Rain Dragon, Hidden Genius

Noise annoys – The Buzzcocks (1978)
 

I wasn't listening to any rock, and then I read an article about the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag. It was by Robert Christgau, and of course he was completely wrong about everything. He said these were Nazi groups playing Nazi music – I don't know if I'm quoting him exactly, but that was the basic drift of it. I was intrigued.

Why should any bands be playing Nazi music? It seemed such an insane thing to do. Then I checked it out and realised it was anti-Nazi music. Reading descriptions – it had no melody, it was a bunch of noise – I thought, well finally they're getting back to playing something decent. I got interested.
Around the same time I was playing with Zorn. I remember setting up a show, I decided that this rock crowd seems to be into really noisy music, so maybe they'll like it. I played a gig at CBGB's with Arto Lindsay and DNA – it didn't go down too well. Eventually, with Shockabilly, that crowd got into it. It needed to be presented like a rock band – some guy

playing solos, guitars ... but I was starting to play Country & Western, and that was a horrible mistake in New York in the early 80s.

There was this crowd in New York that would sit through any weird improvised music and they were always talking about incidents where, 'Well this guy came in and he

freaked out listening to this stuff, he ran out with his hands over his ears, haha-ha'. But they themselves reacted that way to country music! If you played a Hank Williams song, they acted like you were doing something disgusting.
 

That was really interesting – why are they so freaked at this kind of music? – Eugene Chadbourne to the author, on the train from York to Hebden Bridge, 15 June 1993