So we’re all now fully aware of how culturally avant-garde and artistically cross-sectional the New York music, art, and film scene was during the late 70s/early 80s. Thanks to recent films like Scott Crary’s Kill Your Idols and Ericka Beckman’s 135 Grand Street New York 1979, and publications like Thurston Moore and Byron Coley’s No Wave: Post-Punk, Underground, New York, 1976-1980 and Marc Masters’No Wave, we now all have it fully ingrained in our minds that this scene was better than any other scene that is or ever will be, ever. David Grubbs apparently didn’t get the memo. Therefore, Grubbs (Gastr Del Sol, solo artist, academic, Drag City mainstay) and Colombia University art historian Branden W. Joseph are mounting a three-day event in celebration of the whole no wave scene or whatev titled “Theoretical Music: No Wave, New Music, and the New York Art Scene, 1978-1983.”
The event includes panel discussions with some notable no wave scene heads, one of which will be led by Grubbs himself, as well as a screening of James Nares’ no wave film epic Rome ‘78 and a performance by former downtown fixtures Ut. The hole thing takes place at Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room. If it all sounds a little lofty and academic, it’s because it is, which basically makes it very un-no wave.