No wave
No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene which emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City.[4][5] The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music.[6] Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and roll clichés, no wave musicians instead experimented with noise, 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.
This article is about the music genre. For the album by Music Revelation Ensemble, see No Wave (album).No wave
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]
Etymology[edit]
There are different theories about how the term was coined. Some suggest Lydia Lunch coined the term in an interview with Roy Trakin in New York Rocker.[17] Others suggest it was coined by Chris Nelson (of Mofungo and The Scene Is Now) in New York Rocker.[18][19] Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth claimed to have seen the term spray-painted on CBGB's Second Avenue Theater at 66 Second Avenue before seeing it in the press.[20]
Early forerunners[edit]
Nihilist Spasm Band were an early noise music/noise rock[21] band from the 1960s. Their debut record No Record, released in 1968, has been described as being a '60s precursor to no wave, with its 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]
The Velvet Underground, a 1960s New York City band, are also seen as early contributors to the no wave movement. As described by Pitchfork's Marc Masters: "Mixing the noisy rock leanings of Lou Reed, the minimalist drones of John Cale (via his work with avant-garde pioneer LaMonte Young), and the art world influence of Andy Warhol's Factory, this seminal band provided a comprehensive model for No Wave."[24]
Captain Beefheart's polarizing brand of 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.."
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[edit]
In 1978, a punk subculture-influenced noise series was held at New York's Artists Space.[29] No wave musicians such as the Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars, DNA, Theoretical Girls and Rhys Chatham began experimenting with noise, 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, Rhys Chatham curated a concert at The Kitchen with two electric guitar noise music bands that involved Glenn Branca (Theoretical Girls and Daily Life, performed by Branca, Barbara Ess, Paul McMahon, and Christine Hahn) and another two electric-guitar noise music bands that involved Chatham himself (The Gynecologists and Tone Death, performed by Robert Appleton, Nina Canal, Chatham, and Peter Gordon). Tone Death performed Chatham's 1977 composition for electric guitars Guitar Trio, that was inspired by La Monte Young's minimalist masterpiece Trio for Strings and Chatham's exposure to 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 Liquid Liquid, the B-52's, Cristina, Arthur Russell, James White and the Blacks and Lizzy Mercier Descloux developed a dance-oriented style described by Lucy Sante as "anything at all + disco bottom".[37] Other no-wave groups such as Swans, Suicide, Glenn Branca, the Lounge Lizards, Bush Tetras and Sonic Youth instead continued exploring the forays into noise music abrasive territory.[38] For example, Noise Fest was an influential festival of no wave noise music performances curated by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth at the New York City art space White Columns in June 1981. Sonic Youth made their first live appearances at this show.[39] It inspired Speed Trials, the noise rock five-night concert series held May 4–8, 1983, that was organized by Live Skull members in May 1983, also at White Columns (then located at 91 Horatio Street). Among an art installation created by David Wojnarowicz and Joseph Nechvatal, Speed Trials included performances by the Fall, Sonic Youth,[40] Lydia Lunch, Mofungo, Ilona Granet, pre-rap Beastie Boys, 3 Teens Kill 4, Elliott Sharp as Carbon, Swans, the Ordinaires, and Arto Lindsay[41] as Toy Killers. On May 10, the San Francisco noise-punk band Flipper closed the series out with a live concert at Studio 54. This event also included performances by Zev and Eric Bogosian and a video presentation by Tony Oursler. Speed Trials was followed by the short-lived after-hours 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[edit]
Cinema[edit]
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[edit]
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 Barbara Ess's Just Another Asshole show and subsequent compilation projects and Colab's organization of The Real Estate Show, The Times Square Show,[44][45] and the Island of Negative Utopia show at 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]