No Wave

Flashing through the New York City underground in the late 1970s, No Wave was the ultimate anti-movement. Its bands consisted of artists and poets untrained in music, looking to explode rock and disappear before the smoke cleared. The primary perpetrators - Lydia Lunch, James Chance's, Mars and DNA - all drew on primitivism, performance art, and the avant-garde. They were best known for short songs and even shorter life-spans. No Wave traces the history of this genre from its most famous names down to its many offshoots. It is the definitive guide to a genre whose sounds and ideas still vibrate through alternative culture today.