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Home , Glenn Branca, Jon Spencer, Noise rock, Teen Age Riot

Avant Garde Influences in the American Indie Underground

Although punk, no wave, and new wave were languishing by the mid-1980s, the American independent underground movement remained vibrant. Punk and postpunk spun off into that retained the fundamental tenet of the punk aesthetic: anyone can make music. In do-it- yourself (or “DIY”) music, skill and technique were not required, only energy combined with a fondness for intensity and noise. This music seldom was palatable to the audience for popular music, though, and most of it has remained relatively unknown except to hardcore aficionados. It has lived on in the boom of the 1990s, though: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and others.

A few artists of the sixties and seventies, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd and Television for example, drew from the spirit of the Surrealism art movement of the mid 20 th century. Although it generally lost favor during the British punk and post-punk period, Surrealism again became a possibility in the 80s. We will discuss a few songs that might be classified as Surreal Pop.

Finally, we will look at a particularly violent and bleak genre, Death Metal. Because of its subject matter and sound, Death Metal frequently is looked down on by “serious” music fans. However “its abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes, as well as its fast and complex guitar and drumwork” 1 owing a “debt to the complex song structures of '70s art rockers” 2 certainly earns it a place, however grudging, in the avant garde pantheon.

A.

1. When was Russolo’s The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto written? How does it anticipate the electronic and of the 1950s and 1960s?

2. The picture at the right shows Russolo (left) and his assistant with their noise-instruments called “intoners.” What are the six families of noises that these instruments produced? The instruments do not exist today because none survived WWII.

3. In “Music and Its Others: Noise, Sound, Silence,” Cox and Warner ask the question we posed at the beginning of the course, “What is music?” As they write, a century ago this question was easy to answer, but now it has become difficult to distinguish music from noise, silence, or nonmusical sound. What do they conclude? What would you say is the difference?

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_metal 2 http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=77:384

December 29, 2009 1 4. Let’s begin in . Read pp 113 – 118 of Avant Rock . • Who was ? How was he connected with the No Wave scene in NYC? • Describe Branca’s approach to the . What was he trying to do? • What was Branca’s Guitar Army? Who was in the “army”? • What kind of ambivalence about the electric guitar among musicians does Martin discuss? • In your experience in this course, what did many experimental bands of the seventies do with the guitar? • How was Branca’s approach so different?

5. Listen to the second movement (“The Horror”) from Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 10 and watch the video of Branca and his ensemble. • What are the instruments being played in the ensembles? • How is this unusual for classical music? • What does your reading say about Branca’s relationship to the European classical tradition?

6. Read Chapter 7 of This Band Could Be Your Life , listen to the two assigned tunes by , and watch the assigned Sonic Youth video. • What composer inspired and assisted Sonic Youth at the beginning of their career? How is his influence evident in “Teen Age Riot” and “Candle”? • What Cage-like method did Sonic Youth use to obtain unusual sounds from their guitars? What did they do that involved tuning their guitars? What did this have to do with the guitars they could afford when they started? • What was SST? What affect did association with SST have on the band? • What does Azerrad say about the band being an alloy of the physical and cerebral? What does this mean about the hybrid they were exploring? • Why was Sonic Youth tagged as being “industrial” at one time? What did this have to do with NYC? • Sonic Youth’s brand of music came out of the NYC punk/new wave/no wave milieu of the late 1970s. Think about a “Rock & Roll” scale of 0 through 10 where 0 is pure avant- garde and 10 is pure punk. Where would you place Sonic Youth on that scale? What kind of influences from punk, new wave, and no wave do you hear in their music?

7. Read Chapter 8 of This Band Could Be Your Life , listen to the assigned tune by the , and watch the assigned Butthole Surfers YouTube video. • What does the first two pages of the reading say about the Butthole Surfers’ music and their live shows. How does this description jibe with tune to which you have listened and the YouTube video? • Azerrad writes that “the Buttholes were hardcore, but in the original sense.” What does he mean? Does the video bear this out? • Comment on the lyrics to the Butthole Surfers’ “Graveyard.” How about its melody? How would you describe the feeling this music gives you?

December 29, 2009 2 8. The Cows were a noise band from Minneapolis that the Allmusic Guide calls “one of America’s great degenerate” rock bands. Compare their sound with that of the Butthole Surfers and Sonic Youth? Do you hear more or less of a punk influence in the Cows? How does their lead singer’s style compare with the other two bands?

9. was a very confrontational band, both in performance and recording. How does “Kerosene” exhibit this in several ways?

10. It is doubtful that Big Black was influenced much by the classical avant-garde, but their music does draw from the same well. What do you hear in their sound and musical techniques that we have heard earlier from other musicians, groups, composers, and musical movements?

11. How would you describe the background sound in “It’s So Hard” by Jesus and Mary Chain? How does it differ from the other noise rock bands you have heard so far? How is it similar?

12. There is quite a bit of variety in style throughout Dinosaur Jr.’s “Little Fury Things.” Describe their musical style in these sections of the recording: 0:00-0:29, 0:30-0:58, 0:59-1:28, 1:29-1:58, 1:59-2:27, 2:28-3:00. What influences do you hear in the different sections?

13. How would you describe the music on Pussy Galore’s “Wretch”? What can you say about their technical skill?

14. was the leader of Pussy Galore before he formed the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. On the basis of “Wail,” how has his music changed in the new group? Is the Blues Explosion more or less like a band? Has its sound retained any noise rock characteristics?

15. Read pp 153 – 162 of Avant Rock and “The Beauty of Noise” from Audio Culture. Listen to “Cannibalism of the Machine” and watch the YouTube video of the live performance by Merzbow • Merzbow is a contemporary Japanese noise rock band from the 90s. Think about a scale of 0 through 10 where 0 is pure avant-garde and 10 is pure rock (or maybe punk). Where would you place Merzbow on that scale? • From what artistic (or maybe anti-artistic) movement does Merzbow take his name? The introduction to the interview with Masami Akita says that Merzbow is inspired by this movement, among others. Remembering our discussion of this movement during the first week of class, discuss its influence on Merzbow. • How was Merzbow influenced by ? By Stockhausen and Schaeffer? • How does Akita say that Merzbow’s is different than Western noise music?

16. We have listened to a lot of noise rock in this lesson, but it should be obvious that noise does not need to be the same. Listen again to all the music in this lesson and ask yourself the following questions: • What is new in this music? What sets the noise bands of the 80s apart from the music of the previous decades? • Is this music more experimental or more of a consolidation of previous experiments? • What do these bands and their music have in common? • How are the bands and their music different from each other?

December 29, 2009 3 B. Surreal Pop

17. Listen to the assigned Surreal Pop tunes. We will discuss them in class.

C. Death Metal

18. Read the two assigned online articles about Death Metal and listen to the Death Metal tunes. We will discuss them in class.

19. Make sure you watch the Muppets Death Metal video!

20. In this course we are following four general trends that characterize most, if not all, of the ways that the avant-garde music has influenced popular music. Even though most of the bands to which we have listened today had little if any direct connection with the avant-garde, their music shares the same space as more consciously arty music . Which of the five general trends is evident in the music to which you have listened today? • Simplicity • Decomposition of Musical Structure • Pastiche • • Noise as Music

December 29, 2009 4