This is a guest post from Galactic Zoo Dossier’s overlord, Plastic Crimewave on an unfairly obscure group from Chicago:

Unless one caught them on their first-ever tour last year, non-Chicagoans might not know of the legendary avant-performance “anti-music” group ONO, who have been at it since January 5, 1980. The original line-up of sound-svengali P. Michael Grego, the dynamic “front man” known only as Travis (once Travis Dobbs, until he had it legally changed) and multi-instrumentalist Ric Graham packed it in at the end of the 80s, but Grego and Travis reformed the group in 2007 with new members after interest in their two obscure 80s LPs on Thermidor Records (home to Flipper, SPK, The Birthday Party, etc) exploded.
 

Photo by David Magdziarz

While recording excellent new material on Moniker Records, the Priority Male and Galactic Archive imprints jointly reissued ONO’s first LP, Machines that Kill People (which features contributions from a young Al Jourgensen of Ministry) thirty years later in 2013. Now their second LP Ennui from 1986 (which was mixed and recorded in a single night!) is available again to their masses of young fans, who pack house shows, club gigs and other happenings to see the contented freaks of ONO perform their utterly unique yet ever-changing sonic vision utilizing damaged electronics, fuzzed-out bass, multiple drummers, and theatrical vocal ruminations.
 

Photo by David Magdziarz

In the weeks before Ennui was released, the band was similarly prolific and unpredictable—practicing three times a week, doing performances at city-funded spots like the Chicago Cultural Center, and art space concerts that were meant to be performed on NASA’s Space Shuttle (!)—-but best of all, ONO was actually videotaping some of their events. Original member Ric Graham operated a camera which captured the band at their high-weirdest at Harper College in Palatine, IL in April 1985, a few months before they recorded Ennui.

This 1985 music video for “Ennui” from their 1985 album of the same title, was only screened one time at a local club a month later, until this “world premiere.”
 

 

 
Below, the promo video for an ONO appearance at Metro in Chicago, on December 30, 1982 opening for Lydia Lunch (a pre-Sonic Youth Thurston Moore was playing guitar in her band that night).