Electric Wizards JR Moores · Reaktion, 2021

CHAPTER 08

Noise Rock

Pigfuck, no wave and the American racket

31 works, in the order the book names them

  • 001/TV series

    The Ed Sullivan Show

    CBS

    For his own part, Leary had been playing electric guitar since before the age of ten, after witnessing The Beatles’ historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
    Open in IMDb ↗

  • 002/Album/1986

    Rembrandt Pussyhorse

    Butthole Surfers

    Then there’s the trudging pace and almost gothically rendered mental fragility of Rembrandt Pussyhorse (1986).
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 003/Album/1987

    Locust Abortion Technician

    Butthole Surfers

    That was followed a year later by the denser and meatier screwed-up rock shapes of Locust Abortion Technician.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 004/Album/1988

    Hairway to Steven

    Butthole Surfers

    See the Hairway to Steven LP or Electric Larryland.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 005/Album

    Electric Larryland

    Butthole Surfers

    See the Hairway to Steven LP or Electric Larryland.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 006/Album/1993

    Independent Worm Saloon

    Butthole Surfers

    Such irreverent iconoclasm did not deter John Paul Jones from producing Independent Worm Saloon in 1993.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 007/Album

    Automatic for the People

    R.E.M.

    The legendary bassist presumed he’d been hired to give the album ‘a heavy rock vibe’, adding that ‘it didn’t work out like that.’ His reputation among the Buttholes can only have been enhanced by the fact that Jones had previously worked on the orchestrations for REM’S Automatic for the People.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 008/Book

    BOOK

    The Jesus Lizard

    (In line with The Jesus Lizard’s compulsive use of four-lettered album titles, the name of the book is BOOK.) The Jesus Lizard have their own connections to Ministry, being based in Chicago and occasionally sharing stages and collaborating.
    Open in Goodreads ↗

  • 009/EP

    Pure

    The Jesus Lizard

    There was little industrial about The Jesus Lizard, however, especially after the drum machine that was employed on their debut EP Pure was jettisoned in favour of powerhouse human drummer Mac McNeilly.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 010/Album/1991

    Goat

    The Jesus Lizard

    At times it almost sounded as though Yow was drowning in the turbulent sound that was rattling around him, not least on ‘Seasick’ from the band’s second album, Goat (1991), where his voice can be heard rising to the surface to bawl panicked words about his inability to swim.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 011/Album

    Shot

    The Jesus Lizard

    Two songs on 1996’s Shot were about a landlord with whom he’d fallen out.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 012/Album/1992

    Liar

    The Jesus Lizard

    ‘Puss’, from 1992’s Liar, concerned a member of fellow Chicago act Urge Overkill who had pushed a female zine writer down some stairs.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 013/Book

    Autoerotic Fatalities

    Robert Ressler & Ann Burgess

    The idea for ‘Rope’ came from a non-fiction book, borrowed from a friend, called Autoerotic Fatalities.
    Open in Goodreads ↗

  • 014/Album

    Blue

    The Jesus Lizard

    The Jesus Lizard’s final two albums, 1996’s Shot and 1998’s Blue, were produced by Garth ‘GGGarth’ Richardson (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Ugly Kid Joe) and Gang of Four’s Andy Gill, respectively.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 015/Album/1975

    Metal Machine Music

    Lou Reed

    In a punishing kind of way, it is arty, experimental and largely uncompromising, yet it is not as purely avant-garde as the straight-up ‘noise music’ of Merzbow, say, or Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 016/Film

    Deliverance

    John Boorman

    When Christgau coined it, the expression would have implied a rural redneck backwardness thanks to the famous ‘squeal like a pig’ scene from Deliverance.
    Open in IMDb ↗

  • 017/Film

    Last Tango in Paris

    Bernardo Bertolucci

    Later that same year, Last Tango in Paris included the charming dialogue, ‘I’m gonna get a pig and I’m gonna have the pig fuck you.
    Open in IMDb ↗

  • 018/TV series

    Black Mirror

    Charlie Brooker

    More recently, in the UK at least, pigfucking has acquired loftier connotations thanks to a 2011 episode of Black Mirror and a subsequent accusation made by the businessman and ex-Conservative Party peer Michael Ashcroft concerning a bizarre university initiation ceremony involving a then future and now ex-prime minister.
    Open in IMDb ↗

  • 019/Album

    EVOL

    Sonic Youth

    Sonic Youth released their third album, EVOL, a decisive stepping stone between their no wave origins and their art rock breakthrough moment Daydream Nation two years later.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 020/Album

    Daydream Nation

    Sonic Youth

    Sonic Youth released their third album, EVOL, a decisive stepping stone between their no wave origins and their art rock breakthrough moment Daydream Nation two years later.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 021/Album

    Greed

    Swans

    Swans, meanwhile, released two studio albums, Greed and Holy Money, plus the live album Public Castration Is a Good Idea.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 022/Album

    Holy Money

    Swans

    Swans, meanwhile, released two studio albums, Greed and Holy Money, plus the live album Public Castration Is a Good Idea.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 023/Live album

    Public Castration Is a Good Idea

    Swans

    Swans, meanwhile, released two studio albums, Greed and Holy Money, plus the live album Public Castration Is a Good Idea.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 024/EP

    Anal By Anal

    Boredoms

    From the ashes of Yamantaka Eye’s group Hanatarash emerged Boredoms, whose first EP, Anal By Anal, released the same year, featured the tracks ‘Anal Eat’, ‘God from Anal’ and ‘Born to Anal’.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 025/Album

    Exile on Main Street

    The Rolling Stones

    Following a few early EPS with offensive song titles like ‘Cunt Tease’ and ‘You Look Like a Jew’, plus a peculiar cassette release on which they covered The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street in its entirety, Washington DC’s Pussy Galore managed three albums before disintegrating.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 026/Album/1992

    Cunning Stunts

    Cows

    And after Cunning Stunts [1992] got some attention, people thought that we would streamline our sound, but we just got weirder.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 027/Album/1987

    Taint Pluribus Taint Unum

    Cows

    As John Dougan notes, when 1987’s debut LP Taint Pluribus Taint Unum emerged, Cows were ‘roundly derided as a talentless, tasteless joke’.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 028/Album/1993

    In Utero

    Nirvana

    He still owned that broken bit of guitar when Nirvana made In Utero with Albini as its recording engineer.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 029/Album/1994

    Heroin Man

    Cherubs

    Released in 1994 on King Coffey’s Trance Syndicate label, Heroin Man gained cult status over time, partly thanks to Cherubs’ alluring absence.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 030/Album/2017

    Sterilize

    Unsane

    By 2017’s Sterilize their battered bodies and brains were in (im)perfect sync with their surly sound.
    Open in YouTube ↗

  • 031/Album/1998

    Sorry in Pig Minor

    Cows

    Their final album, Sorry in Pig Minor, came out in 1998.
    Open in YouTube ↗