FUCK GUNS !!!!!

Nathan Nothin' here.

It is with an anguished heart that I post today.

Yesterday, my dearest friend, guitarist & composer Rick 'G-Funk' Smith of Joyride, lost his seventeen year old son, Alex "Young Ace" Smith to senseless gun violence.
Alex was at a party where a fight amongst some other party-goers erupted into gunfire. Alex was struck in the back by a random bullet that pierced his lung & he bled out before doctors could save him.

I have not the words to say to convey how I feel---the mixture of sadness, loss, & anger.
As always for me, when overwhelmed by life (or in this case death), I turn to music for solace.

Shot Down With a Gun - Steve Diggle & Flag of Convenienc
If It Were Up to Me - Cheryl Wheeler

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
UPDATE: Suspect held in Smith slaying

January 26, 2008

Yuba City police arrested a Williams man Friday in the death of Alex Smith.

Gregory Kevin Wilson Jr., 19, was arrested at 1:45 a.m. Friday on suspicion of murder, according to Police Department records. Wilson also was arrested on suspicion of attacking 19-year-old Deandra McGraw during the same Frederick Street house party where Smith, 17, was murdered last Saturday, said Webster. McGraw suffered a broken jaw.
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I was working on a new posting when this all transpired, & I just lost interest in it all.
Here's something to fill the void for now...
New Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees - The Ventures

100,000,000 albums

While pop diva Madonna's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2008 struck many 'rock 'n' roll' fans as curious (though no stranger than the 2006 induction of jazz great Miles Davis), inclusion of the best selling instrumental rock group of all time, The Ventures, is a good albeit long overdue fit. With worldwide album sales in the neighborhood of 100 million, The Ventures have served as a major influence on generations of rock 'n' roll guitarists over the more than 40-year lifespan of the group.

Formed as a duo in 1958 by lead guitarist Bob Bogle & rhythm guitar player Don Wilson, the pair added bass player Nokie Edwards (who would later trade roles with Bob Bogle & then be replaced by guitarist Gerry McGee when Edwards left the group in 1968) & drummer Skip Moore (soon replaced by Howie Johnson then long-time drummer Mel Taylor, today the drum chair is filled by Mel Taylor's son, Leon Taylor) to record the 1960 hit "Walk Don't Run," which reached #2 on Billboard's Top 100. By 1963, The Ventures had five albums on Billboard's Top 100 - at the same time.

It would be difficult to overstate the influence of The Ventures on the development of the electric guitar's role in rock 'n' roll with respect to the instrument itself due to the group's association with Mosrite guitars & their later Ventures Fender models; their early use of guitar effects, such as Nokie Edwards use of a fuzz pedal on 1962's "2000 Pound Bee"; & playing style - one of their '60s instructional albums also made it to Billboard's Top 100 album chart.

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"The Ventures are the biggest selling instrumental rock group of all time: they created albums rather than just collections of songs & were able to adapt their 'surf guitar' sound to a wide range of styles. The solid body Fender guitar sound of the Ventures' Bob Bogle & Don Wilson worked with surf, country, spy, or psychedelic music. Who but the Ventures could pull this off? Few have even tried. Busloads of rock guitarists profess the Ventures' influence (like the Who's Pete Townsend). With well over 100 million albums sold, they are the definitive (& first) 'big in Japan' act. Though their following is slightly more modest everywhere else, the Ventures will be cool forever." ...Nick Dedina

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The Ventures are one of the first, best, most lasting & influential of instrumental guitar based combos.

The Ventures, originally the Versatones, were formed by Bob Bogle in 1959, in Seattle, Washington.

Bob was born in Oklahoma but grew up in Portland Oregon. Bogle had started playing guitar by his teens. In his mid-teens Bogle moved to Seattle to work where he supported himself by bringing wet cement to bricklayers. There he met Don Wilson, who had learned trombone & piano as a child, & bass & guitar while in the Army. By mid-1959 they had begun playing in local clubs. They soon added Nokie Edwards, who they had met while doing a local TV show in Tacoma. Eventually they completed the group with Howie Johnson on the drums.

Their first demo "Walk Don't Run" was sent to various record companies. Receiving no response, Wilson's mother released it on her own Blue Horizon label. "Walk Don't Run"was picked up for distribution by Dolton Records (distributed by Liberty), the group re-named, & became an instant regional hit in 1960. In August 1960 "Walk Don't Run" became a #2 hit. The Ventures followed it with a rock version of "Ghost Riders in the Sky", then "Perfidia", "Lullaby of the Leaves", "Diamond Head", & "2,000 Pound Bee", all which were hits through the early & mid-Sixties.

In the wake of the success of "Walk Don't Run", Wilson and Bogel left their jobs in the building
industry to pursue music full time. The group issued a cover of "Perfidia", a Latin song that had been made popular by Alberto Dominguez in 1939. "Perfidia" reached #15.

In 1961 Johnson was replaced by Mel Taylor after he was hurt in an automobile accident & left the group. Hits kept coming with versions of "The Lonely Bull" & "I Walk the Line" in 1963 & a top ten surf remake of "Walk Don't Run" in 1964. In 1965 they released what was one of the first instructional records, Play Guitar with the Ventures.

In 1967 Edwards was replaced by Gerry McGee, who left in 1970 to record with Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett, after which Edwards returned. By that time keyboardist Johnny Durrill had expanded the Ventures to a quintet & the group had delved into fuzz-tone a& wah-wah guitar modification as well blues, calypso, & Latin material.

Throughout the 60's & 70's there were several personnel changes. Nokie Edwards left & was replaced by Gerry McGee. Edwards later returned to the Ventures & left again. Keyboard player John Durrill joined the group in the late 60's. Mel Taylor left at one point & formed his own group, Mel Taylor & the Dynamics, but later returned to the group. Some of the artists who worked as guests or session players with the Ventures in the 60's included Leon Russell, Harvey Mandel, & David Gates.

In 1969 the Ventures had a hit with a version of the theme from the TV show Hawaii Five-O. In 1981, with Bogle, Wilson, Edwards, & Taylor, they released a regional West Coast single "Surfin' & Spyin'" & embarked on a successful tour of the U.S. & Japan. Bogle, Wilson, & McGee are still active in the group. Mel Taylor passed away in August, 1996. His son Leon is now the Ventures drummer.

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I seem to be one of vast millions. I have my share of Ventures albums. The era I prefer is the 60s Ventures. I've picked several tracks from three different Ventures albums from the 60s that show some of the range of their material..."Surfing", In Space, & Swamp Rock.

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"Surfing" - The Ventures, Dolton Records BST-8022, 1963.
All three tracks I selected are from side two. I bypassed the obvious "Pipeline" for a Ventures surf theme song, a heavy (ha-ha), & one of my all time favorites (you can practically hear the surf & the gulls...oh, wait, you can actually hear them).


Barefoot Venture
The Heavies
The Lonely Sea

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In Space - The Ventures, Dolton Records BST - 8027, 1964.
Now the Ventures have moved from the Pacific waves to the Galactic flow. They've updated the surf with a bit of psychedelics. Far out, man. "Penetration" is probably the crossover tune, kinda surfpsych. "Fear" is the Main Title Theme from the TV show "One Step Beyond". "Exploration in Terror" was by written by Bob Bogle, Don Wilson & Nokie Edwards.

Fear
Penetration
Explorations in Terror

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Swamp Rock - The Ventures, Liberty Records LST - 8062, 1969.
A Sound Idea...New? No...Been doin' it...sayin' it...just now hearin' it?...Time passin'...little else to do...listen...crickets...mouthharphummin'...ax 'n' hammer...beatin'...strummin'...what they sayin'?...Delta doin's...raised...braised...'n' bayou blistered...generations new? No. Tell me 'bout it.


Swamp Rock (the only original courtesy Bob & Don)
Niki Hoeky
Catfish Mud Dance


Enjoy,
NØ

Sometimes I Feel Like I'm on LSD

This post has been updated August 3, 2013.

 The Sterilles - On the Rag, Screaming Skull Records, 1987.

decryption code in comments

Produced by Spike Marlin at Gallery II Studios

The Sterilles (original line-up):
Dina Marie Price-Press (natural blonde) - guitars,vocals
Aan Leadingham (no tattoos) - bass, vocals
Ashley Stewart (don't ask) - drums, background vocals

Side One -

On the Rag
Shopping
You're So Glam it Hurts

Side Two -

Gravy Sucking Pig
Sometimes I Feel Like I'm on LSD

"On the Rag"
I'm on the rag
Get me a Kotex
How about a Pamprin
I hate men

I'm on the rag
I'm on the rag
I swollen like a pig
Get me a Pamprin
My boobs hurt

I'm on the rag
I'm on the rag
Get me a Kotex
I'm on the rag
I hate you
I hate me
'cause I'm on the rag

I'm on the rag
I'm on the rag
Get me a Kotex
I'm on the rag
I hate you
I hate me
'cause I'm on the rag

I'm on the rag
I hate men
Don't even think about it tonight
Of course I'd be wearing white

I'm on the rag
I'm on the rag
Get me a Kotex
I'm on the rag
I hate you
I hate me
'cause I'm on the rag

I'm on the rag
I'm on the rag
Get me a Pamprin
I'm on the rag
I hate you
I hate me
'cause I'm on the rag

I'm on the rag
I'm on the rag
Get me a Pamprin
I'm on the rag
I hate you
I hate me
'cause I'm on the rag

I'm on the rag
Get me a Kotex
I'm on the rag
I hate you
I hate me
'cause I'm on the rag

& I can go horseback riding & swimming & even put it in my sock!

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 Sic F*cks - Sic F*cks, Sozyamuda Records, 1982.

decryption code in comments

Produced by Adny Shernoff (The Dictators)
for Swingtime Productions

In memory of John Belushi & Lester Bangs
See & Hear The Sic F*cks in the Motion Picture
Alone in the Dark


Alone in the Dark (1982) – Slasher formula gets skewed all to hell in this one. Donald Pleasance, Jack Palance, & Martin Landau do what they do best: Chew up that fucking scenery with some absurd overacting!! Inventive kill scenes (a hospital orderly is broken in half across another
man’s knee) & a strange humanization of the villains shows some desire to go leftfield with what is otherwise a genre exercise. It’s as if the screenwriter had a minor stroke prior to the last three rewrites. Something must occur to release the bad guys, & it happens after Potter's sister (Lee Taylor-Allan) comes to stay. She's also had mental health problems, but is sympathetic in a 'hey, they're not all dangerous' kind of way. When she takes Potter & Nell out to see a band (the Sic F*cks as themselves), there's an electricity cut at the nuclear power plant meaning the town is plunged into darkness. Best scene: Jack Palance wondering into a punk rock club & becoming oddly captivated by the band, The Sic Fucks doing "Chop Up Your Mother".

#########################################################################





America's first punk rock shop began as an extension of Tish & Snooky Bellomo's closet. "Everybody was always copying our style," Snooky recalled, "so we wondered if we could
sell it" The result was Manic Panic, which was a fixture at 33 St. Mark's Place from its
June 1977 opening until it closed early in 1989.

"You wouldn't believe this neighborhood back then," said Tish. "the East Village had bottomed out, and most of the storefronts on St. Marks place were empty. We took this place for $250 a month, which seemed like a lot."

Snooky admitted that they knew little about operating a business when they opened the shop. "We started with a few go-go boots & two racks of clothes brought from home in the Bronx. But people were afraid to come into this neighborhood at first. Some days we'd make fifty cents when somebody bought a button from us. But then we started getting good press & things began to change."

Expanding beyond the basic stock of motorcycle jackets & Doc Martin boots, Manic Panic stocked such glitter-punk accessories as turquoise hair dye, metallic gold corsets, wigs, glitter eyeliner, stage blood, liquid latex, & spike-heeled shoes. "You couldn't order spike heels back then," Tish said. "You had to find them. We'd go into old stores and ask if they had any old stock, & they'd say 'Yes, but nothing you girls would want, just old spike heels.' & they wouldn't believe it when we'd buy them out, maybe a hundred pairs in their original boxes. We'd bring them back here & display them on the walls, put them in the windows, just the greatest stuff. Like that place down on Reade Street, remember, Snooky? That place Debbie Harry found?"

Debbie Harry was more than an early celebrity customer-- Tish and Snooky were backup singers with the punk group Blondie in its early dates at CBGB. "Before they got signed," Tish added, with no trace of regret.

"So we got together a group called the Drop-Outs," said Snooky, "& then in 1977 our friend Russell Wolinsky came by the shop & put us in this new band he was starting for one show at CBGB's. He called the group the Sic F*cks, spelled with an asterisk because 'All we need is U!' Anyway, we packed the place 'cause everybody wanted to see what kind of crazy band would call itself the Sic F*cks. Then Lester Bangs gave us this terrific write-up, so we kept doing it, made a record, & still do one concert a year."

Side One -

(Take Me to) The Bridge

Side Two -

Insects Rule my World
Spanish Bar Mitzvah
Rock or Die
Chop up Your Mother

Enjoy,
NØ

Too Mu Chi Lou Rawls

Lou Rawls, the smooth-voiced, enduring singing star whose career traced a line from gospel to jazz & pop, died two years ago today, January 6, 2006 of lung cancer. Lou Rawls was in the recording business for forty years, & his voice is as distinctive & instantly recognizable as any in music

Born Louis Allen Rawls on Dec. 1,1933? or 1935? (both dates are cited by many divergent sources, even 1936 by one biographer) in Chicago, Illinois, Lou was raised in Chicago by
his paternal grandmother. He began singing gospel at age 7 in the choir of the Greater Mount Olive Baptist Church. His singing became known around town.

Lou first recorded in June 1950 with The Holy Wonders (imprint: Premium 854 : 'I Won't Be Long' b/w 'Move In The Room With The Lord'). He later recorded in February 1954 with The Pilgrim Travelers.

As a teenager, he began joining doo-wop groups with his classmate Sam Cooke, whose own singing career in the 1950's & 1960's really took off. As natives of Chicago, Rawls & Cooke were often running partners on the gospel scene when Rawls sang with The Pilgrim Travelers & Cooke starred as the lead of the Soul Stirrers with Lou singing along. One rainy night the Soul Stirrers were on their way to one of their concerts when they were in a car wreck. They collided with an 18-wheeler. Rawls was initially pronounced dead; Eddie Cunningham was killed; Cliff White broke his collarbone; Sam Cooke was hardly injured. Rawls wasn't dead, but lay in a coma for five days before waking & eventually recovering from the severe concussion.This near death experience & Sam's success as a secular artist were to influence Rawls. After he recovered, he went out on his own as a secular artist in 1959.

He applied his velvet baritone voice with effortless flexibility to gospel, blues, jazz, soul & middle-of-the-road pop, ensuring his success that will last beyond his death. He earned three Grammys, sold one platinum & five gold albums.

He said: "There are no limits to music, so why should I limit myself?"

I have in my collection a record that I have not been able to find any information about,
by the limitless man himself. It is on clear orange vinyl, pressed I believe in Korea for First Stereo Record - SFL1494. It is probably a rip of the 1967 Capitol release Too Much!

Lou Rawls was in the midst of a hot streak at Capitol, scoring smash singles & winning Grammy awards. Too Much! was one of three albums he released in 1967, all of which made the pop Top 40 albums chart. It was superbly produced & arranged by David Axelrod, with Rawls being bluesy, soulful, anguished, triumphant, & resigned. He displayed both a variety of moods & a vocal mastery at its peak.

The record is in a flimsy paper cover that looks like a copy of the Capitol cover with
First Record logo & number added to avoid legal issues. The greatest thing about this record other than the orange vinyl is the translation work. On the record, several tracks are listed incorrectly, as 'It's Anuphill Climb to the Bottom', but the best is the albums title itself:
Too Mu Chi Lou Rawls

Lou Rawls - Too Much!, Capitol Records T 2713, 1967.

decryption code in comments

 

Side 1 -

Yes, It Hurts (Doesn't it?)

It's an Uphill Climb to the Bottom

I Just Want to Make Love to You

You're Takin' My Bag

Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye

Dead End Street (monologue)

Dead End Street

Side 2 -
Twelfth of Never
Righteous Woman (monologue)
I Wanna Little Girl
Why (Do I Love You So)
I'll Take Time
You're Always on My Mind 

So, to Mu Chi, Lou Rawls!

Enjoy.

NØ

It Was 70 Years Ago Today

Sitting here in the Media Room, wanting to get back to the relative 'normalcy' that is my so-called life after the utter friction of the holidaze, watching the embers in the fireplace consumed & crumbling symbols of the past several weeks. The band is practicing again this Saturday afternoon in our living room after a brief (two week) hiatus & that will lift my spirits to the heavens but for that immediate gratification that I'm so Jonesing for, I realize I should post something (more out of 'because every other blogger does it' than real desire) here & then I realize that copy-cat or not, that is exactly what I need for a little grounding/cosmic jubilation (caught in the micro/macro loop).
I go instantly into magick mode as I enter the vinyl sanctuary, & with Nothin' on my mind I pick an album at 'random', put it on the turntable, drop the arm, flip on the Vapir, kick back in my chair, & partake. I present it here for your listening pleasure...a gift to the New Year from the past/future.

Jazz by Sun Ra, Transition Records #j-10, 12 July 1956.
Dale Young, Art Hoyle - trumpet
Julian Priester - trombone
James Scales - alto sax
John Gilmore - tenor sax
Pat Patrick - baritone sax
Sun Ra - piano, leader
Wilburn Green - electric guitar
Richard Evans - bass
Bob Barry - drums
Jim Hearndon - tympani

from the 1967 Delmark re-issue DS-411:
"Sun Ra styles himself a prophet, embroidered fez above that poached face, enrobed in dark material of dime-store sheen & spattered with a Milky way of stars. Laugh! He writes pamphlet-poetry & daydreams of a space Utopia. Go ahead, laugh! His band looks like a bunch of overgrown boys playing Flash Gordon in mother-made costumes. Snicker...snort...have your fun with this man, his strange garb & garbled strangeness, yet be warned. Don't laugh so hard that you miss his music. You may find a chorus of years & numerous musicians laughing right back in your face.

For Sun Ra is a prophet, & this album is his prophecy, preached & made a matter of record for all to hear, though few have, & too many of those few misunderstood.

July 12, 1956. Charlie Parker was but fifteen months dead, John Coltrane was barely beginning to tug ears as a sideman. No one expected the still-distant messianic coming of Ornette Coleman. The musician usually credited with being the first of the current avant-garde to make his statement, Cecil Taylor was gingerly putting together his pieces, & would have to wait two months for his first recording date, arranged by that aptly-named, far-sighted, though short-lived label, Transition.

On that day, Transition was busy elsewhere, having come to Chicago to summon to a recording studio Sun Ra & ten disciples, the men of his frankly far-out rehearsal band. On that day, this album was recorded."
J.B.Figi April 1965

Brainville
Call for All Demons

On New Year's Day 1938, Herman "Sonny" Blount was deep in the midst of religious concentration when a bright light appeared around him, &, as he later stated:
"....my whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. & I went up … I wasn't in human form … I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn … they teleported me & I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop attending college because there was going to be great trouble in schools … the world was going into complete chaos ... I would speak through music, & the world would listen. That's what they told me."

Transition
Possession

He returned as Le Sony'r Sun Ra, a member of the "Angel Race", not of this Earth.
Sun Ra developed a complicated persona of "cosmic" philosophies & lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of Afro-futurism as he preached "awareness" & peace above all else.

Street Named Hell
Lullaby for Realville

He became a world-renowned innovative jazz composer, bandleader, piano & synthesizer player, poet & philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy", musical compositions & performances. He led The Arkestra, an ensemble with an ever-changing lineup & name (it was also called "The Solar Myth Arkestra," the "Blue Universe Arkestra," "The Jet Set Omniverse Arkestra,") & many other permutations. Sun Ra asserted that the ever-changing name of his ensemble reflected the ever-changing nature of his music.

Future
New Horizons

Jazz By Sun Ra, Transition Records #j-10 (later titled Sun Song) is the debut album to be released by Sun Ra. The LP originally appeared on Tom Wilson's short-lived Transition Records, dated 07-12-1956. In the mid-1960s it was licensed to Delmark Records, finally being reissued in 1967.

Fall Off the Log
Sun Song

It may be a new year, 2008, but we still haven't caught up to the more than 50 year old offerings of this Time/Space traveler. His trip to Saturn happened a full decade before Roswell & flying saucers entered public consciousness, about fifteen years before the contactees & their stories of benevolent Space Brothers were publicized, & almost twenty years before UFO abductions were a public concept. Sun Ra was both prophesying his future & explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology. This album is just the first chapter in the Sun Ra Time/Space journey.
Enjoy.
NØ

Music in Transition (Records)

In the '50s & '60s, Tom Wilson was virtually the only African-American record producer working in mainstream American popular music. He was most productive in the 1960s, though he made his first mark in the mid-50s. Having a goal in mind of setting up a record label & recording the most advanced jazz musicians of the day, he formed a label called Transition Records. The label did release several albums, including Sun Ra's Jazz By Sun Ra (or Sun Song) which was Ra's first LP, & the album Jazz Advance by Cecil Taylor. However, the label eventually folded, & most of their material was sold to Delmark Records, a small Chicago-based label.

Thomas Blanchard Wilson Jr. (March 25, 1931 – September 6, 1978) was an American record producer best known for his work in the 1960s with Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Simon & Garfunkel, & The Velvet Underground. He worked for Columbia Records, then went to Verve Records.

Wilson was born in 1931 to Tom & Fannie Wilson. He grew up in Waco, Texas, where he attended A.J. Moore High School. He was a member of New Hope Baptist Church. Tom was known by his initials, T.B. in his youth. While attending Fisk University, Wilson was invited to Harvard where he became involved with the Harvard New Jazz Society & radio station WHRB; to the latter he later credited all of his success in the music business.

After Transition Records folded, Tom went on to Columbia Records. As a staff producer at Columbia Records Wilson was one of the "midwives" of folk-rock.

He produced Simon & Garfunkel's 1964 debut LP Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. which included "The Sound of Silence". Seizing on local radio interest in the song in Florida & inspired by the huge success of The Byrds' folk-rock version of Bob Dylan's "Mr Tambourine Man", Wilson took the duo's original acoustic track & without Simon or Garfunkel's knowledge, overdubbed electric instruments, turning the track into a #1 pop hit, helping to launch the folk-rock genre. Simon and Garfunkel, who had already split, re-united after the hit & went on to greater success.

Wilson's other major achievement was his work with Bob Dylan, producing Bringing It All Back Home. Wilson is credited as one of the producers of Highway 61 Revisited, even though he only produced one song, Dylan's 1965 single "Like a Rolling Stone," where he allowed musician Al Kooper to play the signature organ part, even though up to that point he had only been a guitarist.Tom Wilson should be remembered as the person that gave Dylan his rock and roll sound....indeed, as the person that first got Dylan to "plug in" (on Bringing It All Back Home).

After his stint at Columbia, Wilson moved to Verve. In 1966 he signed the Mothers of Invention to Verve Records & was credited as producer on the group's seminal debut album Freak Out!

About the sessions, Frank Zappa has stated:
"Tom Wilson was a great guy. He had vision, you know? & he really stood by us ... I remember the first thing that we recorded was 'Any Way the Wind Blows,' & that was okay. Then we did 'Who Are the Brain Police?' & I saw him through the glass & he was on the phone immediately to New York going, 'I don't know!' Trying to break it to 'em easy, I guess. Wilson was sticking his neck out. He laid his job on the line by producing the album."

For Verve Wilson also produced The Velvet Underground, featuring Lou Reed, John Cale, & Nico. Another of his Verve production credits was The Blues Project, which featured Al Kooper as vocalist & keyboardist. In fact, Kooper had met & joined the Blues Project after the band had auditioned for & been rejected by Columbia Records, where Kooper had been playing in Bob Dylan's band, which was being produced by Wilson.

Wilson was also credited with producing the first album by Soft Machine.

While it is undeniable that on most of his notable productions, the lion's share of the creative work is attributable to the primary artists, composers & instrumentalists on these recordings, it stands to reason that it is more than mere coincidence that Wilson was a supervising presence at the birth & blossoming of some of the major breakthroughs in American music in the mid-20th Century. From his championing of the innovative early work of Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor & Frank Zappa, to his shepherding of Bob Dylan from standout folk singer to full-fledged legend & voice of a generation; from his resuscitation of a dying Simon & Garfunkel duo, leading them to stardom & making possible the exploration of their unique musical world to his helming the session that yielded "Like a Rolling Stone", often cited as the single greatest song of the Rock 'n' Roll era, Tom Wilson was a crucial force. Though he rarely receives notice comparable with these mammoth achievements, Wilson clearly belongs in the discussion (along with luminaries such as Phil Spector, George Martin, Brian Wilson and Teo Macero) of the most important & influential producers of the 1960s.

No Wave

UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded 
09/13/2013. Enjoy, NØ.

So, what is No Wave?

The name came about as reaction to the term New Wave. At the tail end of the 70's the record industry was trying to rebrand punk & labeled the poppier bands that came in the aftermath of Punk as New Wave. The No Wave bands wanted to reject this poppier side but they also felt no affinity to Punk. At the time, Lydia Lunch (the queen of No Wave?) bemoaned how Punk was just sped up Chuck Berry riffs & it is true that if you listen to most (but not all!) punk today, it is just badly played, sped up three chord rock n' roll. The Garage bands of the 60's had nailed the Punk sound way earlier & frankly mainly sound better to this day. Listen to No Wave today and it is still a shock to the system & often sounds like a music with no precedent. This last thing is another of the keys to what No Wave is. Many of the artists were determined that their music should not be influenced by anything that came before & should sound totally new. If influences did creep in they were more likely to be from free jazz than any rock based form of music. The 'No' in No Wave could thus be taken to imply the music didn't belong to any particular style or genre.

The ability to play was completely unimportant too. But where Punk liberated thousands of non musicians who found they could make music by only learning a few chords, many of the No Wave artists didn't even bother learning one chord. Coaxing atonal & abrasive sounds from their instruments & conjuring up basic repetitive rhythms was a much more effective way for them to express themselves. Melody? Forget it! Although when one hears No Wave, it is instantly obvious that that is what is being listened to, none of the bands really have that much in common stylistically.

In 1978, Brian Eno was living in New York & was blown away by the performances he was seeing by these artists. He wanted to capture this & document it so he took four of the bands - Mars, The Contortions,Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Mars, & D.N.A. into the studio & produced (in the loosest possible sense) four tracks apiece by each of them. This came out as the legendary No New York album. The one problem with this album is all the bands that got left off, which has resulted in many people thinking these four bands are the definition of No Wave when there were numerous other acts ploughing similar (different) territory. The Theoretical Girls must have been particularly gutted as they were initially meant to be on the album but were then dropped at the last minute.

No Wave critics often argue that it was all a load of art wank and while many of the artists involved did come from an art / performance background, most didn't. But, as well as music, there were also No Wave film makers, the most famous of them being Nick Zedd, John Lurie and Richard Kern.

Starting off with one track each from all four contributors to the legendary 'No New York' compilation, here represented by tracks that don't appear on that record:

Mars - 3E (Ze Records)
First up are Mars with perhaps their most conventional sounding song. Mars were perhaps the first No Wave band, having formed before any one else got in on the act. Their two man / two woman line up would also prove to be a reflection of how equally the sexes were represented in No Wave, a fact often forgotten & seldom replicated in any other musical genre.


D.N.A. - You & You (Lust/Unlust)
From a fabulous 7" on Charles Ball's Lust/Unlust label, Arto LIndsay's guitar on this is outrageous. Perhaps more than any other No Wave act D.N.A. took their complete inability to play & made it their greatest asset. Lindsay conjured sounds out of his guitar that had never been heard before while Iku Mori's non drumming is a revelation. Lindsay's strangulated vocal style is also a thing of wonder. What I would give to have been able to see them live! They can be seen in rehearsal in the flawed but brilliant Downtown '81 film .


Teenage Jesus & The Jerks - Freud In Flop (Lust/Unlust)
42 seconds is all you need. Lydia Lunch's wonderfully named combo may have been short lived but everything they left behind is like an electric shock to the system.


The Contortions - Contort Yourself (Ze Records)
Led by the legendary James Chance who also co-founded but was only briefly in Teenage James Chance could be the Godfather of No Wave. Being a James Brown freak probably clinches him deserving that title. This song is The Contortion's 'hit' & Chance would go on to re-record it in a disco style with his James White & The Blacks ensemble. Chance could have gone on to become a star but personal problems & his confrontational attitude on stage helped to prevent that happening.


The Fire Engines - Get Up & Use Me (Codex Communications)
This is where music nerds will start to debate about what is No Wave & whether it is limited to New York artists. The Fire Engines are Scottish, but they were obsessed with The Contortions & it certainly shows. Based around one of the greatest riffs of all time, this was recorded in one take.


Blurt - Puppeteer (Factory)
Blurt are probably the most No Wave but not No Wave band of all time. Blurt probably would have existed & sounded exactly as they do whether such a thing as No Wave had ever happened or not. Hailing from Stroud & centering around the skronking sax genius & belching vocals of Ted Milton, Blurt are one of the great unsung bands of our times. Their music has so much space & groove that it's easy to get lost inside it. Blurt are a psycho-funk, afro-punk, no-wave, pogo-jazz-trio. This track oozes funk which apart from James Chance's experiments is not something No Wave is generally known for doing.


Tools You Can Trust - Show Your Teeth (Red Energy Dynamo)
Hailing from Manchester, Tools You Can Trust were very aware of No Wave although they never thought of themselves as a No Wave act, but this has all the hallmarks of a No Wave gem. The slightly deranged vocalist & the gas cylinders used for percussion clinches it. Most of their songs related to the war which the Conservative government was at that time waging upon the ordinary working people of Great Britain.

Sonic Youth - Shaking Hell (Neutral)
Again, the purists would probably debate the inclusion of this. But even though No Wave had pretty much finished by 1983, Sonic Youth were certainly born out of it. This song is great & features one of my favorite Kim Gordon vocals.


8 Eyed Spy - Lazy In Love (Fetish)
Here's Lydia Lunch finally getting to let rip. 8 Eyed Spy was her short lived 'mutilated blues' band & while a lot less shrill than much other No Wave (especially Teenage Jesus) it still has a certain 'on the edge' aspect to it.


Pulsallama - On The Rag (Y Records)
Described at the time as '12 girls fighting over a cowbell', Pulsallama were a short lived collective of feisty women who banged things together & wowed New York crowds as much with their on stage fighting as with their music. Featuring future star Ann Magnuson as a member, this is their ode to their periods!
bonus track - May (Y Records)


Arto / Neto - Pini, Pini (Ze Records)
This was a one off project for Ze Records featuring Arto Lindsay from DNA & his cinematographer friend Seth Tillet. On top of primitive drum machine hi hats, Lindsay does some of his best & most out there guitar noise while Tillet (Neto) recites an hysterical pigeon English rap. It has been argued (sort of) that this is in fact one of the first hip hop records.


Y Pants - That's The Way Boys Are (Neutral)
Y Pants were three women artists - Barbara Ess, Virgina Piersol & Gail Vachon. They mainly played at art spaces & had their own unique sound derived from their unusual instrumentation. They based their sound around an amplified toy piano, a toy drum set & a ukelele played through a distortion unit. Later they would add an electric bass & synth. They released one single for the legendary 99 Records & then one lp on Neutral Records. "That's the Way Boys Are" is sad, scary & lovely all at the same time.


ImpLOG - Breakfast (Log)
impLOG are most famous for the track "Holland Tunnel Dive" which is in my opinion seven & a half minutes of complete genius . "Breakfast" shows that No Wave doesn't have to be all about abrasive dissonance. impLOG were Don Christensen with help from Jody Harris. They were both in The Contortions & released just two records as impLOG - the Holland Tunnel Dive 12" and the Breakfast 7". This song is a rather silly but utterly charming ode to the great American breakfast. Jody Harris is one of the unsung heroes of No Wave - a Contortion, an impLOGger, founder of the wonderful Raybeats & collaborator with New York legend Robert Quine on the super Escape LP on the mighty Lust/Unlust label.


Jill Kroesen - Fay Shism Blues (Lovely Music)
Ending with the best song Patti Smith never wrote, this features contributions from Bill Laswell, the ubiquitous Jody Harris, Don Christensen & Arthur Russell amongst others. This is an incredibly tense piece of music that is so New York it hurts. Several people I have played this to have become completely obsessed with it. A performance, video & visual artist, musician & composer, it astounds me that Kroesen's work is so unknown. To me this sums up all that that era gave us - truly challenging & supremely wonderful music that inspires & moves as much, if not more so today than it did a quarter of a century ago.

A visitor request this update. I have placed all the songs in one file. I also added an entire folder of scans.

Various - No Wave Bands 1978 - 1984.

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Enjoy,
NØ

No New York

No New York is a compilation album released in 1978 by Antilles Records (AN-7067) under the curation of producer Brian Eno. Although it only contained songs by four different artists, it is considered by many to be the definitive single album documenting New York City's late-1970s No Wave movement.

No Wave was a short-lived but influential art music & art scene that thrived briefly in New York City during the late 1970s & early 1980s alongside the punk subculture. The term No Wave is in part satiric wordplay rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre. The term also highlights the music's experimental nature: No Wave music belonged to no fixed style or genre.

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, & experimental. There are, however, some elements common to most No Wave music, such as abrasive atonal sounds, repetitive driving rhythms, & a tendency to emphasize musical texture over melody. No Wave lyrics often focused on nihilism & confrontation. No Wave is often better defined in terms of the artistic environment in which it thrived & the character of performances typical to its context. No Wave performances drew heavily on performance art & as a result were often both highly theatrical & minimalistic in their renditions.

Also during this time, there was a period of No Wave Cinema which was an underground film movement in the East Village. No Wave filmmakers included Amos Poe, John Lurie, Vivienne Dick, Scott B & Beth B. This in turn led to the Cinema of Transgression, with work by Nick Zedd & Richard Kern. Late followers of this movement included groups such as Sonic Youth, Skeleton Key, Swans, Cop Shoot Cop, and others. The Theoretical Girls heavily influenced early Sonic Youth, who then emerged from this scene by creating music that eventually reached mass audiences & critical acclaim.

No Wave had a notable influence on noise & industrial bands who formed after, like Big Black, Lev Six, Helmet, & Live Skull. Also for new bands like Liars, Ex Models, Neptune, Erase Errata the influence of the No Wave scene was important. The Brian Eno-produced album No New York is perhaps the best example of this genre, featuring songs by The Contortions, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Mars, & D.N.A.

The No Wave movement continues to have a far-reaching impact on the American anti-culture music scene.

In a foreword to the book No Wave, Weasel Walter wrote of the movement's ongoing influence:
"I began to express myself musically in a way that felt true to myself, constantly pushing the limits of idiom or genre and always screaming "Fuck You!" loudly in the process. It's how I felt then and I still feel it now. The ideals behind the (anti-) movement known as No Wave were found in many other archetypes before and just as many afterwards, but for a few years around the late 1970s, the concentration of those ideals reached a cohesive, white-hot focus."

From No New York, spring 1978...
Enjoy,
NØ

The Contortions

One of the original punk-jazz groups of the New York No Wave scene, the Contortions were led by saxophone player James Chance, aka James White. (aka James Zhite, aka James Black, etc.) Their first recorded appearance, credited solely as the Contortions, was on the 1978 compilation, No New York. The following year, two albums were issued almost simultaneously on the ZE label, Buy the Contortions (an extreme jazz-punk LP) & Off White (a disco/standards hybrid; with one side vocals, the other side instrumentals). The same line-up recorded both records, although no one aside from Chance appears or is credited on the jacket of the Buy album. Following Chance & manager Anya Philips' acrimonious break with many of the original Contortions, the line-up changed frequently.
Dish it Out
Flip Your Face
Jaded
I Can't Stand Myself

Chance was romantically linked with another New York No Wave luminary, Lydia Lunch; in 1979 the pair collaborated on the album Off White (released by 'James White & the Blacks' with 'Stella Rico'). Original Contortions guitarist Pat Place went on to found the group the Bush Tetras. The African-American band members of "the Blacks," later separated from Chance & formed the band Defunkt. Guitarist Jody Harris formed neo-surf combo the Raybeats with Don Christensen, George Scott III & Pat Irwin.

Teenage Jesus & the Jerks

Teenage Jesus & the Jerks were an influential New York City No Wave music group of 1976-79 fronted by Lydia Lunch & James Chance, who later left the band after some conflict about their direction.

Burning Rubber

Reputed to play ten-minute sets of thirty-second songs (though "The Closet" & "I Woke Up Dreaming" extended to around three minutes & pushed performances up to twenty), they sought to take music beyond what Lunch saw as the traditionalism of punk rock ("I thought punk was lousy Chuck Berry music amped up to play triple fast", she later commented). Their frenzied playing & Lunch's shrieked vocals gained them a renown quickly matching & even surpassing that of other No Wave bands such as DNA or the older Mars.

The Closet
Red Alert

The group left behind little more than a dozen complete recorded songs, most of the surviving titles being assembled in 1995 into an 18-minute career retrospective CD only slightly incorrectly titled Everything (though other studio versions of several songs exist alongside a few live recordings). Few bands can have achieved quite such an impact with so slim a body of work, one felt not only in the US but also via (extremely limited) radio play in Britain where their assault on convention contrasted even more powerfully with the punk music of the day. Lunch & Chance went on separately to continued success in the New York underground music scene & beyond.

I Woke Up Dreaming

Mars

Mars were a New York City No Wave band formed by vocalist Sumner Crane in 1975. He was joined by China Burg (née Constance Burg; aka Lucy Hamilton - guitar, vocals), Mark Cunningham (bass), & Nancy Arlen (drums). The band played one live gig under the name China before changing it to Mars. They played a mixture of angular compositions & free-form ambient
noise jams, featuring surrealist lyrics & non-standard drumming; all the members were said to be completely untrained in music before forming the band.

Helen Fordsdale

Critic Stella Doon wrote in 1977:
"To the uninitiated, Mars may sound like listening to a laundromat magnified. That's because every instrument is making a sound, but who is making which sound? Instead of one direct sound or beat the music travels in at least 3 different directions, speeds of rhythm making a totally orbital sound, one that never really enters the ear instead spinning around the head. At times it sounds like tortured children singing in 7 different tongues."

Hairwaves

Mars played live about two dozen times, all in Manhattan. Their first show was at CBGB's in January of 1977; their last one was at Max's Kansas City on December 10, 1978.

Tunnel

Their recorded debut was the "3-E"/ "11,000 Volts" 7-inch single, released by Rebel Records/ ZE Records. The group then released a single live EP in 1979 or 1980, though they had broken up in 1978. Both recordings were compiled by Lydia Lunch's self-run label, Widowspeak Records, in 1986, as 78; the songs were slightly remixed & tweaked by Jim Thirlwell (a.k.a. Foetus). It was reissued by Atavistic Records on CD in 1996 as 78+. Due to complaints about Thirlwell's modifications on 78/78+, the full studio recordings of Mars (totaling about 30 minutes) surfaced in 2003 on the Spanish labels G3G & Spookysound. Cunningham ran both Hyrax Records & Spookysound Records. After the break-up of Mars, Cunningham was part of the bizarre John Gavanti "no wave opera" project with Crane, Arto Lindsay, & others. He has also worked with the band Don King, & recently with Convolution.

Puerto Rican Ghost

Crane died of lymphoma on April 15, 2003. Arlen died on September 17, 2006, following heart surgery.

D.N.A.

D.N.A. was a short-lived but influential New York band, associated with the No Wave movement. They were formed in 1978 by guitarist Arto Lindsay & keyboardist Robin Crutchfield. Rather than playing their instruments in a traditional manner, they instead focused on making unique & unusual sounds. Their music was described as spare, noisy, & angular. It was compared to some of Captain Beefheart's output.

Egomaniac's Kiss

D.N.A. originally consisted of Lindsay, Crutchfield, Gordon Stevenson, & Mirielle Cervenka. They took their name from a song by another no wave band, Mars (see above). Stevenson went on to play bass for Teenage Jesus & the Jerks; Cervenka is the younger sister of Exene Cervenka of X. This incarnation of the band was very brief, not playing even one concert. After the rapid departure of Stevenson & Cervenka, Lindsay & Crutchfield hastily recruited Ikue Mori (listed as Ikue Ile on the No New York album) --- a Japanese woman with little command of English & no drum set --- to be D.N.A.'s drummer.

Lionel

This lineup of D.N.A. played occasionally at CBGB & Max's Kansas City. They recorded one 7" single. Within their first year, they had cemented their reputation as a paradigmatic no wave band when Brian Eno selected them as one of the four groups documented on the No New York LP, the first recording to expose no wave groups to an audience outside of lower Manhattan.

Not Moving

Shortly after the recording of No New York, Crutchfield left D.N.A. to form a new band, Dark Day. He was replaced by Tim Wright, previously of the Cleveland band Pere Ubu. As Wright played bass guitar & not keyboards, & also being the only member of the band to have any conventional instrumental technique, the change in D.N.A.'s sound was dramatic. The music became even more spare & angular, with Wright's bass lines creating a sometimes menacing sound to support Lindsay's scraping, atonal guitar & Mori's irregular rhythms. Their song structures became tighter, briefer, more abstract. It has been compared to aural haiku.

Size

The Lindsay-Mori-Wright lineup of D.N.A. developed something of a cult following between 1979 & 1982, but perhaps more of their fans came from the art world than from rock audiences. Live shows were frequent in this period, but rarely outside of the CBGB - Mudd Club - Tier 3 circuit in lower Manhattan.

All four songs in 320Kbps mp3 & FLAC.

The group's 10-minute debut album, A Taste of D.N.A. was recorded for Kip Hanrahan's American Clavé label. It was later released on Rough Trade in 1980. Some live D.N.A. tracks appeared on compilation albums while the band was still in existence.

Lindsay, Mori, & Wright decided to dissolve the band in 1982. It's a measure of the cult following the band had developed that its final concerts were three consecutive sold-out nights at CBGB. D.N.A.'s final encore was a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." Sadly, this is not included on the CD Last Live at CBGB, released more than a decade later on John Zorn's Avant label.

Lindsay, Mori, & to a lesser extent Crutchfield, have remained active in music.

The Aesthetics of Noise is an in-depth, scholarly article on noise & its relationship to aural art (if anyone is interested in learning more).
From the above mentioned article, by Torben Sangild:
Noise can blow your head out. Noise is rage. Noise is ecstatic. Noise is psychedelic. Noise is often on the edge between annoyance and bliss. Noises are many things. Noise is a difficult concept to deal with...
After defining noise and giving a brief history of noise in music, I will take a closer look at Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Merzbow and Curd Duca as four very different aesthetic approaches to noise...
The first composer to consciously operate with noise as music was the Italian futurist Luigi Russolo, writing the manifesto "The Art of Noise" in 1913. He constructed the so-called "intonarumori" (noise intonators) and composed a few works for these machines...
Noise in rock music is centered on two effects, both connected to the electric guitar and developed in the sixties: feedback and distortion...
The deliberate use of these effects can be traced back to Link Wray's "Rumble" (1958), but it was garage bands like The Kingsmen who made it an integral part of their sound. The great innovator, however, was undoubtedly Jimi Hendrix, who constructed a whole catalogue of noise effects, using them with virtuosity in his blues-inspired rock compositions. Aesthetically, however, the influence on noise rock came not from Hendrix, but rather The Velvet Underground, with their minimal, lo-fi, sinister music and disillusioned texts. On tracks like "European Son" and "Sister Ray," the noise is alarming in ways that has made Velvet Underground a reference point for all noise rock.

The present-day Pachuco refuses to die!

Never forget Ruben Sano!

The Story of Ruben & the Jets

Ruben Sano was 19 when he quit the group to work on his car. He had just saved up enough money to buy a '53 Nash & four gallons of gray primer. His girl friend said she would leave him forever if he didn't quit playing in the band & fix up his car so they could go to the drive-in & make out. There was already 11 other guys in the band so when he quit nobody missed him except for his car when they had to go to rehearsal or play for a battle of the bands at the American Legion Post in Chino. They are all still good friends even today. The other main guys in the band: NATCHO, LOUIE, PANA, & CHUY still come over to RUBEN'S house on Tuesday or Wednesday to listen to his collection of Richie Valens records & also "Eddie My Love". Generally speaking, they save "Cherry Pie" & "Work With Me Annie" till the late part of the evening so they can have something to hum on the way home or to Burger Lane. Some of them continue to hum & pop their fingers even the next day, working in the car wash. Now that they have gotten their big break in show business each one of the main guys in the group voted at the band meeting to keep the name RUBEN on the JETS not only because it sounds real fine & gives it class, but also because it makes it real sharp. RUBEN even likes it too & thinks its real sharp. All the guys in the band hope that you are sick & tired like they are of all the crazy far out music some of the bands of today are playing. They hope you are so sick & tired of it that you are ready for their real sharp style of music. They are good socially acceptable young men who only want to sing about their girl friends. They want everybody to start dancing close back together again like 1955 because they know that people need to love & also want to hold on to each other. Even holding hands is okay to them. They want you to hold hands & dance the bop & fall in love to their music. One of the main guys in the band was telling me a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about how only about half the guys in the band ever show up at rehearsals most of the time..."IF PEOPLE WOULD JUST HEAR MY PLEA I WOULD GIVE EVERYTHING JUST TO SING THE SONGS THAT WAS TURNING ME ON IN HIGH SCHOOL.

RUBEN HAS 3 DOGS.
BENNY, BABY & MARTHA.

The Mothers - Cruising with Ruben & the Jets

Verve V6-5055x

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"This is an album of greasy love songs & cretin simplicity. We made it because we really like this kind of music (just a bunch of old men with rock & roll clothes on sitting around the studio, mumbling about the good old days). Ten years from now you'll be sitting around with your friends someplace doing the same thing if there's anything left to sit on."

Ray Collins (lead vocals)
Frank Zappa (low grumbles, oo-wah, & lead guitar)
Roy Estrada (high weazlings, dwaedy-doop, & electric bass)
Jimmy Carl Black &/or Arthur Dyre Tripp III (lewd pulsating rhythm)
Ian Underwood or Don Preston (redundant piano triplets)
Motorhead Sherwood (baritone sax & tambourine)
Bunk Gardner & Ian Underwood (tenor & alto saxs)

TRACKS:
Cheap Thrills
Love of My Life
How Could I Be Such a Fool
Deseri
I'm Not Satisfied
Jelly Roll Gum Drop
Anything
Later That Night
You Didn't Try to Call Me
Fountain of Love
"No. No. No."
Anyway the Wind Blows
Stuff up the Cracks

In 1984, Zappa, unhappy with the sound quality of Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, enlisted Arthur Barrow & Chad Wackerman to re-record the original bass & drum parts (although they were not credited) for the Old Masters Box One re-issue of the album.

In addition to the new drums & bass, Zappa added several vocal overdubs & heavily remixed the album, nearly making it sound like a completely different album. 
 
The 1984 remix of the album has become the standard, & all post-1984 reissues of the album have featured this mix.

The 1968 version of the album with the original bass & drum parts has not been officially rereleased on CD, although bootlegs have surfaced.

The tracks here are from the original album release. They will be removed shortly.

Enjoy
NØ

Can You Hear Me?

Re-uploaded 03/12/2014. Enjoy, NØ.

Various - Can You Hear Me? Music from the Deaf Club, Optional Music OPT LP001, 1980.

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This record has only three tracks per side, one track for each band. I did not separate the tracks nor the songs in each track but simply included Side 1 & Side 2. I have included the back cover graphic that lists the song titles. If you want it cut up into individual song, DIY.

The Deaf Club was a notable music venue located on Valencia Street in San Francisco which remained open for an 18 month period. Its main attraction was punk music. The name comes from the fact the building it was in originally was the San Francisco Club of the Deaf.

Robert Hanrahan, manager of the The Offs, discovered the club, & was able to rent it on a nightly basis.

The first show as the Deaf Club was on 9 December 1978 & featured the Offs, The Mutants & On The Rag. Over 100 bands such as Northern California's The Zeros, Crime, The Dils, Flipper & Southern California's The Bags, Alleycats, The Germs, X & Dinettes played during the clubs short history.

Given the unique nature of the venue & it's location in the Mission District near 16th Street & the Roxie Theater, it was enthusiastically supported by the punk & arts community, visited by film greats like John Waters & occasionally challenged by the officials of the San Francisco noise abatement patrol, the police, fire department, health department & the alcohol/beverage control until it closed.

The house DJs were Enrico Chandoha who worked on the editorial staff of the early Thrasher Magazine; Jack Fan (an Offs road manager & chef at the Zuni); BBC celebrity Johnnie Walker; & Robert Hanrahan.

About such venues, Brendan Earley of The Mutants comments:
"The earthiness, I guess, of playing places like the Deaf Club seemed to have a lot more energy to them. You know the crowd that started coming to this music in '77, it was maybe a peak of their scene, or the scene at that time. They were not normal kinds of clubs, they weren't places like the Stone, or even the Mabuhay, really. They were neat places to play; often good audiences, & good energy going on."

The four partners in Walking Dead Records developed a live compilation project that resulted in this album, released by Optional Record distribution of Berkeley, CA on the Walking Dead label: Can You Hear Me? Music From the Deaf Club. It was recorded on a mobile 8 track by Jim Keylor (also of Army Street Studios), DJ'ed by Johnnie Walker , produced by Robert Hanrahan who also managed & booked the Club, & coordinated by Peter Worrall. The photos selected for the album were taken by Sue Brisk, the album art was by Diana Miami (aka Diana Stumbo) & the liner notes were written by V. Vale of RE/Search/Search & Destroy. It was recorded live at the club during early 1979 & is a testament to the authentic underground punk & "new wave" scene during that period in San Francisco's music history.

The album features performances by first & second generation San Francisco Punk bands like:

* Dead Kennedys with "Police Truck", "Short Songs" & "Straight A's". This was the last performance of the DK's rhythm guitarist 6025 & also features Ted on drums, who was replaced by DH Peligro at the very end of 1980. Raymond Pepperell, Jr., better known as East Bay Ray of the Dead Kennedy's used the original eight track safety masters from this live recording to release their recent 2004 "live at the Deaf Club" CD.

* KGB- "Dying in the USA" & "Picture Frame Seduction"

* Offs - "Hundred Dollar Limo", "Die Babylon", "I've Got the Handle" (Offs were: Don Vinil, Billy Hawk, Bob Roberts now of Spotlight Tattoo in Los Angeles, Bob Steeler & Denny Boredom who also played with Hot Tuna)

* The Mutants' "Tribute to Russ Meyer" & "Monster of Love"

* Pink Section - "Jane Blank", Francine's List" & "Been In The Basement 30 Years"

* Tuxedo Moon - "19th Nervous Breakdown" - courtesy of The Rolling Stones & "Heaven" from the film Eraserhead

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The Dead Kennedys ... no need to say more.

1. DEAD KENNEDYS "Police Truck"
2. DEAD KENNEDYS "Short Songs"
3. DEAD KENNEDYS "Straight A's"

K.G.B.

Re-uploaded 01/23/2014. Enjoy, NØ.


K.G.B. was a short-lived band consisting of singer Johnny Genocide (The Offs, No Alternative), drummer Zippy Pinhead (The Dils, DOA), bassist Jeff Reese (No Alternative) & guitarist Ron Ramos (The Assassins). Johnny also played rhythym guitar for the OFFs. After KGB broke up, he formed No Alternative with Jeff Reese on Bass & a rotating list of drummers (Bobby Barage, Andy Freeman, & Chris Coon).

K.G.B.

4. K.G.B. "Dying In the USA"
5. K.G.B. "Picture Frame Seduction"

The Offs

Re-uploaded 05/13/2024. Enjoy, NØ.

 

The Original line-up of The Offs was: Billy Hawk - guitar, Don Vinil - vocals, Fast Floyd - bass, & Bob Steeler - drums. They were later joined by Bob Roberts - saxophone. The Offs' singer, Don Vinil (who sadly died of a heroin overdose on Ninth St. in New York in 1983), was one of the first openly gay people in the West Coast punk scene. V.Vale of Search & Destroy & RE/Search introduced Vinil to guitarist Billy Hawk after Vinil was kicked out of his first band, Grand Mal. The Offs formed in late 1977 as just a goof between Billy Hawk, Don Vinil, & a girl named Olga. They played around, various wanna-be musicians drifted in & out of the band. Gradually everyone involved got more & more serious.

The Offs were unique among the first wave of West Coast punk bands in maintaining a home base on both coasts. In San Francisco, their manager discovered the Deaf Club as a live venue, & the Offs released records on the labels CD Presents and 415 Records. In New York City, they hung out with Basquiat (who scrawled their album cover), & released a single on Max's Kansas City Records. The greatest thing about this San Francisco sextet was their inability to be pigeon-holed. Were they punk? New wave? Avant-garde? Art rock? No New York noise? A new strain of art jazz? Some odd form of mutant ska gone wrong with bleating sax & screeching vocals? Like their U.K. contemporaries, Blurt, they were sort of all these things, & still others with names that haven't been invented. But what tied them to the punk community was the basic blazing energy to everything they did. These weren't a bunch of art school posers, they were smash-it-up party skanksters who wanted to do something fresh within an absolutely remarkably creative late-'70s Bay Area scene -- in cahoots with Crime, Nuns, Avengers, Negative Trend, Flipper, Pink Section, Tuxedomoon, Vktms, Mutants, Lewd, Dils, Zeros, & more.

Most of their earlier recordings have been nearly impossible to get but recently a live recording of The Offs has been released on Vampir Records, recorded by Terry Hammer at the infamous Mabuhay Gardens in 1980.

The OFFs from Various - Can You Hear Me? Music from the Deaf Club, 

Optional Music OPT LP001, 1980.

6. OFFS "Hundred Dollar Limo"
7. OFFS "Die Babylon"
8. OFFS "I've Got the Handle"

Mutants

The late 70's provided a giant stage for American underground bands trying to create a new kind of rock & roll. In San Francisco, The Mutants emerged as one of the great art school punk bands of the era with their unique seven-member high octane, alcohol fueled melodic punk assault. Each performance was treated as a special event, which the band packed with truly memorable tunes from their enormous catalog.

Seeing the Mutants live was like being invited to a secret John Waters movie about punk colorfully & melodically crashing into New Wave, like a dysfunctional locomotive designed by Johnnie Cash on angel dust. Why couldn't the Sex Pistols or the Doors be this much fun? Because the Mutants could be so flamboyant & conceptual, it's easy to forget the musical power of their songs. This is partially connected to how the vocals of sweet toughies Sally Webster & Sue White harmoniously combine with those of Fritz Fox. Although Frank Zappa denied ever using LSD, the Mutants didn't. Maybe that's how they mutated.

9. MUTANTS "Tribute to Russ Meyer"
10. MUTANTS "Monster of Love"

Pink Section

Re-uploaded 01/25/2014. Enjoy, NØ.


Pink Section was a great short-lived no wave/synth/noise band that performed regularly in San Francisco during the 1980's. It's members included: Mr. Todd, Stephen Wymore & Judy Gittlsohn/Carol Detweiler of Japanese Weekend. Yoko Ono was an inspiration to them.

They released the Tour of China 7", a self-titled 12" & a number of scattered tracks on compilations albums back in the day, plus no doubt there is some unreleased material in the vaults. They should have done more, but whaddya gonna do, they were playing in every other band in town & life is short. They veer from catchy art-pop to demented synth spazz.


Pink Section 

11. PINK SECTION "Jane Blank"
12. PINK SECTION "Francine's List"
13. PINK SECTION "Been In the Basement 30 Years"

Tuxedo Moon

 UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded 09/14/2013.       Enjoy, NØ.

Tuxedomoon was an avant-garde, electronic-oriented collective whose music ranged from new wave pop to jazz fusion to more experimental synthesizer soundscapes (usually including saxophone & violin), which were frequently married in concert to performance-art shows. Tuxedomoon was formed in San Francisco in 1977 by two electronic music students at San Francisco City College, Blaine L. Reininger (keyboards, violin) & Steven Brown (keyboards, other instruments). Brown's local theater connections supplied equipment & occasional vocalists in Gregory Cruikshank & Victoria Lowe, plus more frequent contributions from singer & performance artist Winston Tong. Punk & new wave were opening up the San Francisco music scene at the time, & Tuxedomoon landed an opening slot for Devo in 1978 at around the same time they cut their first single, Pinheads on the Move.

Lowe quit the band before their first EP, No Tears, which featured off-&-on members Michael Belfer (guitar) & Paul Zahl (drums). Tong & Belfer departed temporarily, & Peter Principle (b. Peter Dachert) joined as a full-time member. Tuxedomoon signed to the Residents' Ralph Records in 1979, when Tuxedomoon recorded their now classic album Half Mute. It's startling variety & innovation combined with Patrick Roque's brilliant award-winning cover art made it an unexpected success. Feeling that their ideas were more in tune with the European electronic music scene, the band then toured Europe. Touching down first in Rotterdam in April, 1981 where they spent six months as artists-in-residence, they were soon drawn (along with many others) to the independent music scene which began to flourish in Brussels in the eighties. Brussels at the time was a cultural crossroads, drawing groups from all over the world.

After 1981's Desire, the band relocated permanently to Rotterdam, where Reininger began to branch out as a solo artist. Tuxedomoon was also hired to score a Maurice Bejart ballet, the results of which were released in 1982 as Divine. Reininger left for a solo career in 1983 & was replaced by Frankie Lievaart & horn player Luc Van Lieshout.

Their period of European residence based in Brussels was extraordinarily prolific. When not touring, they spent much of their time in the studio, taking advantage of the free-spending optimism of the time & producing a large body of work which has stood the test of time & continues to appeal to those who seek alternatives to mainstream consumer Culture.

Although the group itself was semi-officially dissolved in 1989, they have continued to work on collaborative projects as well as their individual output, continually updating their collective discography with works for dance, for film & other media as well as music for its own sake.

In June 1997 Steven Brown, Peter Principle & Blaine L. Reininger, the founding members of the band met in Tel Aviv to collaborate upon the composition & performance of a series of pieces of "Hypothetical Elevator Music", music designed to create aural backdrops appropriate for a pursuit of leisure activities within the urban landscape.

Here are a couple songs from the Deaf Club compilation:  

"19th Nervous Breakdown" & "In Heaven".

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Enjoy,
NØ