Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A Treasure is Beached on the No Wave

Who would listen to that cacophonous, ugly and obnoxiously inaccessible noise of No Wave? The kids who were responding to the looming apocalypse of its conception, fellow misfits who identified with the whole messy slew of its pioneers, and then kids like yours truly, thirty years later who just think it’s badass. That’s who.

The June 2008 release, No Wave: Post Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980. is the most solid documentation to date about the bands and artists of the short-lived era. The book is a mouthpiece for the musicians directly related to the scene, offering interviews with all the major players. Musicians and rock journalists, Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, present the veteran accounts and all the content in a detailed, thorough and professional manner that brings legitimacy to such a raw and reckless acid trip of artistic expression.

No Wave focuses on the New York locale, and admits that New York wasn’t even the most conducive of cities for punk. It mentions only CBGB, The Ramones and one publication: Punk Magazine as the punk pearls in a city full of dirty clams. The musicians and artists involved who wouldn’t have come to being without their punk predecessors (hence post-punk) were all scrounging to live a less than comfortable lifestyle during a poverty-stricken generation that made performing that much more precious. Moore and Coley fill in the gaps and smooth the transitions as needed, but the book more than anything gives a voice to the kids — now middle-aged adults — in the New York trenches of post-punk warfare, including members of Mars, The Gynecologists, Beirut Slump and about 40 more. It’s like reading a collective diary. The narratives are all honest, matter-of-fact and unashamed.

The book begins and is laden with the testimonials of a couch-surfing, lip-giving teenage runaway who didn’t think about much more than inserting herself in this club that didn’t have a name or niche besides cultivated craziness, later deemed as No Wave. Lydia Lunch who would form Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and consequential projects had her entire body on the pulse of the New York underground pack that prowled at likely venues such as CBGB and Max’s. Both establishments have already met their fate.

The movement (or as it proved stagnation) is refreshingly liberating. It’s where proper training doesn’t take primacy over self-instruction (in fact, the book explains how the Cramps started when two members were seeking out band mates who had never even played instruments), where social order is maintained through disorder and where skepticism fizzles with unabashed displays of rawk. The No Wave breed manages to glorify living in filth, mutiny, destruction and having no sense of direction, validated by fans and contributors like Jean-Michel Basquiat, William S. Borrows and Brian Eno. Ironically, the artists didn’t have much of a choice but to live the way they did in a time of such stark deprivation from a suffering economy.

The culture comes off as simultaneously reprehensible and somehow coveted and desirable. The product of the culture, though, is head-scratchingly innovative and artistic. The music evoked a kind of motiveless release. It was not meant to uplift or persuade, but just simply to exist.

The book doubly serves as a black and white picture book of the usual suspects: rockers dressed up in the garb of mismatched lawn-sale ensembles, with heavy makeup and gargantuan, thick rimmed specs adorning their faces. There’s a fine line between the hopelessly geeky and the enlightened hip in respect to the group’s fashion. In any event, image was a factor of inclusion in the scene where a cool haircut could warrant a bass or drums audition.

The truth is, this book may not reach a whole lot of people, generally speaking, because the movement didn’t reach a whole lot of people in the grand scheme of things. The most resonating band that more resulted from the scene than started it is Sonic Youth. So chances are, if you don’t care for the music you won’t care for the book. But if you do, it’s a little bit like candy. If anything, No Wave gives its audience something tangible to connect to those four years of gritty creativity — a time capsule immortalizing it.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Make Way for the Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan doesn’t think big. He thinks monumental. The director’s grim case study of Gotham City and its vermin in “The Dark Knight” was so jolting, unrestrained and excruciating in its composition and effect, that any darker and it would have been pitch black. Film lovers shuddered in their seats during the two and a half hours of opening morning, transfixed by the uncomfortable splendor of this chapter in the Batman series.

At the risk of diving right in, the Joker’s performance is appalling and does more than just indulge millions of anticipating viewers. In his first appearance since the masterful opening scene, we see the guy slam a man’s head into a pencil, shattering his skull on contact. As the Joker (Heath Ledger) pointedly asks Gotham’s District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), “do I look like a guy who makes plans?” it’s true that he just “does things” and he does them with unflinching swift while getting off on every grimacing detail.

Though it might sound strange to say he is a man of integrity, the quality does however apply to his occupation as a criminal. He is disgusted with the Gotham crooks, accusing them of misplaced lust in money when it should be put into the process of acquiring it. His sly wit and his own brand of grace make him the most debonair sociopath to date. He is cheeky, confident and the king of crime.

It’s no wonder the late Ledger allegedly grappled with the aftermath of his Joker persona. Pulling long hours as a boundless killer would screw with anyone’s head, especially when allowing it to permeate every ounce of one’s being, which Ledger did with intimidating execution. He delivered on all accounts.

The complexity of the film is jam packed. The characters are continuously faced with moral dilemmas and tests of character. Eckhart, who shows up with an impassioned and perhaps unexpected performance, is the unassuming savior of Gotham. Officer Gordon (the very versatile Gary Oldman) is faced with impossible dilemmas when promoted to Commissioner and Batman is (surprise, surprise) the most tortured of all. He’s beaten inasmuch as on the hunt for a successor and to the point where ethics lose priority to necessity.

Returning champion Christian Bale has no trouble playing a head case, as evident in his devilish performance as Patrick Batemen in “American Pyscho,” for one example. His disturbance in “Dark Knight” is quite different than Batemen’s, but just as intense. He wants nothing to do with the two traits he’s attributed with by Gotham: hero and villain. He’s ready to be the Bruce Wayne he’s never had a chance to be. To complete the jigsaw puzzle, the Joker offers Batman the forbidden fruit of an alliance. The only apparent flaw in Bale’s performance is that heavy-handed breathy voice bordering on satire, which, of course, is clearly not its intention.

Batman’s lifelong love, Rachel Dawes is reintroduced as Maggie Gyllenhaal, a considerable upgrade from her lackluster predecessor, Katie Holmes. She moves about the screen with exquisite poise that is firm, focused and sexy. Her strength is one of her character’s assets, seeing as how she’s the object of affection for both Gotham’s DA and Dark Knight. This feline could be resurrected in a subsequent film (wink wink).

In a movie so conflicted, it had its moments of comedy just long enough for the viewer to catch their breath right before passing out from the pace. For instance, as the Joker walks out of a hospital in a nurse’s uniform, he starts to set off a series of bombs but when his detonator unpredictably malfunctions, he whacks at the device until the whole building blows up in one massive explosion at which point he runs away frantically. This little scene lasting only seconds is one of the few times we see the Joker’s weakness in such a ridiculous manner.

It’s a testament to Nolan’s intent vision that he did not compromise the tone of the film to accommodate the fragile, the timid or the sheltering parents of the world in making it more accessible. Its legacy is its danger and its inconsiderate realist punches and those who don’t subscribe to its expression aren't meant to. This film is truly a benchmark of our time.