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Naked City
1,182,967 plays (61,759 listeners)
New York City, New York, United States (1988 – 1993, 2003 – 2003)
Naked City was an avant-garde music group from New York City, New York, United States led by saxophonist and composer John Zorn, performed from 1988 to 1993. The ensemble was notable for remaining unconfined to any musical category, juxtaposing unrelated styles of music often within individual compositions at breakneck speed. Its music incorporated recognizable elements of jazz, grindcore, surf, classical, thrash, country music, punk rock and other genres. Carl Stalling has been cited as an influence on Zorn and the work of Naked City.
An embryonic version of Naked City appeared on Rubaiyat: Elektra’s 40th Anniversary (1990). Zorn was joined by singer Yamatsuka Eye, guitarist Robert Quine, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and drummer Ted Epstein, for a spastic, caterwauling version of The Stooges’ “T.V. Eye”.
In Naked City’s characteristic early style, songs were often performed at astonishingly fast tempos, drawing heavily on thrash metal and hardcore punk’s emphasis on extreme speed. Many songs were quite brief, and typically switched musical genres every few measures, perhaps comparable to spinning a radio dial at random and hearing the same band performing on every station. One critic described Naked City’s music as “jump-cutting micro-collages of hardcore, country, sleazy jazz, covers of John Barry and Ornette Coleman, brief abstract tussles — a whole city crammed into two or three minute bursts.” This fast-change tendency was inspired in part by Carl Stalling — a Zorn favorite — who wrote music for many Warner Brothers cartoons (featuring Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and others); music that featured frequent shifts in tempo, theme and style.
An embryonic version of Naked City appeared on Rubaiyat: Elektra’s 40th Anniversary (1990). Zorn was joined by singer Yamatsuka Eye, guitarist Robert Quine, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and drummer Ted Epstein, for a spastic, caterwauling version of The Stooges’ “T.V. Eye”.
In Naked City’s characteristic early style, songs were often performed at astonishingly fast tempos, drawing heavily on thrash metal and hardcore punk’s emphasis on extreme speed. Many songs were quite brief, and typically switched musical genres every few measures, perhaps comparable to spinning a radio dial at random and hearing the same band performing on every station. One critic described Naked City’s music as “jump-cutting micro-collages of hardcore, country, sleazy jazz, covers of John Barry and Ornette Coleman, brief abstract tussles — a whole city crammed into two or three minute bursts.” This fast-change tendency was inspired in part by Carl Stalling — a Zorn favorite — who wrote music for many Warner Brothers cartoons (featuring Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and others); music that featured frequent shifts in tempo, theme and style.
Top Albums
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Torture Garden
Naked City
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Radio
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Grand Guignol
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Naked City Live Vol. 1 - Knitting Factory 1989
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Shoutbox
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yayforelmo wrote:
i've got these tagged as john zorn 'cos of spotify, but yeah, one of the all time great rock/avantgarde/jazz/metal/any-genre bands.
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WillOtheWisp666 wrote:
sure as hell it is! And Grand Guignol is a good opening, as well as a great stand alone track, evil as hell. Man, it's impossible to convince my classmates just how good this band is. One of them said "this is just noise, it's not even real instruments, it's just a bunch of noises made on the computer" lol. And we're talking Speedfreaks here, lol.
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Master_ov_Khaos wrote:
Gob of Spit is the best album closing ever.
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Rareform wrote:
Bonehead was awesome in Funny Games. Great band.
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WillOtheWisp666 wrote:
indeed [2]
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ArystMeriadok wrote:
cool!
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innercities wrote:
I just wanted to state the same, now I won't care about how to express it =)
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Venerea wrote:
indeed
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Master_ov_Khaos wrote:
Leng Tch'e is really great.
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akzincke wrote:
Going back listening to some old stuff... This band reminds me of playing shitty computer games and drinking sherry or whatever we could steal. Still mindblowing and hilariously good.
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schoenburger wrote:
They are not the best band ever. They are not even the best band Fred Frith, Bill Frisell and Yamantaka Eye have worked with. They are just a good band. But if they are your favourite band, then good for you.
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WillOtheWisp666 wrote:
Listen to them for a year. Maybe they'll grow on you even more and you'll realize- they're the BEST BAND EVER.
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rotovick wrote:
El Zorn esta re loko! papá
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schoenburger wrote:
They aren't the best band ever, but Torture Garden is one of the sexiest albums ever.
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Overspeculated wrote:
Well, many same the same of their favourite band. ;) (I had a huge list with each word linking to a different artist but then I realised that this doesn't work.)
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WillOtheWisp666 wrote:
Obviously the best project EVER. No exceptions. This IS the GREATEST BAND. EVER. Anybody who disagrees is completely wrong.
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schoenburger wrote:
This is obviously John Zorn's best project.
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Overspeculated wrote:
I, for some reason, can't seem be able to move on from the self-titled. I have Torture Garden but I just can't seem to find it in me to put enough effort into listening to it attentively.
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WillOtheWisp666 wrote:
They also need more fucking listeners! I'm hoping that the reason they have so little is because lots of people are tagging them as "John Zorn" (which I did for a while). But this band is literally the greatest band ever. Please, people, don't just listen to the Self-Titled, I don't care if you go and download "Grand Guignol", "Radio", "Heretic", and "Absinthe"... even buy the Box Set off Tzadik... just LISTEN TO THIS BAND.
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WillOtheWisp666 wrote:
Why why why why why why why the fuck WHY is Heretic and Radio so fucking UNDERRATED???? FOOLS! Those albums are complete masterpieces by the greatest band EVER.
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Recent Activity
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Skywalker560 added Naked City to Skywalker560’s library. yesterday evening
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kamini22 tagged Naked City with extreme jazz, weird, experimental and 9 other tags. yesterday afternoon
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Mekakakaka, humanki and djaymaxx added Naked City to their libraries. yesterday morning
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Painkiller_JP tagged Naked City with avant-garde jazz, grindcore, jazz and 2 other tags. Tuesday afternoon
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monikmonikmonik added Naked City to monikmonikmonik’s library. Tuesday morning
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purplerain6 tagged Naked City with ‘experimental’. Tuesday morning
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CaptureRelease tagged Naked City with free jazz, jazzcore, grindcore and 2 other tags. Monday evening
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andreyaa2, GianluCha, thomasvdr and 2 other people added Naked City to their libraries. Monday evening
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dying_inside tagged Naked City with american, grindcore, jazz and 2 other tags. Sunday evening
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BloodkillerJak, SxHxCx, Asmasis and 5 other people added Naked City to their libraries. Sunday afternoon
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Naked City
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