Send "Mars " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 It's hard to pinpoint the beginning of no wave, the abrasive post-punk movement in late-1970s New York. But its legacy had a big bang. It came in the form of an unnamed festival at Manhattan's Artists Space, spanning five nights in May 1978. Brian Eno happened to attend, and what he saw and heard led him to produce No New York, a scene-defining sampler that remains the most well-known no wave record. Some claim it also helped kill the scene, but it's doubtful that any of the music would have such a strong ongoing influence without Eno's compilation.Though No New York included some great work from its four participants-- the Contortions, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Mars, and DNA-- no wave fanatics have longed for audio documentation of the Artists Space festival itself, and rumors have persisted that tapes exist. In 2008 two Teenage Jesus songs from the fest showed up on a new collection of their work, but that's been it. Now Feeding Tube has worked with Mars bassist Mark Cunningham to offer the entirety of his band's two-set performance on a single LP. It's fitting that Mars are the first Artists Space participants to get such a release, because the quartet's 1975 beginnings made them technically the first no wave band. But their elemental importance goes beyond mere chronology. Inside their brief lifespan lie the deconstructive, anti-careerist seeds that drove the movement. Cunningham saw their arc as "a countdown from ten to one," and through their sliver of recorded output-- 11 songs totaling barely over a half-hour-- the tired rules of rock got pummeled into abstract art-noise....full text |
| Brainwashed |
| Live at Artists Space documents two sets performed by Mars at the New York venue during the legendary run of concerts by the bulk of the No Wave movement. This was the festival where Brian Eno witnessed these young, angry bands and put together the classic No New York compilation. Listening to Mars’ performance, it is easy to hear why he was so enthused over the whole thing. Mars absolutely tear apart the air with their anti-rock; hard angles and sharp edges forming in the notes and rhythms of the music. Both the sets included here (one on each side of the record) cover the same 8 songs, two of which were never put to tape in the studio. However, like a jazz quartet they explore different aspects of the pieces with each rendition. A change of inflection, maybe emphasising, de-emphasising or re-emphasising a chord or a vocal causes a massive shift in the tone of the piece. Both versions of “11000 Volts” destroy any previous recordings I have heard and the rendition of “Puerto Rican Ghost” that closes the first set sounds like a vortex which sucks you into the grey void in between the walls of a disused apartment block in a run-down part of town. Needless to say after that paragraph that the vibes that ooze from this record bring the music of Mars to another place that the clear but, by comparison, dead studio recordings never reached. Live at Artists Space is one of those live albums like Swans’ Public Castration is a Good Idea or Neil Young’s Weld where the artists’ powers were at a zenith and luckily somebody thought to hit record. With another Mars live LP on the way, it begs the question whether Feeding Tube Records have more recordings from this festival because if any of the other bands managed to grab Eno’s attention when Mars sounded as good as this, then they must have been as incendiary....full text |
| Boomkat |
| A bit of dissident rock history - two live recordings of legendary NY no-wavers DNA made on May 6th, 1978. They capture the quartet of Nancy Arlen, China Burg, Sumner Crane and Mark Cunningham from the perspective of two different microphone set-ups during the same performance alongside Teenage Jesus And The Jerks on the last night of a five day festival. Apparently nobody cared at the time, but the performance has since entered the halls of legend. It could be said that this LP documents the genesis of a short lived but catalytic scene whose revolutionary influence has created a long lasting impression in the forms of bands like Sonic Youth....full text |
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