A Joyful Noise?

The Documentary Kill Your Idols Paints Pointed Pictures Of Art-Rock Past And Present

originally published December 20, 2006

I'm no economics major, so I'm sure inflation had something to do with this. Apparently, New York City was not always a place where people in tight clothing went to spend unbelievable amounts of money to live in one-room apartments that sported dimensions that would more accurately describe a hallway, all the while taking pictures of themselves from funny angles. This is before my time, but according to Kill Your Idols, a 2004 documentary by Scott Crary only recently issued on DVD by Palm Pictures/ Umvd - and the most poorly-titled candidate in the current rock-doc sweepstakes - NYC was once a place where you dressed like you were broke because you were actually broke. No, I will not get out. You get out.

In any case, the situation that Kill Your Idols suggests is that when misanthropic art students get together and live on five dollars a day (as Michael Gira of Swans claims to have done during this era), their shit gets fairly fucked. We're talking guitar abuse that would make weak-willed Guitar Center hangout tools feel a little pukey, arrhythmic shrieking, and drummers who, by and large, can't. The genre is called "no wave," and that's funny, get it? Not "new wave," the record industry's early-'80s reaction to the raw imploding power of punk rock, but "no wave." I don't know why no one is laughing because that's very funny. It's a pun. Genre titles aside (forever? please?), the point of the vast majority of no wave was to eschew the blues-based axioms of rock, to unlearn (or, in some cases, never learn to begin with) the mental maps to the place the human ear typically wants the X to mark the spot.

The true treasure of Kill Your Idols lies in the archived videos of these high-minded dirtbags who aspired to a sort of reptile-mind reversion. Michael Gira stalks the stage bringing some melodramatic fire and brimstone nihilism over sheet-metal clang with Swans. Lydia Lunch's steps are retraced from groupie for noted misogynist act the Dead Boys to developing her divisive brand of feminism that has effectively kept the movement at odds with itself to this day. In his band DNA, Arto Lindsay snarls with nerdy bile that must've surely made an impact on then-burgeoning neg-vibe specialist Steve Albini, all while just barely holding onto any semblance of modern guitar playing, even by contemporary standards. (Sadly, Mars is the only band featured on now-classic no wave sampler No New York not to be featured in any capacity in Kill Your Idols.) And then there's Sonic Youth! In other words, it's completely ridiculous and really great. Alleged pretension aside, these people made desperate, previously unheard-of music that has influenced countless acts throughout the last 25 years. It was a real pleasure to put a few faces to the sounds I've "enjoyed" in the past, but midway through Kill Your Idols, the viewer is faced with a huge bummer: modern music.

I'm kidding (sort of). The film picks back up with music in 2002, and it's worth pointing out that the bands touted here as the new breed of mongrel have morphed considerably over the four years since those interviews, and that goes well beyond Liars frontman Angus Andrews' mullet. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' atonal aspirations have always been the subtext to a sassier star power, but these days, they're bona fide pop music personalities, coffee table photo books and all. Liars have weathered considerable lineup changes to ultimately slouch on the opposite wall of the gymnasium, droning to their smogged-out hearts' collective content, and effectively morphing into a metropolitan Butthole Surfers. Footage of groups that barely skirted the edge of relevance to begin with, such as complete joke A.R.E. Weapons, date the film dead in its tracks, and inclusion of the gypsy punk of Gogol Bordello is simply confusing, despite lead vocalist Eugene Hutz's charismatic rants. However, nothing illustrates the new school's lacking in the scuzz department more than the sporadic cuts to the some jaded detractors: none other than the aged hipsters of Kill Your Idols' first half.

In what might be considered a minor bout of artistic backpedaling, the O.G. no-wavers insist their reaction to the clean-cut commodification of the Sex Pistols et. al. was just that, a reaction, and therefore only necessary as long as there is something to react to. "It was of its time," seems to be the party line, but the general din of chattering dentures amounts to a lot of "When I was playing out-of-tune guitars and moaning on the floor in front of five people, we didn't even have any Internets or color televisions or MySpaces, so these kids need to go to grad school or something."

And while the grape juice here is undoubtedly sour, Grandpa Thurston & Co. have a point: if your skronk can sell, it's gonna come out a little shinier. The YYY's and particularly A.R.E. Weapons' obnoxious "coke and pussy"-touting frontman Brain McPeck appear to look to their brand of Brooklyn pseudo-eccentricity as their ticket to the American Dream of success and fame. This only serves to point out that the groups covered in the documentary as the modern avant-garde have little in common with their wholly-fucked forebears.

The only groups featured in the second half of Kill Your Idols that are continuing to get it on with any sort of relevance are the new-and-improved Liars, the knob-rockers in Black Dice, and, lo and behold, Sonic Youth. For folks who dig on this noise as hard as I do, Kill Your Idols will be good for some nihilistic kicks. But its second act does little more than illustrate how widespread the music industry has draped its blanket of opportunity, for better or for worse. If the self-cannibalizing music culture actually spins its wheel of couture and the big hand lands on no wave - the real deal - well, things might actually get interesting. No one really likes to tune their guitars, anyway.

Jeff Tobias