Sunday 6 July 2008

Various - No New York (1978) (@256)












Once more, Brian Eno's contribution in the latest release of Coldplay is seminal. Read how wonderfully his way of working is described by Thomas Erlewine in allmusic. "Eno pushes them, not necessarily to experiment but rather to focus and refine, to not leave their comfort zone but to find some tremulous discomfort within it. In his hands, this most staid of bands looks to shake things up, albeit politely, but such good manners are so inherent to Coldplay's DNA that they remain courteous even when they experiment. With his big-budget production, Eno has a knack for amplifying an artist's personality, as he allows bands to be just as risky as they want to be..."

It was a very tough task to choose among the albums he has contributed as producer/ engineer and are considered as landmarks. Think... it is Bowie's Low, Devo's Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, Talking Heads' Remain In Light, U2's Joshua Tree to name just a few. I've chosen No New York as a mere evidence of his cutting edge music horizons.

Janine Warren writes for her review in Mojo (issue 176, 7/2008) on the excellent recently published book No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980 written by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley: "No Wave was a short-lived anti-everything sonic assault arising from the embers of the New York punk scene and the experimentation of Suicide, exhaling such bands as Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, DNA, Mars and The Contortions, all of whom appeared on Brian Eno's now legendary 1978 No New York compilation and whose inclusion within these pages serves as testament to their far reaching influence."
Or as Ben Sisario writes for the New York Times: (no wave) "was a cacophonous, confrontational subgenre of punk rock, Dadaist in style and nihilistic in attitude".
There is also a very interesting interview that Thurston Moore gave to Ben Sisario for this book.
Check also the film Kill Your Idols from 2003, where many artists of No Wave are interviewed.
This is the trailer of Kill Your Idols


As for Brian Eno, you can also check the book On Some Faraway Beach: The Life & Times of Brian Eno by David Sheppard as well as this site.

Tracklisting:
A1-Contrortions - Dish It Out
A2-Contrortions - Flip Your Face
A3-Contrortions - Jaded
A4-Contrortions - I Can't Stand Myself
A5-Teenage Jesus And The Jerks - Burning Rubber
A6-Teenage Jesus And The Jerks - The Closet
A7-Teenage Jesus And The Jerks - Red Alert
A8-Teenage Jesus And The Jerks - I Woke Up Dreaming
B1-Mars - Helen Fordsdale
B2-Mars - Hairwaves
B3-Mars - Tunnel
B4-Mars - Puerto Rican Ghost
B5-D.N.A - Egomaniac's Kiss
B6-D.N.A. - Lionel
B7-D.N.A - Not Moving
B8-D.N.A. - Size

album review link (allmusic): here
album review from 1979 (by Richard C. Walls, from Creem): here
download link: here

8 comments:

  1. Dear Fellow Traveler,

    We’re Late For Class here.

    We hope you might like to post our 30th release on your blog. It’s dumb and fun and sure to tick somebody off... and it’s called The Jim Morrison Seance Tapes.

    Below is a link for the codes to post any & all of The Jim Morrison Seance Tapes on your blog for free (links, cover, FULL Mp3 player, etc). Your readers might enjoy it and we’d get some free publicity for our free music and free blog. Our folks would love you for it... and we also have pictures of sad-eyed puppies, in case we’re forced to send those, too. Drop us a line so we can add you to our “Bloggers Kind Enough To Promote Us Even Though There's Zilch In It For Them” list. We get almost all our traffic from other bloggers so a link would make all of our collective pants happy.
    Thanks, as always.
    WLFC
    http://werelateforclass.blogspot.com

    PRIVATE Link for you to get Codes and Links (Don’t post this link please)
    http://werelateforclass.blogspot.com/2007/04/codes-for-posting-jim-morrison-seance.html


    PRESS RELEASE
    July 7, 2008

    ‘We’re Late For Class’ Jams With Jim Morrison

    Via a medium, stoner college jam band We’re Late For Class performed a 14 minute improvisational space jam along with the disembodied voice of Jim Morrison, the late singer of The Doors.

    “Why not!?,” said a We’re Late For Class spokesman. “It's cheaper than a living singer, what with classified ads, lodging and alcohol... and besides, you know how lead singers are to deal with.”

    It’s entitled The Jim Morrison Seance Tapes and is their 30th. It’s available for free at the band’s blog, http://werelateforclass.blogspot.com

    “So you don't think this is just something we slapped together with old recordings and ProTools... (you can hear) the engineer ask Jim for the ‘post-death stuff... the stuff without copyrights,’” the spokesman persisted. “In the end,” he said, ”it went smoother than our Screamin' Jay Hawkins seance.”

    The free download also includes a 14 minute instrumental version for those that don’t buy the premise.

    contact: werelateforclass@hotmail.com.

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  2. why on earth hadn't I seen your blog before? amazing work!! (going on my favorites)

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  3. Holy sh*t...a posting from 2008 and the link is still alive!!!! I love you and your work. Keep strong and thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you for your good works. Keep strong you too.

    ReplyDelete