RhoDeo 1134 Aetix

Hello, todays Aetix is exploring the short but not so sweet story of No Wave, underground music, film, performance art, video We started out with the grand old lady of No Wave, Patti Smith, subsequently the no wave spawned Sonic Youth, last week and today a closer look at the original No Wave Scene.
In 1978 a punk-influenced noise series was held at New York’s Artists Space that led to a compilation by Eno that defined the scene, No New York. Among others it delivers a taster to the saxophone twisting James Chance who conspiring with the Contortions sees you jerk to their first, BUY. Some more thoughtful jazz funk by the brilliant Lurie and his Lounge Lizards and to close on what i can offer on No Wave, The Bush Tetra's which deserved a better deal then they got, maybe the girls (sub)consciously shied away from any of that inevitably sexist limelight.

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No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City.The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre.

No Wave is not a clearly definable musical genre with consistent features. Various groups drew on such disparate styles as funk, jazz, blues, punk rock, avant garde, and experimental. There are, however, some elements common to most No Wave music, such as abrasive atonal sounds, repetitive driving rhythms, and a tendency to emphasize musical texture over melody.

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No New York is the famous compilation produced by endlessly talented Brian Eno which documents the New York post-punk/noise movement known as "No Wave". "No Wave" of course is an artistic rejection of the glam-rock inspired new wave movement at the time. That Eno's early career was considered glam-rock only helps to show how board his artistic appreciation of all music is, it's so different from what he usually works with yet makes perfect sense.

The album is composed of four sets of four songs, each set by a different artist. What all the artists share is a penchant for noisy, dissonant, confrontational post-punk informed music. However the artists are all quite different in their approaches and personalities.

James Chance and the Contortions' set is a lot of fun. Loud completely out of tune saxes skronk endlessly as Chance spews forth a relentless vocal assault over heavy loopy bass lines. The complete disregard for convention in every sense is what makes this group so captivating; Chance clearly doesn't care what you think.

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks is the odd one out in this collection. Their sound is more unrefined than other artists on this disc. They sound like a sloppy goth post-punk group. They lack the strong rhythms and high activity of other artists on this disc, instead relying on caustic-creepiness, a stripped-down sound, and singer Lydia Lunch's truly jarring vocal delivery. Not my cup of tea, but I can see why Eno included them from a historical perspective.

Mars is an interesting act. The standout from their set is the instrumental/ambient experimentalism displayed on "Hairwaves". Other tracks like "Puerto Rican Ghost" feature attacks of noisy feedback and dissonant male/female vocals which succeed by being as interesting and propulsive as they are strange and off-putting.

D.N.A.'s use of electronics along with the signature No Wave dissonance and feedback makes them unique in this collection. "Not Moving" is so weird, everything sounds wrong (in a good way), guitars are abused and the whole thing is just fascinating.

Overall the collection succeeds as it is billed, as the official go-to document of the New York No Wave scene circa late `70s,

VA - No New York (78 flac  297mb)

James Chance & The Contortions
01 Dish It Out 3:17
02 Flip Your Face 3:13
03 Jaded 3:49
04 I Can't Stand Myself 4:52

Teenage Jesus & The Jerks
05 Burning Rubber 1:45
06 The Closet 3:53
07 Red Alert 0:34
08 Woke Up Dreaming 3:10

Mars
09 Helen Fordsdale 2:30
10 Hairwaves 3:43
11 Tunnel 2:41
12 Puerto Rican Ghost 1:08

D.N.A.
13 Egomaniac's Kiss 2:11
14 Lionel 2:07
15 Not Moving 2:40
16 Size 2:13

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Born and raised in Milwaukee and Brookfield, Wisconsin, Chance attended Michigan State University, then the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee, dropped out and moved to New York City in 1976. He quickly became active in both the free jazz and no wave punk rock scenes.His first band in New York in 1976 was an instrumental quartet with violin, drums and bass called Flaming Youth. After studying for a short time under David Murray, Chance formed The Contortions, who fused jazz improvisation and funk rhythms, with live shows often ending in violence when Chance would confront audience members. The Contortions reached a wider audience with their contribution to the Brian Eno-compiled No New York collection of No Wave acts

The Contortions were one of the most important -- and accessible -- bands in New York's short-lived No Wave movement, playing a noisy, clattering avant-funk that drew from punk and free jazz. The group was formed in 1977 by the flamboyantly dressed vocalist/saxophonist James Chance (born James Siegfried), also featuring guitarists Pat Place and Jody Harris, organist Adele Bertei, bassist George Scott, and drummer Don Christensen. The Contortions' live shows embodied the nihilistic ethos of No Wave, as Chance actively picked fights with the audience. The group contributed four tracks to the seminal Brian Eno-produced No Wave compilation No New York in 1978; the following year, Buy the Contortions marked their official album debut, by which time Chance was being billed ahead of the group name. Aside from a few live recordings, the original Contortions lineup didn't release much more material.

Chance used most of the group for his funk/disco project James White & The Blacks (with the album Off White also appearing in 1979), and although he continued to lead versions of the Contortions through the early '80s.Frictions between Chance and band members led to a breakup of the Contortions in the fall of 1979. Aiming for a truer funk sound, Chance moved on to a new project with James White and the Blacks, releasing albums in 1980 (Off-White, featuring Lydia Lunch under the pseudonym Stella Rico) and 1982 (Sax Maniac). Subsequently Chance withdrew from public visibility for over a decade, before reappearing in the mid-1990s. Releasing several albums for ROIR, Live In New York, Lost Chance, Molotov Cocktail Lounge, SoulExorcism and White Cannibal, with mixed response.

In 2001, Chance reunited with original Contortions members Jody Harris (guitar), Pat Place (slide guitar) and Don Christensen (drums) for a few limited engagements. The reunited group has played twice at the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival. In addition to limited engagements with the original Contortions, Chance occasionally performs and records with the Chicago band Watchers. In Europe he performs with James Chance & Les Contorsions, French musicians who have been his backing band since 2006.

James Chance and The Contortions – Buy (79 flac 324mb)

01 Design To Kill 2:48
02 My Infatuation 2:21
03 I Don't Want To Be Happy 3:23
04 Anesthetic 3:54
05 Contort Yourself 4:25
06 Throw Me Away 2:45
07 Roving Eye 3:10
08 Twice Removed 3:05
09 Bedroom Athlete 4:17
Bonus Tracks
10 Throw Me Away (Live) 3:04
11 Twice Removed (Live) 3:12
12 Jailhouse Rock (Live) 3:23


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As a Grammy-nominated film score composer ( Get Shorty ), bandleader, record label founder, and non-existent bluesman, Lurie found his highest moments of creative collaboration and adulation. His Lounge Lizards, with pianist and brother Evan, required new hyphenates for description; no-wave, punk-jazz. His writing graduated from Monk-inspired, warp-speed atonal bursts complemented by the scattershot guitar of masters like Marc Ribot to tightly composed sections of contrapuntal tension that gave way to improvised release, often with a sly sense of humor implicit in the notes or explicit in song titles and stage banter.

Lounge Lizards were founded on June 4, 1979 with John Lurie, his brother Evan (piano and organ), Arto Lindsay (guitar), Steve Piccolo (bass guitar), and Anton Fier (drums). They were initially a punk or fake jazz group but soon evolved into something quite special. Taking music from all corners of the globe and synthesizing it into something truly organic and unique. The New York Times' Robert Palmer wrote (October 7, 1986): "The present-day Lounge Lizards are not faking anything. They have staked their claim to a musical territory that lies somewhere west of Charles Mingus and east of Bernard Hermann and made it their own."

In 1984 the new group consists of Erik Sanko, Curtis Fowlkes, Marc Ribot, Evan Lurie, Roy Nathanson, Dougie Bowne, E.J Rodriguez. This edition of the Lounge Lizards recorded three albums in two years, and demonstrated John Lurie's increasingly sophisticated and multi-layered compositions that often stray rather far from conventional jazz: He was able to integrate elements of various world musics (he often favors tango-inspired passages in his songs), which retain a distinctive flavor, but avoid gimmickry.

John Lurie formed a new version of the Lounge Lizards in the early 1990s; prominent members included Steven Bernstein (trumpet), Michael Blake (saxophone), Oren Bloedow (bass guitar), David Tronzo (guitar), Calvin Weston (drums) and Billy Martin (percussion). They toured Europe which resulted in Live In Berlin mixed in Paris and mastered in New York

In the chronology of the band, 1998 seems to be one of the higher points; playing sold-out shows in the U.S. , Europe and Asia, Queen of All Ears is released, and yet a year later there seems to be a collision of interests. The reason John Lurie is a chameleon, he directed the cult classic Fishing With John, he’s been a composer and actor for films such as Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law. In 1994 when Lurie was diagnosed with an unusual strain of Lyme disease, he faced unpredictable energy levels, John was unable to continue making music or acting. Devastated and housebound, Lurie began to paint—he has always dabbled in visual art, but now it’s become his main creative outlet. His colourful gouaches, with their amusing titles and odd themes have found their public.

The Lounge Lizards - The Lounge Lizards (81 flac 235mb)

01 Incident On South Street 3:21
02 Harlem Nocturne 2:04
03 Do The Wrong Thing 2:39
04 Au Contraire Arto 3:22
05 Well You Needn't 1:53
06 Ballad 3:22
07 Wangling 2:58
08 Conquest Of Rar 3:12
09 Demented 2:01
10 I Remember Coney Island 3:27
11 Fatty Walks 2:51
12 Epistrophy 4:12
13 You Haunt Me 3:40

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New York's Bush Tetras had a no wave link, via guitarist Pat Place's association with James Chance, but the band's sound was neither frantic nor disjointed enough to be properly categorized with those bands. They played scrappy post-punk, with fellow Americans Pylon and Konk as close contemporaries. If there's any one song the Bush Tetras are known for, it's 1980's "Too Many Creeps" -- the band's most representative song and also the catchiest, made by the kind of jagged rhythms, slicing guitars, and sniping vocals that were used throughout their short lifespan.

After guitarist Pat Place, bassist Laura Kennedy, drummer Dee Pop, and singer Cynthia Sley made their debut with an EP centered around "Too Many Creeps," signed with the U.K.'s Stiff label, and recorded another EP, Rituals, produced by the Clash's Topper Headon. The live cassette Wild Things, which included a cover of John Lennon's "Cold Turkey," was released by ROIR in 1983. By this stage, the Bush Tetras -- along with Konk, fellow New Yorkers Talking Heads, and Manchester's A Certain Ratio -- went outside the realm of Western music for inspiration. This same year involved the exits of Kennedy and Pop and an eventual split.

Post-breakup, most of the members went on to short-lived groups. A while after these less significant projects dissolved, ROIR compiled all of the Bush Tetras' studio recordings and threw in some demos for Better Late Than Never. ROIR being ROIR, it too was a cassette-only release.

Boom in the Night, another retrospective on the by-then-evolved ROIR, functioned as a CD version of Better Late Than Never, with all but one track from the earlier release included. The original quartet regrouped in 1996 to record Beauty Lies. Produced by funk-rock pioneer Nona Hendryx, Beauty Lies is a little smoother than the quartet's original work.Unfortunately, this surprisingly effective reunion fell on deaf ears commercially, and the Bush Tetras broke up again.

Beginning in 2005, they again began performing in New York City and (in the summer of 2006) in Europe.

Bush Tetras - Boom in the Night (flac 335mb)

01 Cowboys In Africa 2:54
02 Things That Go Boom In The Night 4:26
03 You Can't Be Funky 2:44
04 Snakes Crawl 3:36
05 Rituals 3:57
06 Moonlite 3:17
07 You Taste Like The Tropics 1:32
08 Das Ah Riot 4:14
09 Too Many Creeps 4:02
10 Dum Dum 3:02
11 Stand Up And Fight 4:39
12 Who's Gonna Pay 3:39
13 It's So Weird 4:50
14 Funky (Instrumental) 2:41

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elsewhere

James White and the Contortions - Second Chance (80 ^ 87mb)

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