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05/10/2007Bringing the noise: 4th Annual No Fun Fest comes to Red Hook By Jake Tuck
(Clockwise from top left) Carlos Giffoni, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore and Merzbow will perform at the fourth annual No Fun Fest at The Hook
Some musicians play music that makes people get down and dance. Others compose orchestral pieces that strive for subtle elegance. But for the artists playing at the fourth annual No Fun Fest at The Hook in Red Hook, May 17-20, the approach is more strident, uncompromising, and for lack of a better word, noisy. So if you venture to No Fun, don’t expect to participate in a dance party or take afternoon tea.
In the last few years, Brooklyn has been identified as a hotbed for “noise,” a genre that refers to outré sonic experiments that often disregard even the most basic musical conventions.
Bands such as Brooklyn-based Black Dice, Rhode Island’s Lightning Bolt, and Michigan’s Wolf Eyes have had some success experimenting with chaotic guitar noise from the indie-rock side of the tracks, and have become poster-boys for the scene.
But according to Carlos Giffoni, No Fun Fest’s curator and one of its performers, the approach to experimental music that will be on display at the festival is more diverse.
“One of the things that’s really great about this group of bands is that they are very individual and personal in their approach,” Giffoni told 24/7 via email.
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http://bannerads.zwire.com/bannerads...471&barnd=7506 Some of the acts at No Fun are influenced by such obscure subgenres as “Japanese extreme noise” and “power electronics,” while “some of the bands are the actual originators of this style, Giffoni said.” He also says “other bands are inspired by rock, free jazz, the psychedelic movement, the list goes on and on.”
So don’t expect a homogenous group of floppy-haired New York art students with guitars slung over their shoulders. For one thing, many of the artists don’t play guitars. Also, they’re from all over the world.
Still, the Brooklyn noise community is represented well. Giffoni, who originally hails from Venezuela, is currently Brooklyn-based, as are other acts playing the festival, such as Mouthus, Religious Knives, Slogun, and Zaimph. “Slogun is a true power electronics legend,” Giffoni said. “Very extreme.” Religious Knives, on the other hand, “creates really beautiful psychedelic music.” Giffoni describes Mouthus as “true psych/noise/strange rock” and “one of the most unique and interesting bands of our day.”
Giffoni himself, although known in the past to utilize computers and digital equipment in his pursuit of noise, recorded his last full-length record, Arrogance, which was the first album released on his own label, No Fun Productions, solely with analog instruments. In a very positive review of the album on the influential music website Pitchforkmedia.com, Zach Baron wrote, “even Giffoni's darkest efforts, Arrogance surely among them, rebound over and over again with patterns, rhythms, humanistic sensibility.
Baron also called Arrogance “the most physically immediate thing he’s ever done" and suggested No Fun 2007 as the perfect venue to debut Giffoni’s new sound. According to what Giffoni tells 24/7, Baron will get his wish.
“I will be performing with analog synth equipment…in the vein of Arrogance,” Giffoni says. “I am really interested in this more minimal approach to music, creating moods and movements in sound without having to resource to crunching a bunch of math.”
Besides Giffoni himself and the Brooklyn noise scene that No Fun reflects, two other performers loom over the line-up: Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, the husband and wife team that make up part of the legendary New York indie rock band Sonic Youth. Although their recent albums have relished melody and hooks more than in the past, Sonic Youth were true pioneers of noise in the 1980s and their records are still decorated with smatterings of feedback, distortion, and freak-outs.
At No Fun Gordon and Moore will perform separately, allowing each to indulge impulses that may not fit into the Sonic Youth scheme. Gordon performs with Yoshimi of the Japanese noise legends Boredoms on Thursday and Moore plays on Sunday.
Besides performing at the festival, Sonic Youth is also partially responsible for No Fun’s existence in the first place. Giffoni attended the Sonic Youth-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Las Angeles in 2002, and was inspired. The festival featured a diverse line-up of acts ranging from the Jazz pianist Cecil Taylor to Lydia Lunch, an icon of the downtown No Wave scene in the early 1980s.
Along with other similar gatherings of sonic experimenters that he attended, Giffoni says that the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival “really opened my eyes to the possibility and immediate need to have a gathering of this kind in New York.”
Besides Sonic Youth, another father figure of the noise scene is Merzbow, who headlines Saturday’s show. Otherwise known as the Japanese musician Masami Akita, Merzbow is regarded by musicians and critics alike as one of the more important figures in the history of electronic and acoustic noise.
According to Giffoni, Moore, Gordon, and Merzbow will not disappoint. “Expect them to present really incredible and heavy performances,” Giffoni says.
Although some of the artists performing at No Fun have been around since the noise movement’s nascence, such as Merzbow, Sonic Youth, and Yoshimi, and others represent a younger generation just now joining in, Giffoni says that there is a sense of community and respect on stage in Red Hook.
“There is no discrimination or status,” he says. “Everyone is here to just destroy live.”
No Fun Fest is being held at The Hook, May 17-20. From May 17-19, show time is at 7 p.m. On May 20, show time is at 6 p.m. Tickets are $18 for each day. The Hook is located at 18 Commerce St. For more information call 718-797-3007.