![]() Also plugging in and scowling/howling was the fabulous all-in-black Rudolph Grey, an urban nihilist who played guitar as if to penetrate to the place John Coltrane seemed to be nearing on his last sessions in duo with Rashid Ali. And the most confounding and sensuously brutalist band Mars, where street scared lyrics, mystery jazz fingerings and art school insolence all swirled in a miasma of transient noise and beauty. ![]() From farthest afield their was the always polarising DNA, with Arto Lindsay as a guitarist’s revelation – or nightmare depending on how open you were to the incineration of trad rock – along with drummer Ikue Mori, a Japanese woman who would evolve into one of the great percussion/sound improvisers of the genre. Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, fronted by a teenage runaway poet boy-shredder named Lydia Lunch with Bradley Field on single snare drum (and one stick), a contemporary freak pal to the Cramps (the almighty garage punk noise trio also from the crazoid streets of Cleveland), and Jim Sclavunos on bass, who would later be the drummer in service for Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex LP and these days a mainstay in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.Īnd most sensationally the Contortions, led by the sax anxiety of James Chance and featuring the stunning pan-androgynous slide guitar of Pat Place. They were bizarre and phenomenal.Īnother was the high energy sonic slut-core of transplanted Cleveland band the Dead Boys, formed from the Midwest ashes of Rocket From the Tombs with direct connection to the amazing outré tuneage of Pere Ubu, where a ferocious passion for the punk blueprint of the Stooges, MC5 and arcane sides of lost garage 60s punk snarl 7ins informed their entire approach.Ĭertainly inspired and informed, though more sub-underground, to these bloodcurdling bands were the No Wave bands. One antecedent was Suicide, the terrific and terrorcentric duo of Martin Rev straight up pummeling audiences with demented over-amped keyboard electronics and vocalist Alan Vega seemingly scraped off the Union Square subway platform in a state of mental patient-on-acid hysteria assaulting the audience with what seemed like some kind of Agent Orange nervous meltdown. These bands certainly exemplified the personality and psycho-geo-scuzz of the city but there was another faction of music in coexistence that really was truly fucked and completely off-the boards weirdo. Of course we were all drawn to the limelight of Patti, Hell, Verlaine, Ramones, Blondie, T Heads, but they already seemed golden and untouchable in a city blasted in exhaustion from speed-addled hippie hangover and Vietnam-Nixon burnout. ![]() ![]() There were more lame acts than great ones surely but that seems to be always the case anytime and anywhere. There were indeed even less interesting stink glam bands hitting the boards of clubland all straining at our attention as we awaited the majesty of Television, the Ramones or the Stooge-Nugget wildness of the Dead Boys. Bands like the Brats and the Harlots of 42 nd St may have had a genius lick or two but theirs was a fading raunch to the whip smart energy of Talking Heads and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, two outfits that were shocking in their avant-modernist words and music headiness.Įven more straight up bar-rock moves could be transcended by the unique infect of Patti Smith, the fabulous trans-gutter drag of Wayne County or the intelligent sexiness of Debbie Harry, infusing and elevating the 60s fun rock moves of Blondie. ![]()
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