Pitchfork scribe/No Wave author Marc Masters @ Crooked B

Check it out…

This Friday, May 2 at the Crooked Beat record shop in NW, Pitchforkmedia writer and NO WAVE author Marc Masters will be giving a lecture/book reading on no wave, the title of his new book, which looks at the short-lived iconoclastic independent music/performance art genre from the late 70s. The reading is at 7pm.

Here's the e-mail note I got today from Bill Daly, co-owner of Crooked Beat:
On Friday May 2nd, Marc Masters who is the author of the book No Wave will be here to do a reading/discussion on the legendary No Wave scene from New York that produced the likes of Suicide, Richard Hell, Bush Tetras, DNA and many others. For those unfamilar with No Wave, it was the late 1970's anti-movement that consisted of artists, musicians and poets who took the ideas, styles and attitude of punk to another level. Based on primitivism, the No Wave scene not only produced totally original and compelling music, it also tapped into film, performance art and even fashion. People such as Jim Jarmusch and Steve Buscemi got their start from the indie films from the No Wave period.

Crooked Beat
2318 18th St NW
Washington DC 20009
Marc Masters lecture/book reading at 7pm.

Btw, here's a link to an interview that Mark Athitakis did with Marc Masters over at the Washington City Paper: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/blackplasticbag/2008/02/01/an-interview-with-marc-masters/

Marc will also be spinning no wave tunes over at the Marx Cafe in Mt. Pleasant this Friday night after his lecture. He will be guest djing the "We Fought the Big One" post-punk dj night that I do with my friend Brandon Grover.

"We Fought the Big One"
w/guest dj Marc Masters
at MARX CAFE
3203 Mt. Pleasant St. NW
Washington DC
10pm - 3am
NO COVER 21+
www.myspace.com/wefoughtthebigone.com

Here's what the Going Out Gurus wrote about the event:

You can't get much further apart than New Wave and No Wave. While the former movement apparently included everyone from the Talking Heads and Elvis Costello to Flock of Seagulls and Duran Duran – David dubbed it "punk with keyboards instead of guitars and makeup instead of missing teeth" – the latter was a New York-based avant garde scene that was more about art than top 40 singles, often abrasive and atonal, using droning, overdriven guitars as texture and rejecting hook-filled melodies in favor of angst-driven lyrics. Despite its anti-mainstream stance – No Wave's formation was in part a reaction to the growing commercialism of punk – you can hear echoes of groups like Suicide, Theoretical Girls and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks in bands like Sonic Youth, Liquid Liquid and ESG, which eventually filtered down to contemporaries like the Rapture, Mogwai and even the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Arlington resident Marc Masters recently penned an exhaustive, engaging and eminently readable book on No Wave, helpfully titled "No Wave," which interviews many of the key players and reproduces rare flyers and photos. He'll be talking about the genre tonight at Crooked Beat Records at 7 p.m. Afterwards, Masters heads up to We Fought the Big One at the Marx Cafe, where he'll be spinning tunes at one of the area's most interesting (and resolutely non-commercial) DJ nights.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/goingoutgurus/2008/04/nightlife_agenda_6.html

Interview with Marc Masters is now up over at BYT. Check it out!

Rick

http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/interviews/byt-interview-no-wave-book-author-marc-masters/

The writing on pitchfork is absolutely horrendous. There is no way I'd read an entire book of that senseless babble.

it's unfortunate that you are willing to discount marc's talents because he occasionally writes for pitchfork. he's not "a pitchfork writer", just someone who occasionally contributes to pitchfork. as much as i detest pitchfork as a whole, there are some great contributors to it, such as mark richardson and dominique leone. marc masters primarily writes for the wire and baltimore city paper.

i read "no wave" and it's an excellent overview of the whole scene by someone who is passionate about the subgenre. it is well-researched and looks fantastic (great photos, fliers, record covers, etc). if you're at all interested in early sonic youth, glenn branca, suicide, DNA, mars, and lydia lunch, you're doing a disservice to yourself by ignoring the book.

I am and I will consider based on your advice. Thanks :)

(I have to admit that I do ignore the other writers there because I do not want to sift through the bulls**t that is most of that site. My bad.)

One of the few brightspots of the Pitchfork sheep mentality is that all these kids mindlessly buying whatever that site champions will sometimes (thanks to Marc Masters and the writers snailhook mentioned) be exposed to something a little challenging, different and not pre-packaged and pre-market tested. Of course, then there's the quixotic notion that I sometimes fall prey to which likes to imagine these kids, having been exposed to music that's actually interesting, will then develop a heathly sense of skepticism the next time the site talks up how cool the latest Franz Ferdinand clone is.

Pitchfork is absolutely horrible. Garbage site.

Crooked Beat was 20 times better for vinyl when Neal Bechton was the partner or whatever.. Since he left its really gone down hill.