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‘Details of the Madness’: Members of seminal NYC noise rock band Live Skull reunited
03.21.2018
09:00 am
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The New York noise scene that emerged with and after No-Wave can feel like the story of Sonic Youth and its near-orbit, due to that band’s massive influence. But Downtown artnoise can as easily be understood by viewing Martin Bisi as a nexus. Far from a household name, Bisi is a producer you know if you’re a liner note studier who listens to SY, Swans, John Zorn, Foetus, Material, Cop Shoot Cop, and plenty of others in the worlds of hip-hop, weird jazz, and weird rock, though surely his best-known production among civilians is Herbie Hancock’s utterly game-changing “Rockit.” The documentary film Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio details Bisi’s trajectory, and we recommend it unconditionally to all who have an interest in that scene.

In early 2016, his Gowanus, Brooklyn studio, sort-of eponymously named “BC,” had been in operation for 35 years, and to commemorate the milestone, a weekend-long series of performances took place in the facility. It included newly composed and improvised pieces by the noise-mongers that had made their signature works there, including members of Sonic Youth, Foetus, Pop. 1280, Dresden Dolls, and Alice Donut. Most excitingly, it featured a band called “New Old Skull,” a reunion, after almost 30 years of inactivity, of members of the seminal New York noise guitar band Live Skull.
 

 

 
100% of a piece with their better-known contemporaries, Live Skull conjured a massively discordant squall of guitars and a creepy, desperate vibe. The band was formed by guitarists Mark C and Tom Paine, and by the time they’d become a recording concern, it included bassist Marnie Greenholz (now Jaffe) and drummer James Lo. They released eight LPs and EPs of menacing but hypnotic artnoise between 1984’s self-titled debut EP and 1989’s Positraction, by which time they’d added singer Thalia Zedek and replaced the departed Lo and Greenholz with Ruin’s Richard Hutchins and Rat At Rat R’s Sonda Andersson, respectively. Though they never made as big of a splash as Sonic Youth (who from that scene did?), they were as well-regarded in their time: amazingly, they were the subject—along with SY, Swans, and Rat At Rat R—of a feature in the normally rather conservative Guitar Player magazine in 1986, and they were included on the crucial Speed Trials compilation, an album that also introduced the world outside Downtown NYC to a band called The Beastie Boys. After their split, Zedek made big waves with her ‘90s band Come, and Lo joined the marvelous noisy indie rock ensemble Chavez.
 

 
New Old Skull will be performing at St. Vitus Bar in Brooklyn in April as part of a showcase celebrating the release of BC 35, the recorded document of Bisi’s anniversary performances, with more shows to follow in Philadelphia and Boston in early May (the Boston show will bring Zedek back into the fold). They’ve made a video of their BC 35 song “Details of the Madness,” and in addition to premiering it for you today, Dangerous Minds chatted with Mark C about the reunion, the ’80 NYC avant-noise scene, and Martin Bisi’s contributions to it.

Keep reading, after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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03.21.2018
09:00 am
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