The NWW List Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mama Béa Tekielski

Number 256 on the NWW List. This album was released in 1976. Mama Bea is a French singer/songwriter born on August 23, 1948 and she has released at least 14 albums.

Answer: Tolerance

Number 265 on the NWW List. This album was released in 1979 or 1980 (I have seen both years given as year of release) on the Vanity Records label from Japan. The band was from Japan and consisted of Junko Tange on voice, synth, and piano and Masami Yoshikawa on guitar. They released two albums total.

Answer: Steve Beresford

Number 034 on the list and released in 1980 on the Piano Records label. While Steve is primarily known for free improvisation, he has also written music for film and TV and has been involved with a number of pop music groups, the most well known of which would probably be the Flying Lizards of Summertime Blues and Money fame from back around 1980.

He has released more records than you can shake a stick at in his lifetime!

Answer: Capiscum Red

Number 052 on the list and released in 1972. "Appunti per un idea fissa" ("Notes For A Fixed Idea") was the only album ever released by Italian Progressive Rock band Capiscum Red. It was originally released in Italy on the Bla Bla label and reissued (with bonus tracks) in 2000 on the Vinyl Magic label.

Answer: Companyia Electrica Dharma

Number 65 on the list and released in 1975. Companyia Electrica Dharma are a band from Catalan. The band consisted of mostly of brothers. And a cousin named Mike Love. (Ok. I'm just messing with you there. Mike Love is the idiot child member of the Beach Boys (he would be the "A" part of an RCA) and he has nothing to do with this band.)

In any case the germs of the band formed in 1967 where they started out as a (mostly) cover band. The rise in folk music caused a changed in musical direction and in the name of the band. They also started to sing in the Catalan language. They eventually actually had atop selling record in Catalan. Ok... admittedly you only had to sell 30000 copies of an album in Catalan to be "massively successful" but still... not a bad achievement by anybody's standards. More name changes ensued and eventually they toured the USA, Europe etc. It would appear, based on the info I can find, that they still exist and play in one form or another.

Answer: Good Missionaries

Number 113 on the list and released on the Bradford Fun City label in 1979. The Good Missionaries were the seriously avant garde offshoot of punk band Alternative TV (perhaps my personal favorite UK punk band ever. In the very least Top Three), fronted by noted record collector Mark Perry. To quote the journalist Paul Morley: "Perry has cheerfully and naively disregarded the slightest imitation of rock 'n' pop frameworks and become totally intrigued by noise, space and improvisation". Which sums them up pretty much perfectly. Do NOT assume that you will "like" the Good Missionaries if you loved ATV.

They are a whole different ball of spiders altogether, musically speaking.

Answer: Horrific Child

Number 132 on the list and released on the French Eurodisc label in 1976. My personal favorite band name on the list ;-). Horrific Child were a project of Dr. J. P. Massiera, who is mostly known for his Maledictus Sound album. Originating from France the Horrific Child album was marketed as a psychological experience rather than a pop record!

Answer: Alvin Lucier

Number 157 on the list and released on the Italian Cramps label as part of their exceptional Nova Musicha series in 1976. Ok I gotta be honest here: it is impossible for me to write anything about Alvin without a personal viewpoint. This guy is one of my idols. In 1983 a friend and I spent a few hours on the phone with him doing an interview (published word for word in the ONLY ever February 1983 issue of the fanzine "The Industrial Elitist Songbook" (you can see the cover of it on the 'Notes From The Underground' website) and we also met him at a Cal Arts "new music" festival later that year. What a NICE man.

Born May 14, 1931 Alvin creates music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. While I do not know if this is still the case (I would imagine he has retired from teaching by now however) he was a professor at music professor at Wesleyan University starting in 1972. If you have a LOT of patience and like interesting sound (and interesting sound concepts) I implore you: check out any of his various releases.

Answer: Moolah

Number 174 on the list and released in the USA in 1974 on the Atman Music & recordings label (reissued in 2013). Self-described as "...a cosmic rock relaxation creation to elevate sensory awareness to include the aura of intuitive perception of higher realm of human/divine consciousness using the astral body projection experience vehicle to pierce time/space/logic dimension barriers on the return voyage to the ultimate concept".

The band consisted of Walter Burns and Maurice Roberson. I have seen this album described as one of the most blatantly "krautrock" sounding records to ever originate in the USA.

Answer: Nihilist Spasm Band

Number 189 on the list and released in 1968 on the Canadian Allied Record Corporation label. This record... can you imagine Harry Partch taking some really bad crystal meth and running amok in a punk club? You can? Good. These Canadians built their own instruments, and wrote 'songs' (better said: improvised songs on which little or no attempt was made for the instruments to be in tune with each other or to play along with each other in any sort of cohesive fashion) with lyrics that often had a rather hostile world view. I urge you to try and find their song 'Stupidity' online somewhere and give it a listen for a perfect condensation of where these guys were at. You would be surprised at how many records there are by these guys!

Answer: Orchid Spangiafora

Number 197 on the list and released in 1979 on Twin/Tone (I kid you not!). This work of genius was recently reissued as a (once again now out of print) two lp set with bonus material. Which is especially great as most of us who loved the original have been dying for more of this. As far as the Twin Tone pressing: "This LP sold 724 copies before being deleted".

OS was/is the brainchild of Robert Carey. But know that writer genius and general wise-ass Byron Coley is said to have had involvement with this outfit and this record. For many people that alone would be enough of a recommendation right there! I am trying really hard how to describe this record. It would loosely fall into the "spoken word' category. "Spoken Word' if you have Tourette's syndrome and a huge vocabulary, imagination, a reel to reel recorder and an editing setup at your disposal. The best way I can describe this album is: it is a LOT of fun to listen to. And "fun" is a word that rarely pops up when one is speaking of "the Difficult Music". Steve Stapleton owes a good portion of Nurse With Wound's career to these guys, sonically speaking.

Answer: Ron 'Pate's Debonairs

Number 226 on the list and originally released in 1977 on the Say Day-Bew Records label. Ron 'Pate's Debonairs, AKA Raudelunas. AKA God knows what else. It has since been reissued a number of times. Perhaps it is most readily available as a cd - which includes the equally great "Fred Lane/Ron 'Pate's Debonairs ý- From The One That Cut You" as a bonus album - on the US Shimmy Disc label (but probably currently out of print there as well) but as I said: this is probably your best bet at finding a copy currently.

This wonderful bit of silliness is another one of those rare "fun" listens. More like a seriously demented swing or lounge music album at times.

Answer: Catherine Ribeiro & Alpes

Number 218 on the list and released in 1970 on the French Philips label. Another artist that I absolutely love. Catherine was born in 1941 in France. She began her career as an actress. She met Patrice Moullet during the filming of Jean-Luc Godard's film "Les Carabiniers" in 1963 and in 1967 he suggested to her that he would compose music to which she could use her poems as the lyrics. Together they formed the band 2 Bis, who were soon renamed Alpes.

If you are a fan of Mama Bea Tekielski, Brigitte Fontaine or Nico chances are pretty good you'll love Catherine as well (there is a great recent cd box set reissue of her key albums that can usually be found relatively cheap online. It's a great starting point). Not quite folk rock, not quite prog rock, Definitely original.

Answer: Smegma

Number 241 on the list and released on the LAFMS label in 1979. Ahhhh... Finally. We reach a recording from the legendary Los Angeles Free Music Society collective (still going strong btw - there was a tour of Europe featuring Smegma that wrapped up in mid 2016). Described as "structureless improvisatory meandering drug haze induced jazz rock" (some people might use that to describe a good portion of LAFMS bands in general! Although across the board LAFMS bands are a little bit more interesting than that description might lead a casual observer to assume).

In any case Smegma started in Pasadena, CA (home of LAFMS) in 1973. Richard Meltzer was a vocalist in the band briefly in the late 1990s. The band has issued a ton of recordings, some of which are collaborations with other bands such as Merzbow, Wild Man Fischer and Wolf Eyes. And like I said: still going strong almost 45 years later!

Answer: Tamia

This final selection is Number 253 on the list. It was issued in France on the T Records Label in 1981. Tamia Valmont was born in France on July 29, 1947. From the album's notes: "The first version of "senza tempo" has been created in concert for the 1979 Autumn Festival in Paris.

This record has been realised exclusively with successive recordings of Tamia's voice on a 16 track-tape recorder. The voice has not been submitted to any technical effect. This album has been recorded in October 1981 in Paris at the Studio Acousti by Alain Cluzeau". Generally speaking a good sonic point of compare might be (pre ECM Records) Meredith Monk.