DRONE MUSIC

Drone music is a minimalist musical style[2] that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics. La Monte Young, one of its 1960s originators, defined it in 2000 as "the sustained tone branch of minimalism".

Explorers of drone music since the 1960s have included Theater of Eternal Music (aka The Dream Syndicate: La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise, John Cale, et al.), Charlemagne Palestine, Eliane Radigue, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground, Robert Fripp & Brian Eno, Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Stars of the Lid, Earth, Coil, Sonic Boom, Phill Niblock, Sheila Chandra, and Sunn O))).
Ethnic or spiritual music which contains drones and is rhythmically still or very slow, called "drone music", can be found in many parts of the world, including bagpipe traditions, among them Scottish pibroch piping; didgeridoo music in Australia, South Indian classical music and Hindustani classical music (which is accompanied almost invariably by the tambura, a four-string instrument which is only capable of playing a drone); the sustained tones found in the Japanese gagaku classical tradition; possibly (disputed) in pre-polyphonic organum vocal music of late medieval Europe; and the Byzantine chant's ison (or drone-singing, attested after the fifteenth century). Repetition of tones, supposed to be in imitation of bagpipes, is found in a wide variety of genres and musical forms. However, the lineage of stillness and long tones occurring in classical compositions during adagio movements, including, for instance, the third movement of Anton Webern's Five Small Pieces for Orchestra, as well as in Northern European folk musics in the form of "slow airs" has directly descended into modern popular and electronic music in a way which is directly derived from the milieu of La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, John Cale, Charlemagne Palestine and others in 1960s New York.
The modern genre also called drone music (called "dronology" by some books, labels and stores, to differentiate it from ethnic drone-based music) is often applied to artists who have allied themselves closely with underground music and the post-rock or experimental music genres. Drone music also fits into the genres of found sound, minimalist music, dark ambient, drone doom/drone metal, and noise music. Most often utilizing electronic instruments or electronic processing of acoustic instruments, they typically create dense and unmoving harmonies and a stilled or "hovering" sense of time. While the hallmarks of drone music are easy to recognize, the backgrounds and goals of the artists vary greatly.
Pitchfork Media and Allmusic journalist Mark Richardson defined it thus: "The vanishing-point music created by drone elders Phil Niblock and, especially, LaMonte Young is what happens when a fixation on held tones reaches a tipping point. Timbre is reduced to either a single clear instrument or a sine wave, silence disappears completely, and the base-level interaction between small clusters of "pure" tone becomes the music's content. This kind of work takes what typically helps us to distinguish "music" from "sound," discards nearly all of it, and then starts over again from scratch."
As summarized in a review, "Drone music is about as far away from music as you can get before it stops being music In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was oooooommmmmmm. God was, apparently, a drone music pioneer, and there is something religious about this music... or rather, something spiritual.
La Monte Young and the Theater of Eternal Music
La Monte Young, fascinated with "the sound of the wind blowing", the "60 cycle per second drone" of "step-down transformers on telephone poles", the tanpura drone and the alap of Indian classical music, "certain static aspects of serialism, as in the Webern slow movement of the Symphony Opus 21", and Japanese gagaku "which has sustained tones in it in the instruments such as the Sho",[23] started writing music incorporating sustained tones in 1957 with the middle section of Four Brass, then in 1958 what he describes as "the first work in the history of music that is completely composed of long sustained tones and silences"[23] with Trio for Strings, before exploring this drone music within the Theater of Eternal Music that he founded in 1962.
The Theater of Eternal Music is a multi-media performance group who, in its 1960s–1970s heyday included at various times La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise, Terry Jennings, John Cale, Billy Name, Jon Hassell, Alex Dea and others, each from various backgrounds (classical composition and performance, painting, mathematics, poetry, jazz, etc.) and brought with them concepts of the meaning of the music they were involved with as well as audiences who might not have otherwise attended. Operating from the world of lofts and galleries in New York in the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies in particular, and tied to the aesthetics of Fluxus and the post-John Cage-continuum, the group gave performances on the East Coast of the United States as well as in Western Europe comprised long periods of sensory innundation with combinations of harmonic relationships, which moved slowly from one to the next by means of "laws" laid out by Young regarding "allowable" sequencies and simultaneities, perhaps in imitation of Hindustani classical music which he, Zazeela and the others either studied or at least admired. The group released nothing during their lifetime (although Young and Zazeela issued a collaborative LP in 1969, and Young contributed in 1970 one side of a flexi-disc accompanying Aspen magazine). The concerts themselves were influential on their own upon the art world including Karlheinz Stockhausen (whose Stimmung bears their influence most strikingly) and the drone-based minimalist works of dozens of other composers many of whom made parallel innovations including Young classmate Pauline Oliveros, or Eliane Radigue, Charlemagne Palestine, Yoshi Wada, Phill Niblock and many others. Then group member John Cale went on to extend and popularize this work into 1960s rock music with the Velvet Underground (along with songwriter Lou Reed).
In 2000, La Monte Young wrote: "[About] the style of music that I originated, I believe that the sustained tone branch of minimalism, also known as “drone music,” is a fertile area for exploration."
John Cale and the Velvet Underground
The combination of Cale's grinding viola drone with Reed's two-chord guitar figure of the Velvet Underground's song "Heroin" on their first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) laid the foundation for drone music as a Rock music genre in close proximity to the art-world project of the Theatre of Eternal Music.[3] Cale's departure from the group in 1968 blurred matters considerably, as Reed continued to play primitive figures (sometimes in reference to R&B), while Cale went quickly on to produce the Stooges' debut (1969), including his viola drone on the track "We Will Fall" and Nico's The Marble Index (1969) which also included Cale's viola drone on "Frozen Warnings". Later, Lou Reed issued in 1975 a double LP of multi-tracked electric-guitar feedback titled Metal Machine Music which listed (misspelling included) "Drone cognizance and harmonic possibilities vis a vis Lamont Young's Dream Music" among its "Specifications".
George Harrison and the Beatles
Several songs by The Beatles, the most popular and influential group of the 1960s, include drones. Drawing on George Harrison's studies and friendship with Hindustani classical sitarist, Ravi Shankar, from 1966's "Love You To" through 1967's "The Inner Light", many of Harrison's compositions include the tambura, an instrument dedicated in Indian music to harmonic stasis. John Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows", a quasi-mystical song based around text from the Tibetan Book of the Dead also includes the tambura and is sung around a pedal-point drone, as in medieval Western liturgical music.
Krautrock
In the late sixties and early seventies German rock musicians including Can, Neu! and Faust drew from the heritage of experimental sixties rock like the Beatles at their most collagic and jamming as well as from composers like Stockhausen and La Monte Young.[32] These groups became influential on art-rock contemporaries in their own day and punk-rock and post-punk players subsequently.[33][34] Tony Conrad, of the Theater of Eternal Music, notably made a collaborative LP with Faust which included nothing but two sides of complex violin drones accompanied only by a single note on bass guitar and a bloody-minded percussion accompaniment. Single-note bass-lines were also featured on Can's track "Mother Sky" (album Soundtracks, 1970) and the entirety of Die Krupp's first album (1979).
New age, cosmic and ambient music
Parallel to Krautrock's rockist impulses, across North America and Europe, some musicians sought to reconcile Asian classicalism, austere minimalism and folk music's consonant aspects in the service of spiritualism. Among them was Theater of Eternal Music alumnus Terry Riley with his 1964 In C and who had become a disciple, along with Young and Zazeela, of the Hindustani classical singer Pandit Pran Nath. In parallel, then-Krautrock band Tangerine Dream and their recently departed member Klaus Schulze both moved toward a more contemplative and consonant harmonic music, each releasing their own drone music album on Ohr Records in August 1972 (Zeit and Irrlicht, respectively). Meanwhile, as increasingly elaborate studio technology was born during the seventies, Brian Eno, an alumn of the glam/art-rock band Roxy Music postulated ambient music (drawing, in part from John Cage and his antecedent Erik Satie's 1910s concept of furniture music, in part from minimalists such as La Monte Young)[37] as "able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting".[38] While his late seventies ambient tape-music recordings are not drone music, his acknowledgment of Young ("the daddy of us all") and his influence on later drone music made him an undeniable link in the chain.
Shoegaze and indie-drone
In the UK, a crop of 1980s rock bands appeared who owed greater or lesser debts to the Velvet Underground, Krautrock, and subsequent droning trends. Cocteau Twins, Coil, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, Loop (who covered Can's "Mother Sky") Brian Jonestown Massacre (Methodrone album) and Spacemen 3, (who used a text by Young as text for the liner notes to their record Dreamweapon: an evening of contemporary sitar music, a live 45-minute drone piece),for instance reasserted the influence of the Velvet Underground and its antecedents in their use of overwhelming volume and hovering sounds, even as they asserted rockish and propulsive rhythms. Sonic Youth uses a large number of guitars with alternate tunings to emphasise the drone in almost all of their songs. They also quite often prolong notes in their song structures to add more droning in their song. Pelt and Charalambides expanded them further still while referring to eighties and nineties noise music, Metal Machine Music-derived performers like Merzbow, C.C.C.C., and KK Null.
Electronics and metal
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, drone music was intermixed with rock, ambient, dark ambient, electronic and new-age music. Many drone music originators, including Phill Niblock, Eliane Radigue and La Monte Young are still active and continute to work exclusively in long, sustained tones. Meanwhile, however, younger musicians tied to electronic composition like Jliat and Ian Nagoski remain dedicated almost exclusively to drone music, while improvisors like Hototogisu and Sunroof! play nothing but sustained fields which are close to drones. Sunn O))), a drone metal band, almost exclusively plays sustained tone pieces, and their peers Merzbow and Boris released a collaborative 62-minute drone piece called Sun Baked Snow Cave in 2005.

Shitter 03

What’s wrong with music today? Do you really have to fit everything in a genre. Like Indie. Fookin’ Indie. Is it really about the music? Or is it what the people are wearing. Such pretensions. It’s really quite shitty that you listen to a particular kind of music but you need a corresponding footwear or a brand name for it. Fred “Fucking” Perry. I dare you. Wear a Hanes t-shirt and some Vans in a so-called indie gig. You’d see eyes looking at you saying “This ain’t an EMO gig”. Even a goatee is out of place.


Have you noticed lately? Rockstars are squeaky clean and corporate sponsored. I haven’t seen ‘em clad in rat thinned jeans and old shirts or even in battered chucks. It’s all about sponsorships nowadays. Here’s a middle finger from dear Jello!!

Record labels. What does it take to have a record label? I could only see one or two good ones. Indie record labels are quite a story. Lot’s of hard work marketing and circulating the acts but In P.I. (Philippine Islands) it’s a status symbol. I have a record label and I have bands. I’m fookin’ Tony Wilson.

Covering Indie bands. Only in P.I. They’re Indie so they don’t care about the mainstream. Here Indie bands cover indie bands. Covers. So much covers. We’re all fucking monkeys.


Guitar Hero killed Rock and Roll. I’ll take a real guitar anytime. What’s the matter you wimps? Can’t handle the blisters in your fingers? A guitar controller is not an instrument. If you started playing the guitar months ago you could’ve been good by now. I fear the future.

Human Subjects – Hermann Goebells (Steven Hiller Mix)A 25- minute remix of a noise track recorded and preserved in 1935 in Krakow, Poland. The weird noises were taken during the construction of the now infamous Krakow Concentration Camp during its testing and dry run. It’s was known that dogs and rats were the test subjects. The Steven Hiller Remix was recorded live during a gig at Krakow, Poland. They weren’t allowed to have a gig at the actual site due to political reasons.


Musicians make music because they want to. Not to satisfy the masses. Musicians that satisfy the masses are an abomination. Why satisfy someone who doesn’t even know what they’re talking about. Pop has shot itself in the head. Pop musicians in the past won’t make it today because they don’t fit today’s standards. Is it because they’re not talented enough for today’s standards? A big middle finger. NO. The answer is they’re too fucking ugly! Stevie Wonder (does anybody know that a lot of assholes are covering his song?) won’t make it because he’s BLIND. So do Ray Charles. All the handicapped greats. They won’t make it today. You got to have an image. Talent is optional. And we thought Diana Ross was difficult. At least MISS ROSS has the big “T”. Big Aretha won’t make too because she’s too big. Eric “god” Clapton won’t make it because he could play the guitar and not the guitar game pad. I’ll name the who’s who of pop music and music producers would tell them to bugger off if they start auditioning again. Still don’t believe me? Two words. Bob “FUCKING Dylan. That’s three words.

Shitter BLOG

Saw the old STONE ROSES documentary (at the BBC). Manchester Bands. Fookin’ Manchester Bands. They tend to have such promise only to self destruct in the end. We are filled with envy all the way. We wish we could have taken a ride to the downward spiral. But then again, we’re from the Philippines and we cover Manchester bands to death. I hope they all self-destruct or maybe cover something else but damage has already been done. We’re all Manchester band wannabees. Well fook ‘em all. I’m from Salford and that makes a fookin’ big difference.

We’re all suckers for hairstyles. We’re suckers for shoes. We buy because we see some Manchester wanker wearing the same shyte.

Was I a regular at the HACIENDA or THE INTERNATIONAL? Neither. I was probably under the bridge sniffing glue with my fellow bums. I probably wasn’t making music but started when Tony “Fookin” Wilson asked everybody to loot the Hacienda. We was able to get me hands on a (I later discovered as a) 4 track tape recorder, a used acoustic guitar pick-up and some kind of guitar pedal. It has MARKER writing on it that says “HOOKY” (probably the name of the owner). I got all these gear together in me house/room or whatever you may call it and try to get them to work so that I could sell the gear. I tried to make the damn amplifier to work but I ain’t a musician so I tried to record the noise with the tape machine. The rest is not history because I kept the tape until this day and those wankers who heard it say it’s art. Those cunts. They probably read too much Oscar Wilde and watch movies with sub-titles in it or getting too many degrees just for the heck of it.


Please. Not another rock and roll movie. We had enough. Control was the last straw. Why dear Anton? Why? People should leave Joy Division alone. Why not leave Manchester music alone. The cycle would end eventually but make it sooner. I can’t endure a dude wearing a clean “The Smiths” shirt and a “Stone Roses” haircut and a Peter Saville “Adidas” shoes and tracksuit. Let the madness end please.

Another angry female singer/songwriter releases a CD. Does it work? No. Why? Fookin’hell she’s only 20 she hasn’t been through shit. She hasn’t had heroin or even alcohol. The credit goes to the “ghost” songwriter who’s probably old, been through shit and probably suicidal because a wide-eye teeny bopper is going to take credit for her song. Here’s a middle finger from NICO, darling. No? Oh, she’s drugged out and dead. Now that’s rock and roll, baby!


The endless up and down motion punctuated by a hiss of steam a scream of rubbing steel and spark of metal making contact with concrete. Music. Madness. Mayhem. Noise. Like I said, MUSIC.



Review - Hermann Goebells – “Krakow”- (Jean-Paul Newman MIX) Single
“Metal rubbing the concrete makes an intolerable noise which actually makes you cringe as an uncomfortable feeling flows through your veins. You will get goose bumps and there will be gnashing of teeth. Then followed by dizziness and vertigo as your eardrums give out all you can hear in a high pitch signaling the end of hearing. Then your ears bleed in crimson glory”. AURGASM. – Mitch Stevens – Shit Magazine

Shitter 02

Bowery Gig - June 15 1975 – not CBGB.

9:00 – Kicking back with a few beers, snorting a line or two and waiting for things to unravel. The club isn’t much. It was pretty humid on a summer night with a smell of alcohol, cigarettes or even urine inside the club. A band soon to be recognized as “The Shmucks” were finishing their set. 30 songs in 15 minutes. Fast, breakneck, rowdy and loud. The body count? Three injured. One needs to be brought to the hospital. I doubt that they reached their destination. Probably recovered halfway, made a detour and ended up buying speed. Next up was a band whose sound was just endless machine shrieks. Dear Lou must’ve heared them before he made that snappy album dear Lester really loved.

Speed heads were getting really restless. The noise was getting intolerable. No one even hears a bottle break. All they could see was a guy bleeding in the head. A riot ensued. It was insane. It was like a Marx brother silent movie. The noise was drowning everything. Fuck, we didn’t even hear the cops coming. The toll? Several we’re arrested for possession of illegal narcotics, some we’re held for assault and resisting arrest. Tunnel 02 was the band playing that night. The band was responsible for serious aural injuries. New York state hospital reported almost 100 patients with minor ear damage. All of them were coming from the same gig. “Nicey nicey. Fuck ‘em all, Let them ears bleed” Callum White – Tunnel 02 sound engineer .

We give tribute to awesome bands say like Joy Division or The Smiths. So we’re INDIE. But secretly wankers from these bands are listening to 50’s soul music, or even Motown. Or even Bowie. But the so-called indie people don’t even mention Bowie or my evil twin Ziggy Stardust. Why isn’t there a Bowie tribute? Not Indie enough?

New York 1975. It isn’t a fashion statement or a trend that doesn’t need to be revived. It’s not MTV where you recycle trends. It happened. Leave it. Joey Ramone is dead. Leave him.

LP’s sounds definitely better. Digital sucks. Can you stand music without a trace of bass? What’s wrong with your fuckin’ ears.

Only in this country where you can hear Joy Division played by a band note for note. Haunting. Even Joy division couldn’t play their songs note for note. People can’t just leave that guy Ian alone.


Control – Anton Corbijn
If I was dear Anton I wouldn’t make a film about Joy Division. Too sellable. Too many swooning girls in the theater. Too many Joy Division tribute bands.

Band comebacks
It’s like Paul McCartney’s band calling themselves “The Beatles”. Thank god for dear Yoko or else The Beatles would be singing “No More Lonely Rice”. That’s right Paul, How do you really sleep?

Enough Black Sabbath Covers already. If you have the urge of playing the songs, use a real guitar. A guitar hero controller ain’t a guitar you fuckin’ dumbass.

Beatles Rockband video game – Beatles are the easiest songs to play on the guitar. Are they kidding? Are kids too lazy to learn the guitar.

Drunk banshee – aren’t they suppose to be loud and shrieking? In another track by Liam O’ Connell and Tunnel 03 they were joined by Sara Dunnigan and lo we were treated to a haunting number with Steve Jones (not Pistols) providing the fucked up bass lines and accented by Mike Collins (astronaut’s kid on guitars). It was recorded at Gurney Studio’s Limerick Ireland. For an upcoming album we hope but for now an EP would be mostly appreciated.

Shitter 01

An Epic in the Making: The Implosion of a Rock Band.
(by John Carmichael, TTL

Keyboards 1989 - 1993)

Finally, after years of planning, by one man actually, we finally, reluctantly ended up in “The Loft” (not in Rochdale but somewhere) for recording. As usual we were unprepared, no practice for eons yet we were willing to splurge cash on a recording session. I for one is reluctant. I just spent heaps of cash on a mortgage and I’m not really looking forward in playing producer. The botched recording sessions in Rochdale were a reminder of what the band is capable of. Of self destruction that is. Judging by the progress we were making or the lack thereof we could finish this project in two months with minimal budget. But right now, the singer has his own Shaun Ryder like tendencies like overdubs here and there, shit like this and that. I hope he got a grant from Oxford or something because the delays are costing a lot. I just wish he’d share his hash with everyone at least we’d be smiling and stoned. The guitar player is, well, “himself” again. Actually he went into recording with nothing in mind and started being “himself”. Let’s call him the Mark E. Smith of guitar players. End of story. Another week, another delay, we started July we didn’t do anything in August it is September now and the tracks are rotting in the mixing board. I’m not sure what the plans are or when the finances are going to give out. We got a new drummer he is still in the adjustment period I think he’ll do well because he was able to withstand the endless repetition demands from our singer/quasi band leader. By the end of the year, my prediction would be, it’s still going to be unfinished. We’ll be another waste of MD discs. I’m hoping to get my hands on the unfinished tracks and work some magic. Or to put it bluntly, fuck it up that even the band would hate it. By the way, some unofficial tracks were leaked online. Ladies and gentlemen, let the name-dropping start. 4AD? I respect the record label but it’s the name droppers that I abhor. If you can’t describe the shit, don’t. I’m already about to vomit when people compare us to post punk 80s bands. I dare you to say it again. Say it again.


Frag 02- (remix) - Was able to cook up some tracks using some noises I recorded in a micro cassette. Micros are kind of cool for their lack of bass sound much like the sound of cell phone speakers my workmates play during break time. Sounds like a tin can. But not the micros. It still has a rich analog sound but the thing is, the bass isn’t registering. I treated it to a barrage of reverbs and choruses and I was able to create a sonic noise and re-recorded some parts to produce a different layer. It was supposed to be a sonic feedback laced sound but the house remix kind of gave it a thumping sound that balanced the ear ache that the micros produced. So kids, a micro cassette recorder is more lethal than your lame ass I-pod.


Krakow – is actually not sonically inspired but more based of what would have happened or to put it this way, what would you hear if you were the one operating the machines in the gas chamber. Lots of industrial noises, back masked tapes and a drone of an actual machine. First time listeners swore that they were able to hear prisoners being led to the chamber and subsequent screams even it was drowned by loud machinery.

R.I.T.H. (Rivets in the Head) – A hardcore industrial track music generated from machines operating. Background noises were recorded in a factory assembling tin cans for canned goods. Live noises were recorded simultaneously with the background using a generic delay pedal running through a Behringer 8 track mixer.


The music industry is dead. I

It's NOIZE from Hereon...

Lou Reed has not passed away at the age of ummm something. We extend our sincere lack of condolences to his family, friends and colleagues in their time of great non-sorrow and un-grief.

My Fair Lady Fairlight

According to Tony Wilson, Martin Hannett apparently left Factory Records after they refused to buy him a Fairlight. Instead they used the money for "The Hacienda".


I Don't Blame Him...

NO WAVE! NO SHIT!!

No Wave was a short-lived but influential art music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City and continued into the 1980s alongside punk subculture.[1] The term No Wave is in part satirical wordplay rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre—a term imported into the New York contemporary artworld by Diego Cortez in a show he curated called "New York/New Wave" held at the Institute for Art and Urban Resources (1981).



East Village Eye cover featuring James Chance

In many ways, 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—typical of the early downtown music of La Monte Young. No Wave lyrics often focused on nihilism and confrontation.


No Wave poster for film by Amos Poe

No Wave is often better defined in terms of the artistic environment in which it thrived (the downtown scene of minimalist art) and the character of performances typical to its context. No Wave performances drew heavily on performance art and as a result were often examples of a highly theatrical minimalism in their renditions.
In 1978 a series of punk rock influenced loud noise music was held at New York’s Artists’ Space that led to the Brian Eno-produced recording No New York. This recording was the first attempt to define the no wave sound, documenting The Contortions, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Mars and DNA.

The Noise Fest was an influential festival of art noise music curated by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth at the art space White Columns in June 1981. Sonic Youth made their first live appearance at this show. Each night three to five acts performed, including Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Jeffrey Lohn, Dog Eat Dog, Built on Guilt, Rudolph Grey, the Avant Squares, Mofungo, Red Decade, Robin Crutchfield's Dark Day, Ad Hoc Rock, Smoking Section, Chinese Puzzle, Avoidance Behaviour, and Sonic Youth.

No Wave had a notable influence on noise and industrial bands who formed after, like Big Black, Lev Six, Helmet, and Live Skull. The Theoretical Girls heavily influenced early Sonic Youth, who then emerged from this scene by creating music that eventually reached mass audiences and critical acclaim. Also for new bands like Liars, Ex Models, Neptune, and Erase Errata the influence of the No Wave scene was important.

Simon Reynolds, author of Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984, wrote:
And although "affection" is possibly an odd word to use in reference to a bunch of nihilists, I do feel fond of the No Wave people. James Chance's music actually stands up really well, I think; there are great moments throughout Lydia Lunch's long discography, and Suicide's records are just beautiful.

No Wave music inspired the Speed Trials noise rock series organized by Live Skull members in May 1983 at White Columns with the music of The Fall, Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Lydia Lunch, Elliot Sharp, Swans and Arto Lindsay. This was followed by the after-hours Speed Club that was fleetingly established at ABC No Rio.

Dude, I thought You Were Black...

Filling the BOYD/NON

Boyd Rice is one of the most provocative and debatable underground figures of the post-punk era. A pioneering noise musician and countercultural maven, from the late 1970s to the present he has worked in an array of capacities, playing the roles of: musician, performer, artist, photographer, essayist, interviewer, editor, occult researcher, filmmaker, actor, orator, deejay, gallery curator and tiki bar designer, among others.

First coming to prominence as an avant-garde audio experimentalist (recording under the moniker NON), Rice was a seminal founder of the first wave of industrial music in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, through collaborations with Re/Search Publications, Rice further endeared himself to the underground with recountings of his uproarious pranks and the promotion of "incredibly strange" cult films. Rice's influence on subculture was further exerted through his forerunning exhibition of found photographs and readymade thrift store art, as well as his adamant endorsements of outsider music, tiki culture and bygone pop culture in general.

By the 1990s, however, Rice's underground acclaim had been turned on its ear as a result of his public associations with nefarious figures both infamous and obscure. These included friendships and ideological collusion with the likes of cult leader Charles Manson and Church Of Satan founder Anton LaVey, among others. Rice sparked further controversy through public flirtations with "Nazi" aesthetics and fascist ideology, a flaunted disregard for political correctness, and an espousal of antisocial doctrines such as Satanism, Social Darwinism and elitist misanthropy. The culmination of these affiliations and endorsements established Rice as one of the 1990s' foremost countercultural antagonists and provocateurs, alienating many of his erstwhile fans.

The 2000s saw Rice turning away from the culturally proscribed (and its attendant controversy), and instead to esoteric occult research, the co-founding of an art movement and the design of his own tiki bar. Rice continues to explore these and other realms of artistic and musical expression as the decade nears its end.

Alternately amusing, insightful, confrontational and offensive, Boyd Rice has proven one of the most consistently influential and contentious characters of the last 30 years of American counterculture. He's covered an incredibly prolific amount of artistic, conceptual and ideological ground, and his work continues to profoundly affect the countercultural underground at large, inspiring and enraging in equal measure.

(I never liked) POST-PUNK

In Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds sets out in his fourth book to back up his claim that post-punk was the greatest era of rock music. Actually, he said it’s “a fabulous wealth of sounds and ideas that rivals the sixties as a golden age for music.” You can guess which era he really favors, but to avoid distracting controversy, he introduces the idea subtly, so that it might insidiously filter into popular opinion over time. How very post-punk of him. At a mammoth 556 pages, the book is daunting for those who think after punk “died,” music jumped straight to Culture Club and Oingo Boingo, or others who believe punk broke in 1992. It takes a real commitment to dig into, and will mainly reward the most devoted and obsessive of music geeks. The post-punk era simply does not have the dramatic, made-for-movies story arc that punk did. Which is precisely why the era is such a black hole in many peoples’ consciousness, and why it so badly needs to be told.

For most (DUMB) Americans, post-punk truly seemed to have a secret history. With virtually no radio airplay or mainstream media attention apart from Talking Heads and Devo, it was a hidden treasure trove to be discovered only by word of mouth, obscure fanzines, and eventually, college radio. I started gradually hearing about the bands just as post-punk was waning in 1984, in interviews with bands like The Minutemen and Big Black, who cited Public Image Ltd., Gang Of Four and Wire as influences. Before that, all I knew of punk beyond The Clash and Sex Pistols were hardcore punk bands like Agnostic Front and Exploited – who sounded like they were repeatedly hitting a stylistic brick wall. “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” said Johnny Rotten during the final Sex Pistols show in 1978. I did, because I’d been missing out. Some said punk died, others said it lives on in the millions of faceless bands as the new folk music, but few mentioned it spawned a music that was far more diverse, engaging, inspiring, ambitious and all-consuming. I became so obsessed with post-punk that I quickly dropped the new music format of my college radio show and focused on post-punk.

There’s no doubt that Reynold’s love of post-punk is subjective. He missed punk when it happened, but was there (albeit in an English suburb), 16 years old and overstimulated in every way when the epochal records of 1979 poured out. Everyone has romantic notions about the music of their teenage years. But Rip It Up and Start Again is more than nostalgia. It’s both a labor of love, and a massively valuable, dense history that’s never been told before. It’s fitting that the book begins with Johnny Rotten, who succinctly wrapped up the demise of punk in one sentence. Six months earlier on July 16, 1977, toward the end of the Sex Pistols’ peak, Rotten went public with his opinion on punk on “The Punk and His Music” on London’s Capital Radio.

He hates punk, and prefers Tim Buckley, former members of The Velvet Underground (Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico), Can, Captain Beefheart, Dr. Alimintado and other dub reggae, and even tortured art rocker Peter Hammill from progressive rock band Van Der Graaf Generator. Rotten was famously noticed by McClaren for his altered “I hate” Pink Floyd t-shirt. But chances are he bought (or stole) the shirt as a fan. After the show, McLaren was furious, as Lydon had blown his cover as "Johnny Rotten," an ignorant thug/monster and revealed himself as a (gasp) a hipster-intellectual. "That was pathetic", Rotten recalled a year later, "[because] I couldn't be half as ignorant, moronic, violent, destructive ... as they wanted to promote me.” The completion of that persona destruction was his new band, Public Image Ltd.

After telling the PiL story, Rip It Up documents the complex post-punk topography by taking a roughly chronological approach and grouping bands either by region or style. “Outside of Everything” addresses the Buzzcocks, Magazine and Subway Sect, while the third chapter jumps to Cleveland with “Uncontrollable Urge: The Industrial Grotesquerie” with Pere Ubu and Devo. The following chapters cover New York’s no wave scene, Britain’s tribal rival with The Pop Group and The Slits, independent labels and the DIY movement, the militant Leeds scene with Gang of Four, The Mekons, Delta Five and Au Pairs, the art school-inspired Talking Heads and Wire, the particularly fascinating and revelatory ninth chapter on Sheffield’s Cabaret Voltaire and The Human League, and Manchester’s The Fall and Joy Division. Yet we’re only half done, with sixteen chapters left to cover industrial, 2-Tone, synthpop, Scotland, punk-funk, goth, new psychedelia and “The Blasting Concept: Progressive Punk from SST Records to Mission of Burma.”

The idea behind punk was supposed to be to do away with venerated music and blues-based clichés and start fresh. That became an obvious sham when most punk groups recycled the same old Chuck Berry riffs, as filtered through mod, glam and The Stooges. Post-punk was really what brought punk’s original aspirations to fruition. While many of the musicians were well versed in music history, from German “kosmische” space rock to the progressive rock of Soft Machine and King Crimson, most of the music was strikingly original. It made sense that this often involved veering into esoteric, difficult listening territory that precluded any chance of commercial success. But unlike The Sex Pistols, the vast majority of post-punkers were not chasing the carrot of rock stardom. One of the most striking revelations I got from Rip It Up is how completely, seriously immersed these musicians were in the culture. Fueled by a thirst for knowledge, youthful energy and sometimes amphetamines, post-punk was a way of life that involved not just rehearsals, gigs and records, but passing around the Situationist pamphlet “Leaving The Twentieth Century,” reading Phillip Dick and J.G. Ballard, intense all-night sessions spent debating film, theater and political theory (Godard and Brecht, and Gramsci), creating visual art, and participating in performance art. While some of these activities might spark some interest from the girl at the art school down the road, it’s hardly the road to fame and fortune. They were simply passionate.

Catch the SHOW!!

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, sometimes simply called Plastic Inevitable or EPI, was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol between 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground & Nico, screenings of Warhol's films, and dancing and performances by regulars of Warhol's Factory, especially Mary Woronov and Gerard Malanga. Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable is also the title of a 18 minute film by Ronald Nameth with recordings from one week of performances of the shows which were filmed in Chicago, Illinois in 1966. In December 1966 Warhol included a one-off underground magazine called The Plastic Exploding Inevitable as part of the Aspen Magazine No. 3 package.

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable had its roots in an event staged on January 13, 1966 at a dinner for the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry. This event, called "Up-Tight", included performances by The Velvet Underground and Nico, along with Malanga and Edie Sedgwick as dancers. Inaugural shows were held at the Dom in New York City in April 1966, advertised in The Village Voice as follows: "The Silver Dream Factory Presents The Exploding Plastic Inevitable with Andy Warhol/The Velvet Underground/and Nico." Shows were also held in The Gymnasium in New York and in various cities throughout the United States.

AMMON DUUL The most hated Krautrock band

Even before I knew anything at all about Krautrock, I knew to stay away from Amon Duul (as opposed to Amon Duul II). Friends of friends of friends who had heard that big bongo sound were quick to warn me to stay clear of this awful group. Today, I still hear this sentiment. Indeed the most common clever slam for Amon Duul is to refer to their third album Disaster as appropriately titled. So, as an unbiased observer, I had to conclude that Amon Duul in truth had nothing to offer, and out of that great body of music called Krautrock, Amon Duul had just been a big mistake.

Contemporary (industry controlled) music speaks to some elevated level of rationality while this music I speak of communicates somehow to our more primitive animal past.
Clearly, these tribal-like improvs/jams serve an entirely different function than the majority of music released today which I refer to simply as 'product'. Amon Duul was originally a commune of 10 to 12 musicians committed to creating political art. And perhaps this is why I hear the commonality between the meeting of artists locally and Amon Duul. Above all else stands a commitment to art, not profit or product. And so, it was probably because I had been to this art-gathering that I grasped how great Amon Duul was, but for whatever reason, I found them very exciting and experimental.

SESSIONS: Cargo Recording Studios, Rochdale

I' ve always belived in the karmic way. After a good rant, there's always something good about something bad. The Cargo studios (House of De Ocampo) has good room acoustics and the overall sound for a four track recording is almost releaseable by EP standards. We were able to scrounge for available instruments and equipment and was able to fit everything in our hearse of a bat-mobile. Skipping lunch (sleep for me) and was there as early as 11pm only to be met by sleeping bandmates or even someone more interested in his CD collection or so. Well, I'm not the owner of the house. It's not my gasoline in the car. Anyway, I ranted like a cunt long enough (which is 20 minutes) and I'm moving on. Ah yes, the second session. Who would be in-charge? It's definitely not me. I'm retiring my engineering hat right here and giving it to the Martin Hannett wanna-bees. By all means, y'all. That was a 12 hour grind for me through nagging headache and sleeplessness. And believe me it was all worth it. Except for the delays and the stand-up comic sessions, the Manchester band trivia brought to you by crepuscle records. "Remember, if it's not crepuscle it's not even a record". Sarcasm aside, the groundwork is already there. We got a smoky window view of what the "band" sound really is. As they put it, it sounded like "A Certain Ratio". I take credit for that. It's the only thing that went good that night. And for the shit that went through that day it's an achievement of sorts. It's just breaking the surface. We ain't there yet perhaps we could never get there. The future looks so scary. We could end up as a cult band who almost made it but didn't and because we chose not to. Scary thought. I'm liking it already. I won't delete the previous blog. It would serve as a reminder to me. But fook, I like the cult status already.

A Life in Bands (continuation)

I don't fuckin' know how band politics work. I'm the new guy so I have to prove myself, right? Who else is in charge? That's what I'm askin' because after a botched recording session, right now I don't know where I fit. Do we really need a dictator in the band? Do we value respect? Or we just don't give a shit because we are rockstars. Are we getting swellheaded because we think we are a re-incarnation of those ye olde Mancunian bands. Right now, I just want to lay all the tracks on a fuckin tape and play music. I don't give a rats arse on how much useless Manchester trivia are there on my wee brain. I don't care what's playing on my MP3 player. I don't care now how much time searchin for a fuckin rare CD in a garage sale or how extensive my record collection are. Which is a few actually. Very few by rockstar standards. Right now, it's all about music. It's sounds a bit syrupy for a guy with battle scars from playing in different bands. But, I've been in the trenches for so long I don't know which is which. Which direction a band should take. I might been overreacting because respect is often earned and you don't need to say fuck you upfront to actually know it's been thrown at you. Just like fuckin' mustard gas, baby. Thank goodness for a massive headache that saved me from further embarrassment from a recording session where people wanted to be stand-up comedians and post-punk trivia wizards instead of shutting up for 6 minutes or so and just play the goddamn song. I shouldn't be blabbering like a cunt because it ain't my house we're using, not my food I'm serving, and last but not the least it's not my fuckin' money. Maybe we don't deserve to record because our minds are all fucked up. We are a good live band. Bloody, Finger Lickin' Fuckin' good. Probably too good for ourselves. Am I giving up? Fuck, can't wait for the whole new bloody session to start. Next time, without the bear necessities. No food, no aircondiltioning. The trenches. We've turned to fat ego-tistical rockstars. We need to get shittied-up. and yes, I'm not from fuckin' manchester.

I'm from fuckin' Salford. It makes a fuckin' difference.


RIP Martin Hannett, I wish I had a gun too...

Gang of Four

First official song played on bass. Damaged Goods. May 1988. All chords no scales. Was able to play the whole scale three years later but by then the song was overplayed in 105.9 the home of pathetic rock.

Random Noises (Shameless Promotion)

Have I given up on normal forms of music? Perhaps.http://www.myspace.com/nobandnameyetreally2
And watch your eardrums.....

Battle Royale takes place in an alternate time-line - the government of Japan is a police state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia (大東亜共和国 Dai Tōa Kyōwakoku). Under the guise of a "study trip," a group of students from Shiroiwa Junior High School (城岩中学校 Shiroiwa Chūgakkō) in the fictional town of Shiroiwa (Kagawa Prefecture) are sleep-gassed on a bus. They awaken in the Okishima Island School on Okishima, an isolated, evacuated island south-west of Shodoshima, also in Kagawa Prefecture. They learn that they have been placed in an event called The Program, also known as Battle Royale. Officially a military research project, The Program is a means of terrorising the citizens, of causing such paranoia as to make organised insurgency impossible. According to the rules, every year since 1947, fifty third-year junior high school (fourteen to fifteen years old) classes are isolated, and the students required to fight to the death until one remains. Their movements are restricted by metal collars, later identified as Model Guadalcanal No. 22, around their necks which contain tracking and listening devices; if any student should attempt to escape The Program, or enter declared "danger zones", a bomb will be detonated in the collar, killing the wearer. If no student dies in any twenty-four-hour period, all collars will be detonated simultaneously.
After being briefed about The Program, the students are issued survival packs which include a map, compass, flash-light, food and water, and a random weapon or other item, which may be any thing from a gun to a paper fan. During the briefing, two students anger the supervisor, Kinpatsu Sakamochi, who kills both. As the students are released onto the island, they each react differently to their predicament; delinquent Mitsuko Souma murders those who stand in her way using deceiving tactics, Hiroki Sugimura attempts to find his best friend and his secret love, and Shinji Mimura makes a failed attempt to escape the Program.
In the end, four students remain: protagonist Shuya Nanahara, Noriko Nakagawa, Shogo Kawada - a survivor of a previous instance of the Program - and antagonist Kazuo Kiriyama. Following a car chase and shoot-out between Kazuo and the main characters, Noriko kills Kazuo by shooting him with a revolver. Shogo then takes his two partners to a hill. After telling Shuya and Noriko that he will kill them, Shogo shoots in the air twice, faking their deaths for the microphones planted on the collars. He then dismantles the collars. When Shogo is on the winner's ship, Shuya and Noriko board the ship. On the ship, Shogo kills Sakamochi and a soldier while Shuya kills the other soldiers on board. Shogo tells Shuya how to escape, succumbs to his wounds and dies. The two remaining students return to the main-land and find a clinic belonging to a friend of Shogo's father. From there, they make plans to escape to the U.S., facing an uncertain future as they run from the authorities.

Merzbow (メルツバウ, Merutsubau?) is a noise music project created in Tokyo, Japan in 1979 under the direction of musician Masami Akita (秋田 昌美, Akita Masami?). Since 1979, he has formed two record labels and has contributed releases to numerous independent record labels. As well as being a prolific artist, he has also written a number of books and has been the editor of several magazines in Japan. He has written about a variety of subjects, mostly about art, avant-garde music and post-modern culture. His more renowned works have been on the topics of BDSM and fetish culture. Other artforms Akita has been interested in include directing and Butoh dance.

The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, Merzbau. This was decided upon to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk-art aesthetic. In addition to this, Akita has cited a wide range of influences from various progressive rock artists such as Frank Zappa and King Crimson to Japanese bondage.

In 2000, Extreme Records released the 50 CD box set known as the Merzbox. From 2004 onwards, he has been a supporter of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) which has influenced a number of animal-themed releases as well as Akita becoming vegan.[5] Akita's work has been the subject of several remix albums and at least one tribute album. Akita is a prolific musician and has produced over 200 releases since 1980.

Random Noises

Have I given up on normal forms of music? Perhaps.

http://www.myspace.com/nobandnameyetreally2

And watch your eardrums.....