No No Wave No Fun: A Look at No Age
In the last four to seven years (depending what you count) the world of independent rock music has been trading its riffs for hi-hats and any of the lo-fi aesthetic that once defined it for a slick dance-floor gloss. Now, I’m not hating on all of this—I’ve got my share of Rapture records—but if I have to hear one more radio-ready disco-pop act described as “post punk,” I’m going to shiv someone.
In the late ‘70s/early ‘80s when punk rock got it’s guts cut out of it and sold back to the kids as “new wave” (note: I also have my share of New Order, so don’t start) the inevitable backlash came in one form as “no wave,” a New York movement most famous perhaps for a little band called Sonic Youth.
Now I can’t speak to whether there’s a burgeoning re-emergence of “no wave” or whether LA punks No Age would want to be associated with it, but they seem to be cut from the same noise-as-pop cloth. I just picked up Weirdo Rippers, a compilation of the young band’s early singles and b-sides and I gotta say, I’m sold. The duo swing back and forth between tracks like “Sun Spots” a wash of atmosphere and “Every Artist Needs a Tragedy” that start as a wall of white noise before the hooks sneak up underneath. The most straight-up asskicker of the bunch is definitely “Everybody’s Down,” which rides a wiry guitar riff straight to the end.
The band is fairly new, having formed in 2005 out of the ashes of Wives, but they’ve already signed to Sub Pop (which may help me forgive them for dropping The Thermals, but that’s neither here nor there.) Watch for a new full length from No Age this year; from the variety of sounds on Weirdo Rippers, they could go anywhere with it, and I’m sure there’ll be a lot of writers like me trying to come up with clever-sounding new genre names for it. Oh well, call it art-punk, noise-pop, distorted-dreamscape-dissatisfacti-core or whatever. I call it a welcome relief.
Posted in Music |
April 12th, 2008 at 8:49 am
so, is this the same dean who used to write the sex advice column for buddyhead?
April 12th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Good talk! But I must say the Thermals suck balls.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:49 am
No Age = great stuff. Far more “punk” than most of what is labeled as such at this point.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Check out Fuck Buttons’ “Street Horrrsing,” that shit’s pretty damn good too. Terrible, terrible band name, but pretty good nonetheless. And No Age have a new album called “Nouns” coming out next month i believe.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I call it boring. They don’t seem like weirdos and if you’ve seen them live you know they aren’t rippers. Sometimes things need to be just boring enough to get to suburbia.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Noesph broesph, the Thermals are quite good.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I don’t know guys….my copy of No New York is collecting dust.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
they’re ok. they sound an awful lot like the Tall Dwarfs, which i’m not sure they’re aware of.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
weird..i was just listening to weirdo rippers which made me think of la which then made me think of buddyhead so i go to check out what u guys are writing about and what do you know…no age! word!
April 12th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Fuck Buttons suck my uncut Oxford sausage.
April 13th, 2008 at 9:58 am
these guys are kinda boring to me….I DL’d Weirdo Rippers a few months back and wasn’t too impressed. Some of the faster punk/garage type tunes were OK, but I’d rather listen to Jay Reatard or the Black Lips for that
April 13th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Whoever keeps pretending they’re Thom Yorke needs to graduate high school… or possibly Middle School?
Jay Reatard is pretty damn sweet by the way. He’s releasing a single every month this year, which i think is pretty nice, but i’d rather have a full-length like “Blood Visions”.
April 13th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
That ISN’T Thom Yorke?!
April 13th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
whoever wrote this article can’t write and doesn’t seem to know much about the music they are describing.
i bet they are still in school.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
grizzletronix, i’m sorry but i found the article to be well-written. and i also found your comment about him not know much about the music he is describing to be completely unfounded. as someone who knows him (somewhat) personally, i find your comment to be complete garbage.
where’s the stuff that you write?
April 13th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
ha, no age were on the front page of myspace too
April 13th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
a few notes: I’ll be upfront in that I haven’t spent hours researching No Age; it was a purchase I made on a whim and it paid off. In that light I think I wrote about them just fine.
But I’m sure I (or others) have written other things about other things much better.
That said, I stand by my opinion of this band (and The Thermals, for that matter) and will probably have to check out the Tall Dwarves– who I hadn’t heard of– and Fuck Buttons– who I have, but just hadn’t listened to yet.
also, I’m completely into Jay Reatard and Black Lips, but I don’t really think what those bands and what No Age are doing is the same.
Either way, good day, all.
April 13th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
i put everybody’s down on my muxtape. great band indeed.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:22 am
best thing to come out of LA in a looooooooooong time. Check out Abe Vigoda too!
April 15th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Health is pretty good and from LA too. I dig ‘em, but i really like Boredoms so that’s probably why.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:59 am
i’m just a bit surprised it took you (and by you i mean this site in general) to write about them, being from LA and all
April 15th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I didn’t give these cats a shot until recently as well which is surprising considering I dug their last band. Pretty fucking good record. Catchy as all fuck. By the way,I’m quite fond of your new buddyhead banner at the top o’ the page.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
These guys are popping up everywhere. They sound like they recorded their songs on a Panasonic tape deck with a radioshack PC-mic. Interesting.
However, considering all the buzz from the masses of jaded bloggers that LIVE (and die) by the first two sentences in this write-up, I predict No Age will play Conan or some shit by the end of the year.
I suspect the main allure here is in the surrounding scene (see video above), and unfortunately not the music. And scenes go away all too fast, especially when flocked-to by the masses. And double-especially when the music isn’t anything we can remember.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
hey thanks Jackson! (about the banner)
April 20th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Tall Dwarves - Homestead records and Flying Nun. 4 track/lo-fi stuff since the 80s. Chris Knox.
i’m not digging No Age that much. they’re alright, but seriously overhyped and not really all that. Wives were embarassingly bad, so at least this is an improvement.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:32 am
The Thermals are by far the worst live band I’ve ever seen.
I kept thinking I was watching a Full House episode where DJ was dating the “rebellious rocker” but really he was just a skinny dweeb.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
On further inspection, I re-tract my comment… They are in fact pretty decent.
Dude’s voice is quite grating and being hungover and all I guess I just lumped them into shitty pop-punk.
April 26th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
This site is shit, just let it die for gods sake, u dont know shit about music and we dont care anymore about your opinions. No Age are ok, but we all heard about them freaking last year and they wernt that great then, what is the purpose of Buddyhead now I just dont understand?>? It makes no sense at all, just kill the fucking site off for gods sake and put up a message board and release some decent albums… not that your releases are bad, Im just saying concentrate on that, rather than your out of date comments on bands we’ve already made our opinions up on. Its 2008 u know… its really sad
April 27th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
No, Buddyhead releases ARE really bad. For a bunch of dudes that talk as much shit as they do, you’d think they’d step up their game… but Icarus Line, The Cassettes, Wires on Fire? Weak…
April 27th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
So chum, and Anni.. what bands do you belong too?
April 28th, 2008 at 9:28 am
I never said their releases were bad, I like Wires on fire and of course the icarus line, dont much like the cassettes, i said they should concentrate more on that side of thing
April 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Icarus Line are embarassing as are Wires on Fire.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
and what i meant was exactly what i said… these dudes shouldn’t talk as much shit as they do if what they have offer is as mediocre/bad as it is. that’s all.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
first of all, icarus line and buddyhead nothing to do with each other… that was so 2001 man. get with it CHUM!
wires on fire’s debut record was an extremely breath of fresh air at a time where punk had gone way south and green day was popular again for some reason.
the cassettes are great but perhaps an acquired taste. nevertheless, all the people in that band can play better than anyone of the crybabys who live on this website 24/7.
lastly CHUM, these dudes can talk as much shit as they want cuz of that whole “its their site” thing. remember… you’re just a reader. they obviously like the bands whose records they release or at least think that others will like them.
and seriously, what bands do you listen to? you dodged the question geek.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Anni, are you a troll?
If not, you’re.. uh.. funny.
I admire your tenacity or something.
April 29th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Hey Anni,
If you dont like buddyhead you could make it dead (for you) by FUCKING RIGHT OFF and not stopping by anymore. sound like a plan?
You still like “The Icarus Line”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXjS-i8r_0Y&feature=related
AH HAHAHAHAHAHA pretty killer huh?
April 29th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
No Age is boring, and Jay Reatard or whatever is fucking lame. Pitchfork music still sucks in ‘08, b.