Search - Various Artists :: End of Music As We Know It

The End of Music...& the Beginning of Noise

Kathy Fennessy | 10/31/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

""The End of Music as We Know It" was producer/engineer Mykel Board's attempt to document the noise-rock scene of the late-'80s (particularly the downtown NYC faction thereof). All of the tracks were recorded specifically for the release by Kramer (Bongwater) at Noise New York, and each band was given two hours to lay down a number or two. The results are decidedly mixed, but the experiment was a worthy one, particularly since most are unavailable elsewhere and two of the bands were formed specifically for the project: Bank of Sodom, featuring Jello Biafra (the Dead Kennedys) and David Licht (Shockabilly) and Needlenose, featuring members of Live Skull (including vocalist Thalia Zedek).



Some of the tracks are, quite frankly, fairly unlistenable, but noise-rock--or scum rock as it was sometimes called--was meant to be challenging and confrontational. It should come as little surprise that the most successful just happen to be covers: Thurston Moore with an extended solo jam on VU's "European Son" and Needlenose' take on Fats Waller-by-way-of-the Stones' "The Spider and the Fly." Liner notes are provided by Board and Steve Albini (Big Black), who was given free rein to say whatever he wanted. Consequently, he praises some artists and damns others. Jad Fair, for instance, "is God, and therefore infallible," whereas Jello Biafra is a "whiner," Black Snakes are "humorless, self-obsessed and stupid," and Krackhouse make "pseudo-intelligent vocal farting sounds." Board, for his part, describes the end result as "a spontaneous, death-dealing din," as apt a description as any. Whether that's a good thing or not is another matter entirely."