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No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980.
No Wave is the first book to visually chronicle the collision of art and punk in the New York underground of 1976 to 1980. This in depth look at punk rock, new wave, experimental music, and the avant-garde art movement of the 70s and 80s focuses on the true architects of No Wave from James Chance to Lydia Lunch to Glenn Branca, as well as the luminaries that intersected the scene, such as David Byrne, Debbie Harry, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, and Richard Hell.
This rarely documented scene was the creative stomping ground of young artists and filmmakers from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Jim Jarmusch as well as the musical genesis for the post-punk explosions of Sonic Youth and is here revealed for a new generation of fans and collectors.
Thurston Moore and Byron Coley have selected 150 unforgettable images, most of which have never been published previously, and compiled hundreds of hours of personal interviews to create an oral history of the movement, providing a never-seen-before exploration and celebration of No Wave.
This rarely documented scene was the creative stomping ground of young artists and filmmakers from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Jim Jarmusch as well as the musical genesis for the post-punk explosions of Sonic Youth and is here revealed for a new generation of fans and collectors.
Thurston Moore and Byron Coley have selected 150 unforgettable images, most of which have never been published previously, and compiled hundreds of hours of personal interviews to create an oral history of the movement, providing a never-seen-before exploration and celebration of No Wave.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2008
10 people are currently reading
1244 people want to read
About the author
Thurston Moore
74 books80 followersThurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running a small record label.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
July 5, 2008
This another book chronicling the No Wave scene in NYC.
What I've learned thus far:
New York was once an awesome place. Now it is not.
It's coauthored by Thurston Moore. He is much cooler than we are.
What I've learned thus far:
New York was once an awesome place. Now it is not.
It's coauthored by Thurston Moore. He is much cooler than we are.
March 9, 2021
Ο πολύς Thurston Moore των Sonic Youth παρέα με τον ροκ κριτικό /δημοσιογράφο Byron Coley έχουν ερευνήσει και συντάξει ένα εκπληκτικό αρχείο προφορικής ιστορίας μιας σύντομης, παραγνωρισμένης και υπόγεια επιδραστικής στιγμής στην ιστορία του αμερικάνικου πανκ. Το no wave - με τα μικρά και μεγάλα του "είδωλα” (Lydia Lunch, DNA, Mars, Theoretical Girls και πολλά πολλά ακόμα γκρουπς) - ήταν μάλλον μια παρέα σαλταρισμένων εικοσάρηδων που έπαιζαν μουσική ο ένας για τον άλλον παρά ένα μουσικό "κίνημα". Φτωχοί, υποψιασμένοι, οπλισμένοι με πολύ χιούμορ παρά την απελπιστική παρακμή της Νέας Υόρκης των late 70s, υπέσκαψαν κάθε στερεότυπο βάζοντας ερωτηματικά παντού. Η ομορφιά τους ξεχειλίζει από τις φανταστικές ασπρόμαυρες φωτογραφίες και, ναι, το βιβλίο σού βγάζει αυτό το you had to be there συναίσθημα. Νομίζω το θέμα εδώ δεν είναι τόσο η μουσική αλλά όλα τα υπόλοιπα που την περιβάλλουν και την μορφοποιούν!
February 16, 2025
This being an oral history of sorts makes for a refreshing change with this kind of 'scene' book. In saying that though, if you don't already know who most of the people in here are, this might not be very interesting…. which is exactly the problem I had. While I listen to No Wave music here and there and have read up about it before, I won't lie when I say I have little interest in most of the people featured in here. It was also rather hard to keep track of who everyone is, with there being little context on the people and having interview after interview that seemed most of the time loosely connected with one another.
The pictures are wonderful and beautifully HD, but the way some would break up the text in the middle of a sentence was rather annoying.
Also not fond of the misgendering of a trans woman! For people priding themselves on being against the grain, I would expect better.
The pictures are wonderful and beautifully HD, but the way some would break up the text in the middle of a sentence was rather annoying.
Also not fond of the misgendering of a trans woman! For people priding themselves on being against the grain, I would expect better.
October 14, 2008
Maybe this book is poorly organized and edited on purpose--surely, no wave is not easy to listen to or particularly story-like in structure. The pictures are great, but it has so many references to people with no details on who they are, were, or will be. Robert Quine, a very talented guitarist who produced a lot of no wave and played with a number of the bands, gets hardly a mention (and no quotes, of course, because he's dead). James Chance and Lydia Lunch are interviewed and figure prominently, but there's very little story on Lydia and none on James--what happened? Why should I care? The music itself isn't discussed until the end, and then not too thoroughly, and more by critics than by musicians. Inspired me to find some of the music--especially curious about the album No New York--but it should do more than that. Seems shabby--again, maybe thematic?
June 11, 2024
Really cool insight into the late 70s No Wave movement in New York as there isn't much documented about it elsewhere.
June 23, 2010
Thurston Moore and Brian Coley, No Wave. Post Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980. (Abrams Image, 2008)
While I was writing up the (insanely good) doco We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen for an article earlier this year, I opined that in most cases, pieces of art that attempt to document a moment in music history tend to be of the “you had to be there” variety (because We Jam Econo is such a glorious exception to that rule). It doesn't matter what the genre is you're looking at, such books and films tend to be overviews made by someone so entrenched in the scene that they forget the rest of the world doesn't speak the language. This is true in all cases of geek-produced material, of course, but it always seems much more prominent to me in the music world for some reason.
No Wave is right in line with such other tomes as Steven Blush's American Hardcore and Moynihan's Lords of Chaos in this regard; you kinda had to be there. With Blush's and Moynihan's books, though, I actually was, whereas I was still a bit on the young side for No Wave (though more commercial bands running in the same vein, such as Talking Heads, penetrated by aggressively-AM radar in the late seventies; I didn't discover there was music outside the mainstream until someone said “you gotta hear this band called Black Flag!” to me in 1982...). I've read a lot about the period over the intervening years, and I'm as big a fan as any of a lot of bands who were spiralling around New York back in the day (and an even bigger fan than most of Poe and Kral's document, The Blank Generation). But still, I wasn't there, unlike Moore and Conley. I can grasp the atmosphere, but I never breathed it.
In another write-up for that same article (I can't remember which new Eurocrime film I was talking about, possibly 13 Tzameti), I talked about the new breed of European crime films and how much I loved them, then compared and contrasted to critics who were so blown away by Godard, Chabrol, Melville, etc., who were making the same sort of low-budget crime films in the fifties and sixties. I've never seen the appeal of Godard, honestly, but watching movies by Babulani and Tarr and all the rest of the bunch I can understand why it is that people like Ebert and Rosenbaum and Phillips are so bowled over. I feel the same way about No Wave, except that I like these bands a lot more than I do Godard and Melville's flicks. But I still feel like I'm missing something, and this book, while being another good overview, didn't quite fill that hole. I suspect, quite strongly, that someone who's a few years older than me, who was actually listening to this stuff at the time, maybe even going to the gigs, will be a lot more affected by this than I was. Which is not to say in any way that it's not worth getting; if you weren't, there, you'll probably hear of at least three or four bands you'd never heard of before. *** ½
While I was writing up the (insanely good) doco We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen for an article earlier this year, I opined that in most cases, pieces of art that attempt to document a moment in music history tend to be of the “you had to be there” variety (because We Jam Econo is such a glorious exception to that rule). It doesn't matter what the genre is you're looking at, such books and films tend to be overviews made by someone so entrenched in the scene that they forget the rest of the world doesn't speak the language. This is true in all cases of geek-produced material, of course, but it always seems much more prominent to me in the music world for some reason.
No Wave is right in line with such other tomes as Steven Blush's American Hardcore and Moynihan's Lords of Chaos in this regard; you kinda had to be there. With Blush's and Moynihan's books, though, I actually was, whereas I was still a bit on the young side for No Wave (though more commercial bands running in the same vein, such as Talking Heads, penetrated by aggressively-AM radar in the late seventies; I didn't discover there was music outside the mainstream until someone said “you gotta hear this band called Black Flag!” to me in 1982...). I've read a lot about the period over the intervening years, and I'm as big a fan as any of a lot of bands who were spiralling around New York back in the day (and an even bigger fan than most of Poe and Kral's document, The Blank Generation). But still, I wasn't there, unlike Moore and Conley. I can grasp the atmosphere, but I never breathed it.
In another write-up for that same article (I can't remember which new Eurocrime film I was talking about, possibly 13 Tzameti), I talked about the new breed of European crime films and how much I loved them, then compared and contrasted to critics who were so blown away by Godard, Chabrol, Melville, etc., who were making the same sort of low-budget crime films in the fifties and sixties. I've never seen the appeal of Godard, honestly, but watching movies by Babulani and Tarr and all the rest of the bunch I can understand why it is that people like Ebert and Rosenbaum and Phillips are so bowled over. I feel the same way about No Wave, except that I like these bands a lot more than I do Godard and Melville's flicks. But I still feel like I'm missing something, and this book, while being another good overview, didn't quite fill that hole. I suspect, quite strongly, that someone who's a few years older than me, who was actually listening to this stuff at the time, maybe even going to the gigs, will be a lot more affected by this than I was. Which is not to say in any way that it's not worth getting; if you weren't, there, you'll probably hear of at least three or four bands you'd never heard of before. *** ½
August 6, 2008
Very intriguing history of the No Wave music scene I previously knew nothing about and hadn't heard a single recording of. The book is nicely designed and features some great photography. As is with most hindsight-viewed art/music scenes, there is this sense of nostalgic overimportance, but at least this oral history has somewhat of an arc and the authors do a good job of filling in the inevitable gaps. I'm not convinced—from both reading this and hearing the music—that No Wave is as influential as everyone involved with this book thinks it is. (Nothing like the self-aggrandizing nature of scenesters and would-be artists.) But I can appreciate the unfiltered aggression and intellectual ambition that, even if the music actually made ultimately was more or less unmemorable "noise," had an appealing renegade spirit that wasn't as base as punk.
May 8, 2018
i was lucky enough to find a copy of this at the resale store i worked at right before i left. excellent little document on a scene i knew little about before reading about kathy acker. downloaded some of the music and its rad - my favorite part of the book is the interview with brian eno where he describes his desire to document the scene because these things are typically so short-lived/the bands in the scene blaming eno for causing rifts in the scene by only recording a few bands on one record (the consequence of recording the movement was its own destruction.)
Read
May 20, 2018A graphic gem: the photographs and visual media captured here are stunning-- all of them-- as are the book as an object and the gorgeous chart of intertwining bands that opens the book.
The important oral history is hit or miss, with lots and lots of hits. Actually, the misses almost all may result from the book's writing, not the accounts of its sources. The connective tissue the writing purports to provide is often superficial, and it varies disruptively in tone, from documentary to evaluative to artsy to insider-elitist. Situated by this writing, the oral histories cannot always reach their maximum potential. And OMFG, the caption of the final Julia Gorton photo of Lydia Lunch: "Hard to resist such kissable lips." As authors, Moore and Coley have many such bouts of sloppy thoughtlessness. Their writing gestures at the various sexual engagements of No Wave and its contexts without addressing them constructively or responsibly.
If the writing of the book fails in many respects, its failures nevertheless preserve the contradictions of No Wave, for instance, skepticism regarding its definition and existence or its mixture of egalitarianism and scenesterism. These contradictions are distinct from the tiptoeing and titillation around sexuality on the parts of Moore and Coley because the latter come across as only that of the authors, not that of No Wave's direct participants. The curation of oral histories is admittedly astute at times, with contradictory accounts and assessments placed side-by-side. Numerous sources assert the humor of No Wave artists was perhaps the scene's saving grace. Amid the confusion and contradiction, this sense of humor, a sort of lightness amid the "pain" (to use Lunch's term), is thankfully present here.
Lydia Lunch comes off as self-aware and empathetic regarding her thorny difficult behavior as sh!tk!cker and young artist, yet she is wholly and appealingly unapologetic. That is so important. Annette Kaye's long account near the end of the book is worth the price of admission, though I've undoubtedly employed the wrong metaphor just now. Looking at Julia Gorton's astonishing photos, I believe her claim, "I don't think people in those days were motivated by money and fame in the same way. Maybe notoriety, but not fame."
The important oral history is hit or miss, with lots and lots of hits. Actually, the misses almost all may result from the book's writing, not the accounts of its sources. The connective tissue the writing purports to provide is often superficial, and it varies disruptively in tone, from documentary to evaluative to artsy to insider-elitist. Situated by this writing, the oral histories cannot always reach their maximum potential. And OMFG, the caption of the final Julia Gorton photo of Lydia Lunch: "Hard to resist such kissable lips." As authors, Moore and Coley have many such bouts of sloppy thoughtlessness. Their writing gestures at the various sexual engagements of No Wave and its contexts without addressing them constructively or responsibly.
If the writing of the book fails in many respects, its failures nevertheless preserve the contradictions of No Wave, for instance, skepticism regarding its definition and existence or its mixture of egalitarianism and scenesterism. These contradictions are distinct from the tiptoeing and titillation around sexuality on the parts of Moore and Coley because the latter come across as only that of the authors, not that of No Wave's direct participants. The curation of oral histories is admittedly astute at times, with contradictory accounts and assessments placed side-by-side. Numerous sources assert the humor of No Wave artists was perhaps the scene's saving grace. Amid the confusion and contradiction, this sense of humor, a sort of lightness amid the "pain" (to use Lunch's term), is thankfully present here.
Lydia Lunch comes off as self-aware and empathetic regarding her thorny difficult behavior as sh!tk!cker and young artist, yet she is wholly and appealingly unapologetic. That is so important. Annette Kaye's long account near the end of the book is worth the price of admission, though I've undoubtedly employed the wrong metaphor just now. Looking at Julia Gorton's astonishing photos, I believe her claim, "I don't think people in those days were motivated by money and fame in the same way. Maybe notoriety, but not fame."
December 29, 2018
Attractive landscape format picture book with essays.
December 12, 2020
Probably a 2 star that I should have read a physical copy of but that's out of my hands now.
February 16, 2021
I would have preferred that the book was more in-depth and had better formatting. Still a decent overview.
October 26, 2021
The photos are amazing. The text can be shockingly sexist at times though.
January 4, 2024
Wish it was more of a real historical document rather than a bunch of interviews that was broken up by enormous pictures. Still interesting though.
May 4, 2025
another quality coffee table book this time from Thurston Moore who has a hand in more cultures than kefir
November 19, 2009
This book is not very in depth. The annecdtotal content however, is a very intimate and interesting read. You get a sense as to the overlaying of the different circles in NYC from 1976-1980. From Lydia Lunch to Brian Eno to Ikue Mori, to Dan Grahm.
My favorite anecdote is by Rudolph Grey:
"...I don't remember which numbers we did, but it didn't take him much time to destroy a guitar. First, I think he smashed up the keyboard with a pickax. Then at one point he dived into the audience with the guitar, knocking over some tables in the front and stuff. This, of course, didn't go over too well with the Dover, New Jersey, audience. They were yelling stuff like, "Get off the stage you assholes." Well, after Von had destroyed all his instruments, there was nothing else he could do, so he stormed offstage. I, however, wanted to get paid for that gig. I knew if the set was only seven minutes to ten minutes, we wouldn't get paid for it.
"I actually have a cassette tape, which won't play anymore, where you could hear Gary Vetter saying, "What now, Rudolph? What do we do now?" So I say to him, "Let's go into 'The Black Flag of Europe.'" That was about the Baader-Meinhof gane committing suicide in the Stuttgart Prison. You can imagine how that was recieved. They were yelling stuff like, "Go back to Russia." They were really in a bad mood. I figured the only way to end it was to jump off the stage with my guitar. Which I did.
"The idiot who wrote it up in the Aquarian said I fell off the stage. But of course that's not true. How could I have fallen off the stage there? It was six inches off the floor. The jerk who wandered in to take the photographs somehow managed to get photographs of everything except the group onstage. The writer says somethinng like "Roland Grey falls off the stage." In Kurt Loder's review of the Stranglers, which I believe is also in the Aquarian, he mentions, "After the guitarist from the Red Transistor thankfully fell off the stage ending the squalling noise, the Stranglers came on."
My favorite anecdote is by Rudolph Grey:
"...I don't remember which numbers we did, but it didn't take him much time to destroy a guitar. First, I think he smashed up the keyboard with a pickax. Then at one point he dived into the audience with the guitar, knocking over some tables in the front and stuff. This, of course, didn't go over too well with the Dover, New Jersey, audience. They were yelling stuff like, "Get off the stage you assholes." Well, after Von had destroyed all his instruments, there was nothing else he could do, so he stormed offstage. I, however, wanted to get paid for that gig. I knew if the set was only seven minutes to ten minutes, we wouldn't get paid for it.
"I actually have a cassette tape, which won't play anymore, where you could hear Gary Vetter saying, "What now, Rudolph? What do we do now?" So I say to him, "Let's go into 'The Black Flag of Europe.'" That was about the Baader-Meinhof gane committing suicide in the Stuttgart Prison. You can imagine how that was recieved. They were yelling stuff like, "Go back to Russia." They were really in a bad mood. I figured the only way to end it was to jump off the stage with my guitar. Which I did.
"The idiot who wrote it up in the Aquarian said I fell off the stage. But of course that's not true. How could I have fallen off the stage there? It was six inches off the floor. The jerk who wandered in to take the photographs somehow managed to get photographs of everything except the group onstage. The writer says somethinng like "Roland Grey falls off the stage." In Kurt Loder's review of the Stranglers, which I believe is also in the Aquarian, he mentions, "After the guitarist from the Red Transistor thankfully fell off the stage ending the squalling noise, the Stranglers came on."
February 23, 2017
People grabbed onto a thing and did the stuff while they could. Glad to see and read about it.
April 2, 2012
No Wave Post-punk. Underground. New York.
1976-1980. Thurston Moore Byron Coley
(www.abramsimage.com)
Jet found this quite brilliant book in the cool
bookshop almost opposite where we stayed in
Paris and I'm very glad she did.
It is a very in depth look at what has become
known as the No Wave scene as Thurston Moore and
Byron Coley have collected together great photos
of every band and person in the scene so there
are great shots of everyone from Teenage Jesus
and the Jerks to Blinding Headache, from Boris
Policeband to Glenn Branca and interviews with
almost all the still living players in the scene.
This book gets as obscure as you like including
stuff about bands who only ever did maybe 3 live
shows and in some cases only played maybe two or
three rehearsals. It has tales of James Chance
playing catch with a hammer through some glass
doors, to Brian Enos recording of the legendary
No New York album etc etc etc.
If your interested in this scene this book is a
must have even if its just to lust over the
pictures of a young Lydia Lunch or to make a
list of all the obscure as all hell films and
records you know need to track down, does anyone
know where I can buy a copy of Grutzi Elvis for
example. Very Cool indeed.
1976-1980. Thurston Moore Byron Coley
(www.abramsimage.com)
Jet found this quite brilliant book in the cool
bookshop almost opposite where we stayed in
Paris and I'm very glad she did.
It is a very in depth look at what has become
known as the No Wave scene as Thurston Moore and
Byron Coley have collected together great photos
of every band and person in the scene so there
are great shots of everyone from Teenage Jesus
and the Jerks to Blinding Headache, from Boris
Policeband to Glenn Branca and interviews with
almost all the still living players in the scene.
This book gets as obscure as you like including
stuff about bands who only ever did maybe 3 live
shows and in some cases only played maybe two or
three rehearsals. It has tales of James Chance
playing catch with a hammer through some glass
doors, to Brian Enos recording of the legendary
No New York album etc etc etc.
If your interested in this scene this book is a
must have even if its just to lust over the
pictures of a young Lydia Lunch or to make a
list of all the obscure as all hell films and
records you know need to track down, does anyone
know where I can buy a copy of Grutzi Elvis for
example. Very Cool indeed.
Read
August 5, 2008I just got tickets to see Thurston Moore and Byron Coley talk about this book at the Corcoran in DC. Should be interesting... plus I dont think I'll ever get a chance to see Thurston so up close. yes.
-laura
Sparking the musical genesis of post-punk, and also the stomping ground of young artists and filmmakers from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Jim Jarmusch, the No Wave scene in New York was enormously influential. Thurston Moore, iconic rocker and a founding member of the post-punk band Sonic Youth, and esteemed music writer and editor Byron Coley, both experienced the No Wave scene first-hand. In their new book, No Wave: Post Punk. Underground. New York. 1976–1980 (Abrams 6/08), Moore and Coley selected 150 unforgettable images and compiled hundreds of hours of personal interviews to document this avant-garde art and music movement. In this riveting presentation of music, art, and memories, Moore and Coley discuss the rarely documented No Wave period and sign copies of their book.
-laura
Sparking the musical genesis of post-punk, and also the stomping ground of young artists and filmmakers from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Jim Jarmusch, the No Wave scene in New York was enormously influential. Thurston Moore, iconic rocker and a founding member of the post-punk band Sonic Youth, and esteemed music writer and editor Byron Coley, both experienced the No Wave scene first-hand. In their new book, No Wave: Post Punk. Underground. New York. 1976–1980 (Abrams 6/08), Moore and Coley selected 150 unforgettable images and compiled hundreds of hours of personal interviews to document this avant-garde art and music movement. In this riveting presentation of music, art, and memories, Moore and Coley discuss the rarely documented No Wave period and sign copies of their book.
July 16, 2008
Really choice and yes, another book about music the NO WAVE movement in NYC. I find it amazing that you could survive on 10 bucks a week in NYC within my lifetime, but that's just one of the many fascinating things I learned in this book. YOu probably need some context to understand this one, but I'm guessing that the casual music listener wouldn't be interested. That said, this is a great eye-witness account of this short-lived musical moment, gorgeously documented with photos/flyers etc. As an aside, I find it interesting that Lydia Lunch reformed Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and did a gig in conjunction with this book since Ms. Lunch spends most of the book railing against rock cliches.
January 13, 2009
I was *anxiously* anticipating this book but was a tad disappointed to find it pretty damn unreadable. It's a wide book stuffed with images, suitable more for the bathroom or coffee table than reading in bed or on the couch. It's so heavy on images that a sentence may start on one page and end six pages later. You really have to wrestle with the sucker to get through it. Regardless, I read it in about a day and was pleased with the information and photos although I'd rather have lived through the time span of time covered in the book than read about it. ::cough::
Read
January 12, 2011This book is a fairly detailed and interesting history of No Wave bands from the East Village in the late 70s. I don't know if my copy is a misprint or not (and I like to think it's not), but my cover is upside down. When I'm reading it, people must think I'm crazy or drunk or something. How post-punk.
If you've heard of this book, then you've probably already heard of a few of the main characters. Lydia Lunch, Glenn Branca, Brian Eno, and so on. Go ahead and get it. It's totally worth it.
If you've heard of this book, then you've probably already heard of a few of the main characters. Lydia Lunch, Glenn Branca, Brian Eno, and so on. Go ahead and get it. It's totally worth it.
July 19, 2016
Terrific collection of photos that document the brief blast that was the "no wave" movement in NYC in the late 1970s. The photos really put you into that scuzzy, dangerous, lower east side/soho neighborhoods pre-gentrification. It truly was a vastly different time with those parts of NYC resembling bombed out urban landscapes of blight and misery.
Side note, Theoretical Girls is one of the all-time greatest band names!
Side note, Theoretical Girls is one of the all-time greatest band names!
May 26, 2012
4 & 1/2 stars. beautifully done. great photos, tons of oral history detail on the area and the relationships. makes sense of a very confusing period, when a lot of creativity was in the air, and a lot of high-mantenance personalities were churning things up. doesn't take sides, and lets the resulting work speak for itself.
July 23, 2008
I've glanced through this coffee table, photo history of the NYC No-Wave movement and finally bought it with a B&N gift card. Co-written by someone who was not only there, but also part of the post-punk scene, Thurston Moore. Can't wait to melt into this thing.
Read
March 30, 2009A decent oral history of late 70s post-punk NYC. It made me want to go record shopping. Lots of good pictures of the bands discussed, plus cameos by the likes of Bangs and Byrne and a Thurston Moore when he was actually 14, not just lookin' like it.
March 3, 2009
A very interesting read: I felt like I was reading along while watching a documentary, if that makes any sense. Full of personal recollections from scenesters of the New York No Wave scene. Most times sounding like your grandparents talking about the good 'ol days, but enjoyable nonetheless.
April 11, 2010
The book is full of pictures that do more to visualize that scene than a ton of text could. The interviews and gap filling that the rest of the book is composed of are really good too. You get a sense of these artists egos, philosophies and how they saw what they were doing.
October 26, 2010
A No Wave book that actually covers No Wave bands. Lots of interesting stories involving Lydia Lunch or Glenn Branca among others. The little charts in the front of the book that shows bands connections to one another was a nice touch.
December 2, 2008
Excellent pics and super informative. Got a real insiders slant with Thurston and Byron cooling out the Bull Tongue slang and just slinging facts. Fun. An extra serving of GUH.
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