No Wave
by Marc Masters

Filling in on New York’s blank generation

While the world hailed the amped-up traditionalism of the Ramones, Blondie and Patti Smith, something much closer to punk’s original manifesto of destruction, noise and nihilism was festering in the desolate ruins of New York’s East Village. Lydia Lunch’s Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, James Chance’s Contortions, Mars and DNA worshipped Suicide and were bent on taking Richard Hell’s Blank Generation declaration to its outer limits of crowd-baiting attitude. In Autumn 1978, Brian Eno was impressed enough to take the groups into the studio, resulting in the seminal No New York album, where each band got four tracks and unwittingly kicked off the No Wave movement.

Marc Masters’ book concentrates on the four bands plus contemporaries who narrowly missed the album, such as Glenn Branca’s Theoretical Girls and Red Telephone (all with new interviews). While later, dancefloor-influencing groups such as ESG are dealt with rather swiftly (and some mainstays, like the eternally invisible Certain General ignored completely), subsequent racket merchants Sonic Youth and the fearsome Swans loom large. Invaluable photos and flyers, plus chapters on public access TV and local movie-makers, bolster a graphic, gutter-level alternative to the recent Soul Jazz tome, with Masters’ engaging turn of phrase adding much to this little-told story.

ISBN 9781906155025

Reviewed by Kris Needs
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