Noise Fest


Noise Fest was an influential festival of no wave noise music performances curated by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth at the New York City art space White Columns. It ran from June 16th to June 24th, 1981. Sonic Youth made their first live appearances at this show.
In mid 1981 Kim Gordon and Josh Baer convinced Thurston Moore to organize this nine-day noise music festival to accommodate underemployed experimental performers in the downtown post-punk scene. The festival was held in the White Columns art gallery, which had a capacity of around sixty people.
Each night three to five acts performed, including Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca, Ut, Dog Eat Dog, Jeffrey Lohn, Y Pants, Mofungo, EQ'D, Built on Guilt, Rudolph Grey, Avant Squares, Off Beach, solo guitar by Lee Ranaldo, Jules Baptiste's Red Decade, Khmer Rouge, Don King, Robin Crutchfield's Dark Day, Glorious Strangers, painter Dan Asher as Economic Animal, IMA, NNB, Ad Hoc Rock, Smoking Section, Chinese Puzzle, The Problem, Avoidance Behavior, and an early version of Sonic Youth with Anne DeMarinis, Kim Gordon, Richard Smith and Thurston Moore.

Art Exhibition

Noise Fest was presented within the context of an art exhibition of the same name curated by Kim Gordon and Josh Baer that also ran from June 16th to June 24th, 1981. Visual artists/musicians in the exhibition included Ikue Mori, Richard McGuire, Robert Longo, Alan Vega, Lee Ranaldo, Nina Canal, Kim Gordon, Linda Pitt and Martha Fishkin, Barbara Ess and Virge Piersol, Glenn Branca and Bill Komoski.

Recording history

In 1978 a similar series of punk rock influenced loud noise music mixed with performance art was held at New York’s Artists Space that led to the Brian Eno-produced no wave scene recording No New York. This recording was seen by many as the first attempt to define the no wave sound, as it documented The Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars and DNA.
Music from the Noise Festival was first released on December 15th, 1981 as a 90 minute audio cassette titled Noise Fest on ZG Music; the music label of the legendary ZG magazine organized by Rosetta Brookes. All material was recorded live at White Columns. This included the music of Ut, Lee Ranaldo, Mofungo, Khmer Rouge, The Problem, Smoking Section, Sonic Youth, Jeff Lohn, Jules Baptiste's Red Decade, EQ'D, Avant Squares, Don King, Primitives, Ad Hoc Rock, Y Pants, John Rehnberger, Off Beach, Barbotemagus, Economical Animal, Chinese Puzzle, Glorious Strangers, Built On Guilt, Oma Fakir, and Lampshades. The Executive-Producer of the cassette was Joshua Baer. The cassette cover design was created by artist/musician Barbara Ess.

Influence

Noise Fest inspired the Speed Trials noise rock series organized by Live Skull members in May 1983 at White Columns. Among an art installation created by David Wojnarowicz and Joseph Nechvatal, various performance artists such as Ilona Granet and Emily XYZ did their acts intermixing with the music of The Fall, Beastie Boys, Live Skull, Sonic Youth, Lydia Lunch, Elliott Sharp, Swans and Arto Lindsay.
Speed Trials was eventually released as a live album recorded by Mark Roule and became one of the best-selling independent music records of its time.

Discography