Who's Your Favorite No Wave Artist(s)?
 

I have to say mine are both DNA and Glenn Branca. DNA in terms of listening for pure pleasure, and Branca out of respect and admiration (although, I enjoy his music, too). His work with Theoretical Girls was great, and his solo work was just genius. What about you guys?

Probably James Chance. His work with both the Contortions and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks is the tits. I really dig DNA, Theoretical Girls (as well as Branca's solo work) and Mars too.

Have you got the No New York comp?

I've listened to it, yea. It had a few songs by Mars, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, DNA, and the Contortions. Thank God for Brian Eno...

I'm forever indebted to Eno for curating that, one of the best compilations in any genre and a great entry into the weird and wonderful world of No Wave.

Have you two listened to New York Noise comp. in two volumes? The first is called something like 'Dance music from New York underground' and contains Liquid Liquid, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, DNA, Mars, Contortions, Bush Tetras etc. focusing more on the funky sound. Vol. 2 is just titled as New York underground from 1977-1984 and has Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chathm, Del-Byzantees, Ut, Static and many more that I didn't know about. The big revelation for me was a band Red Transistor. I've only heard of them before, but never actually heard the music before listening to this comp. Great stuff!

As for my favorites, definitely Theoretical Girls and Mars.

I'm going to need to check that out.

I havent, but I like Liquid Liquid and Bush Tetras a lot, so that'll be something I need to procure in the future for sure.

Both of these volumes are actually a mix of more funky music and no wave and noisy music. There's also Volume 3, but I haven't heard it. I should probably as I already really like Dark Day, Suicide (Martin Rev is on the comp.) and Ike Yard. Judging by these the comp. probably focuses more on the synth and electro sound.

I still have the links for these two volumes. I can send them to you, only to check if they're still working.

That'd be great if you would.

That would be sterling of you.

I personally would say Mars, and James Chance & The Contortions are my favorites but I'm a big fan of all of it. If you want to count the Lounge Lizards in there (they seem to have more of an effort at melody than the rest) then they are my favorite. I would say them and Suicide, but to me they seem to be part of free jazz more than no wave and Suicide was before the whole thing.

Isn't it really only like five or six bands that were actually a part of that movement? My thoughts were Sonic Youth and Suicide but I don't think either one really count.

Regrettably, I haven't listened to much in the "No-Wave" genre. If it's like Sonic Youth, however, even if it's a little more bizarre, I'm onboard.

Off to download albums by artists mentioned in this thread...

I believe they both count. Suicide was more of an influence on No Wave, though. Many of the no wave musicians, such as Lydia Lunch, were inspired by them to take part in the New York music scene at that time. So, I suppose they were apart of the early No Wave movement, while Sonic Youth was in the later part of it.

I learned that from that Kill Your Idols documentary which was very informative of the movement. I strongly suggest some of you check it out.

^^ Kill Your Idols is a pretty good documentary. It doesn't really try to define No Wave in some exact terms, you know, as in proper definition, but to give more of a setting and a frame. So Suicide is mentioned as a big inspiration for no wave bands, but I wouldn't call them no wave. And the documentary also mentions no wave revival of the 00s, so it's more like a retrospective of New York underground noisy music.

I always thought of No Wave as not so much a conscience movement, but a specific short lived scene in New York in late 70s. Like minded individuals inspired by bands like Suicide for example thought it was possible to express anything without needing to follow any rules (and that includes rules of punk and new wave) and without needing to actually 'play' instruments. Those were just like any other objects used in performance art. Expression was more important than musicianship. That's why I think these bands were meant to be experienced live...*sigh* Sonic Youth were from the start more musically conscience and by the time they started the no wave scene had already changed and dissolved.

Not really like Sonic Youth. Early Sonic Youth sound was greatly influenced by it, but especially by Glenn Branca. Like I said, Sonic Youth were more artistically and formally conscience. For example, Sonic Youth noise is informed by dissonance and atonality of avant-garde music whereas No Wave noise is a product of not giving **** about musicianship. So that's quite a punk attitude actually even though Lydia Lunch rebelled against punk as well. Rebellious nature of punk and adventurous nature of performance art, that's how I see No Wave.

Here's a pretty interesting video of Byron Coley and Thurston Moore talking about that whole scene and the book they wrote about it.

Out of the bands that are definitely O.G.'s of that original scene I will credit Teenage Jesus and the Jerks as my favorite, in large part because I've liked Lydia Lunch for a long time. On one of the documentaries I saw, and it was probably Kill Your Idols, the footage of the band DNA really impressed me.

I can tell you I wasn't all that impressed with the new "no wave" artists that I saw on that documentary.

Anyone have mediafire/megaupload for Lounge Lizard's debut?

I thought they were portrayed a little unfairly, iirc.