Good Thing This Blog is Not After a Wide Audience...

...because today's post certainly won't have much mass-appeal! In late 70's New York, New Wave was an umbrella term for a group of similarly-minded artists such as Basquiat or Keith Haring, and was musically embodied by typical CBGB's bands such as the Talking Heads and Blondie. A group of radical artists rejected New Wave's mainstream appeal and started the No Wave movement. There may not be a unifying feel to No Wave other than a DIY ethic and a predisposition to simple rhythms and harsh sounds, but the overall effect is one of profound liberation. No Wave influenced early industrial music as well as more recent bands such as the Liars. To quote Richard Wallis from Creem, reviewing their music at the time it came out, "spend a few hours with this record and then everything sounds different".

Perhaps one of the most famous proponents of No Wave is Lydia Lunch, whose early band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks was featured in the No New York compilation, famously produced by Brian Eno. Here's what they sounded like (CAUTION: NOISE. Pascal, feel free to play this to annoy your neighbors):



A pretty obvious influence on Sonic Youth, wouldn't you say? Well, Sonic Youth was also involved in No Wave, so it's not surprising.

Now take Suicide and the Talking Heads, mix them up, add a crazy saxophone and a great deal of noise, and you get James Chance & the Contortions. The video itself has a No Wave feel here:



Another band featured in the No New Wave compilation was Arto Lindsay's DNA:



I'd say there's some krautrock influence behind that, Can in particular.

Are you still reading this? Don't hate me yet? Still want to hear some crazy noise? Here's Mars, another No Wave band, which sounds to me like the missing link between the Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth:



That last one is probably my favorite of the bunch, but it would have been too commercial to start with the best song, right?

France Gall, The Lost Years?

In the early 60's, France Gall began a very long and successful career as a pop singer. But while most French pop singers were busy singing French versions of American or British hits, France Gall collaborated with many talented French composers and lyricists, including of course Serge Gainsbourg. People mostly know France Gall for those early sixties hits (ranging from a Eurovision winner, a song for kids and all the way to a scandalous double-entendre song about fellatio) and her career revival (thanks to her collaboration with husband Michel Berger) from the mid-seventies all the way to the late eighties.

But perhaps her most interesting period is the one that is also the most obscure: after a few commercial flops, she began in 1966 a relatively successful career in Germany (!). All the while, she recorded in France a few jazzy songs, such as this little gem:



It's 1968, France Gall is finally 21 and no more a minor, and she wants to exercise her freedom (she often disagreed with choices that were made for her by her entourage). She decides to join a few other artists to sign with a brand new record company, La Compagnie. What she records there is a hodge-podge of songs, some experimental, some silly, some just plain bad. But here's one of the "hippie" songs recorded then that I find particularly charming:



And here's a samba she recorded for la Compagnie, with some great orchestration. It kind of makes you feel like you're Peter Sellers and you've been invited to a very high-class party. the YouTube video is a very high-quality edit of vintage pictures:



In 1970, La Compagnie went under, and that was the end of that "free" period. France Gall then tries hard to make a comeback, which keeps failing until she finally meets Michel Berger. But that's another story, and not really an obscure one, so I'll leave it at that.

From the Fringes

I came across a great article on the always excellent Inrocks web site. If you thought the music I post here was obscure, wait till you go read that article and check out the YouTube videos that are on display there!

Just to give you a taste, here's a few that I thought were particularly interesting. It's crazy stuff, sometimes funny, often very psychedelic, but it's also completely free of inhibitions and therefore sincere.

Hasil "Haze" Adkins heard Hank Williams on the radio, and thought he was playing all the instruments by himself, so he decided to go ahead and do the same thing. This prolific one-man band inspired bands such as the Cramps, who famously covered his "She Said". Hasil had a fascination with hot dog and chicken. In fact, he wrote an entire album dedicated to chicken called "Poultry in Motion" (best album title ever?). Here's one of his chicken songs:



Wesley Willis didn't have a good life, and he decided to sing about it. The problem is, he was also schizophrenic and truly ill (he died at the age 40). The song below is probably autobiographical (for the lyrics, go to the YouTube page and click on "more info").



As for the last one, I really am speechless. The old man is apparently a local celebrity in Quebec.