By spring of 1986, I had deduced from my research at the public library that there was something weirder and better than good ol' Punk: it was a disjointed, surrealistic deconstruction of rock perpetrated by antisocial characters with names like Lydia Lunch and James Chance called No Wave. The rhetoric and pictures sure looked good in books and magazines, so the search began. By the summer of that year I had procured used copies of the Contortions and James White and the Blacks albums (four dollars each) as well as ROIR cassette-only releases by the Contortions and 8 Eyed Spy.
James Chance was an ornery character. His shrill, dissonant saxophone playing and petulant vocal tirades reeked of nihilism and lent a clearly sadomasochistic edge to the thin, jarring mutant funk of his backing bands. I used to stare at the back of James White and the Blacks (the Contortions 'disco' alter-ego) LP and wonder who the hell these weird people were: Pat Place, Tad Among (actually Kristian Hoffman, the keyboardist from the Mumps), Anya Phillips, George Scott, Stella Rico (Lydia Lunch incognito, her portrait consisting only of a set of bound, black stockinged legs) ... the whole milieu just seemed so goddamn PUERILE! As a kid, this was all very 'New York City' in my mind - a fucked up, sleazy place where outcasts gravitated and did their misanthropic thangs and actually thrived ... of course, now, NYC is merely a haven for the rich and debauched, a mere shell culturally of what it was once, but at the time the city's allure was dangerous and perverse in nature.
Lydia Lunch fascinated me. She was an exotic creature - only 18 years old in '78, sexually smouldering, with raven-black tresses - who seemed to utterly despise everything on the planet and did so with unerring articulation and intensity. The ultimate babe! Her 'rock mama' vocals on the 8 Eyed Spy tape were cool, but the shit hit the fan in early 1987 when I ordered her 2 LP Hysterie retrospective album from CD Presents Records. Teenage Jesus and the Jerks sounded exactly the way I knew they'd sound: minimal, cacophonous and terrifying. One reviewer once likened her ultra-assaultive guitar tone to 'a Chilean torture chamber', and I found that comparison completely accurate. Lydia's lyrics were completely alienated and nightmarish visions of abuse and death. Teenage Jesus was a slasher movie as music. I was hooked.
I read about DNA and Mars as footnotes in various geeky rock reference guides from the period. Both group's releases would prove much more difficult to track down. Luckily, Lydia's Widowspeak Productions imprint issued a rather lo-fi and reverb-laden Mars anthology entitled 78, which I got at my local record store in early '88. Mars seemed to be the result of waaaay too much LSD taking. Their lyrics shifted from reality straight into hallucinatory vision and their music corroborated this. Their drummer Nancy Arlen was bordering on inept and couldn't (or wouldn't) play anything resembling a rock backbeat; the guitars buzzed and reeked of filth and decay; and the inhuman, retarded vocals pushed the whole thing past the point of no return: Mars made ANTI-music with sociopathic glee. The DNA EP A Taste of DNA turned out to be in stock at a New York based indie distributor called NMDS (or New Music Distribution Service). I think i paid $8.98 for it via mail order in March '88. I was extremely pleased when it arrived. This 12" EP had 6 'songs' on it and barely lasted 10 minutes, but I couldn't have been happier with the chaotic guitar raking, tumbling drums and oddly lyrical bass playing holding the whole mess together. Once again, the band looked like a bunch of disparate freaks: an Asian woman on drums, some really nerdy guy on vocals and guitar and a lecherous looking bass player. I could strongly relate to the motley crew element of the No Wavers ... this was true individualism without the dress code of punk ...
The elusive No Wave Holy Grail remained the classic 1978 compilation No New York, produced by Brian Eno. I had read so much about it and heard all the bands, but my lust for more of this warped noise was hitting fever pitch. I wised the fuck up around early '89, walked into my local record store, flipped through the pages of the Schwann catalog (at the time, a reference guide to what was readily available from record distributors), pointed at a listing for the album and asked the clerk, 'Can i order this?' They said, 'Yeah, it'll be here on Tuesday.' I couldn't believe it was that EASY. For a long time, most people just assumed No New York was completely out-of-print: well, I know it was available until - at least - the late '90s, just sitting there in the warehouse, waiting to be ordered. I came back the next week, plunked down my $9.98 and that was that. I'm not going to say much more about it, but it's a great fucking record. If you like weird rock music, this is one of the foundations and it still sounds fresh and iconoclastic to this very day. There is a real grittiness here that is mostly lacking from today's neo-no wave experience - it think it has to do with eating fucking DIRT, not graduating from a liberal arts college ... Go ahead, listen to it. Those were different times.
By the late '90s, Antilles Records - the label which released No New York and a division of Island Records - was owned by Polygram Records and due to a technicality, the rights to No New York languished in the 'jazz' division of the daddy label. People like Atavistic Records and Henry Rollins were interested in acquiring the rights to the album, but Polygram's Jazz wing thought they had something to be ransomed off and kept raising the asking price every time someone new inquired about it. Now there's a legit Japanese CD version (far superior sounding to the original vinyl) and a few sketchy 'Russian' bootlegs, but for a while, it seemed like this seminal release was in serious limbo.
Now with the interweb, we have nothing but instant gratification ... but if it's all free and instantaneous, is it really worth anything? No New York is a slice of a bygone era - I ask you downloaders, what does it mean to you right now? Can it possibly mean as much to you as it did to me back in '89? I'm not claiming that struggling and searching to have to find music makes the experience innately better, but does all this free music floating around actually have an impact, or is it all just another download waiting around on the old iPod waiting to be listened to cursorily before moving on to the next thing? I would hate to think that's all this revolutionary music means now. This is not a challenge; it's a discourse. Leave a comment.
- Weasel Walter, 2.11.10"
Thanks to Alice Cohen for lending me her own well-worn copy of this record. I've been collecting records since the mid 90s and I have yet to see one for sale at any price.
Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, No New York.
No New York (Antilles)
2. Flip Your Face (Contortions)
3. Jaded (Contortions)
4. I Can't Stand Myself (Contortions)
5. Burning Rubber (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks)
6. The Closet (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks)
7. Red Alert (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks)
8. I Woke Up Dreaming (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks)
9. Helen Forsdale (Mars)
10. Hairwaves (Mars)
11. Tunnel (Mars)
12. Puerto Rican Ghost (Mars)
13. Egomaniac's Kiss (DNA)
14. Lionel (DNA)
15. Not Moving (DNA)
16. Size (DNA)
