When punk and new wave became increasingly commercial in the late 70s, a group of New York artists called for a total negation of American rock n roll. The Lower East Side artists grew tired of tradition and now trite Chuck Berry riffs. They made cacophonous and confrontational music that was Dadaist in style and nihilistic in attitude to discard conventions. Thus, creating what is now known as the No Wave scene of New York City. 
It was a movement shaped by the grimy, desolate state of the Lower East Side. No Wave queen Lydia Lunch says,”New York at that moment was bankrupt, poor, dirty, violent, drug-infested, sex-obsessed — delightful. In spite of that we were all laughing, because you laugh or you die. I’ve always been funny. My dark comedy just happens to scare most people.” However, to call it a movement and give it a name defeats the heart of whatever these artists were doing. As The New York Times ‘ Robert Palmer put it, “Naming the movement just about finished it off.” By any measure, No Wave was a blip– a blinding flash of art that barely lasted long enough to qualify as a movement, yet left scars on underground culture still evident today. 
The No Wave scene is post-punk with a variation that was nerdy, androgynous, and sometimes menacingly oversexed. They looked to deconstructive groups like the Velvet Underground, the radical noice of free jazz from artists like Sun Ra, experimental blues-rock of Captain Beefheart, German acts like CAN, the screeching art of Yoko Ono, and the confrontational performances of Iggy Pop. But most importantly, the synthesized gods of Suicide. 
Tune in Wednesday, April 13th, with Strangelove. She’ll take you through the dirty streets of New York to show you how this short-lived and strange sub-genre of punk started and ended then how their sound affects music today.