No Wave Documentary -Kill Your Idols On Pitchfork this week
 

Finally the website does something cool besides telling us thom yorkes bathroom schedule.Anyone already seen this doc? I assume by the title that sonic youth will at least be in it for a little bit.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...ill-your-idols

boght it 2 years ago

we already got a thread for this....
but yes sonic youth are in there, and the YYYs the liars, suicide, teenage jesus blablabla
its good and interesting

I just realized Lydia looks kinda like my mom now. I mean, it's obvious that she was once a very vibrant, interesting, and beautiful young woman but age has taken its toll. Aesthetically they look similar too, thick hair, round body, etc..

one of the worst documentaries that i have ever seen

^^^I liked it.

Yeah, it had it's moments (how couldn't it interviewing that bunch), but as a documentary it really was poorly put together. Why on Earth were groups like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs even included? Let alone that one bunch of G&R wannabes?? Even the Black Dice and Gogol Bordelo didn't seem to be there for any concrete reason, though of course the original no wavers don't hate them as much since they aren't just copping somebody elses style from thirty years ago. Rob Your Idols would have been a more appropriate title for most of it.

maybe its because I like both worlds. I really like the YYYS and liars and the new bunch of bands (not all) and of course the old gangsters

it was cool untill they went directly from swans to yeah yeah yeahs (ew). i dont know what gives them the balls to just straight up skip out on a full decade like the 90's ever happened, I would have loved segments on God is my Co Pilot or maybe Unsane/Helmet and those bands. The footage is not that great (I mean, they show a clip of "Kissability" to demonstrate Sonic Youth in the BEGINNING of thier career?) though there is one clip of Sonic Youth in noise assault mode which is great, a Teenage Jesus clip with Lydia screaming her brains out which is nothing short of inspiring, anf the Swans clip when they're playing vintage Filth stuff with what's her face contorting her body on a little rug. All and all, decent.

gogol bordello..... why????????????????

okay yes thats right. they just made the comparisons between now and then. and left out completely whats between them. thats a major flaw. I just saw that documentary like the comparison between now, and its no wave origins. not like a chronographical documentary bout that new york scene from then to now

madonna likes them.

not to mention i highly doubt karen o gives two shits about glenn branca.

I sort of like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I mean, they're better than Pearl Jam or Hootie and the Blowfish. They just aren't No Wave by any stretch of the imagination. Neither are Liars who I really like a lot, and I'm sure they'd agree. Sonic Youth influenced noise rock, sure, but their sound owes close to nothing to DNA or Mars or the Contortions. The whole premise of this "documentary" is a ridiculous grasp at non-existent straws to tout the directors own favorite bands.

Sonic Youth actually owes a lot to No Wave as a movement and thier early music holds very close to the No Wave aesthetic; uncompromising, non-commerical, artistic, dark, atonal, lack of melody, saying to to struture, etc.. No Wave as a very diverse and small scene, none of those bands sound similar other than use of Volume and Noise, but to say thier sound owes nothing to them is absurd. Lee and Thurston learned experimental guitar technique from Glenn Branca, one of the key No Wave players, and if Thurston had not gotten into No Wave, he might've been in bands like the Coachwhips forever. Without Suicide and the Voioids there would have been no DNA or Teenage Jesus, without Teenage Jesus and DNA, most likely no Sonic Youth or Swans. Sorry folks, nothing comes out of thin air, everything in this world is the cause of some ever present effect. No Wave may have seemed like it came out of nowhere, but Noise and Harmolodics and Atonality being incorprated into Rock N Roll was no new idea.

I totally agree!
maybe this wouldnt be a bad starting point to get into the whole no wave things, cause it throws the wrong light on things, you are absolutely right...

Deja vu... This doc sucks.

this whole pitchfork tv is pretty nice. good quality life vids

I just finished watching this documentary. It was very enjoyable, but no chance in hell do The Yeah Yeah Yeahs deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Suicide, or Sonic Youth for that matter. This said, they were trying to focus on the contempary "art-punk"/experimental scene, and they did mention bands I consider to be the logical progression on from the 70s/80s scene, namely Liars and Black Dice.

Karen O and the dude from ARE Weapons (who are these people again?) made me want to gouge my eyes out.

I heartily agree.

karen o makes me wanna put something else out...

A cigarette on her disgusting face?

ha ha!!

none of those 00's bands are in any way an extention of no wave. Early 90s chicago Noise Rock/No Wave was definitley the bands directly influenced by No Wave. U.S. Maple, the Luttenbachers, Scissor Girls. Lake of Dracula, and others. Boredoms of course took heavy influence from DNA. Harry Pussy have a Teenage Jesus influence. Back in the 80s I cant help but here No Wave in the Butthole Surfers, Big Black, and Flipper. Hell, Minutemen and the Meat Puppets could probably have been No Wave but they happened to like country. I mean, there's millions of bands who are influenced by No Wave. Fuck, any band interested in the combination of sound and noise and drones with rock n roll, well, that's a band influenced by No Wave. So the point of this rambling? This documentary is misinformed, poorly presented, and demonstrates no knowledge about this music. It could have been improved if they decided to take the focus off New York. Maybe have done an American Hardcore thing, breaking it down Geographically AND Chronologically. Started with Glam Rock (all over), then on to Cleveland Art Rock (Pere Ubu) then New York No Wave, then Sonic Youth/Swans, then how those bands spread art experimentalism into underground rock, then chicago no wave, then providence noise rock, and then Michican Noise/bulb records scene. Well, maybe I will make that dvd some day.

Exactly.

I can't see any no wave in any of the "new generation" of bands they listed whatsoever. Very idiotic doc -- and that was, like, the main focus of the documentary!

FOR FUCK'S SAKE MAN, PARAGRAPHS.

Haha. I like batreleaser's posting style. Seems very stream-of-conscious yet focused. Like a Dennis Leary type.. never stops to take a breath or relax. Very interesting.

He's put your posts into repose, that's for sure. Stream-of-consciousness or [faux-] muso-diarrhoea?

Obviously, the proviso is that any of my posts be ignored, I'm a smidge drunk and in a shit mood.

Sure, I obviously wasn't saying that Sonic Youth weren't influenced by No Wave. That would be a statement completely ignorant of the band I've been following heavily for a quarter century.

What I was getting at is that it's quite possible to be influenced by Sonic Youth without having that be the portion of their sound that comes from No Wave. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs certainly have some SY influences, like many, many groups out there, but they are primarily post Daydream Nation influences. That's not No Wave, it's indie rock!

I realize you and I are in agreement on that point, I just wanted to clarify that I, like 90% of everybody on this board am fully aware of the debt that Sonic Youth's music owes to No Wave. For one thing, Branca's first band Theoretical Girls was part of the No Wave scene, so the lineage is pretty direct.

I don't care about who is or is not influenced by No Wave. It has no baring as to whether a band is worth listening to or not.

Either way, the bands coverd in the doc (after the first 20 minutes) are awful except Liars who are usually pretty mediocre..

I'm right there with you, but it really should have bearing on whether or not a band is included in a so-called No Wave documentary!

But do you want no wave or do you want da yoof?

Huh?

Minutemen.

I watched WE JAM ECONO last night. I liked that documentary way more than this one, haha..

Tanita Tikaram told me to say that.

I said nobody would get it and it's a lame joke anyway (or 'anyways' as you dumb Americans would say).

But she said she'd stop singing and make me supper if I said it.

But I got it.

Then again, I am nobody.

What I'm saying is that "influenced by No Wave" shouldn't have been included at all. Who gives a fuck?

Eventually it just feels like the documentary was made by an overzealous Liars fan trying to build some imaginary legacy.