Got a band? Want to join the NeMocore?
First thing you need to do is kill your drummer. Whack the singer, too. Get rid of all your songs. You won’t need them. And cancel practice. In fact, if you want to be NeMo, forget everything you know about music, rock n roll, noise, electronica, punk rock, whatever. NeMo is the soundtrack for the real 2001, the year HAL takes over our bank accounts and trades our balls to the aliens for a peek behind the Wizard’s curtain. Confused? Let me back up a bit. NeMo, which stands for Neo-Modern, emerged from New York City’s dirty old Canal Street in the late 1990’s as a reaction to the putrid alternative-rock driven airways of America and the homogenized techno-spew from across the Atlantic known as “electronica.” Conflicting accounts abound, but my sources tell me that the first ever NeMo gig took place at Jimbo’s Pad, a Canal Street practice space and flophouse for New York’s deranged electric elite. One summer night a few years back, the bored musicians hanging out at the Pad plugged in and began playing the collection of vintage synths, stomp boxes, and guitars that Jimbo keeps on hand. What happened next was straight from Hammer of the Gods: the room just exploded. It was magic. They recorded the whole mess, snapped a few Polaroids, and called it Zaubermittel. They never performed again. But this simple gathering spawned a whole nasty NeMo army: My Fork, Turbulance (and Turbulence), Bus, The Dolmen, 3-Way Split, and the current kings of neo-noise: FOOT. Foot is something of a NeMo supergroup, incorporating mega-producer Don Fleming, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, and the Pad’s namesake Jim Dunbar (formerly of DC glam-punk luminaries She).
NeMos tend to prefer older, analog gear run through mounds of stomp boxes. Jimbo explains, “I play the CAT synth (mid-70’s analog synthesizer) live at gigs because it gives me a lot of options for one box. But when we’re jamming at Jimbo’s Pad I play all sorts of instruments. A new piece I recently picked up that I will add to the live rig is a Moogerfooger ring modulator. This little box rules. I’m too lazy to bring all my shit with me. I’m also wary: I fell down some stairs moving my gear after a gig and busted out three teeth and took 20 stitches. A while back Foot did a gig with MSBR and Government Alpha. They can put all their gear into one carry-on bag. I’d like to go in that direction— just a bunch of little boxes that you can take anywhere. No more having to borrow a car just to move all our shit to a gig and no more falling down the stairs.”
Foot’s live shows are legendary for their intensity and implosive unpredictability. Dunbar describes a recent Foot performance with To Live and Die in L.A. at the Cooler in New York: “When we went on we were joined by Bebe Buell (70’s Playmate and rock chick extraordinaire) who wailed á la Yoko for about 5 minutes and then split ‘cause the band was freaking her out too much. She told me the next day that she went home and hid under the covers of her bed until the Zoloft kicked in. We soldiered on without her and at a certain point I tried to get audience members to join us on stage. As I walked to the edge of the stage and tried to motion people to join us they just backed away from me like I was holding some big old bloody carving knife. One kid did sit on the end of the stage and noodled with Don’s Arp. He sent me an e-mail later saying that he has founded the first NeMocore band in Philly. The rat bastard played my Cat for a minute but it was way too intense for him to hang. We pretty much cleared the club and my ears were ringing for a couple of days after the fact.”

Most NeMo sessions are quickly arranged and furiously performed, and everything is taped. For a while, the recordings were available on cassette through the NeMo website (www.malco.net/NeMocore) but they sold out quickly and the catalog was closed. Shortly after that, FOOT cut a deal with Dave Barker’s God Bless Records in England and released their eponymous CD to the unsuspecting public. “The Wire” magazine described the CD as “eerie swooping sounds that suggest that the musicians are being mobbed by a flock of cybernetic seagulls which they attempt to drive off with water-cooled high speed drills.” The three cacophonous tunes on this disc churn, yearn, and howl ... and they stand up to many listenings before revealing the subtle layers of beauty behind those screaming Arps and Cats. Fleming also recorded a NeMo effort called JoJo ASSERUnne, which is bit more melodic but equally as intense (and just as NeMo) as the Foot release. Both CDs were issued by the now defunct God Bless, but are again available through Don’s Instant Mayhem Records (www.instantmayhem.com), where you can also find MP3s and RealAudio soundbites of NeMocore.
About those drums: why none? According to Dunbar, “you put a drummer in a jam situation and they try to force everybody to play the blues. It goes back to this notion of time: that there must be a beginning, middle and end to a piece of music, that music is for dancing, etc. We reject these tribalistic assumptions. A ‘rhythm’ does develop between the players, but it comes naturally; never forced. Drum loops are even more fucked than a live drummer because there is never any human variation to the beat. That’s the main thing about NeMocore: no beats. Or as I like to say, ‘beets are for making borscht’.”
NeMos are also known for their anti music-establishment stance. On their web site (www.malco.net/NeMocore) you’ll find a document called “The NeMo Manifesto” that declares:
“The vegetating music press, record labels and show-biz scum act as snares for youth and art alike. These hotbeds of impotence, illustrious deficients, perpetuate traditionalism and combat any effort to widen the musical field. The result is prudent repression and restriction of any free and daring tendency; constant mortification of impetuous intelligence; unconditioned propping-up of imitative and incestuous mediocrity; prostitution of the great glories of the music of the past, used as insidious arms of offence against budding talent.”
The newest development in the NeMocore movement is their record label NeMolodia. The label has already reissued the FOOT and JoJo ASSRUnne CDs, as mentioned earlier, but the most exciting item in the catalog is the NeMolodia sampler called This is NeMocore. The disc is your best bet for getting a taste of their neo-modern electronic gruel. Twelve NeMocore groups are seamlessly merged into one 41:14 minute cut that brings the sound of NeMo right into your Bose clock radio. The release is currently available through Fleming’s Instant Mayhem website. When asked about the bands on the sampler, Fleming said that “all of the bands are the result of spontaneous recording sessions. Some people appear in several bands, while others only appear once. Foot is the only band so far that has played outside of Jimbo’s Pad.”
NeMocore has been compared to the 60’s Fluxus movement (see www.fluxus.org), pioneered by Beck’s grandfather Al Hansen. I asked Foot’s Thurston Moore to tell us a little about Fluxus and it’s kinship to NeMocore:
“Look in the mirror, smash it with yr fist, paint yr eyebrows with chocolate, pick up the mirror shards. Put each one in an envelope and send them all to Mariah Carey with a return address of Suzy Quatro. This is Fluxus activity — actually it’s not but that’s what makes it Fluxus? Did? Me neither. Fluxus was an anti-art(ist) pronouncement instigated by Lithuanian Trotskyite momma’s-boy 60’s genius funnyman/impossible person George Maciunas who created texts, actions, tours, ideas along w/ like-minded and other-worldly individuals like Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins, Emmett Williams, Jonas Mekas et al to underscore the vapidity of ‘professional’ art and the beauty of common existence and unbounded intellectualism. FOOT is an acronym for Fluxus Oriented Oscillating Tones. We (Foot - not to be confused with the inconsequential Texas lounge band w/ like name) are New York dwellers who continue to follow the strictures of Maciunas’ Fluxus call. This was ably proven at the NYC Fluxus event of 1998 organized around Beck and his Fluxus member late grandpa Al Hansen. Only Foot was noted (in the New York Times) as being TRUE to the actions that are FLUXUS. And we continue to. We use no drums or other organic matters to present ‘music’ — we use electricity — it’s what separates us from the apes.”
Nuff said.

Foot live.

One of the newest NeMocore outfits is not from NYC at all, but is holed up in the hills of Western North Carolina. Bastard Trout have been cranking out their BBQ-flavored NeMo for over a year. The group features your humble writer as well as two local musicians, Michael Ray & Derek Warren, veterans of NC’s 1990’s grunge wars and proprietors of EarthTones Studios (named for the shade of carpet found in the abandoned farm house used as their first practice space). The Trout ventured out of their mountain digs last June to headline Washington, DC’s NeMoFest ‘99, an event organized by Vinnie Van Go-Gogh of Rake, Northern Virginia’s czars of world skronk. Vinnie is also credited with creating the NeMo Oath, which can be found on his website at www.oastem.com/NeMo/NeMo.html. “I drew upon the ideals set forth in the manifestos of Russian Futurism, and tailored them to the world of NeMo,” explains Vinnie. “NeMoFest ‘99 was a showcase of DC/NC talent that proved to be a strong testament to the health of NeMocore in the Nation’s Capitol Capt. SKB! [from Rake/Doldrums] was the first act to play that evening. His electro-Indian guitar stylings and electronic loops were sell-suited to the event, despite his “unofficial” alliance with the NeMo movement. Bastard Trout’s two-and-a-half hour performance sent the crowd into a deep trance of sonic bliss. Unexpectedly, the reactions to NeMoFest ‘99 were so positive and enthusiastic that it struck even me by surprise.”
Back in New York, I asked Jimbo about the current state of NeMo. “The movement is gaining strength,” sez Jim. “More and more musicians are discovering the pure joy that is music without syncopation.” Fleming went on to say that “we have a lot of the original [Jimbo’s Pad] sessions that we want to add to the releases. Most of the bands that appear on the NeMocore sampler have full length CDs ready to go; we also have two sessions yet to be mixed that includes Jim O’Rourke and DJ Olive. Upcoming sessions are never planned, but there are several contenders. There has been a groundswell of new NeMo influenced bands from other cities that have been contacting us and sending us their music. We welcome them all and plan on creating more networking with said bands.”
In closing, I asked Jimbo, “if you want to start your own NeMo band, are there any guidelines or restrictions? Do I need to be sanctioned by the NeMocore or can I just go it on my own?”
“Do it on your own.” answered Dunbar. “Just don’t let anyone play the drums. If you feel the need to be sanctioned, just send me 20 bucks and I’ll make it official.”n

RESOURCES:
NeMocore home page:
www.malco.net/nemocore
Jimbo’s Pad:
www.jimbospad.com
Instant Mayhem:
www.instantmayhem.com
Bastard Trout:
www.malco.net/bastardtrout/

Bastard Trout flyer