Just 2 more days until the 4th Annual No Fun Fest at the Hook in Brooklyn, NY! Why would anyone want to attend a fest touted as No Fun? Well, consider it no fun for the neighbors, and no fun for your mom, but No Fun Fest has some of the most prolific and fine-tuned noise bands that the globe has to offer. Consider this years headliners:

Thurston Moore
Merzbow
Incapacitants
Pain Jerk

Plus the huge list of bands that will play between Thursday the 17th and Sunday the 20th of May:

Hair Police
Yoshimi+Kim gordon
Hive Mind+Damion Romero
Lambsbread
Evil Moisture
Crumbling
Orphan Fairytale
Sissy Spacek
Carlos Giffoni
Raionbashi & Kutzkelina
Anti-Freedom
Mouthus+Axolotl
Grunt
Princess Dragonmon
Charlie Draheim
Keiji Haino
Tom Recchion, Ju Suk Reet Meate and Oblivia
Religious Knives
Slogun
Sickness
Demons
The Rita
Gastric Female Reflex
Burning Star Core+Zaimph
Aaron Dilloway
Enema Syringe
Leslie Keffer+Rodger Stella
Stegm
Hacky Pack Sac Sac
Deathroes
American Band+ AirConditioning

Plus DJs:

Tony Rettman
Mike Simonetti
Jackie Oblivia
Nautical Almanac Sound System
Andy Ortmann,
The Olson Twins
The Harbinger Sound Plastic Punk Explosion
Joachim Nordwall
Lambsbread Sound System

For more information, go to the No Fun Fest website and read about the curators and philosophies behind the festival at Village Voice.
You can also purchase music directly from No Fun Records.

i especially like this quote in the VV article from Michael Bernstein, of Religious Knives who have played the fest every year :

“People are more drawn to noise music because it’s really a reaction against boring bands and weird rock hierarchies,” Bernstein says. “Noise is really a product of political frustration and musical boredom. Kids also come to the scene because it is still pretty small, and they want to be part of something.”

“This was about saying NO, a new freedom, a positive NO. Musically it was like a new beginning; everything was based on one beat, archaic rhythm and feedback. It was for the first time that a band seemed loose and free and oriented towards the future.”
Jochen Irmler, Faust

“A banjo with a microphone in it to make it electric, a fuzz bass en ’66, and an amazing singer, not to mention the drummer and organist, both out of this galaxy with what they were doing.
Their melodies were pop destructive and must be played to your younger brother.”
The White Stripes

monks Tribute Album Will Be Released In US – June 19 2007

silver monk time – features the following 29 international artists covering Monks songs :

The Fall
Faust
Fehlfarben
Doc Schoko
Gudrun Gut
Die Goldenen Zitronen / Chicks on Speed
PTB 3 (psychic tv)
Noise Conspiracy
The Havletones
Alexander Hacke
Michaela Melian
Barbara Manning and the Go-Luckys.
Floating Di Morel
S.Y.P.H.
Alex Empire/Gary Burger
Silver Apples/Alan Vega
Mouse on Mars
The Raincoats
Jason Forrest
Singapore Sling
27/11
Nista Nije Nista
Mense Reents
The 5.6.7.8’s (the band in Kill Bill 1)
Cycle
The Gossip
Jon Spencer/Solex
Charles Wilp / The Monks

liner notes to silver monk time – 29 international artists take on the legacy of the monks

in 1965 the monks were looking for a new zero point in pop music and created what later turned into the milestone record “black monk time”. “black monk time” accidentally or intentionally pre-dated several genres that were to come: kraut rock, electronic music, heavy metal, punk, industrial and techno.
when the monks in january 1966 launched their “living (pop) art project” at famous reeperbahn top ten club the largest german tabloid “bild-zeitung” wrote “noise, noise and no melody – robot music!”.
in july of the same year the monks presented their black record for the first time live on the teenage tv show “beat-club”. to the surprise of many they started the show with an improvised new song, which wasn’t even on the record. you could call it commercial suicide. the song itself was archaic, one repetitive beat, three monks beating on gigantic tambourines, an organ gone mad, a guitar on the floor that fed back and at one point was shyly touched by four band members. all typical macho rock attitudes were taken out. it was pure and swinging joyfulness and seemed to have more in common with avant garde art than with regular pop music. therefore maybe it was misunderstood. to some degree though it was the end of rock music as we knew it. the monks called the song “monk chant”. rumor has it that “monk chant” was supposed to be the one and only idea for their second long player. one primitive beat spread out on two lp sides. “the rolling stones are baroque, the beatles for old grannies, you, the monks are playing the music of the future, you are supposed to play the audience into ecstasy,” demanded their two german managers. this second (never released) record was to be called “silver monk time”.
play loud! is proud to announce 29 international pop bands who continue the musical journey initiated 40 years ago by the seven monks: gary burger, larry clark, dave day, roger johnston, walther niemann, karl-heinz remy and eddie shaw.

crank it up and enjoy this brand new ecstatic monks record.

it is (finally) silver monk time.

MASTERED AT Faust Studio BY HANS-JOACHIM IRMLER (FAUST).
buy the album from the Play Loud Shop

words about monks’ sound

excerpted from the original liner notes of BLACK MONK TIME

Gary Burger plays guitar and was born in Minnesota. Roger Johnston, a Texan, gives his drums the works. Chicago boy: That is Larry Clark – crazy-fingers at the organ, for his father was no gangster, but a priest. And Dave Day has more than one banjo and more than one microphone built into each of his banjos. He claims that he was born in Washington. And Eddie Shaw, who hails from California, uses his bass guitar as he sees fit!

as part of an introduction to the monks, Spazz Chandler described their music thus :

The backbone of the Monks’ music is in Roger’s drumming. The thudding of his omnipresent toms is constantly accenting and coloring his sharp snare work and sparse use of cymbals. He is always in control. It sometimes sounds as if he is directing the band, which is a rhythmic experiment in itself, from the rear. Dave, whose banjo is exclusively rhythmic, usually takes his cues from Roger’s snare, often playing at twice the drummer’s speed. The hollow, mad clacking sound of Dave’s banjo is at times evocative of a locomotive that has dropped its cars and cargo in favor of a faster pace. Playing somewhere in between the two is Eddie’s overdriven bass seeking to put everything into some kind of harmonic perspective. Gary and larry play what might be viewed as the “melody” of the song as well as the solos. Gary’s soloing technique is to rip sheets of feedback out of his guitar, which yammers and howls in protest, before slapping it back into the framework of the, er . . . “groove.” Larry usually skitters across the keyboard allowing occasional glimpses of fat cathedral-esque tone. His infrequent chords show the kind of caterwaul his organ would actually be capable of, if he slowed down long enough. The overall effect is maddening. It is without a doubt the most uncompromising stuff ever to call itself rock ‘n’ roll.

How Minnesota musicians revived ’60s rockers the Monks

the monks accomplished a lot during their time in Germany, but it is no small detail that each musician hailed from the USofA before being relocated by the Cold War. check out this article to read about their further adventures in Minnesota, and how the Twin Cities inspired the revival of the monks 40 years after the band had disappeared.

Living Like a Monk by Peter S. Scholtes

monks demo tapes 1965

previously unavailable material! CD Will Be Released May 1 2007

these early monks recordings were made seven months before Black Monk Time.
play loud! and Munster Records release them now for the first time in Europe
plus 3 additional tracks by The 5 Torquays and Jason Forrest.
inner sleeve with liner notes and never-before-seen photographs!

the cd will be ready for shipping on may 1st, 2007
the 12″ vinyl can be purchased now from the Play Loud Shop

play loud! productions presents – a documentary film by Dietmar Post & Lucía Palacios

monks – the transatlantic feedback a retrospect into the evolution and devolution of UBERBEAT

the original press release [warning - pdf format] from Play Loud describes the film, monks – the transatlantic feedback :

the film (short synopsis)

The monks were 5 American GIs in cold war Germany who billed themselves as the anti-Beatles; they
were heavy on feedback, nihilism and electrical banjo. They had strange haircuts, dressed in black,
mocked the military and rocked harder than any of their mid-sixties counterparts while managing to
basically invent industrial, heavy metal, punk and techno music.
The genre-overlapping documentary film not only illustrates the pop music phenomenon in its political,
social and cultural-historic contexts, but also reveals the monks project as the first marriage of art and
popular music and this months before Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground.
The five protagonists of the film came to cold war Germany in 1961 as soldiers and left the country in 1967
as avant-garde monks. For more than thirty years they were not able to talk about their strange
experience. In the film the five original band members recount for the first time their adventure.

featuring
Gary Burger (vocals/guitar)
Larry Clark (organ)
Dave Day (banjo/guitar)
Roger Johnston (drums)
Eddie Shaw (bass)
Charles Wilp (fashion photographer, composer, Afri-Cola guru, ARTronaut and collaborator of the monks)
Jimmy Bowien (Polydor record producer of the monks)
Werner Henjes (Polydor sound engineer of the monks)
Wolfgang Gluszczewski (tour manager of the monks)
Joachim Irmler (Faust, 60′s eyewitness, fan, musician)
Jon Spencer (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, 90′s fan, musician)
Byron Coley (Spin Magazine staff writer)
Genesis P-Orridge (Psychic TV & Throbbing Gristle, 60′s fan, musician)
Peter Zaremba (Fleshtones, 90′s fan, musician)

credit list
production company : play loud! productions
produced and directed by : Dietmar Post & Lucía Palacios
edited by : Dieter Jaufmann
additional editing : Karl-W. Huelsenbeck
camera & sound by : Dietmar Post & Lucía Palacios
additional camera : Renato Falcao
script : Dietmar Post
music by : the monks

special dedication
in memory of monks drummer Roger Johnston (1939 – 2004)
monks collaborator Charles Wilp (1932 – 2005)

format DVCAM – DigiBeta | 4:3 | 100 minutes | USA, Germany, Spain 2006
original language English + German (with English subtitles)

quicktime movie trailer which you can also view on both the monks’ website as well as Play Loud’s site.

German Film Festival Showcases Monks Film In Australian Cities

Sydney
Chauvel Cinema

Palace Norton Street Cinemas
Sat 21.04. – 8.45 pm
Sun 22.04. – 1.30 pm
Mon 23.04. – 9.00 pm
Sat 21.04. – 3.30 pm

Melbourne
Palace Cinema Como

Palace Brighton Bay

Wed 25.04. – 8.45 pm
Sat 28.04. – 4.15 pm
Thu 26.04. – 7.00 pm

Brisbane
Palace Centro
Sat 28.04. – 4.15 pm

Perth
Cinema Paradiso
Sun 29.04. – 6.30 pm

According to :: Equation Records :: who is releasing Nadja’s Bodycage this month

Nadja is ::

* Aidan Baker :: guitars/vocals/drum programming
* Leah Buckareff :: bass/vocals

Originally formed in 2003 as an Aidan Baker solo project, the now-duo creates ambient-drone-metal, combining ambient electronics & fragmentary vocals with snail-crawl, epic riffs & dirge-like percussion.

You can listen to an excerpt from each song on Bodycage on this :: Equation Records :: page.
You can purchase the double vinyl from :: Equation – Order ::

:: Shows ::

Mon Mar 26 at The Metal Club, 1305 Dundas W. w/ Giant Squid & Grayceon, 8pm, $10
Wed Apr 4 at Poor Pilgrim The Press Club, 850 Dundas St. W., w/ Picastro, 9pm, pwyc
Sat Apr 14 Casa del Popolo in Montreal, more details tba
Sat May 19 at Buzz On Your Lips Festival at Recyclart in Brussels, Belgium
Wed June 27 Suoni per il Popolo Festival in Montreal, more details tba

Alien8 Recordings released Nadja’s EP Touched this month. You can listen to the whole album as a stream on the :: Touched by Nadja :: page and you can buy the cd from their store. The cd even includes a free digital copy of Touched!

Alien8 Recordings also released Truth Becomes Death in October 2005. You can listen to this whole album as a stream on the :: Truth Becomes Death :: page. It is also available as a cd which comes with the free digital copy.

Foreshadow in Poland will be releasing Nadja’s Base Fluid full length cd in May 2007. Until then, you can dl the free internet single plus an unreleased exclusive called “Numb” from :: nadja : basefluid :: on Foreshadow as well as preorder the cd.

Aidan Baker also has a net release on :: Noiseusse :: The album, Scouring Thin Bones is a collaboration of Aidan and Straiph. You can dl the album for free because NoiseUsse is licensed under Creative Commons. Lots of good music on that site specializing in glitch/noise/experimental/electronica/found sounds.

Wrong Music updated their website (finallY)!!! Not only does it have news of the National Noise Day in Brighton on May 31 2007, but it also has a new release from DJ Scotch Egg!

This is what it says about the new release :

SCOTCHHAUSEN RELEASED (Without wrong music logo on it, how annoying)

13 March

adaaflap and wrong music present .. DJ SCOTCH EGG – Scotch Hausen WNG014/VINYL/10″ …
…SCOTCH HAUSEN is DJ SCOTCH EGG’s follow up to 2005′s must have gabba gameboy 7″ SCOTCH CHICKEN, in which he pays tribute to avant-garde pioneers like karlheinz stockhausen, terry riley, philip glass, johann sebastian bach and er moondog…

some may recall a previous post from mogger, Robotanist, which featured the black and white video of DJ Scotch Egg conducting the Gameboy Orchestra in a performance of “SCOTCHHAUSEN” from February 07′s full album release, “Scotch Bach”. If you missed it, click here to see the video…

NATIONAL NOISE DAY 31st MAY!! BIG LINE UP!!!!
Get yer Ear Plugs at the ready cause!!!!!

Wrong Music Presents:

United kingdoms first celebration day of Noise…
Inspired by tara pattersons National Noise Day in Berlin last year this event will feature live music, sound art and street performance.
Curated by Henry Collins and Set in the idealic uk location of brighton.
Featuring artists from around the globe doing weird and wonderfull things with sound, noise and music …

Extreme Noise Terror
DJ Scotch Egg
The Nail Bomb Cults
Ladyscraper
Greenmist
Knowledge of Bugs
Ninja Robot Dinosaur Bastards
Shitmat
+ many others and Art Installation about noise the day, and street noizy performance..

http://www.myspace.com/nationalnoiseday …this website has the full lineup thus far…
http://www.national-noise-day.co.uk/ …this website is not ready yet, but has a cool noisy intro page.

This is set for Brighton, but don’t be surprised if other locations decide to synchronize and have a Worldwide Noise Day! I would definitely watch san francisco, they love noise, same with osaka and tokyo japan. I will definitely report on any other events that surface in conjunction with NND, so check back here in April and May.