LOWER EAST SIDE STORY.

« I notice that many of the more signifiquant contributions to rock music and to a lesser extent, avant garde music, have been made by enthusiastic amateurs and dabblers. Their strengh is that they are able to approach the task of music-making without previously-acquired solutions and without too firm a concept of what is and what is not possible » Brian Eno.

In the late seventies the No Wave bands created their own apocalyptic soundtrack of New York, self critical, riddled with arrogant doubts, these «brats» were their own worst ennemies as well as their own best friends. Self-destructing and parodic chaos was the name of the game, playing the wrong note at the right time. No Wave music explored the original amateurism and anarchy of punk rock but took it further into a cubist brain game, rejecting the formulaic rythms of rock and roll and the verse/chorus organization. Loose experiment, freaky amalgam of free-jazzer, Sun Ra, Ayler, Captain Beefheart, Velvet Underground, old root of black music. A perfect Psycho World Music.

Lydia Lunch of Teenage Jesus sums up the edges of the movement: « What we were complaining about New York was more of a personal insanity than a public insanity. We were trying to get over our fucks-up.At that point you didn’t realize what was going on in the rest of the world because you were safe in your own little reality, could do whatever you wanted and get away with it and somehow support yourself. No one was having problems living in NY in the mid-to-late seventies because it was that apathetic period period in America were everything was still smoothed over from the Sixties. So unlike those oppressed yobs in England, we weren’t as much of a political community type upsurgence and, henceforth, the music we made was not catered to be something we could all ride together ! I mean we were all crazy ! everyone had their own insanity. None of the music sounds the same and none of it has the same repercussions. But we’re still on the same side of the line together and that’s it. Totally unlike anything around then, original freaks ; it was a time of complete diversity, wich I haven’t seen since ».

This compilation is a wild echo chamber of artiness and primitivism pushed to the extremes, deliberatly unpretty and atonal with garage bands equipments. Alhough they barely receive credit, Suicide (singer Alan Vega and keyboardist Martin Rev) is the source point for virtually every synth pop duo that glutted the pop market place (especially in England) in the early 80’s. Without the trailblazing Rev and Vega, there would have been no Soft Cell, Erasure, Bronski Beat, Yaz, Depeche Mode, you name ‘em. Suicide has been a part of the performing arts scene in New York city Lower East side in the early / mid 70’s. Their approach to music was unique and simple: Rev would create minimalistic, spooky hypnotic washes of dissonant keyboards and synthesizers, while Vega sang, ranted and spat neo-Beat lyrics in a jumpy disjointed fashion. On stage Vega became confrontational, often baiting the crowd into a riotous frenzy that occasionally led to full blown violence, usually with the crowd attacking Vega. Suicide is the Dark Angel side Of Kraftwerk . A brutal synthesis of rock and roll from the 50’s and 60’s, demoniac Elvis and repetitive music of Philip Glass, fusion of rockabilly and electronic music on cheap equipment. Seductive and terrifying space duo. A Fist of iron in a velvet glove on a S&M Odyssey.

Lydia Lunch from Teenage Jesus and the Jerks is a satanic Betty Boop, schyzo-Lolita whining and screaming boredom, sarcasm, romance and perversity, a dark sex kitten, porcelain skin poetess. The band is raw flesh, two string guitar, snare drum crashing and James Chance on sax, scary as a snake charmer dude on mescaline. Teenage Jesus is a pure object of blasphem, sex misery, surgical anger and aural terror. Abused female war, no peace ever, no rest, not much left but this band shines like the weirdest diamond living in everybody’s lazy asshole.

Rosa Yemen was a strange minimalistic combo creating soundtracks for guerilla movies that never existed using samples of Antonin Artaud screaming speeches or the hoarse agony of an african man digging soil. Lizzy Mercier Descloux using Malevitch costumes sang like a fucked up Anna Magnani, a wild child banging afro-skinny notes and DJ Banes on percussive rythm guitar. Rosa Yemen stood angry and fragile, psychotic effrontery, cadavres exquis as lyrics. Ghost of Rosa Luxembourg dressed as a Touareg hooker on Time Square.

Mars stands as a cosmic marriage of surrealistic poetry and Beckett’s void, wonderfully bizarre and disturbing, slow motion, jello rythms, raw jaw power. Summner Crane on guitar and vocals moves on the music like the autistic son of Glen Gould. China Burg, aka Don Burg, aka Lucy Hamilton is as evasive and loony as a female Peter Sellers. « To the uninitiated Mars may sound like listening to a laundremat magnified, at times it sounds like tortured children, orbital sounds, bottled paranoia, it’s deliberate fear, the kind that hits you in the left side of your brain and make you see shadows out on the corner of your eyes ». Stella Doom. (aka lydia Lunch)

Arto - Neto is a comet tail project of Arto Lindsay and Seth Tillett, a light parodic pornographic story of a bull, a soft body and a hard coke, Arto recites this sleazy fable like an hypnotic crooner and the beat goes on ... Corpo molli, pao duro... pini pini my dear... take the money and run...

James Siegfried, aka James Chance and the Contortions, aka James White wanted to be the most sensational and controversial act in NY.The group overall concept was simply funk minus pop harmony. The songs followed most dance-music conventions steady bass lines and drumbeats, soul derived syncopation, but totally out of control. The band played on frustration, tension, on making people angry and it worked. In a way they were almost as tight as James Brown, the JB’s on pcp. Chance looked perfectly wrong like an Outer Limits Beatnick, compressed features, dome-like forehead and a solid but improbable looking Pompadour. They attracted the Artsy crowd, so passive, jaded and disgusting so it became a real challenge to try and provoke a reaction. James would jump in the audience, spit and slap them. The band with Jody Harris frenziest slashing style of guitar, Pat PLace on slide guitar, Adele Bertei on locomotive keyboards inspired toe-tapping and vandalistic exhultation back when jazz was dance recombining the headiness of be-bop and free jazz with the bootiness of the Funk. Mind and Pelvis please. Fucked up the Funk !!!!!

Pill Factory was another experimental project combining, James Chance, Arto Lindsay, Bradley Field and Georges Scott around « Grutzy Elvis » the film featuring Anya Philips by underground guru Diego Cortes.

The No New York will remain like a haunting fake scar, real blood and flesh, a bunch of narcissistic orphans, a Gang of Me screaming in vain for its echo: You. Meditative Cacophony in the City that never sleeps...

THIS MUSIC HAS NO FUTURE BUT A VINDICTIVE PRESENT

Mara Missangas. (Aka Lizzy Mercier Descloux) April 2000