The No Wave/No Wave Revival Desk

I'll take one of those candies.

Also refer to the New Wave, Post-Punk & American Underground Desk.

LucieAndCo said:
Candy's great, but I'm sensing more and more Slight Cases Of Overlapping 'round here these days (see Indie Pop), especially if we now have a desk that shares responsibilities for post-punk and electro, essentially not exactly closely related. How will anyone ever know where to go any more?

This thread will have to be renamed. But I still don't see the overlap between C-86 and modern indie pop. :)

Anyway, go to the front page and click on the shoegaze album cover. It'll take you to a locked menu, which points you to:

The right MAC Desk.
Artist discussions at Music Talk (sister site).
Any relevant online reference.

It's getting there. :)

Sorry for derailing the desk theinvisibleace. You may want to re-open a No Wave desk. I can't see the need for any more electronic desks, we have electronica and electroclash.

We'll get there. :)

If someone appears at the indie pop desk and asks about The Pastels, we should be directing him over to C-86 prompto.

No Wave could be a standalone, but it'd also have to cover any revival bands (like Ex-Models). The Punk/Punk Revival desk works quite well doing the same. It'd also serve the purpose of keeping no wave queries away from the post-punk desk (which is huge enough already).

:)

Music overlaps, and we should accept (read:embrace) that fact. The genre desks are always going to have a bit of fuzziness at the edges (to mix a metaphor), and after all: isn't arguing about shit like "isn't Jonny Marr a jangle guitarist" what makes a music nerd a music nerd?

One could argue, though, that genres are defined as much by place and time as they are by sound. Even though Roger McGuinn sounds like a jangle guitarist (and is the inspiration for so many of them) you really wouldn't call the Byrds a jangle band. It's sort of the same reason that Deerhoof isn't a no-wave (but a no-wave revival) group.

These are, what I think, are good examples of no wave, for anyone who isn't clear on what this movement means.

James Chance and the Contortions- Contort Yourself
ESG- Dance
Theoretical Girls- Nato
Glenn Branca- Structure
Mars- Helen Forsdale
Liquid Liquid- Cavern
Lizzy Mercier Descloux- Mission Impossible
Suicide- Rocket USA
Metal Urbain- Lady Coca Cola
Swans- New Mind
The Birthday Party- Friend Catcher
Pussy Galore- Ventillator Blues
Pink & Brown- So Long Special Treat
Lightning Bolt- Ride The Sky
Arab on Radar- St. Patrick's Gay Parade
Old Time Relijun- Cuneform
Deerhoof- Panda Panda Panda

post note: I should note that these are tracks, not albums. If you would like albums, let me know and I can get that done for you as well. Cheers!

My no-wave album of the week:

James Chance & The Contortions - Buy The Contortions


Picks
I Don't Want To be Happy
Design To Kill
Contort Yourself

I guess next week, Queen of Siam.

oh shit, I had theoretical girls on there actually. I must have deleted it by accident. I really like the material I've heard from them. It's stellar. But I stand by lightning bolt. The newer stuff isn't as no wave, but they are still very, very no wave in my opinion. Everything is to the forefront. Where can you begin to access a lightning bolt album? From the first wall of noise? From the sliding bass playing of Gibson or the hellfury drumming of Chippendale? They personify some of what I believe is the new essence of the no wave revival movement than lightning bolt. Plus, listening to the louder stuff that came from the movement, the touchstones are there. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

Also, in re: pattismith, your point is valid. This is not a mea culpa, but you're right. I'm not personally a huge lydia lunch fan, but I think that's just me. I get her, I understand her importance. I just never got that into her solo stuff. teenage jesus is fine, but that's because of the backing band, not her.

Easy Doors to No Wave.

Anyone who listens to it knows that this is not the most accessible movement of all time. I'll post an album every week or so that is actually very accessible yet still is in the movement. Cyclob has posted a challenging yet very accessible record above with the contortions. This is my addition.

ESG- A South Bronx Story



Tracks:
Dance
Erase You
Parking Lot Blues
Moody (Spaced Out)
It's Alright

If anyone can find for me a reasonably-priced Buy the Contortions, I will take their hand in marriage.

This desk's been quiet here as of late, so if I may, I'd like to offer two pieces of post to anyone interested:

One: There was an issue somebody above seemed to have had with No Wave's legitimacy as a genre, or it's definability (is that even a word?). Just to add my two cents - As someone mentioned before, genre has probably as much, if not more to do with time and place as it does to sound and style. To elaborate on that, I also think that Genre has as much to do with the people doing it as it does with all of the above - and the mentality behind that which they were doing. I think No Wave is a fantastic example of this (as is post-punk, Indie, and just about every genre with "post-" or "neo-" in front of it). These "genres" reflect time periods and movements as much, and in many cases more so, than they reflect the music or each artist's relation to each other.
The point is that No Wave isn't a genre, in the sense that anybody could define it using musical terms. No Wave was a movement that encompassed music, cinema, literature, and other artsy activities (like pornography - as artsy as it could be). Personally, I think No Wave was the closest underground music has come to the original punk days - with Andy Warhol, MC5, the Stooges, etc - in the sense that it was a reaction against the current state of music, and it was something people did to counteract that. The people making this music, and expressing their ideas through these other mediums, were all connected by the places they were (in No Wave's case, New York) and their similar ideologies and ideals. Musically, these bands may not have had anything in common on a technical level - they were just reacting against what they saw as a blemish on the artistic value of music.

That said, i offer you this week's recommendation:



Honeymoon in Red

This album is my favorite of all Lydia Lunch albums. I'll grant you that it's probably because of the vocal duets with Nick Cave, as this album featured all the important members of The Birthday Party (Rowland Howard, Tracey Pew, Nick Cave). And you can totally tell, too. There is a distinct blues and southern influence on this album, as compared to other Lydia Lunch releases, as that sort of edge has been present to all music that Nick Cave and Rowland Howard has made.
This is an album that demands your attention and keeps it. Combining the best elements of punk, Cabaret, and enough experimentalism to keep your head in a tizzy throughout. The piano touches add that grace that Lydia Lunch's other material sorely lacks (even if that is what makes her so good) and Cave's vocals seem to satisfy her own in their dryness. She still seems the forefront of everything, perhaps the only person who seems to hold Cave by a string and make him dance and sing.

Choice Cuts:
Some Velvet Morning
Done Dun
Three Kings

PS - you will see me spamming this album EVERYWHERE.

My pick of the week:

Garage Rock gone bad...

Penance Soiree (2004)



Choice Cuts:
On The Lash
White Devil
Virgin Velco