no wave Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Clickbait “At Your Leisure”

sfilzen — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 17:56:43 +0000

Clickbait “At Your Leisure” 2024. Self-released debut LP from Chicago no-wave funk punks. We caught Clickbait for the first time last week at Cactus Club when they opened for Alice Bag and Kid Congo’s “Juanita and Juan” loud-lounge show. Clickbait is great – very unique sound and performance style. Bass-forward, hypnotic and danceable beats back singer Sandra Yau’s minimalist (unless she goes full-on shriek maximalist) sprechgesang delivery. About a third of the songs were performed through an old yellow rotary phone, which added another layer of cool weird to the experience. We picked up their record after the show so I’m not entirely sure what songs they played, but I’m pretty sure I recognize a few of my top picks from the LP: the title track “At Your Leisure” is a definite ass-shaker, as are “Pumpkin Spice” and “Uh Huh” – I’m fairly certain a couple of those were telephone songs. I definitely remember the xylophone of “A Bouffant Off” at the show. Also great: “Spy Song,” a lament, to a disco beat. And while I’m often turned off by excessive dissonance, that approach 100 percent works on the herky-jerky “5G Horse.”

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Yard Act “The Overload”

sfilzen — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 19:53:26 +0000

Yard Act “The Overload” 2022. Island Records. Limited edition “Ghetto Lettuce” green vinyl. We caught Yard Act last night at X-Ray Arcade (Cudahy) and holy sh*t what a show! Sold-out, energy to the ceiling, non-stop dancing (I estimate I danced about 1.5 miles from the number of steps my watch tracked). Definitely one of the top performances we’ve seen this year, probably ranks in the top 50 of all time. Lyrically heavy with social commentary, they make politics an all-out party with a combo of funk, disco, no-wave, alt-dance and a stage chock-full with musicians (James Smith-vocals, Ryan Needham-bass, Sam Shipstone-guitar, Jay Russell-drums, Chris Duffin-sax/keys) and two stellar backup singers/dancers/hype-women Lauren Fitzpatrick and Daisy Smith. Fitzpatrick and Smith also provided rhythm backup with tambourines and some device that had the Prince symbol Ƭ̵̬̊ I have no idea what it does or really how to explain it but it was very cool.

The Overload is Yard Act’s debut LP (they released an EP in 2021); it went to #2 in the UK. Just like the show, it’s almost a non-stop party but smart, a little biting and, at times, arty/weird. They played a bunch of tracks from The Overload last night, fortunately all of my favorites. They led off with “Dead Horse” (a sharp critique on capitalism and racism, to a great groovy beat!), followed by another favorite “Payday” and “Land of the Blind.”

My absolute top pick is the title track “The Overload” – I’m pretty sure this one put me over the mile mark for dance steps and by this time I was absolutely dripping with sweat (as was the band); they followed it up with “100% Endurance” (the album closer). Not shown on the set list was the encore, “Witness” – another favorite – which was short, punky, fast and brilliant.

They also played several songs from their latest release, Where’s My Utopia? (2024), also fantastic. Hoping to see Yard Act again soon – though I’m not sure it will be at such a small venue again.

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James White and the Blacks “Sax Maniac”

sfilzen — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 17:50:24 +0000

James White and the Blacks “Sax Maniac” 1982. Animal Records. No-waver, jazz punk James Chance aka James White died last week (b. James Siegfried 1953, d. June 18th 2024) and I’m contractually obligated to note that he was a Milwaukee native. Last week my social feeds were filled with remembrances: SO many of my friends and acquaintances knew him/met him/were at bars with him – I’m assuming he came back to Milwaukee from New York to visit family periodically, etc. (one guy I was in a band with in the early 2000’s was in the Milwaukee-based band Death with Chance in the 70’s).

Sax Maniac was the second release from his James White and the Blacks project (he a few other concurrent bands including James Chance and the Contortions, James Chance and Pill Factory and James White’s Flaming Demonics). As the title promises, it is heavy on the sax (played by White/Chance) and a weird mix of new wave, jazz, funk and serious quirk. The title track is my top pick – it has a sexy groove, loaded with funk via bass and horn – the most (only) danceable song on the LP. There’s one cover, “That Old Black Magic,” which originally appeared in the 1942 movie musical Star Spangled Rhythm and has been covered by several artists since, including Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra and, of course, James White/Chance.

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Kim Gordon “No Home Record”

sfilzen — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 18:26:42 +0000

Kim Gordon “No Home Record” 2019. Matador Records. Today, April 28th, is Kim Gordon’s 68th birthday (b. 1953) so I’m spinning her first solo album (after the demise of Sonic Youth 2011 she recorded a record with Body/Head, comprised Gordon and Bill Nace, and Glitterbust – Gordon and Alex Knost). No Home Record is industrial-tinged experimental noise rock: lots of distortion, pounding in-your-face beats, discord and challenge. It charted in the UK, reaching #79 (and went to #29 on the Scottish charts – I didn’t realize Scotland had their own ratings) and though a few singles were released, I don’t think any of those charted. One of those singles is my top track: “Murdered Out” which is probably the most accessible song on the LP – it’s industrial and full of fuzzed distortion but also fairly danceable, as is “Hungry Baby” (another single). “Air BnB,” another single, amuses me as the Air BnB concept was the initial inspiration for the album (that’s where she met the album’s producer, Justin Raisen) (also the video is hilarious). “Don’t Play It” is alt-psychedelic hypnotic and “Cookie Butter,” besides having just the best name ever, is waaaayyy out there, epic in length with a teletype beat and Gordon kinda whisper-shouting punctuated stacato’d lyrics finished with grinding geared guitar.

Gordon continues to be just. so. cool. (inner sleeve photo from No Home Record)

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Sonic Youth “Hits Are For Squares”

sfilzen — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 21:12:48 +0000

Sonic Youth “Hits Are For Squares” 2008 double-LP comp. Today, April 28th, is Kim Gordon’s birthday (b. 1953) so I’m spinning this retrospective of Sonic Youth tracks chosen by a bunch of celebs (i.e. Mike D, Beck, Mike Watt, Flea – pretty cool) and published by Starbucks (not that cool), released on vinyl for Record Store Day 2010 (a bit more cool). There’s obviously some great songs on here from Dirty like “100%” (chosen by Mike D) “Sugar Kane” (chosen by Beck); I had Dirty on heavy rotation in ‘92 during college and I’m pretty sure that’s the album Sonic Youth was touring for when I saw them perform with Social Distortion and Neil Young. From Goo Radiohead chose “Kool Thing” (because “it has the best guitar riff, best drumming and best lyric. Because it is sexy, lazy and doesn’t give a f***. And because you just got Chuck D to fill up a DAT with cliches and play it in the background.”), Portia de Rossi chose “Disappearer” (she says listened to it and “awoke to find [her]self wearing a Little Mermaid costume”), and “Mary-Christ” selected by David Cross. Going back to Evol, there’s “Tom Violence” (selected by Gun Van Sant because it reminds him of his little sister), “Shadow of a Doubt” (chosen by Michele Williams because “Kim’s voice was a ghostly friend whispering in my ear”) and “Expressway to Yr Skull” (selected by The Flaming Lips). One track from Sister, “Tuff Gnarl,” was chosen by two people: Dan Eggers and Mike Watt (and Watt was pissed! “God damn it! Does this mean I throw chingasos with Eggers over first dibs?” Watts covered “Tuff Gnarl” on his ‘94 solo album Ball-Hog or Tugboat?”). “Slow Revolution,” written in 2007 and which concludes the double-LP comp, is the only new song on Hits Are For Squares; it’s almost an instrumental (there’s some kinda mumbly lyrics sprinkled here and there) that is super-ambient, dense, a bit psychedelic and a lot chaotic. Kinda summing up Sonic Youth.

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Sonic Youth “Evol”

sfilzen — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 18:02:10 +0000

Sonic Youth “Evol” 1986. SST Records. Noisy no-wave, Evol is Sonic Youth’s third LP, their first with drummer Steve Shelley (replacing Bob Bert); it’s also notable for including bassist Mike Watt on the track “In the Kingdom #19,” his first recording after fellow Minutemen D. Boon’s death. (Watt also played on the Kim Fowley cover “Bubblegum” which is not on the vinyl version of Evol but is included on the CD). Sonic Youth also continued their collaboration with Lydia Lunch (who sang on their 1984/85 single “Death Valley ‘69″) – she co-wrote “Marilyn Moore.” (The cover of Evol is a still of actress Lung Leg from Submit to Me, Lung Leg also was in the video for “Death Valley ‘69″ – great song, great video). My favorite tracks on Evol are two tracks sung by Kim Gordon: “Shadow of a Doubt” and “Starpower,” which was the only single from Evol. I also appreciate the arty chaos sensibilities that carry over from the music to creating confusion for the listener: the tracks aren’t listed in order on either the back cover nor the lyric sheet, plus the last track “Expressway to Yr. Skull” is listed as “Madonna, Sean and Me” on the cover and as “The Crucifixion of Sean Penn” on the lyric sheet (and regardless of the title, has an infinity loop of chords in the runout groove). I’m not entirely sure what the obsession with Madonna and Penn was all about – the two married in ‘85 and divorced in ‘89 (with a lot of acrimony in between), but clearly there was some fascination. Around the same time as the recording of Evol, Sonic Youth and Mike Watt formed the side project Ciccone Youth, releasing the single “Into the Groove(y)” in ’86 and issuing the album The Whitey Album (1988, J. Mascis also contributed to that record).

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Wolfmanhattan Project “Blue Gene Stew”

sfilzen — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 15:17:19 +0000

Wolfmanhattan Project “Blue Gene Stew” 2019. In The Red Records. No wave garage-noise rock by the alt-super-group that includes Bob Bert (Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Chrome Cranks, Jon Spencer’s Hit Makers) on drums, Mick Collins (Gories, Dirtbombs) on guitar and vocals, and Kid Congo Powers aka Brian Tristan (The Gun Club, Knoxville Girls) also on guitar and vocals. Lo-fi, swampy and often catchy as hell, Bob Bert smashes the shit out the rhythm section (his preferred drumsticks? Hammers!) and the guitars are garage-jangly mixed with hard power chords. Long-time Bert collaborator Lydia Lunch even makes a guest appearance on the track “Jar in the Staircase.” My top tracks include the garage-blues ass-shaker “Smells Like You” which Wolfmanhattan Project released as a single in 2015, and “Now Now Now” plus “Silver Sun” (both totally danceable, too). There’s some weird shit on the album as well, like the VERY no-wave track “Toynbee Tile Blues” which is long and filled with lots of crazy beat, spacey noise, distorted “vocals” (spoken word, mostly name-checking various cities, planets and Stanley Kubrick).

Last week I got a copy of Bob Bert’s kinda-autobiography I’m Just the Drummer, sent and signed to me by Bert himself. It’s a delightful read, a little bit about the man: his background, musical influences and collaborations, and art – one of his works is featured as Blue Gene Stew’s cover – but mostly it’s short interviews and photographs of the multitude of other artists he’s worked with over the years. Some of those interviews are pulled from Bert’s zine BB Gun from the early 2000′s.

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Sonic Youth “Death Valley 69″

sfilzen — Wed, 29 May 2019 15:45:08 +0000

Sonic Youth “Death Valley 69″ 1985 EP, Homestead Records/Blast First Records. First released as a 7″ single in 1984 and then included on Sonic Youth’s second LP Bad Moon Rising (1985), “Death Valley 69″ features no-wave artist Lydia Lunch on vocals along with Thurston Moore on vocals and guitar, Kim Gordon on bass, Bob Bert – who is currently touring as part of Jon Spencer’s Hitmakers band – on drums, and Lee Ranaldo on guitar. It is a dark, loud, powerful post-punk noise rock masterpiece. This was the first song I ever heard by Sonic Youth; a friend of mine had this EP in ‘85 and I listened to her copy obsessively after making a tape (our vinyl copy is a relatively new acquisition). “Death Valley 69″ is about the Charles Manson murders of 1969 which puts its sinister vibe into serious context. The B-side of the EP has the tracks “I Dream I Dreamed” (a no-wave shoegazer), “Inhuman” (industrial-tinged noise rock), “Brother James” (driving dissonance in minor, creepy as hell yet weirdly catchy) and “Satan is Boring” (all no-wave, really really creepy chanting, no discernible melody or beat).

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Pink Section “Pink Section”

sfilzen — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 16:46:04 +0000

Pink Section “Pink Section” 1979, 1980/2014. Superior Viaduct Records. A collection of the very short-lived San Francisco-based art-rock/punk/no wavers who named themselves after the San Francisco Chronicle’s pink colored arts and entertainment guide. I bought this album on a whim last week while up in Appleton, WI at Top Spins (an excellent and well-curated record store that I highly recommend checking out). It’s really really weird, and really kinda great. Knowing nothing about the band, I read – and was not surprised to learn after listening to the record – that they were art students and self-taught musicians influenced by Dadaism, a “deranged domesticity and 50′s Americana gone haywire” aesthetic and Yoko Ono – included on this compilation is a cover of her “Midsummer New York”, which is heavily deconstructed and punked up. Other top tracks are “Shopping” and “Jane Blank” which you can view the band playing live here.

With a sound I can really only compare to a mashup of Devo and B-52′s on heavy hallucinogens and speed, Pink Section were composed of Judy Gittelsohn (vocals and synth), Stephen Wymore (bass, guitar, synth and vocals), Carol Detweiler (drums and vocals) and Matt Heckert (vocals, guitar, bass and sax). Gittelsohn and Detweiler went on to form Inflatable Boy Clams after Pink Section broke up. In the comments section on WFMU’s blog about Pink Section in 2008, Heckert chimed in the conversation and stated he’s done some solo musical artwork work since the early 80′s (titled Matt Heckert Mechanical Sound Orchestra, it’s so industrial that it’s just machines.)

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Talking Heads “77″

sfilzen — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 15:01:33 +0000

Talking Heads “77″ released on this date, September 16, 1977. The single “Psycho Killer,” one of the most iconic Talking Heads songs, reached #92 on the US charts in 1978; Allmusic describes it as a “deceptively funky new wave/no wave song … [with] an insistent rhythm, and one of the most memorable, driving basslines in rock & roll.“ Talking Heads started performing this song live as a ballad sung from a killer’s perspective in the band’s first iteration as The Artistic in ‘74. David Byrne described his inspiration as “imagining Alice Cooper doing a Randy Newman-type ballad. Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies.”

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