Robin Crutchfield: Video/Blog

We Find Our Way In

Some of many things that have inspired Robin Crutchfield's work.

ON THE NO WAVE AND INDIE MUSIC MOVEMENTS OF THE 1970S
from the Marc Masters inteviews for his Black Dog book on the No Wave.

...The two most valuable inventions of the 70s and this particular musical movement, in my opinion, were the portable handheld tape recorder and the photocopy machine. Without them, the music of the era and the graphic capability to 'spread the word' about it, wouldn't have come to fruition. --R.L.Crutchfield


-FAIRY TALES AND OTHER IMPROBABLE BOOKS-

Grimm's Fairy Tales
George MacDonald's "The Golden Key"
http://www.mrrena.com/misc/GoldKey.shtml Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through The Looking Glass"
Raymond Roussel's "Impressions of Africa"


-ART-

Kathleen Lolley
http://www.lolleyland.com/ APAK
http://apakstudio.com/ Victor Brauner
Leonora Carrington


-MUSIC-

Atrium Musicae Plainte de Tecmessa
The Incredible String Band-The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
The Incredible String Band-Wee Tam & The Big Huge
Tyrannosaurus Rex-A Beard of Stars
T.Rex-T.Rex
Feathers-Feathers
http://www.midheaven.com/labels/gnomonsong.html Deux Filles-Silence & Wisdom
Fleetwood Mac-Then Play On
Colleen-The Golden Morning Breaks
Moondog-Moondog II
Yoko Ono-Plastic Ono Band
Nico-The Marble Index
Art Bears-Winter Songs


-FILM-

Fellini's Satyricon
Luis Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty"
'

Background/History

What led you to move to NYC?

I wanted a career in art and the kind of art that interested me was edgy and experimental: minimalism, conceptual art, performance art. From the publications I was reading and the contacts I was making, it became apparent that New York City, and Soho in particular, was the place to be if I wished to pursue this.

Tell me about your theater and performance experience there ­ how did you get into it, and how did it influence your music?

Although I grew up loving music, I didn't see a connection between it and art. Music was a popular medium and art was more formal, set apart, respected, revered. And the artists that interested me had an intensity about them that music never had: Joseph Beuys, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Jannis Kounellis. The only musician in the mid-70s from the Soho art scene that bridged any kind of connection between experimental art and music in a way that seemed to suggest doors of new possibilities was Philip Glass.

Where did you live in NYC then, and how did it affect you and your music?

I lived in 3 different apartments in the same neighborhood of Greenwich Village near Washington Square, bordering just north of Soho; what is referred to as noho, though I laughingly refer to it as aboho, being the blocks just above Houston St. The location was both convenient to Soho and Tribeca loft concerts like those given by Charlemagne Palestine; to art gallery openings, parties, and performance art events; and to music gigs at CBGB's and Max's Kansas City, the first two popular nightclubs open to original music. Most of the nightspots in my neighborhood, were holdovers from the 60's Bleecker St. folk music scene; they hadn't been hip since the 60's and now only offered venues for cover bands. The only worthwhile concert I can ever recall seeing there was at the Other End (previously known as the Bitter End) Patti Smith's early version of her band with Tom Verlaine on guitar around the time of the "Piss Factory" first single release, a couple years previous to the "Horses" lp.

How did you meet Arto, and what did you think when he first asked you to play with DNA?

I recall going to one of the first, if not the first Teenage Jesus & The Jerks concerts at CBGB's and afterwards asking Lydia Lunch if she could use a keyboard player in her band. At the time, she said soundwise it was already too crowded with the four of them, herself on guitar and vocals, James Chance on sax and vocals, Reck on bass guitar and Bradley Field on drums. She was ready to boot James out and pare down to a trio making Bradley limit himself to one drum, a snareless snare and a single cymbal with some fat bludgeon-like drumsticks. I think she'd almost have preferred it if he only played with one drumstick using it like a club. Since she had no room for me in the Jerks, she suggested, why didn't I start my own band and I asked if she knew anybody I might work with. She had two suggestions: one was a pair of 14 and 15 year old sisters who were the roadies for the Jerks and who had no instruments or musical training, and the other was Arto who was closer to my own age, early 20s and had a guitar. Arto and I sat at a CBGB's table and talked about ideas and found we had enough similar interests in art and music to pursue the possibility of working together.

What was it like playing with him?

At first it was fun and exhilarating. We had been given a deadline for a gig at Max's 28 days later and were compelled to find a way to come up with a set's worth of songs, springing from no practical musical training, and only a mutual love of music, and some interesting ideas about it. It was an experimental learning experience; the possibilities were completely open along with the opportunity. And Lydia and Arto's friends' band Mars (then called China) were charting new territory in rock music, inspiring us and setting us to the challenge. Lydia's sound was staccato, pure punctuation--drive home the point. Mars played with shifting time frames and pitches and layers of sound finding their way with one another in some kind of relationship of sonic negotiation.

What was it like playing with Ikue?

Although I initially had panic-stricken reservations about Ikue based on a laundry list of factors (didn't speak English, didn't play anything or own any instruments, visa set to expire with a ticket to quit the U.S. eight days after our first scheduled gig, topped off with our own inabilities and the pressures of communication and a pressing gig deadline), it turned out rather well. The three of us managed miraculously to work pretty amazingly together despite all odds. We communicated through the music and the results exceeded our individual inabilities and inadequacies; perhaps they succeeded because of that.

What were the challenges of communicating with her across languages?

We managed through grunts, hand gestures, diagrams, etc. I recall Arto sound-singing parts to her rhythmically and dancing to give bodily impressions of rhythms or notions about the direction of a song or musical attitude. Or, he would describe the attitude behind the idea of a song, like this should sound like a fat man falling down a flight of stairs, or this is a drunk man maneuvering a trashbin lined alley, or this is a rat caught inside a computer. I don't know what she was thinking, but she seemed to pick up on it.

Why did you decide to leave DNA?

We started from a place of finding our way in the unknown...from scratch. We got to a point where songs could more or less be rehearsed, repeated, replayed for public consumption. There wasn't initially much in the way of improvisation involved in the work; it was pretty strictly structured. I don't know about Arto and Ikue, but I needed that structure to hold onto. I was still finding my way. After almost a year of working together, though, the sonic balance began to shift from an arm wrestling of order and chaos to a losing battle with chaos winning. For me, the appeal of the sound was in that delicate balance, the constant tug-of-war between two oppositional forces, not in the resultant one side winning over the other. My favorite album of the previous years had been Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band, the "under the tree" companion she made to John Lennon's first solo album. On her album, she and John on voice and guitar pitted themselves emotionally against the calculated and regular, almost machine-driven, rock rhythms of Klaus Voorman's bass and Ringo's drums. The balance in the struggle was sublime, and it is very close to what I had hoped for in DNA. In DNA Arto was chaos, I was order, and Ikue wove in and out of the two like a card shuffler with two decks. I felt the sound fell apart when she started dealing all the high cards towards one side of the deck. I just couldn't hold it together, and wasn't ready to rethink the concept and change with it; I felt frustrated, so I left to pursue my own thing.

Music

What ideas did you bring to playing keyboard and singing, and how did they change over time?

I loved the seemingly minimal qualities of Teenage Jesus & The Jerks and the repetitive nature of Philip Glass. I approached my keyboard sculpturally, and the patterns geometrically, simple phrases based on a very few notes in sequences repeated as mechanically as a human being could muster. The single note patterns evolved into simple chords and rhythmic patterns I found along the way. All was restricted by the inability to read or write music, and only manage what one was able to recall through routine, hieroglyphic notes on scratch paper, and cassette walkmen recordings to refresh recollection. The two most valuable inventions of the 70s and this particular musical movement, in my opinion, were the portable handheld tape recorder and the photocopy machine. Without them, the music of the era and the graphic capability to 'spread the word' about it, wouldn't have come to fruition.

How much did technique and 'ability to play' matter to you?

We started from scratch and I tried to improve myself and expand on my abilities within the confines of what was possible. I understood it was an investigative and learning process and expected a certain degree of musical evolution. The playful quality in the playing of music from this period, someone referred to as avant-kindergarten.

What specific art or artists influenced the way you approached music?

As I said before, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Philip Glass, Yoko Ono. I used to speak of admiring "Nico, Eno and Yoko Ono". My roommate would scrunch up his face and regurgitate this phrase in singsong mock orientalism. I also loved Captain Beefheart from his "Spotlight Kid" period, and pagan classicist street performer Moondog, although his influence wouldn't surface in an obvious way in my own music until much later.

What bands of the time did you like or feel influenced by?

Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Mars, Suicide, Rosa Yemen (Lizzy Mercier's band which wasn't named at the time, but which DNA shared a rehearsal loft with in Chelsea, ((as well as a gig at the Kitchen)) after space and rehearsal time became less available at Lydia's loft on Delancey Street). Perhaps a little later, the Young Marble Giants, The Gynecologists, The Raincoats.

Recording

Tell me about recording the 'You & You' single for Lust/Unlust ­ what were your expectations, and what did you think of the result?

Charles Ball took us along with Bob Quine, in a drive across the Hudson River to a studio in New Jersey where Bob produced the recording. I loved working in the studio, but argued with Bob over the production. Again, I felt an imbalance. He, being a guitarist, was inclined toward what Arto was doing on the guitar, wanting to push it to the foreground, whereas I felt the sound of all three instruments should strike some sort of balance. We ended in compromise, and the results are pretty good, I think.

Did you regret not being able to record more with the band?

As a creative person, one always wishes for more opportunities to express oneself creatively. Our opportunities were limited by resources, mostly economic ones.

Tell me a little about writing 'Not Moving,' 'Surrender', and/or 'Nearing'.

"Not Moving" was a simple sculptural observation of the expanse and boundaries of the layout of black and white piano keys from extreme left to extreme right; finding the center and playing the black keys against the white ones. In the lyric, a relationship is explored by the nature of the movements of the left and right hands separating from a centered position, going to extremes, returning to a middle ground and then refusing to budge. "When you went this way, I went that way. Where are we going? We're not moving. Not moving, not moving, not moving..."
I can't really recall the other songs, but most of my lyrics at the time dealt heavily with alienation and feeling left out, the perpetual outsider.

Performing

How did you approach playing live?

I hated playing live. I wasn't good at it; too nervous and self-conscious onstage. And my best work is arrived at through trial and error in the studio; perfecting my own position. That's not something that plays out well in front of an audience. But then, those were different times and there was a certain appeal about youthful frustration, post-teen angst, raw exposed nerves. And there is safety in numbers. No matter how nervous one is onstage, much is made up for in volume and the support of bandmembers, as well as fans and friends sprinkled throughout the audience.

Did you bring any ideas from theater days to live gigs?

Not so much with DNA. I added more theatrical elements, symbolic props and gestures, storylines, narrations, costume and graphics to later performances with Dark Day. They were inspired by my obsessions of the day with medicine, psychiatry, mysticism, occult, psychosocial symbolic elements and films like the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Herzog and Bunuel movies, Fritz Lang, etc.

You did a lot of the early gig posters ­ how did you come up with them?

I was very interested in the graphic representation of the subjugation of the powerless by authority figures. I found a lot of powerful images in cheap old medical textbooks with case study photographs of children under various humiliating treatments for a variety of physical and mental disorders.

What role did the various venues ­ CBGB's, Max's, Irving Plaza, the Kitchen, etc - have in shaping your music and the scene? What were the crowds like?

Opportunity and support can be as much an impetus to creativity as the lack of either previously had been. Clubs driven by drivel dosed out from top-forty cover bands to the bridge-and-tunnel crowd, that wouldn't let newcomers with original music play, gave way to places that encouraged new expression in the arts. But music clubs are all businesses, and the no wave bands of the day ensured their continued bookings by seeding the crowds of each others gigs with loudly cheering friends to drown out any 'new music hecklers' and put the club-owners on notice, 'hey, maybe there really is something to this noisy racket'.

No Wave

Do you remember when you first heard the term?

I believe it was journalist Roy Trakin, who interviewed Lydia Lunch in the New York Rocker and asked her if her music was 'new wave', when she sneeringly responded, more like 'no wave'; much in the same way Jayne (then Wayne) County once responded to an unruly audience shouting out requests for songs by Kiss, "Kiss! Kiss my ass!"

Was it something that was talked about much?

Once it left Lydia's lips, it was all but disclaimed, and never lived down. The no wave crowd hated being defined or pigeonholed by anyone, and most weren't about to be summed up by a term cast off in a disdainful interview, even by one of their own.

What previous music, art, and/or literature do you think led to No Wave?

Minimalists in art and music; performance art, conceptual art. A lot of the punk underground from the states, The Velvet Underground, Iggy & The Stooges. But, no wave, was probably more of a reaction against the punk music of Brits like The Sex Pistols and all that three chord rock whose attitudes may have been punk, but whose musical roots came from Chuck Berry riffs of the 50's. Influences from literature at the time came from Lautreamont, Bataille, William Burroughs and Kathy Acker. For me personally, Yoko Ono's "Grapefruit" and Raymond Roussel's "Impressions of Africa" were both like bibles to me, as was the poetry of Arp.

What are your memories of the weekend at Artists' Space in May 1978, and DNA's performance in particular?

I have no particular memories of that week in particular, except in the knowledge that the space was brighter than the usual clubs, the crowd artier than usual, and that Brian Eno and John Rockwell of the New York Times were in the audience, sort of audtioning bands, and that some of the more interesting bands from earlier in the week didn't make the cut for selection onto the "No New York" album.

What did you think of how recording 'No New York' went, and how it came out?

Eno chose this studio in a basement on Greene Street, recommended by Philip Glass. Glass' sound engineer Kurt Munkaczi was one of the engineers there. Eno booked the bands there in four separate sessions recording each one live in the studio with few to no overdubs, then mixing them himself. I don't recall if we had much say in the process other than selecting the songs and stopping when we were satisfied with our takes. I'm satisfied with the results and feel the record fairly accurately portrays DNA's sound from that period. I think I might have managed a better vocal on "Not Moving" if I had done a separate vocal take rather than trying to sing over the volume of the instruments.

What was it like working with Eno? How did you choose which songs to
record?

He was easy to work with, pretty much talking with us, listening to what we had to say, then leaving us to our own devices. I don't recall him being particularly hands-on. If he was, it was behind the scenes. I don't recall how we chose the songs, but it was probably pretty democratic, being a fair representation of a cross-section of what we were playing in the clubs at the time.

Dark Day

What led you to start Dark Day, and what ideas did you have going into it?

My favorite days have always been gray ones. Not sunny, not rainy, but ones with the potential to be anything, and any time. If you fell asleep and woke up on a gray day without access to a clock you mightn't know whether it was early morning or late in the day. I love that emotional limbo, pregnant with the apprehension of unbound possibilites; a neutral color/position like that of a seemingly expressionless Noh mask that can capture a whole range of emotions. I love cyclic structures and machines and the way gears fit together, the way puzzle pieces all fit in their own ways. Each of the various configurations of Dark Day using different bandmembers made the most of the ways that they fit together around a mood of general discomfiture. Often the sound mixes a melancholy dark moodiness with an acerbic wit; comedy out of tragedy. A laugh at the expense of the outsider. The cheap economy of available keyboards pretending to be state of the arts synthesizers and sequencers. Tribal drum rhythms and oddly juxtaposed guitar or melodic lines. Sparse lyrics, only as necessity dictates speaking of secrets, held-back thoughts, dreams, surreal impressions; and again, subjugation by those with the power to inflict it.

Tell me about recording the first single for Lust/Unlust.

Charles Ball graciously, and encouragingly agreed to continue working with me after I had announced leaving DNA. He was looking for artists to expand his label's roster and I was there at the right time, and less demanding than some of the other 'problem' artists he had experienced 'difficulties' from first hand. He booked studio time for me before I had time to recruit a new band. I'd asked several friends to help me with rehearsals and recording despite the fact that none would enter into a new band commitment. I admired Nina Canal's unique guitar work with The Gynecologists and its almost reggae-like jerk and twist guitar riffs; and Nancy Arlen was my favorite drummer in a New York band, her work somewhat similar to Ikue's, but more exacting and prescient. And the lineup intrigued me as well, one guy playing the stereotypical female instrument, a keyboard, while two women played the guitar and drums, generally assigned more masculine roles. There was no other band like this, one introverted lead guy with two vitally independent back-up women, a rock reversal of sorts. And I was disappointed that this lineup couldn't have developed into a band with a life lasting longer than the two cuts recorded for the single, "Hands In The Dark" and "Invisible Man".

What was it like working with Nina Canal and Nancy Arlen?

I liked working with them very much, though our time together was very limited and short-lived, as they both had their other regular bands to get back to. Many bandmembers from this period gladly played musical chairs when the opportunities arose to collaborate with fellow artists. You'll probably find lots of band overlaps in your research from this period. Though Nancy had her own happy role drumming with her band Mars, her primary creative outlet seemed to be her pursuit of poured polyresin plastic as a sculptor. Nina Canal left working musically with The Gynecologists after several lineups failed to hold, and cast off working with Dark Day in order to forge an all-girl band named UT, which I found ultimately disappointing, feeling that Nina never regained the admirable qualities of her early work, nor lived up to her musical potential, as her new bandmates in UT, simply weren't of her calibre.

What was playing live like - how was it different from performing with DNA?

Even though there was a certain amount of collaboration with each of the bandmembers in various lineups of Dark Day, it was always my project, somewhat guided by my own personal vision. So, the focus, was often a little too much, but predictably, on me. But due to my own inadequacies, and my continued feeling that I was always more self-defined an artist than a musician, I never much enjoyed the spotlight and always preferred an undefinable behind-the-scenes persona and mystique that could be built upon layer by layer and perfected in the studio.

Tell me about recording 'Exterminating Angel' ­ what ideas did you have going in and how did the process change those ideas? What did you think of the result?

I drafted Nina and Nancy at almost the last minute to meet the contingencies of a recording session, then had to do almost the same with a new lineup to play gigs to promote the single and set the stage for an album. Although, I don't feel the results from "Exterminating Angel" are as appealing as the "Hands" single (working with trained musicians has its disadvantages, fewer eye-opening surprises and increased predictability in favor of more polished results), I. was ultimately pleased with the recording at the time, "Laughing Up Your Sleeve" is my favorite track off the album, and it did lead me on to the next phase of my musical development. Having little to offer potential bandmates other than limited creative participation, I never felt like I had as much control over the direction of the material as I might have done had I been able to pay them properly for their efforts. (Perhaps this is why I am happiest with the B-side of the remixed e.p. "The Exterminations", from this album, which I produced, and over which I had complete control, unfettered by any self-imposed sense of obligation).
**************************

The Questions:

A) How was the atmopshere in New York City between 1975 and 1980?

R) I had just moved to the city from a small town in Pennsylvania, so the atmosphere was completely different in a big city like New York, even though I was living down in Greenwich Village, which was much less frenzied than most people think of New York as being. Soho and Tribeca were open to a wide variety of experimental art and events. Most of the cutting edge stuff (exhibition-wise and performance-wise) was taking place in lofts and alternative spaces down below Canal St. as the rents in Soho were already driving out the artists that made it a famous neighborhood. The art scene was deconstructing into ideas and concepts, rather than product and it was all very stimulating. Much of it was documented in Avalanche magazine and the Soho Weekly News.

A) What did you and your friends of your same age more or less feel living there? When we watch movies like Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver or Walter Hill's The Warriors or Woody Allen's Manhattan we are able to understand the city during that period?

R) Everyone I knew had arrived here from somewhere else and was living on a limited, or non-existent budget; scraping to make ends meet. But, you really didn’t need too much to entertain yourself. Everybody went to lots of gallery openings where the food and drinks were free, and the exchange of ideas flowed as freely as the wine. As far as movies go, I have to admit I’ve not seen the ones you mentioned, but I don’t think you can ever get an accurate picture of a time or place from viewing a Hollywood movie.

A) How did you and your generation feel during those years? I mean, those were the years of the end of the war in Vietnam, the oil crisis, the Watergate scandal: an important period in the history of U.S.A. What did you think and remember about it?

R) I was never political in that way, and neither were most of the people I knew. Their interests were more in the politics of art than the politics of government. And we were young. Youth in America is about rebellion against family and morality and restrictions; we take our country’s position in the world for granted, because we’ve been so coddled and our government has bullied everybody else in the name of freedom. And the polyester seventies was really the “me” decade. Everybody was experimenting in finding themselves and whatever they wanted to do to please themselves.

A) We can say that No Wave scene rose in Lower East Side? Is it correct?

R) Yes, pretty much out of the club CBGB’s on the Bowery, although these days the lower east side has moved lower and farther east. CBGB’s was the only club along with Max’s Kansas City that would allow performers to play original music. All the other holdovers from the folk years on Bleecker Street were stuck in the past and only let musicians play there if they played cover versions of popular music. I’d say the New York Dolls broke through followed by Television and Patti Smith. That pretty much was the influence of the day.

A) How did you meet Arto Lindsay?

R) I’m not really sure I remember. They had new band nights at CBGB’s, and I had met Lydia Lunch through James Chance and people he knew through the downtown art scene. Many of them frequented a pub called Barnabas Rex in lower Manhattan. I had a performance art piece coming up at Artists’ Space and I ran into James and Lydia on Canal St. one night and invited them to my performance. Lydia admired the announcement card of a 50’s nurse preparing a large syringe. She told me about a music group that she and James were forming called The Scabs and that they were going to play at CBGB’s. Not long after, they did, and I went to see them there, but they had changed their name to Teenage Jesus & The Jerks. Many of the audience members were the same folks that had hung out together at the downtown bars and art openings and did a lot of table-hopping at the concert, sharing talk and ideas over beers. I was so overwhelmed by Lydia’s band’s performance that I went backstage afterwords and asked if she wanted a keyboard player. I couldn’t really do much, but did inherit an electric piano from my roommate, David Ebony, (who was in a band called The Erasers after a Robbe-Grillet novel. They pretty much modelled themselves after Patti Smith). Anyway, Lydia said she didn’t need another band member, but why didn’t I start my own band. I asked if she knew anybody I might work with, and she suggested either the two 14-year-old sisters who were her roadies (I can’t recall their names; they didn’t have any band equipment), or Arto Lindsay, who was a friend of some friends of hers in the band Mars. I sat at a table with Arto between sets and we talked about music and ideas and decided to give it a try. We met up with Mirielle Cervenka (Exene of X’s little sister) and her husband Gordon Stevenson. They were interested in having a band too and had a loft in Soho where we could rehearse at night when they weren’t working on making plastic jewelry that they sold to boutiques like Reminiscence. They both backed out after Arto negotiated a gig for us at Max’s Kansas City through Ork Records founder Terry Ork (he produced Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel” single). Gordon would later become Teenage Jesus’ bass player when their Japanese bassist had to return to Japan; and Mirielle took over managing the band. There was a lot of bandmember switching and shakeups in those days. It was all pretty mutually supportive.

A) In which year did DNA debut at Max's Kansas City? I read that the debut gig was in September but i did not understand which was the year. 1976? 1977?

R) I think it was September of ‘77, because I was only with them for a short time, about a year. The famous Artists’ Space gig was in May and we recorded very shortly after that, and a couple of months later, in the summer or fall I think, I left.

A) Among your peers (I mean the protagonists of No Wave scene) how many more or less had a middle-class background (money, intellectual studies, etc.) and instead how many had a working class background? I would like to understand the social background of the protagonists of No Wave.

R) I don’t really know, but I think most probably were from middle to lower middle class families. We never talked about family.

A) Which were the dreams of the protagonists of No Wave? What did you think to show and to express through your music? What did the word freedom mean for you?

R) I don’t think No Wavers had dreams that they expressed, except for living in the moment, being able to play to an audience and pick up a few bucks, and express themselves creatively in their own ways. Freedom meant nothing more than the taken for granted right to be who you are and do what you want to do. Rock and roll may now be about dreams of becoming a famous wealthy celebrity, but that wasn’t what the no wave was about at all.

A) Did you feel different from the first CBGB's scene (I mean Patti Smith Group, Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads and so on)? Did you feel yourself other'? Because your music was different and their music finally reached commercial success unlike No Wave.

R) No wave seemed more of an outgrowth of the British punk movement than the New York underground scene. Much of what was happening in the New York scene in the bands you mentioned was musically pretty much the same as what had gone before. It may have been challenging lyrically, but didn’t really challenge the norm musically. The Sex Pistols were angry and ragged and pierced and raw-looking, but still played three-chord rock music. Mars and Teenage Jesus, and later DNA really tore those musical notions apart on a rock level, perhaps trying things that had previously only been done in jazz and avant-garde music. In the same way that conceptual and performance art couldn’t really be about commercial success, I don’t think No Wave music could have either. It wasn’t about trying to sell records, even though the lure of big bucks and major-label signing may have been there.

A) How was the project No New York born? Can you tell me how did the recording sessions and the production develop? What did Brian Eno suggest you? By what criterions did Brian Eno choose the final 4 bands? I read that the bands he excluded were Theoretical Girls, Boris Police Band, Gynecologists, Red Transistor, Tone Death, Terminal. Is it true? Which band(s) do you think was/were better among the excluded?

R) Brian was taken by New York Times writer John Rockwell, to check out the week of new “art” bands at Artists’ Space gallery in May of ‘78. I think he was only able to make the last two nights and the assumption was that the best bands were saved for last. Those were the four that appeared on the No New York record. Not necessarily the best, but they had played the clubs longer and were more familiar. The bands that played (listed on the reproduction of the poster inside the DNA on DNA cd) were Tues. May 2-Communists and Terminal; Wed. May 3-Gynecologists and Theoretical Girls; Thurs. May 4-Daily Life and Tone Death; Fri. May 5-Contortions and DNA; Sat. May 5-Mars and Teenage Jesus And The Jerks. Each band was doing something very different and had their own fans, but my personal favorite was the Gynecologists, with Nina Canal, who I later asked to help me with my first Dark Day single.

A) What did the No Wave scene think about the first Suicide record and the first Pere Ubu record? In some ways did you consider those records similar in some aspects to your music?

R) I forgot about Suicide. They probably were the most influential of any New York band on the creation of No Wave: edgy, scary, loud, unpredictable, exciting, different, engaging. This wasn’t typical entertainment, it was live horror movie. And offstage Alan Vega was verbally quite supportive of the no wave bands, sharing billings and praise.

A) Which was your link to No Wave Cinema (Amos Poe, Jim Jarmusch and so on)? You met both in those period and I would like to know if you feel that No Wave Cinema was an extension of No Wave music scene, if No Wave was an idea that contains not only the music, but every aspect of art. Which were
for example the links with theater, dance, graffiti, photography?

R) I guess you could say there was no wave filmmaking. The films of Beth and Scott B., Eric Mitchell, James Nares, Tina L’Hotsky, Vivienne Dick. Films made on low or no budget, shot on Super-8 then shown in a rented storefront turned moviehouse on St. Mark’s Place. Amos Poe and Jim Jarmusch came later and had bigger budgets shooting their films on 16mm or using better equipment and a larger crew. The film people were as collaborative as the musicians. Eric Mitchell starred alongside others in Amos Poe’s “The Foreigner” in which I had a small part as a limping, mute, punk terrorist. They almost all included some kind of pulp fiction gun-related violence (something I never understood. Why make cops and robbers movies when you have the whole world open to you). Some of the films had a sense of humor, like James Nares’ great “Rome ‘78” which was a Roman toga movie recreating the fall of the Roman empire set in Greenwich Village around classical architecture like the Washington Square arch. The characters including artist David McDermott romped through the scenery in bedsheet togas portraying Julius Caesar, illustrating that New York in the seventies really was a decadent decade of decline. The whole popularity of graffitti came along later in the early ‘80s after No Wave was gone.

A) Did you consider yourself a united movement at the time? Like friends each other, brothers and sisters.

R) United only in our support of each other. CBGB’s Hilly Krystal was reluctant to hire bands that didn’t have an audience. So, we became each others’ audience until we each developed followings of our own. And in this way the club stayed crowded and we kept being asked back for bookings.

A) I think that avantgarde in Popular music was born in U.S.A. with Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and others. Then the avantgarde in the early seventies moved to Europe and the new avantgarde scene was
krautrock with Can, Neu!, Faust and others. I think that with No Wave the avantgarde came back to U.S.A. What do you think about it?

R) I think the whole scene burst wide open starting in England and New York, when small independent labels started issuing 7 inch singles which they could have manufactured for a few hundred bucks. With that kind of financial freedom from the constraints of the corporate music business, came an impetus to explore and create new things. Once the labels and the whole do-it-yourself mentality took hold, tons of bands formed to play and clubs opened and labels proliferated to take advantage of the interest.

A) Atonal, dissonant, cacophony, noise, morbid: which are in your opinion the keywords about the music aspect of No Wave?

R) All of the above. Mars and DNA as well as other bands played a lot with shifting time frames, odd pitches, feedback and noiseplay, and weirdly unused rhythms.

A) Which were your (DNA and other No Wave bands) influences? Records like White Light/White Heat by Velvet Underground? Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart? Beyond Plastic Ono Band...

R) Mars and Teenage Jesus influenced DNA. We all influenced each other. I guess some of it though, came from The Velvet Underground, Suicide, Television, Patti Smith. A lot though, was more of a reaction against bands like The Sex Pistols and The Clash who were very popular among the local scene at the time. Personally, I feel a great debt to Captain Beefheart, Yoko Ono, Nico and Philip Glass.

A) Which links the No Wave music did have with free jazz, contemporary music and other avantgarde music?

R) I felt more of an affinity with Philip Glass and repetitive minimalists than with free jazz. You’d have to ask Arto and John Lurie, (who formed the Lounge Lizards) about their jazz influences. I was more into odd rock at the time and my closest connection with jazz would probably be my appreciation for Annette Peacock, who was connected before her experimental rock outings, with musicians like Paul Bley, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler. Carla Bley was pretty cool too, with her “Escalator Over The Hill”.

A) Which was your relationship with chaos? Which was the percentage of naivety and awareness in No Wave? I'm trying to understand an important thing: did you know at the time exactly what were you doing? Did you know that No Wave was deconstructing rock music? Was No Wave totally spontaneous music or instead, at least some of you, knew exactly the moves that must be done to create something new and subversive and intellectual interesting? Did you feel the influence of Glenn Branca?

R) We definitely knew we were deconstructing music. I don’t think we knew much about how to do that. There were some structural ideas and some spontaneity, and lack of skill or pre-conceived ideas helped. Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham were doing a whole other thing with volume, and energy levels and overtones in drone systems, which came from their own academic backgrounds. I’d say in that way, they had previous training. We just muddled our way through like kids with new toys to break. Some writer once referred to it as avant-kindergarten.

A) Which was your link with punk rock music? Did you consider yourself a different type of punk music or something completely different? I think that with punk the energy explodes to the outside and with No Wave the energy implodes inside. What do you think about it? Has No Wave some sort of
negative energy?

R) No wave was a lot about frustrated held-in energy and feelings; repressed sexuality; a sense of powerlessness; inability to communicate and be heard; things that teenagers have always made the core of their rock music about. I mean that’s what rock and roll music is really all about, isn’t it?

A) The lyrics of No Wave express anxiety, disperation and disgust more than rage. What do you think about it?

R) Yeah, punk was all rage, a kind of a spitting and screaming catharsis. No wave was more something seething under the skin, repressed, held in, waiting to explode. I’d use the word frustration rather than rage.

A) In your opinion which is the legacy of No Wave? Which is the message? When do you think No Wave scene ended?

R) Well, I think No Wave’s legacy was making every kid on the planet feel like they could be in a band. That it wasn’t a special thing limited to a gifted few. Anybody could do it. All it took was the will, and you would find your way. And I think it ended when a following generation of bands like the Bush Tetras and Konk got slick and funky and moved to make popular music for the dance clubs. That probably started with the Contortions, but I somehow never felt like the Contortions were really a part of the No Wave. They always seemed like a more raw version of James Brown, some weird R&B bastard child.

A) If you have to suggest people who not know anything about No Wave which records would you suggest them to understand that scene?

R) DNA on DNA, Mars lp, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, No New York. It pretty much was coined by Lydia Lunch in a Roy Trakin interview for New York Rocker magazine, when he asked her if the music she was making was new wave, and she responded angrily “new wave?!...hmph...more like, No wave!”

A) Which do you think are the disciples of No Wave? I'm thinking about Swans, Sonic Youth, Liars, Pussy Galore and Royal Trux.

R) Well, Swans and Sonic Youth were the second wave or generation of no wave and I believe Sonic Youth has admitted being disciples in interviews. I don’t know what Michael Gira of Swans opinion is about it.

A) Do you think that No Wave was shortly lived because its extreme and self-destructive character? I think that nowadays exist a certain amount of interest in extreme music (think about Tzadik label for example).

R) It was transitional. It was a time and a place, a reaction to what came before, a lack of funds and opportunity, all of the above. It was youthful exuberance, it’s not static, it has to change.

A) Can you tell me what are doing the other protagonists of No Wave nowadays? I mean, not Lydia Lunch or Arto Lindsay who are more or less famous, but people like Mars or other obscure No Wave bands. 'Where are they now?' Are you still in contact with your friends of that period?

R) I am not in touch with any of the people from that time. Many have died, or moved on to other things less musical. Arto, Ikue (of DNA) are still active, Lydia still is, Mark Cunningham (of Mars) still is, I believe, (in Spain). I am still making music as Dark Day, through my website, although it is totally unrelated to “no wave”. No one stays in the same place, we all move on.

A) What the experience with DNA and with Dark Day did teach you? How much Dark Day project is similar to DNA? We can consider Dark Day project in stand by or not? Which is the future of Dark Day and which are your next plans and projects?

R) Dark Day grew out of my frustration in DNA and a need to develop my musical skills beyond the level available there. After deconstructing, one feels the need to start building again. That’s why I formed Dark Day, and am still building and changing with each release. I still don’t have much musical talent, but a quote from a book I recently read says “it’s not talent we can take credit for, but what we do with it.” I’ve always been interested in what people manage to make of their limitations. I went through a spell of cyclic overdubbing of odd-sounding midi instruments on my last few recordings, evident on the compilation Dark Day-Strange Clockwork, available through my website. Before that I had done a disc of acoustic, medieval sounding dirgelike music related to Moondog and Dead Can Dance. A year or so ago, I abandoned electronic music for acoustic once again, when I bought some African drums, and assorted psalteries and harps. They say harp and drum are the world’s oldest instruments and I find playing them a deeply spiritual thing. The artists I currently find the most inspirational to me are Colleen and Fit and Limo, and I’ve always loved The Incredible String Band from the late ‘60s, who seem to have influenced a lot of the new weird folk band scene. I will probably continue making music, and recording for myself and whomever is interested, but, I won’t be playing the music business game. They can find me at my website, happily retreating into my own world.

A) Do you still live in New York City now? How is living there nowadays?

R) New York is not what it once was, and age affects the view. The city is like an angry boil about to pop. Too many mindless people with cell phones madly rushing ahead without purpose like so many ants.

A) Do you have any regrets?

R) Not taking more advantage of opportunity. Not braving my fear of the unknown. Not taking leaps of faith. The older one gets, the more inconsequential the obstacles of the past seem to things left undone.

A) How different is the Robin Crutchfield of today in comparison with the Robin Crutchfield of 1978?

R) I am more comfortable, complacent. I have built a comfortable nest in which to pass the time. I have mostly all I need. Sometimes, though, it is what you don’t have or what you need that spurs on creativity. Hardship. It takes a bit of gritty sand to discomfort an oyster into creating a pearl.


************************************************

Darker Days As I Recall Them
by Robin Crutchfield

Being an account, by way of
recollection, of my early days and
migration to New York City,
as well as my move from the
pursuit of art for art's sake to the
pursuit of music for art's sake.

EARLY LIFE

I come from a small family that
migrated from Dayton, Ohio to
southeastern Pennsylvania in 1960.
I had a largely forgettable and
sheltered childhood, spent
primarily in silent contemplation,
alone in my room, drawing pictures
and listening to the most esoteric
edges of rock and roll music. My
eyes weren't opened to the world
until 1970-72, the two years I spent
under the influence of Alan
Goldstein who taught sculpture,
and my mentor and spiritual
advisor Marion Anderson, in the
Bucks County Community College
fine arts department. Knowing
them started the spark to carry me
creatively through a third year at
another school which was less than
desirable. Trenton State was a
teachers' college that nobody
seemed to want to be at and that
included me. I was waiting out the
war, and the draft, and fine tuning
my skills in performance art to the
utter disdain of staff and students
alike. I had a course of independent
study in painting where I did things
like "paintings to be walked
through". More than anything else
at the time, I was inspired by Yoko
Ono's book "Grapefruit". (Also, her
album "Plastic Ono Band" which I
shall refer to later). I was fortunate
in meeting teacher Ned Gibby, who
helped me to find out more about
fluxus, performance art,
earthworks, minimalism, and other
assorted New York eccentricities
by introducing me to various
publications including Avalanche
magazine, and I exposed myself to
the New York art subculture by
absorbing every issue I could get
my hands on.

NEW YORK CITY

The next year the government did
away with the draft, and my tuition
money had run out anyway, so I got
a job at a local branch of
Waldenbooks. I met David Ebony
(Eganey) one day at work when we
started up a conversation over the
publication of "The Louds: An
American Family", a book
documenting the PBS-TV series
about the demise of a California
family that fell apart before the
eyes of millions of television
viewers. One particular point of
interest to us both about the show
was the outrageously flamboyant
character of Lance Loud and clips
we had seen of New York's
Greenwich Village scene including
bits about Warhol and The Factory
and Interview Magazine. We got to
be great friends, having in
common, a particular fondness for
all things odd, and artful, and
musical. That year for Christmas,
he gave me two albums--"Shirley
Temple's Greatest Hits" and Alice
Cooper's "Killer". At some point,
David had picked up a copy of
"Rock Scene" magazine which told
about The New York Dolls and an
exciting new band called
Television, and Patti Smith. The
only previous knowledge I had of
Patti Smith was her liner notes on
the album cover for Edgar Winter's
"White Trash" and in Todd
Rundgren's album package for "A
Wizard, A True Star" wherein she
had printed a poem on a band-aid.
Wayne (later Jayne) County had a
column in "Rock Scene" and wrote
constantly on a number of topics
ranging from Max's Kansas City, to
his/her fanaticism over Dusty
Springfield and the Dave Clark
Five, to fashion tips on the use of
makeup, and accessorizing with
ripped up nylons and toilet paper
rolls and other odd bits of found
and discarded clothing and objects.
In the Spring of 1975, in the pursuit
of a career in art, and through the
constant support and
encouragement of my friend David,
I moved to New York to find an
apartment in Greenwich Village.
David shared a Bleecker Street
apartment with me, coming up on
weekends while he finished school,
before moving to the city
permanently in the summer.

THE NEW YORK ART SCENE

In 1975 and 1976 I became
involved in the Soho and Tribeca
art worlds, and in particular, the
performance art scene. My first
performance in New York City,
was an impromptu street piece on
West Broadway, on a hot night in
July of 1975. It consisted of
abstract dance gestures and
smashing and throwing barriers
behind me made of water-filled
plastic bags to the haunting musical
accompaniment of David playing a
recorder. The second was at
Charlotte Moorman's "12th Annual
Avant Garde Festival", September
27, 1975, amidst dozens of other
artists' performances, exhibits and
works. I mapped out a perimeter on
the Floyd Bennett airfield runway
with a stick of chalk and took
several objects including a toy
piano and a blanket with me to live
in a self-imposed cage like an
asylum inmate for the day. "The
Death of Sparrow Hart" was a
persona I took on, part bird, part
autistic child, dancing and sobbing
and pecking at the piano, hiding
under a blanket and so on. David
went his own way equipped with a
map of the world and a pair of
scissors selling countries to
passersby for nickels and quarters.
We had a fun life in New York
going to art shows and openings on
Saturdays, meeting well-known and
not-so-well-known people
including the father of
correspondence art, Ray Johnson,
who later introduced me to Andy
Warhol and other art luminaries. I
was often seen wearing an endless
variety of sunglasses and clip-on
child's plastic earrings from my
thrift-shop collections of bad taste
collectibles. David often wore
neckties and pearls and chains and
brooches and rings. As a pair, out
in public, we met a lot of
interesting people. David met
Susan Springfield (Beschta) at an
art opening one night on West
Broadway and began a discussion
on music. Susan, was doing
photographs at the time, making
gigantic photo-blowups of daisies,
and doing self-portraits which
showed her being progressively
beaten black and blue. We started
hanging out together, the three of
us, going to CBGB's and Micky
Ruskin's Ocean Club down on
Chambers Street (Mickey had
previously opened the famous
Max's Kansas City and the Ninth
Circle, then the Local. The Ocean
Club was the "in" hangout of its
time where the art world met the
rest of the world and one could
often see celebs from Andy Warhol
to John Belushi schmoozing there).

My first formally advertised, solo
performance occurred on January
29th, 1976, in the storefront space
of Stefan Eins' 3 Mercer Street
Store. It was a gender-bending,
exercise in self-confrontation
entitled "Mommy, Me, Bandage",
with garish makeup, and props like
bevelled mirrors and apron strings,
and scissors, and a cutout of a
1950's illustration of a stereotypical
nurse, and dozens of miniature
sexless plastic baby dolls which
encrusted my body, attached by
adhesive tape. The apron strings
were cut, the nurse's head snipped
off and taped to the mirror, then the
dolls were removed, one by one, to
cover and conceal my reflection in
the mirror. All this was done to a
tape I had made from an old found-
sound phono booth record, on
which two young girls sang and
giggled their way through a song,
which stuck and repeated and
skipped and droned in various
speeds, the maniacal tune "Tell Me
Why I Love You So" giving the
whole tableau an unnerving "dark
theater" psychodrama edge. In the
week that followed, it received a
praise review by Mark Savitt for
the Soho Weekly News (Soho's
then alternative to the Village
Voice). Susan Springfield had
taken a photograph which they had
used for the review (this photo of
my body covered in dolls was used
later in Toronto's File Magazine
and made into a postcard for a
boxed set of artists' postcards put
out by Vancouver's Image Bank).
The same issue of the Soho Weekly
News had an article on Wayne
County. David and I went to see
Wayne's performance shortly
thereafter at a place called Mother's
on 23rd Street, where he/she sang
songs about being fucked by the
devil, and simulated sex with a
toilet plunger. He wore a wig made
up of about twenty wigs on an
armature which trailed to the floor
and was decorated with toilet paper
rolls and wrappers. We also saw
Wayne at Max's one night where
we hand-delivered a love-gift of a
flame-retardent polka-dot paper
dress in a gift-wrapped box, which
we had found in some discount
shop on Canal Street.

We were going to art events at the
Fine Arts Building on Franklin
Street and Varick which housed
Artist's Space. We also hung out a
lot at the Ocean Club where a
strange variety of performances
seemed to be taking place, jazz,
rock, country, etc. We saw the
three-piece version of Talking
Heads (before Jerry Harrison), solo
John Cale, the original Cramps
(with Miriam Linna on drums),
Television, Patti Smith, the Screws,
the Roches and others. Some artists
had resident studios in the Fine
Arts building and David got one
and opened up a gallery where
Diego Cortez, among others,
showed his work. I had a brief pre-
holiday installation there with tapes
of Taiwanese pop music set against
the sound of clattering and
shattering dishes and glass
windchimes. There was a miniature
silver metallic Christmas tree with
blue lighting, and dozens of antique
butter knives suspended from the
wall with blades dipped in
luminescent paint, and a slide
projection on faded Agfa film
depicting a pastel-colored, blur-
smeared, grinning housewife,
proudly displaying her holiday
dinnerware while wearing kimono
pajamas. Talking Heads came in to
have a look while my show was
there. Serious purveyors of
"serious art" at the time were:
Diego Cortez, Julia Heyward a.k.a.
Duka Delight, Laurie Anderson,
Philip Glass, Charlemagne
Palestine, Ralston Farina,
Willoughby Sharp, and many
others. I suppose you could hardly
consider these artists "serious"
when you think about it, their stuff
was very cutting edge and utterly
unsellable, often playful, and even
sometimes comical to an extent,
still, they took it quite seriously.
Nobody had yet left the art scene
for rock music, least of all, me, for
fear of not having my art taken
seriously. But David and Susan
were very keen on Patti Smith, and
David groomed Susan towards the
idea of the two of them starting a
band together. He played piano and
she would play guitar. They drafted
her friend Jane Fire to play drums.
He had me cut Susan's long tresses
into a short punk cut, the first I can
recall in the Village, and way
before anybody on St. Marks
started doing weird stuff with their
hair. She took guitar lessons, and
couldn't sing or play, but had the
drive to want to try. She and David
both had incredible charisma and
managed to build a band around
their efforts which made its way
onto the roster of regular
performing bands at CBGB's--The
Erasers was the name they gave the
band after the title of an Alain
Robbe-Grillet novel. They were
making contacts all the time. Susan
was sleeping with Ivan Kral, then
Lenny Kaye (both of Patti Smith
Group), then Richard Hell with
whom she settled in for a long time.
Originally, the Erasers also
included Jane's babyfaced
boyfriend Donald on bass, but
when he and Jane broke up, he left
and was replaced by Chris
Spedding's girlfriend Jody. They
had a second guitarist too, but I
can't remember his name. Two of
their most popular tunes were
"Maybe" (their cover of an old
Chantels song) and "Marc In
Leather" a song Susan wrote about
her fantasy of a photograph of gay
porn star Peter Berlin who she
mistook for Mark 10 1/2" Stevens
of "Deep Throat" fame.

At some point during appearances
at clubs or perhaps hanging out at
Duane Street's Barnabus Rex bar
where I met James Chance, I did a
performance at Artists' Space called
"Nursing Is An Art". It was sort of
a combination of dance and gesture
execution and lecture set to a slide
show of x-rays and contorted body
poses. I remember meeting Lydia
Lunch with James Chance one
night on Canal Street. She
complimented me on my
announcement card for the Artists'
Space performance which showed a
stylish 1940's nurse preparing an
enormous syringe. Lydia told me
about the band that she and James
were starting called The Scabs.
Some time later with the band's
name changed to Teenage Jesus &
The Jerks, they debuted on one of
CBGB's band audition nights. I was
blown away. I was so moved by the
intensity, yet simplicity of what she
was doing, that my emotions got
the better of me and I cried. I ran
backstage after the set to show her
my tears (the best compliment I
could think of). I had longed for
the opportunity of making music
myself but had no musical training
other than a handful of guitar
lessons, and I wanted to play
keyboard, but assumed it was
outside my capabilities. David had
sold me his old Vox electric piano
when he had found another more to
his liking, and I bought an old amp
from filmmaker Amos Poe, who
had once been in a band with Ivan
Kral and was now selling off what
he could to supply his film habit (I
was later to appear in his film The
Foreigner, alongside actors like
Debbie Harry). David told me that
lessons were not the way to go with
learning the piano. He said the best
way to learn was to sit at the
keyboard for hours a day, every
day, just banging away, and sooner
or later I would come to a method
of my own device. He was right.
However, I was impatient and my
time limited. I couldn't read or
write music and developed a crude
method of remembering tunes by
abbreviated hieroglyphic symbols
scribbled on index cards. I couldn't
do much more than repeat 5 note
sequences over and over alternated
against a two or three note bridge.
The repetition in the work of Philip
Glass and of Marty Rev from
Suicide, and the even more
minimal simplicity of the structures
Lydia was using for her tunes in the
CBGB's and Max's club circuit,
opened the gate for me and said
okay, you can do it too. Now, it's
okay.
I began rehearsing with Alan
Vega's (of Suicide) girlfriend, Anne
DeLeon, and her friend Johnny
(Dynell), in a basement in Chelsea
the summer of Sam and the big
blackout. (I remember that night.
We were rehearsing when the
power went. We made our way
through a city of darkness and
silence, down to the village where
David McDermott and his
roommate, stood in vintage 1920's
clothes, on the corner of Bleecker
and Christopher Streets, with a
handcranked Victrola, playing old
78's to entertain passersby in the
darkened city. Pinned on the
storefront wall next to them was a
handscrawled sign that read
"1928". It was a Twilight Zone
moment, the only sound you could
hear for blocks around was the
sound of the music from that old
spring-driven record player.)
rehearsals with Anne and Johnny
came to nought.

DNA

One night at CBGB's I asked Lydia
if she needed a keyboard player in
The Jerks and she said no, why
didn't I start my own band? I asked
if she knew of anybody on my
wavelength interested in starting a
band. She had two suggestions--the
first was a pair of 14 year old
sisters who were The Jerks' roadies
and didn't play anything or have
any instruments; the other choice
was Arto Lindsay who was closer
to my age and did have a guitar. I
talked to Arto and we hit it off and
started working together. Teenage
Jesus and Mars were the two bands
at the time that were "off-the-wall"
and different from anyone else
around. There were a group of art
and music hangers-on who became
the audience supporting these
bands at their gigs by spreading the
word and the applause to insure
that they would continue to be
booked by CBGB's Hilly Kristal
and Max's booking skeptics who
were reluctant to book anything
more unusual than the tried and
true "3 chord rock" groups like the
Ramones or something patently
pallatable to the neighborhood
scene like The Shirts. Terry Ork,
who had put out the first Television
7" single "Little Johnny Jewel" on
his own Ork records, was booking
new bands at Max's the last
weekend of each month, and during
August, he told Arto he'd heard
about his new band, and offered us
a date at the end of September. We
said sure.

We had been rehearsing with
Gordon Stevenson and his wife
Mirielle Cervenka (little sister of
Exene of X) in their Tribeca loft,
where they made jewelry out of
plastic chains and trinkets, like
bundles of miniature plastic fruits,
or dice, or skulls, for boutiques like
Reminiscence. Gordon played bass.
I had gone with him on a day trip to
Long Island to buy some kid's
unwanted electric bass. Mirielle
wrote the lyrics and sang. Arto
played guitar and I played
keyboards. We didn't have a
drummer. When Gordon and
Mirielle heard that we had a gig in
less than a month, they freaked.
Mirielle was shy and Gordon felt
inadequate. They both jumped ship.
Arto and I decided to hold onto the
opportunity while we looked
around for someone else to fill out
our sound. We went to the loft
where Lydia was rehearsing. James
had already begun his split with
Lydia concentrating more on the
Contortions as Lydia increasingly
limited James' song-offerings in
The Jerks repertoire with each new
gig. Adele Bertei and Pat Place,
and filmmaker James Nares, were
in James' new lineup and they
shared Lydia's rehearsal space.
Lydia had a Japanese bassist named
Reck in her band along with
Bradley Field on drums. Lydia on
guitar and vocals completed the
trio. The only one hanging around
the rehearsal loft that wasn't in a
band was Reck's Japanese
girlfriend Ikue. Arto wanted her to
be our drummer. I was reluctant,
for a number of reasons. The first
was that she had played violin and
had no experience on drums. The
second was that she didn't own any
drums. The third was that she didn't
speak enough English for us to
communicate and manage to build
a 20 minute set of songs in less
than 30 days. And the fourth was
that her visa was expiring and she
was planning to leave the country 8
days after our scheduled gig. All
this overwhelmed me. It seemed
like the odds were too much against
us. Working with her seemed like a
Herculean task considering we
hardly knew what we were doing,
let alone trying to communicate our
uneducated efforts, in a foreign
language, to someone who planned
to abandon us within days after our
first gig, and we had to come up
with eight or so songs within
something like 28 days. And what
about the equipment? She did have
one thing going for her. She was
interested in working with us.

Arto managed to talk Nancy Arlen
of Mars into letting us use her
drums for Ikue to rehearse on and
to play the gig. I think we were co-
billed with Mars that night which
made things easier. I remember
how we came up with the band's
name DNA. We were sitting in
Phebe's restaurant on the Bowery
between sets of some bands at
CBGB's. We tossed around lots of
names. Arto and I couldn't agree on
any of them and Ikue didn't really
understand our debate. Arto was
friends with, and a major fan of,
Mars, who had just written a new
song called "DNA", which sounded
like a million little crazed ants
running across the surface of the
moon. I liked the song as well as
the title, and thought it might suit
us for the name of our band (I had
been pursuing medical and science
references in my art and
performance endeavors).
Suggesting that we use it as a band
name might lead Arto to consider it
an hommage to his favorite band,
and end my stalemate with him
over the decision on a name. I
stated my case along these lines.
DNA is a 3-letter acronym
representing the combination of
molecular strands which make up
and feature characteristics
distinguishing one living thing
from another. Arto comes from a
culture in Brazil, Ikue, a different
culture in Japan, and I, from a third
culture in an American suburb in
Ohio. Three cultures, three
individuals with different
characteristics, three letters
combined into one new
combination revealing the blend of
our peculiar mix. DNA spelled
backwards is AND; Arto AND
Ikue AND Robin combined are
DNA. Besides that it refers to Mars'
best song. Arto seemed to
appreciate this. He tried to explain
the concept to Ikue. She seemed to
understand (we did a lot of
communicating through drawings
and sign language). She gave her
okay and we became known as
DNA.

My favorite album and musical
inspiraton of the previous eight
years was Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono
Band. A wild album a decade or
more ahead of its time, I considered
it the true precursor to the new
school of bands like Teenage Jesus
and Mars. It played the tight
driving organized rhythm section of
Klaus Voorman on bass and Ringo
on drums against the seemingly
emotionally chaotic and
disorganized guitar of John Lennon
and vocal of Yoko Ono; a constant
struggle of order against chaos.
This was what I wanted of DNA.
As we were a trio, the balance was
achieved, metaphorically, more like
a seesaw, with Arto supplying the
chaotic bursts and uncontrolled
explosion of emotion, while I
countered with tight, cold,
controlled, confined, suppressed
emotions and patterns, both of us
balanced on Ikue's fulcrum, which
weaved in and out of the two
extremes, like a juggler juggling
fire in one hand and water in the
other, and managing to make
steam, without extinguishing either
fire or water.

The success of our debut gig at
Max's Kansas City postponed
Ikue's departure and began months
of gigs pairing the four bands-
DNA, Mars, Teenage Jesus & The
Jerks, and The Contortions on bills
with one another and other
experimenters who were up and
coming, or in, from out of town,
like Devo. This signalled the start
of, what Lydia coined in an
interview as, "The No Wave" with
a myriad of generations of bands to
follow, as well as generations of
new clubs opening up to the
possibility of bands playing
original material, rather than the
Bleecker Street scene of clubs
pushing "top 40" cover bands.
Other artists and artists' friends
began to pursue an interest in rock
music and playing in bands. Within
the year Artists' Space held a
weeklong display of new bands in
concert, at their space down on
Franklin St. in the Fine Arts
Building. The week boasted a
number of new bands, culminating
in the Friday and Saturday double-
bills of the four bands that started it
all. John Rockwell of The Times
had taken some interest and
reviewed us in his paper. He had
also encouraged Brian Eno to
check out these new bands. This
lead to the "No New York" album
project in which he tried to capture
the phenenomenon quickly before
it transformed into something else,
or burned out altogether. The
album was originally slated for
release on Island Records but word
has it that when the record
company heard the mastertapes,
they were so horrified at this
financial blunder, that they tried to
hush the already contracted, and
paid for, project, by releasing it on
their minor sub-label, Antilles, so
as not to call too much attention to
it.
The bands involved in the project
continued for a while then
branched off in different directions.
Mars played a number of gigs
getting stranger and noisier and
more experimental with each new
concert, finally abandoning their
electric guitars for trumpet, clarinet
and bassoon. When they reached
the height of cacaphony, they
retired from the music scene
altogether claiming they had
reached their pinnacle. Lydia
played in various projects from
Teenage Jesus to Beirut Slump
(with New York filmmaker
Vivienne Dick and siblings Liz and
Bobby Swope), then Eight-Eyed
Spy, 13:13 and a number of other
projects including solo albums,
readings and so on. James Chance
worked with the Contortions then
changed his name to James White
and revised the band to James
White & The Blacks. DNA played
and rehearsed the same tunes for
about a year, and I was getting
really tired of them. I assumed that
starting from nowhere technically,
we would evolve into a trio
building on proficiency towards
new material in new directions.
Rehearsals were unbearable. We
played the same songs over and
over and they never sounded the
same twice. It was frustrating. Arto
was exerting some influence on
Ikue to get her to free herself up
more on the drums, and I felt that
the dynamic shift in the sound then
became offbalanced. I felt myself
struggling, indeed floundering, to
maintain the driving rhythm to rein
in the songs. And, we weren't
writing new material. I expressed
my displeasure and began looking
for musical alternatives.

DARK DAY - PHASE ONE

We had done a 7" single with
Charles Ball's label Lust/Unlust
prior to the "No New York" album
and Charles expressed interest in
continuing working with me
beyond DNA. Charles had once
been partners with Terry Ork of
Ork Records and now ran his own
label. I had a couple of song ideas
but couldn't get together a group of
musicians willing to commit to a
band. I managed to get Nina Canal
from The Gynecologists (and later
Ut) on guitar, and Nancy Arlen of
Mars on drums, to assist me with
several rehearsals and a recording
session for one project. We
recorded the single for Charles who
was allowing his acts to name their
labels at the time under the
umbrella of the Lust/Unlust
Production company. I was going
to name my label on the single,
Dark Day Records. But I couldn't
come up with a name for the group,
and I didn't want it to be just my
name. I liked the sound of Dark
Day better than any of the other
names I was coming up with, so
that became the name of the band.
The single got some promising
reviews in the local rock
newspapers and Charles was
interested in following it with an
album. I had made additional
attempts to find new musicians
through friends and acquaintances
to join the project, as Nancy and
Nina weren't interested.

DARK DAY - PHASE TWO

Our first concert as Dark Day was
played at The Mudd Club, with
Nina filling in at the last minute on
drums. Phil Kline was the guitarist,
friend of writer/coworker Luc
Sante at the bookstore where I
worked. He was also best friends
with Jim Jarmusch and was
pursuing an interest in film music.
David Rosenblum played bass. He
was a coworker of mine, interested
in pursuing his own musical
directions with a band more into
jazz-fusion. At the first Dark Day
gig, Wim Mertens, (later with a
productive musical career of his
own) approached us about
performing in Europe for the
Belgian radio. Charles Ball made
the arrangements, having been
abroad previously with Suicide. A
friend of a friend in our rehearsal
space recommended to us a
drummer named Barry Friar, who
joined the project and began
rehearsing with us. David departed
to form his own band but continued
to share a rehearsal space with us.
A "New, Now, No Wave" music
festival was being arranged in
Minneapolis and we were among
the New York bands asked to play.
Having only played a couple of
gigs so far, and only to audiences
of under a hundred, we would now
be in a stadium, on a stage, playing
to several thousand. It was all
happening fast, and a bit
overwhelming. We went to
Belgium to play in Leuven, and on
the same trip did gigs in
Amsterdam, coinciding with a New
York poetry festival there (where
we hung out with Kathy Acker),
and Rotterdam where we rescued
Adele Bertei from being stranded
in Holland, and returned with her to
the states.

We recorded our first album,
"Exterminating Angel" with Steven
Brown (from Tuxedomoon whom
we'd met in Minneapolis at the
festival) guesting on soprano sax
on one track. New York
photographer Jimmy De Sana did
the photoportrait for the album
cover. My close friend and
coworker Jack Zaloga did the
design and photos for the inner
sleeve with the lyric sheet. The
album was released. Time passed.
My friend Jack, who was doing a
lot of drug experimentation at the
time, disappeared for days on end,
and, finally, turned up about a week
later, in the East River. Charles
wanted to release a 12" single from
the album about three months after
the album's release to boost its
sales. I was reluctant about the
idea, particularly since he wanted
to release the slowest song on the
album at a time when people were
putting their upbeat numbers on
12" and releasing them in advance
of an album rather than after the
fact. I finally agreed to a
compromise. He could put what he
wanted on the A side, if I could do
what I wanted with the B side. I
went back into the studio with the
master tapes, flipped them over and
played them backwards altering
track assignments, speed and
reverb effects, and riding the faders
in and out, to create 6 short
"exterminations" of the original
songs. These, I dedicated to my
departed friend Jack. Of my early
work that survives, this ep is
probably the thing with which I
remain most pleased. Dark Day
continued to play a number of gigs
locally at CBGB's, Max's Kansas
City, Hurrah's, Tier 3, The Mudd
Club, and even a gig at Tracks with
Jim Jarmusch guesting on
synthesizer and Peter Principle
(from Tuxedomoon) on bass. Then
I became despondent. New songs
weren't forthcoming. Phil wanted to
continue gigging for the extra
income. The only money he and
Barry made from Dark Day was
what we made doing concerts. I
didn't enjoy live gigs and preferred
studio work. Phil became involved
in his own project, the
DelByzanteens, and Barry got more
involved in drugs. We drifted apart.

DARK DAY - PHASE THREE

Charles suggested a new album and
began looking for a studio. I was all
for it, but Phil and Barry had gone
on to pursue stuff more profitable
to their own interests. I decided to
start over. I acquired a new
keyboard and began working with a
new acquaintance, Bill Sack. Dark
Day was now a two-man all-
keyboard project. We did a few
concerts including being the first
amplified rock band to ever play at
the Pyramid Lounge (before they
installed soundproofing), and
recorded, depending on how you
looked at it, a very long ep, or a
very short album. But gigs were
hard to do live, as we'd overdubbed
all the studio tracks between just
the two of us, and there was no way
to deliver that sound live. Plus, I
couldn't sing and play these songs
at the same time, due to my own
musical limitations. We completed
the album, but Charles' creditors
were after him, and the album
remained tied up in the studio when
he skipped town. One of his major
distributors decided, with my
reluctant approval (under pressure
from the studio), to bail the tapes
out of the studio and release them
on his own label, Plexus Records,
which had released some American
pressings of Japanese bands
including some solo Riuchi
Sakamoto albums. But, much as I
feared, Plexus gave us no support
whatsoever, and didn't know how
to represent us. The album had only
about 1,000 copies to its first, and
last pressing, and without
promotion of any kind, disappeared
into the void of the bargain bins.

DARK DAY - PHASE FOUR

Some time passed and I made new
acquaintances of percussionist,
Brian Bendlin (who helped produce
early Linda Smith efforts and
shared a band, The Woods, with
her), cellist, Steven Cheslik-
DeMeyer (also of The Woods,
and later "Y'all"),
and a recorder player, Shawn
McQuate (who did dance works
and shows of his outrageous
clothing designs, with Ann
Magnusson, before drugs took over
his life). This developed into the
next phase of Dark Day, a sort of
acoustic chamber ensemble
performing cyclical, pagan-
sounding, instrumental works I had
composed, which featured rattles,
bells and drums, inspired by my
early musical influence, the
legendary Moondog. We played
some concerts locally at parties and
clubs and a Pagan street festival,
and recorded some tracks in
Wharton Tiers' Fun City studio, for
what I hoped would lead to a next
album, despite not having a label.
The songs were finished up several
years later at Brian's home studio,
after the band had dispersed, where
I added several new numbers with
Brian's help. With the addition of
two solo pieces I had recorded at
the Institute For Audio Research, I
decided to release the album
myself, on my own label, on
compact disc in 1989. I was
unprepared for the business end of
the music business and had trouble
finding shops and distributors
willing to carry the disc unless they
took it on consignment. I got ripped
off, with few paying their bills.
Disheartened by the unpleasant
experience of the "business" of
music, and despondent about the
lack of "art" in the music business,
I retired from music, until an
outside opportunity should present
itself, if ever that should happen
again.

FLASHBACK

In the fall of 1997, Dirk Ivens of
Daft Records wrote me a letter
from Belgium expressing interest in
re-releasing my old material on
CD. Between us, we assembled a
compilation "Dark Day: Collected
1979-82" which appeared in
Europe a few months later.

DARK DAY IN THE NEW
MILLENNIUM

In September, 1999, I finished
recording an album of new
material, "Strange Clockwork",
using computer technology to help
me construct pieces in a process of
polyrhythmic layering techniques.
This material has been compared to
Steve Reich and Stereolab.


In the winter of 2000, quirky film
director Errol Morris contacted me
about using "Wheel Whirl-Thing"
from "Darkest Before Dawn" for
the opening and closing credits of
an episode of his Bravo TV series
"First Person". He also
commissioned new music and used
a percussion-free mix of "The
Laugh's On You" from "Strange
Clockwork" for the episode airing
on April 19th entitled "In The
Kingdom Of The Unabomber", an
interview with
psychologist/writer/penpal of the
Unabomber, Gary Greenberg.
Besides airing on Bravo network in
the United States, it aired on
England's Channel Four and
elsewhere around the world.

In August of 2000, Dark Day's 5th
album of original music "Loon" is
released. The subtitle is "the mental
health project" and its assembly
was an exercise in exorcising some
of the demons of the psychiatric
world--delusion and sleep disorder.
A sort of sonic brain massage to
help me deal better with the little
difficulties in the details of my day-
to-day living, it sounds like Philip
Glass meets the Addams Family.

In the Spring of 2002 a new disc of
10 songs is released entitled "The
Happy Little Oysters", under the
new moniker darkdayrobin. It
continues in the spirit of recent
Dark Day with playful, yet sinister
cyclical parts, like a soundtrack for
an odd cartoon not yet inked,
making it an entertaining listen for
fans of the previous two outings.

Spring 2003-"r.l.crutchfield's Dark
Day-Strange Clockwork" is
released. An actual CD, bar code
and all, includes the best 20 out of
30 tracks from the previous 3 CDR-
only albums.

2004-2007 bring changes with the
acquisition of a number of harps,
psalteries, drums and other acoustic
instruments, in a turning away from
machines and technology, and an
embracing of the ancient past. The
discovery of a magical scale provides
inspiration for 3 acid harp & drone
albums of enchanted dreamscapes:
"Songs For Faerie Folk", "Toadstool
Soup", and "For Our Friends In The
Enchanted Otherworld" (released
on the Hand/Eye label).

November 2009 sees the release of
more acoustic trance harp & drone,
"The Hidden Folk" on Important
Records, as well as a paperback
volume of "Eleven Faerie Tales".