm like "ok it's nice...." meanwhile this piece of music does absolutely nothing for me. i can't help what i like...nobody can.
so yea this song...sometimes terrifying can be beautiful and vice versa. around the halfway point, something even more horrifying happens...i'm not sure what it is exactly but it sounds like they added some awful, unearthly groan. it's great. just listen to it even though you hate it. regardless of reaction, it is quite a feat to make the stuff of nightmares;it's easy to assemble everything we'd want to hear-but stuff that scares us takes a certain type of engineering. thats all i got.
but perhaps its journalistic/essayist counterparts do not? writing about music, yay or nay?regardless, the song to the immediate left, although not a difinitive damned song, is stuck in my head. i've been in a kind of 70's first-wave punk phase of things; there really is no getting around the appeal of the damned's first album, if for no other reason than it being fucking FAST. hyperactive, even maniacal,music at this speed is necessary sometimes; cut to me at the gym today going pretty much apeshit to this song along with "fish", "see her tonight" and "neat neat neat" all from this same album. the visceral quality of such music is unmatched for it is more than speed, but rather a certain "hands on" speed that suggests its engineers are somewhere on the brink of mastering, struggling, nearly exploding, thus making it all the more real. after listening to this song, it becomes clear as to who remains one of the black lips' primary influences (note: the beginning of this song and the beginning of the black lips' "M.I.A.")
