The Mars LP - MARS
(1977-1978)
So Mars were probably the first no wave band. Also the most extreme of the first wave in my opinion. This CD has just been reissued with all of their recordings in chronology. It lasts about 30 minutes, and it will probably be expensive (I dunno about you guys who buy records online, but I paid a crapload for it from an indie shop) but it's so essential to understanding that sound. The band said they were on a "countdown from ten to one" and that's more perfect than anything I could come up with. The first song "3E", is relatively standard. It cruises along like a Velvets song, with manic vocals which will probably remind you of Talking Heads or Devo or someone like that. It's still has a figety bridge section between verses that swerves into the kind of atonality the Fall made their own, and the guitar sound slashes through the whole song, not a ringing, sustaining powerchord but a brash, harsh clanging sound of two people violently attacking guitars with no regard for convention. It's also got the most lyrics of any of their songs by far.
With that out of the way, the B-side to that, "11,000 Volts" was the start of the real abstraction process. This one's fronted by China Burg, who sings in a kind of sexy slur, stretching the words like she's od'ing or just come out of a coma or something. It's hypnotic. This contrasts with Sumner Crane's style, who strangles and chokes on the words. He actually becomes slightly scary by the end of the record. He's dead now and that's a shame, because he was clearly an awesome front man to the few who witnessed Mars' 30 or so shows.
From here, description becomes much more difficult. Guitars never play what you might call a riff. Instead, China abuses the strings with a metal slide without fail, Sumner does his best to render his guitar unintelligable.
Unintelligible is the perfect word for what Mars were trying to acheive. It even shows up in the lyric book at one point. The instruments try to sound unlike themselves. The resulting sound can't be unscrambled easily. It's hard to tell a bass from a drum from a guitar from a voice.
Next up is the 4 tracks they did with Brian Eno for the famous NO NEW YORK LP.
2 tracks fronted by each singer, although this collection sees more overlap between the two. "Helen Forsdale" is an attempt to recreate insect sounds on slide guitar, over one of Mark Cunningham's straighter bass lines. "Hair Waves" is about a japanese woman listening to the radio. They finish up with "Puerto Rican Ghost", which might be their best song. China's anxious shouting interjected with male voices babbling word play and jumbled letters. It brews to boiling point and then stops dead. It actually sounds like they are having fun playing it though.
What follows used to be called the Mars EP, and was not only the final recording, but the last ever time they played as Mars. (although the members did play together in other projects afterwards)
Recorded in binaural - ie two microphones placed 7 inches apart and at head height to replicate human hearing - and live to tape in an old theatre, these songs are where they obliterate rock once and for all. They arent catchy in any way, often pretty terrifying. "Scorn" is probably the best example of this, where Sumner can be heard rambling inaudible words transcribed from a homeless man, before growling the song's title a few times.
Most of these songs completely forego lyrics for 'abstract vocalizations'. They are teasing music out into a tangle, smudging and blurring and stretching it way out of toe-tapping head-nodding safety. On the final track, they kill it. "The Immediate Stages Of The Erotic" is the furthest they could go. Noise is created with what sounds like the end of a guitar lead being pulled from the jack. Sumner goes mental as usual. Mark Cunningham cuts in with "ancient egyptian consonants" (seriously). Eventually they bring it to a teeming maelstrom and then call it quits for ever.
The whole thing's mind blowing for a few reasons. First, this was 77-78. Nothing like this had come before, it was before noise music as we know it today, before extreme metal, hardcore punk, all of that. They were contemporary to the Ramones, for example. Played the same clubs as them. But were lightyears ahead.
Also, this is devastatingly human music. It's abrasive and agressive, but not in the "I'm a massive demon" way that metal goes for, or even a "fuck you, I'm my own person" punk rock stance. It's unpretentious because it has the same effect no matter what you already know about music. No pretense, it WILL freak you out a bit.
No Wave was about saying "No", just to different things for different bands. Mars said no to all conventions. When people say things like "I wanna be in a band but I can't play well enough yet" I cant help think it's lame because of these bands, how they didnt care anyway, they just did it. Ideas are the currency, not the precision and familiarity of the execution.
(Last minute addition - If you buy this reoord, buy the BLUE one. There is a brown one which contains the same music at a lesser quality. They got the guy out of Foetus to fiddle with it and all sorts. Get this one instead, as it was intended to be heard.)
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Also I quickly want to talk about Power Violence. I'll write more about it in the future but it seems all the good hardcore bands are playing it these days. Power Violence is like grindcore but more punk influenced and less metal, basically. Some names to check off the top of my head include Infest, Man Is The Bastard, Crossed Out, Iron Lung and Capitalist Casualties.
Nowadays, Leeds is holding strong with this sound, we have Warboys (more on them soon), Afternoon Gentlemen (who are a bit more grind/doom influenced), Mob Rules (getting a lot of coverage lately) and to a lesser extent War All The Time, to name just some.
But I'm most excited about the discovery of Keep Screaming Records
who put out all sorts of goodness in this vein and even take cash through the mail! That's so rare these days.
I'm ordering the new Spoonful Of Vicodin 7", who are from Rochester, USA. They play short blasts of awesome, they have a girl guitarist (we need more of these in punk rock) and a screaming drummer. They also won my heart with the best song title I've heard this year - "I Dont Lift Weights Or Drive An SUV (Because I'm Comfy With My Genitalia)"
Ok I'm done.
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