Nomeansnotes

Trying to overcome my sadness at the postponement of the much-anticipated Ohbijou gig, I found myself looking over the alternatives for that night. Somewhat to my surprise, I felt a strong attraction to the Nomeansno gig. Perhaps it's because they were once a band that meant a lot to me, one of the first rock bands I claimed as my own as I moved from a hip-hop consuming high-school student to a listens-to-everything undergrad. Although I've followed them less closely for a decade, pretty much everything they did up til, say, '95 or so is pretty much fused into my musical DNA. Which creates an interesting sort of anticipation: will it still be the same? Should I let the past stay the past, or do I owe them for having been something to me?

To prepare myself for the gig, I decided to try and tackle the whole discography.¹ This involved digging out a few cassettes² and meant setting aside the new Yeah Yeah Yeah's alb for a few days, but I was curious to see how it would all resonate with me now. Just as a side-note, the early discography is a bit tangled, with each of the first three albums including preceding EP's appended to them, which makes a historical relistening a bit more work.³

So anyways, to the utterly uninitiated, the basic facts: Nomeansno are a rock band, originating in Victoria, B.C. in 1979, from their outset in punk but not of it. Based around the brotherly duo of Rob Wright (bass and vox) and John Wright (drums, keyb, vox), Nomeansno's music rages widely and erratically through genres, always held together by virtuoso musicianship ‐ broad enough that if this were written by a different person, descriptions like "metal" and "prog" could be validly tossed around. Lyrically, their key themes connect the dots between a near-Cronenbergian concern with "the flesh"; fear and exultation of sexual urges; power relationships; fascism; the existential train trip from womb to tomb; and emotional and physical apocalypses. But for all that, the lyrics are often shot through with mordant humour.

Mama (1982)

Originally a pretty obscure release (500 copies on vinyl in its first run), this mostly came to light as a re-issue in the 90's, and immediately served as a sort of Rosetta Stone to the band's work. Stripped-down basement-y recordings of the band's first phase, the interesting thing that these early recordings reveal is that NMN actually started as a new wave band, and would only later mutate into punks. Contains the 1981 Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP, with a spiky full band sound (including sax solo!), the band really become a proto-version of themselves with Mama proper, which is mostly stripped down to the bass/drums rhythm section. Though recorded cleanly and without the menace they'd grow into, one can hear the nimble musicianship is in place. Even more striking is that right from the outset one can witness the clarity of vision that NMN project — even from the get-go, all of those familiar themes are in effect. While more interesting than just being an historical artifact, this is still something kinda different from the band's later albums, making it more of a graduate seminar than an introductory course for new listeners.

Box set picks: "Try Not to Stutter" from Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP, "No Sex" from Mama.

Sex Mad/You Kill Me (1986)

CD includes the '85 You Kill Me EP, and it is here that NMN take a huge leap forward into their fully distinctive, mature sound. Suddenly the drums are booming, and the bass is full of of evil vigour. Andy Kerr's guitar is added to the mix, and he finds a way to complement a strong rhythm section that has no interest in confining itself to being merely beat-keepers. What this primarily means is that drums, bass and guit are more equal co-leaders, inhabiting the musical possibilities opened up by early PiL. NMN's brilliance, however, was to attach that sonic template to the aggressiveness of west coast hardcore. The fruits of this fusion can be heard on You Kill Me's opening "Body Bag" and moreso throughout the generally excellent Sex Mad LP. Lyrically, this fusion of post-punk and hardcore can be gleaned from "Dad", a dark song about an abusive father that amps up the dread, only to undercut itself with an ending punchline: "I'm seriously thinking of leaving home!"

Box set picks: "Body Bag" (from You Kill Me); "Sex Mad", "Dad", "Dead Bob" (from Sex Mad)

The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed (1988)

Again compiling en EP and album, the shorter The Day Everything Became Nothing leads off and sees NMN consolidating their sound, to generally excellent effect. On Small Parts, there is some adjustment arising from the band slowing down and stretching out a bit. The band's high confidence allows them to mix up their dynamics even more, so many songs feel like mini-suites, with hairpin tempo changes aplenty. A bit less essential, but still filled with good stuff.⁴

Box set picks: "The Day Everything Became Nothing", "Brother Rat/What Slayde Says" (from The Day Everything Became Nothing); "Dark Ages", "Victory", "Teresa, Give Me That Knife" (from Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed)

Wrong (1989)

Widely considered to be the band's best, this album is pretty generally excellent. From the powerful opening one-two punch of "It's Catching Up" and "The Tower", the songs veer from the horrors of the apocalypse to the horrors of dealing with the guy at the next desk (portrayed with zen-like simplicity in "Brainless Wonder", with the complete shouted lyrics: "I want lunch!/When's my break?/I Want lunch!/Feed me now!"). The band is compact and powerful, lean and mean. And swaggering a bit, but every inch is earned. A classic, and probably the best entry point to the band's discography.

Box Set Picks: "It's Catching Up", "The Tower", "Two Lips, Two Lungs and One Tongue", "Rags and Bones", "Oh No! Bruno!"

0 + 2 = 1 (1991)

This was where I came in. A review in the U of W radio station's magazine made me wonder who was this band that was considered so important, and why they were worthy of such scrutiny. (The review opened with "Have Nomeansno sold out?", presumably wondering if the jangly acoustic guitar opening the album was some sort of mainstream move.) Whatever the review said, it was convincing enough to make me seek out a copy. And probably helps explain why this one is probably still my favourite. Extending the trajectory plotted by Wrong, this does indeed file down the rough edges ever-so-slightly, allowing a little bit of the band's original new wave sensibility to shine back through. It still rocks forcefully enough, it just eases back on the stop-start hardcore a titch. Another great opening pair, with the opener "Now" (complete with those jangling guitars) daring to posit some optimism (perhaps a more radical move than the relative poppiness of the music), before lurching back into the darkness on "The Fall." The band's blackly absurd sense of humour also gets its best airing to date on the skewed "Everyday I Start to Ooze". Superb throughout.

Box Set Picks: "Now", "The Fall", "The Valley Of The Blind", "Ghosts"

Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1993)

Largely recorded as a duo following the departure of guitarist Andy Kerr, this might be considered NMN's ballad album.⁵ Overall, there's a bit of hole where's Kerr's vox and guit fit in, and the band's response is to slow down a bit and rely mostly on Rob's vocals throughout. It also leads to a few other different touches: "The Land of the Living" has as much piano as guit. Overall, this album feels less vital than its predecessors, and it takes a few songs for it to really start engaging. It ends with the maliciously goofy "Cats, Sex, and Nazis" (that's why they call him Mr. Happy, it turns out) which comes off like an outsized sequal to the previous album's "Everyday I Start to Ooze". An interesting transitional effort, but not in the top tier.

Box Set Picks: "I Need You", "Lullaby", "Cats, Sex, and Nazis"

The Worldhood of the World (As Such) (1995)

For a band casually lumped under "punk", a lot of their music really falls outside of the usual genre parameters. Which makes it interesting to listen to NMN's most typically "punk" sounding album. Joined on guitar by Tom Holliston, their partner in Ramones-meets-Slap Shot side project The Hanson Brothers, he seems to bring some of that project's urgent immediacy to the NMN table (check out "Tuck It Away" for a bracing sample of this). This album also has the band's most carefully-crafted vocal arrangements to date, as evidenced from opener "Joy", which is a pleasure to listen to after the slightly vocally monochromatic Mr. Happy. There are still surprises and diversions at hand — a raggae break here, a jazzy jaunt there, and they serve nicely for contrast. But overall, the main pleasure here is hearing NMN at a breakneck pace, brushing by bands with members half their ages.

Box Set Picks: "Joy", "Humans", "Angel or Devil", "Tuck It Away"

Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1998)

Going into this exercise, this was my least listened to of all the albums. I suppose there isn't a whole lot wrong with this album — I'm sure that out there somewhere there is someone who was turned on to NMN by this and reveres it in the way I do 0 + 2, but for me, it feels a little redundant. Showing a rare bit of middle-aged paunch, there are a few songs here that could stand to be trimmed down by a couple minutes, and there is a faint air of re-tread hanging over the proceedings. That it took this far into their career for the band to issue an album that arouses these sentiments is something of a tribute, mind.

Box Set Picks: "Going Nowhere", "One Fine Day"

One (2000)

An interesting case — while this occupies similar terrain to its predecessor, this is a far better album. Maybe just because it sounds a bit more menacing, or perhaps some of the tendency to drift has been reined in. There's still a couple lesser cuts here, but they're overshadowed by the good stuff. And while it's often a bad sign when the best track on an album is a cover, that doesn't apply so much here as the cover in question — a take on Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" — that is both reverent and rather transformative.⁶ There's also a second cover, a slow, cough syrup-chugging Killdozer-like take on The Ramones' "Beat on the Brat" that also works pretty well. These well-thought-out covers really complement the rest of the tracks and the result, overall, is good stuff.

Box Set Picks: "Our Town", "Bitches Brew"

All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2006)

Starting with a shout of "wake up!" this launches itself with a fervid hardcore urgency. Which is largely maintained throughout — putting it at the opposite pole of One's more measured paces. But, like that album, there's still a little filler here, but, really, respectably little bloat for a band this long in the tooth. There's a bit more unity of purpose here, with many of the songs addressing suburban ennui and/or fear of mortality. There is even a bit of musical novelty — "Mondo Nihilissimo 2000" sounds unlike anything else the band has ever done, and the album ends with a triad of songs at right-angles to most of their other work, including a sea shanty, a gold ol' rock'n'roller, and a music hall/campfire singalong. The first of these, "'Til I Die", borrows some old folk changes and sounds like a second cousin to "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and maybe an uncle to "Silver and Gold" — its refrain of "I'm going to walk down this road 'til I die" ambiguously both a reflection on life's tame monotony and a dogged determination to not give up 'til the bitter end.

Box Set Picks: "Mr. In Between", "'Til I Die", "Slugs Are Burning"

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¹ N.B. For time purposes, I only tackled the studio albums. The band released a particularly fine live album (1990's Live & Cuddly) which was topped by the even-more-intense bootleg Live in Warsaw, a recording of a show on May 25, 1990 now available (with many other shows) in live music trading circles. There is also the 1994 odds-and-sods collection Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong which fills in some gaps.

² A well-stocked merch table at the gig could be a genuine hazard to me.

³ On the other hand, now that we have the internet, what was once a veil of confusion regarding who was in the band and when they came and went is much easier, and throws all kinds of light onto some subtle changes of sound that I would never have been able to put together at the time I was devotedly listening to this stuff.

⁴ Sadly, the CD is not particularly well-mastered, and sounds tinny overall. The bass is less rich and the whole things feels less powerful. With an infinite amount of time, I'd try and dig my cassette copy out of storage to see if it sounded any better.

⁵ Which is relative, of course — "Madness and Death" rides a funky hi-hat vibe that would be popular in Williamsburg about a decade later.

⁶ Rob's lyrics help to make the song feel right at home as a NMN track, while some Joe Zawinul-styled el-p keep it well grounded to the original. Smartly, no-one makes an attempt to fill in Miles' licks.