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.....

And Justice For All.....

What's been described as "a trumpet player trapped in a two dimensional universe" is in fact the unique audio work of Justice Yeldham, a maverick musician with an unhealthy obsession with sheets of broken glass. By pressing his face and lips against the glass whist employing various vocal techniques ranging from throat singing to raspberries, he turns discarded household windows into crude musical instruments. Resulting in a wide variety of cacophonous noises that are strangely controlled and oddly musical.Justice Yeldham is the latest alter-ego of Australian sound performer Lucas Abela, whose past sonic experiments were conducted under monikers like A Kombi, Dj Smallcock & Peeled Hearts Paste. Initially classed as an experimental turntablist, although his early work rarely resembled anything in the field. Early feats, saw him stab vinyl with Kruger style stylus gloves, bound on electro acoustic trampolines, drag race the popemobile across Sydney Harbour Bridge, perform deaf defying duet duels with amplified samurai swords, hospitalised by high powered turntables constructed from sewing machine motors, record chance John Peel sessions with the Flaming Lips, & be Otomo Yoshihides' favourite entry into his Ground Zero remix competition; 'Consummation' even though instead of sampling the CD he destroyed it using amplified skewers!


Thanks for the autographed CD. You scared the bejeezus out of my co-workers.

Tea and Biscuits? Lemon or Milk on your tea?

The cookie has crumbled and the grains have been tumbled out of the aerosol of synth-tone poppery into a dark, dank well where turbulence and torment cling to the talents of Karl like poisonous fungi. Since seeing this singer (pronounced Bisk-wee) in Paris last year, he seems to have undergone an amputation with traumatic side-effects. Adroitly fingered at the time as a Serge Clerc character in 3-D, the accompanying stylised cocktail mannerisms have dried out and what remains is an emotional brainburn where Fairlights blink with a hangover instead of grinning like dumb robots. 'Death', 'Loneliness', 'No Friends', 'Requiem' - with song titles like these you get the idea of the horrorshow on offer, how many ways you can terminate or be terminated is equal to the pleasures of this record. Pleasures ? Hell, yes, but not of the ugly bedsit torment sort. Karl is pretty enough to have aimed for the wide-eyed-innocent end of the synth spectrum with its lure of big bucks. Instead, he's inhabiting the cutting space that both the Human League and Depeche Mode are trying to reach in vain at present. 'Regrets Eternels' is pimple synth-pop lanced until the pus runs. Vampire instrumentation sucks at the neck of linear tunes, foreign textures unfurl and infect the clean kid's ideas. Take a peek at the liner notes and everything makes sense. Aided in sections by Blaine L.Reininger and Honeymoon Killer Marc Hollander, the whole project is filtered through the hemlock hands of Gilles Martin of the great Tuxedomoon. 'Regrets Eternels' is the alternative madness in the method dance"

Apathy by Liechtenstein

If Stalking Skills reminded you of The Shop Assistants or The Fizzbombs then the new single Apathy by Liechtenstein is going to have you in further raptures! This time the band go back further and take their inspirations from girl and girl fronted bands from the post punk era.On both sides of this 7" I can hear the likes of Girls At Our Best, The Slits, The Mo-dettes and Dolly Mixture. Apathy is a slow song with some beautiful harmonies and vocals that by the songs end simply engrosses you.However it's on Security By Design that stands out here for me. It's simply sublime over it's two and a bit minutes with it's fusion of pop, reggae and a bit of Tijuana brass thanks to the Mexican sounding trumpet. A choice "cut" (The Slits pun is intended!) Listen to Apathy here.

So you're a PUNK....

Ever had one of these?

So, You're a PUNK. Eat THIS POSER!!

An old fanzine that almost got me kicked out in high school..