Jack Ruby were an early “lost” NYC proto-punk and no wave pioneers, a supergroup of sorts who existed in various configurations from 1973 to 1978. As well as vocalist Robin Hall and guitarist Chris Gray, they numbered Randy Cohen–later to write The Ethicist column for the New York Times as well as writing for David Letterman and Michael Moore – legendary no wave bassist George Scott (of The Contortions and 8-Eyed Spy) and notorious NYC performance artist Boris Policeband, known for playing live police scanner broadcasts alongside squalls of feedback wrenched from a viola fed through various effects pedals.

Writing today in The Guardian, Thurston Moore describes them as a “sacred stone of sorts” within the diverse swirl of groups and sounds that constituted the downtown New York City music scene of the 1970s.

Jack Ruby were young and wild early 70s rock’n’roll intellectuals. They knew the real deal of emotional expressionistic text was in the underpinnings of the avant-garde – the NYC lineage of William Burroughs and the Velvet Underground, the poetry and radical high energy of Detroit’s John Sinclair and the MC5, and the questioning neo-noir visionaries of European art-house cinema.

In early 1974, Jack Ruby recorded five songs, several as a demo for Epic Records at the behest of Sly Stone’s A&R guy, Stephen Paley–none were released at the time–and played just five shows. Their final gig at Max’s Kansas City in November 1977 was with Kongress (an extraordinary show previously covered on Dangerous Minds) and marked the debut with Jack Ruby of artist Stephen Barth, who had replaced Hall on vocals. Then they split, leaving almost no trace of their existence. But even that slim history somehow served them well as all the right people had seen and heard them–including Moore, Lydia Lunch, James Chance and Jim Sclavunos–and kept their memory alive for almost forty years, until now.

The group’s collected recordings–which veer from Stooges/VU noise-rock to wild avant-garde electronic pieces, located somewhere between Whitehouse and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop – have just been released as Hit & Run in a slick deluxe double CD set on Saint Cecilia Knows with gorgeous artwork by Japanese artist, Ken Hamaguchi, as well as on two limited edition vinyl releases through Ted Lee, Byron Coley and Thurston Moore’s Feeding Tube label. With extensive history and liner notes from Thurston Moore, Jon Savage and Chris Campion.
 

Credit: Stephen Barth