Chapter VIICRIMSON
Reverse Hardcore
The Stooges, no wave, noise rock and hardcore slowed to a crawl
Showing all 036 works
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001
Gimme Danger
Jim Jarmusch
Naively expecting to gain instant access to the main players, Asheton explained in the Jim Jarmusch Gimme Danger documentary that he thought he’d be able to get off the plane and meet the Beatles.
Documentary 2016 Open ↗ IMDb -
002
The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges was a raw beast, and suitably fraught in execution.
Album 1969 Open ↗ YouTube -
003
Fun House
The Stooges
If The Stooges hinted at the power source, Fun House (1970) was a runaway train to the mainline.
Album 1970 Open ↗ YouTube -
004
Guitar Trio
Rhys Chatham
For minimalist punk pioneer Rhys Chatham – soon to marry punk energy with minimalist drone power on his groundbreaking Guitar Trio – they provided a particularly visceral inspiration to get out of the lofts and into the streets.
Composition 1977 Open ↗ YouTube -
005
A Rainbow in Curved Air
Terry Riley
An early encounter with Terry Riley’s A Rainbow in Curved Air at the Electric Circus left him conflicted, but ultimately thrilled – and set him on the path to minimalist composition.
Album 1969 Open ↗ YouTube -
006
Two Gongs
Rhys Chatham
His early minimalist pieces from the period were strongly influenced by his teachers (his best-known piece from the period – 1971’s Two Gongs – was a psychedelic affair that saw Chatham layering deep tones from two Chinese gongs, the idea being to keep the tones ringing loud for as long as humanly possible); however, they soon left him unsatisfied.
Composition 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
007
Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), of course, caught the vibe: boiling-point tension.
Film 1976 Open ↗ IMDb -
008
Blank City
Céline Danhier
Downtown Manhattan was a free for all: there was a huge surplus of crumbling, dilapidated housing, as artist Maripol had it in the 2012 documentary Blank City: ‘all the straight people were trying to get out.
Documentary 2012 Open ↗ IMDb -
009
Suicide
Suicide
Likewise, bands like Mars, DNA, Suicide, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, James Chance and the Contortions and – later – Sonic Youth and Swans, brought the dystopic daily grind to life with feral intensity.
Album 1977 Open ↗ YouTube -
010
No New York
Produced by Brian Eno
Most of the key records were made in a scant two years between 1979 and 1980, and Brian Eno produced the scene’s definitive document – No New York – in 1979.
Compilation 1979 Open ↗ YouTube -
011
The Ascension
Glenn Branca
The Ascension (1981) was a ceaseless build of cacophonous rhythm guitar alongside pounding drums, walls of feedback and harmonic overtone.
Album 1981 Open ↗ YouTube -
012
Confusion is Sex
Sonic Youth
Their debut album – Confusion is Sex (1983) – released on Glenn Branca’s Neutral Records – hung on Moore and Ranaldo’s jagged guitar weave, moving like a serpent over hot cracked concrete.
Album 1983 Open ↗ YouTube -
013
Bad Moon Rising
Sonic Youth
Bad Moon Rising (1985) ruminated on warped Americana, sex, death and the end of sixties innocence – one of the bands recurring themes – placing hippy idealism as a putrid, rotting albatross around the neck of a sickly urban America.
Album 1985 Open ↗ YouTube -
014
EVOL
Sonic Youth
EVOL (1986) built on the dank vibe set up by its predecessor (EVOL being ‘love’ spelt backwards) but here the dissonance was tempered by a more considered melodic bent.
Album 1986 Open ↗ YouTube -
015
Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth were, of course, soon to change the course of alternative rock for ever with the more polished stylings of Daydream Nation (1988) – one of the most storied and influential records of the era, and arguably the vital catalyst for the grunge explosion a year or two later – but it’s those first three records that are imbued with such eerie luminescence; more than any others in their sprawling discography they show the haunting and dronal, rather than judderingly abrasive, legacy of no wave: the city that never sleeps in fitful slumber.
Album 1988 Open ↗ YouTube -
016
Filth
Swans
First album Filth (1983) was released on Glenn Branca’s Neutral Records and welded clattering rhythms, barked vocals, atonal guitars and swung grooves in a sonic rhino charge.
Album 1983 Open ↗ YouTube -
017
Falling Down
Joel Schumacher
They were known for their volume – people would vomit; venues would complain, all that jazz – while atmospherically, Swans were akin to the movie Falling Down (which saw a white-collar worker played by Michael Douglas undergoing a violent mental disintegration triggered by the myriad daily absurdities and micro humiliations of modern life) made flesh.
Film 1993 Open ↗ IMDb -
018
The Seer
Swans
The infinite grind – so much so that it can be a spiritually deadening experience to be taken with extreme caution – a world away from the soaring transcendent majesty of later-period records like The Seer or The Glowing Man, imbued as they are with a far more hopeful, widescreen sense of spiritual uplift and sonic awe.
Album 2012 Open ↗ YouTube -
019
The Glowing Man
Swans
The infinite grind – so much so that it can be a spiritually deadening experience to be taken with extreme caution – a world away from the soaring transcendent majesty of later-period records like The Seer or The Glowing Man, imbued as they are with a far more hopeful, widescreen sense of spiritual uplift and sonic awe.
Album 2016 Open ↗ YouTube -
020
Songs About Fucking
Big Black
Their 1987 LP Songs About Fucking was their most fully realised record, an abrasive trawl through murder, revenge and humiliation – mostly gleaned from real-life news stories – and rendered in Steve Albini’s quivering snarl.
Album 1987 Open ↗ YouTube -
021
Lungs
Big Black
On ‘Steelworker’ from Lungs (1982), for example, he assumes the pathetic bravado of the insecure macho man – ‘I’m a steelworker!
EP 1982 Open ↗ YouTube -
022
Locust Abortion Technician
Butthole Surfers
Emerging from the San Antonio underground in 1981, Butthole Surfers gigged relentlessly before signing to Touch and Go in 1985 and reaching a frothing, incandescent crescendo in 1987 with Locust Abortion Technician.
Album 1987 Open ↗ YouTube -
023
Twelve Point Buck
Killdozer
Both Killdozer’s Twelve Point Buck (1989) and the Jesus Lizard’s Goat (1991) share certain elements: namely guttural vocals, a predilection for feedback, grindingly primitive blues riffs, guitars as churning drone generators, and a dark atmosphere of debasement.
Album 1989 Open ↗ YouTube -
024
Goat
The Jesus Lizard
Both Killdozer’s Twelve Point Buck (1989) and the Jesus Lizard’s Goat (1991) share certain elements: namely guttural vocals, a predilection for feedback, grindingly primitive blues riffs, guitars as churning drone generators, and a dark atmosphere of debasement.
Album 1991 Open ↗ YouTube -
025
God’s Balls
Tad
Displaying a predilection for sledgehammer groove and a twisted sense of humour, albums like God’s Balls (1989) and Inhaler (1993) were lumped in with grunge but were actually far heavier than most of the bands associated with that world.
Album 1989 Open ↗ YouTube -
026
Inhaler
Tad
Displaying a predilection for sledgehammer groove and a twisted sense of humour, albums like God’s Balls (1989) and Inhaler (1993) were lumped in with grunge but were actually far heavier than most of the bands associated with that world.
Album 1993 Open ↗ YouTube -
027
Bleach
Nirvana
Indeed, the first Nirvana record – Bleach (1989) – traversed similarly muddy waters.
Album 1989 Open ↗ YouTube -
028
Nevermind
Nirvana
A far heavier beast than their breakthrough Nevermind (1991), Bleach hinged on the murderously overdriven (‘Floyd the Barber’) alongside melancholy, poppier gear (‘About a Girl’), and it was this very tension – between Beatles-inflected ear-worm melodies and detuned, flailing rock – that would (in slightly more polished form, courtesy of Butch Vig) come to define them, their music soundtracking the lives of millions and changing the course of mainstream rock for ever, sounding the death knell for the stadium histrionics of the 1980s.
Album 1991 Open ↗ YouTube -
029
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Dead Kennedys
The Dead Kennedys summed up the feral atmosphere in their frenetic 1980 debut Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables.
Album 1980 Open ↗ YouTube -
030
Alien Soundtracks
Chrome
Their second album Alien Soundtracks (1977) was a queasy electric soup that married the energy of punk to a warped Beefheartian open-ended approach, particularly guitarist Helios Creed, who once stated that he wanted Chrome to reflect what he heard when he listened to Black Sabbath on acid.
Album 1977 Open ↗ YouTube -
031
Album Generic Flipper
Flipper
Debut LP – Album Generic Flipper (1982) – was primal.
Album 1982 Open ↗ YouTube -
032
Gone Fishin’
Flipper
Following up with the more avant-leaning Gone Fishin’ (1984), Flipper beefed up the sound with a (marginally) clearer production.
Album 1984 Open ↗ YouTube -
033
Das Boot
Wolfgang Petersen
Songs like ‘Survivors of the Plague’ and ‘One by One’ were imbued with a caustic desperation and oddball psychedelic density: like being stuck inside the Das Boot submarine with nothing but the first two Stooges records and a massive bag of Mexican weed.
Film 1981 Open ↗ IMDb -
034
My War
Black Flag
Black Flag played a similarly pivotal role in inverting hardcore’s abrasive fleetness with sludgy tone and slow tempos, particularly on their hugely influential My War (1984) LP. Emerging from the hyper-violent early 1980s Californian hardcore scene, they were defined by discipline and a fearsome American work ethic.
Album 1984 Open ↗ YouTube -
035
American Hardcore
Paul Rachman
Aside from the relentless tour schedule, rehearsals were equally ceaseless, often running for over six hours (in the 2006 US punk documentary American Hardcore ex-Black Flag drummer Bill Stevenson recalled his first rehearsal with the band: reporting for duty at 8 a.m. on Christmas Day).
Documentary 2006 Open ↗ IMDb -
036
Damaged
Black Flag
Debut LP Damaged (1981) was an incendiary statement of intent that spat bloody venom at consumerism, complacency and brainless hedonism: themes that would recur throughout their discography.
Album 1981 Open ↗ YouTube
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