Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Mojo JUNE 2008 - by Kris Needs

MARC MASTERS: NO WAVE

The story of New York punk's degenerate underbelly residing in the Lower East Side.

New York's No Wave movement took punk's ground zero manifesto to cacophonous extremes. It arose from the burnt-out ruins of the East Village and landed on the stages of CBGB and Max's. But main exponents Mars, Lydia Lunch with Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, D.N.A. and James Chance's Contortions were obsessed with The Velvet Underground and Suicide rather than Sex Pistols-style traditionalism. Alan Vega's confrontational stance inspired actual audience assaults. Brian Eno, in town producing Talking Heads' second album, was sufficiently impressed to record the groups, creating 1978's pivotal No New York album and unwittingly starting a movement. Marc Masters' vivid account covers all this plus the chainsaw-wielding Red Transistor, Sonic Youth and Swans. The hair-raising story is bolstered by previously-unseen photos and memorabilia and affectionate reminiscences from scene mainstays Lunch, Chance and Jim Sclavunos (now drummer in The Bad Seeds).