Naked City ================================================================================================================== Origin: New York, NY, United States Years active: 1988-1992, 2003 Genres: Avant-Garde Jazz, Grindcore/Jazzcore, Drone Ambient, Dark Ambient, Doom Sludge Metal Labels: Elektra / Nonesuch Records, Shimmy Disc, Earache Records, Avant, Toy's Factory, Tzadik Records Website: www.myspace.com/nekkedcity (fan) Members: John Zorn - Alto Saxophone, Vocals (1988–92, 2003) [Bar Kokhba, Brötzmann Clarinet Project, Buck Jam Tonic, Electric Masada, The Golden Palominos, Hemophiliac, Locus Solus, Masada, Masada String Trio, Microscopic Septet, Mystic Fugu Orches- tra, PainKiller, The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet, Weird Little Boy] Bill Frisell - Guitar (1988–92, 2003) [The Bill Frisell Band, Floratone, Ginger Baker Trio, Power Tools] Fred Frith - Bass (1988–92, 2003) [Art Bears, Death Ambient, Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, The Golden Palominos, Henry Cow, Looping Home Orchestra, Material, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, Slapp Happy And Henry Cow, Utopic Sporadic Orchestra] Joey Baron - Drums (1988–92, 2003) [Barondown, Bar Kokhba, Dave Douglas Sextet, Electric Masada, Heaven On Earth, Killer Joey, Masada, Masada Quintet feat. Joe Lovano, Miniature] Wayne Horvitz - Synthesizer, Piano (1988–92, 2003) [Butch Morris & William Parker, The Four Plus One Ensemble, Holcomb / Horvitz, Mylab, New York Composers Orchestra, Pigpen, The President, Ponga, The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet, Wayne Horvitz - Butch Morris - Robert Previte, Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet, Zony Mash, Zorn, Ho- rvitz, Sharp & Previte] Session Members: Yamatsuka (Yamataka) Eye - Vocals (1988–92) [Audio Sports, Boredoms, Destroy 2, The Hanatarash, Mystic Fugu Orchestra, Noise Ramones, Puz- zle Punks, UFO or Die, Z-Rock Hawaii] Live Members: Mike Patton - Vocals (1992, 2003) [Faith No More, Fantômas, General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners, Hemophiliac, Kaada/Patton, Lov- age, Maldoror, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom, Tomahawk, Weird Little Boy, Zorn/Douglas/Patton/Las- well/Burger/Perowsky] ================================================================================================================== Discography: ================================================================================================================== 1989 Naked City [Album] 1989 Torture Garden [Album] 1992 Grand Guignol [Album] 1992 Heretic: Jeux des Dames Cruelles [Album] 1992 Leng Tch'e [Album] 1993 Radio [Album] 1993 Absinthe [Album] 1997 Black Box: Torture Garden / Leng Tch'e [2CD Set] 2002 Naked City Live, Vol. 1: The Knitting Factory 1989 [Live Album] 2005 Naked City: The Complete Studio Recordings [5CD Box Set] ================================================================================================================== Naked City was an avant-garde music group led by saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Active primarily in New York City from 1988 to 1993, Naked City was initiated by Zorn as a "composition workshop" to test the limits of composition (and improvisation) in a traditional rock band lineup. Their music incorporated recognizable eleme- nts of jazz, surf, classical, heavy metal, grindcore, country music, punk rock and other genres. History In Naked City's characteristic early style, songs were often performed at astonishingly fast tempos, drawing heavily on thrash metal and hardcore punk's emphasis on extreme speed. Many songs were quite brief, and typica- lly switched musical genres every few measures. One critic described Naked City's music as "jump-cutting micro- collages of hardcore, country, sleazy jazz, covers of John Barry and Ornette Coleman, brief abstract tussles — a whole city crammed into two or three minute bursts." This fast-change tendency was inspired in part by Carl Stalling — a Zorn favorite — who wrote music for many Warner Brothers cartoons (featuring Road Runner, Bugs Bu- nny, Daffy Duck and others); music that featured frequent shifts in tempo, theme and style. Naked City's eponymous first album was distributed by Elektra Nonesuch and featured a famous Weegee photogr- aph (taken 1943) of a dead gangster on its cover along with macabre illustrations by Maruo Suehiro. There was disagreement between Zorn and the label over cover art on subsequent albums. Zorn wanted to use explicit S & M pictures, images from 19th century medical archives, and execution photographs, most notoriously of a Leng Tch 'e victim; Elektra Nonesuch refused. Zorn ended his relationship with Elektra, releasing subsequent Naked City albums on Shimmy Disc and his own Avant and Tzadik labels. Naked City varied their stylistic approach on later releases. The cover repertoire was expanded to include pieces from various modern classical composers such as Alexander Scriabin, Claude Debussy, Charles Ives, and Olivier Messiaen, whose works are featured on the album Grand Guignol. Leng T'che featured a single piece, over 31 minutes in length, of gruelingly slow heavy metal. Torture Garden was made up of several "hardcore miniatur- es," and Absinthe was ambient and noise textures. Naked City found perhaps their greatest following among the fans of the many death metal, metal and grindco- re bands with which they performed, such as Blind Idiot God, Napalm Death, Carcass and Live Skull. The appeara- nce of "Osaka Bondage" - taken from the album "Torture Garden" - on the Earache sampler Grindcrusher II helped this to some extent. Zorn discontinued Naked City after Absinthe when he felt "... the need to write music for other ensembles, in other contexts, with new ideas." A brief reunion occurred in 2003 for a few shows at European jazz festivals. Cinematic connections The group covered numerous film soundtrack cuts, including work by Georges Delerue. Heretic was intended as the soundtrack for a film starring Karen Finley. The tracks "Bonehead" and "Hellraiser", from the album Grand Guignol, are featured in swapped form during the opening sequence of the Michael Haneke film Funny Games and its 2008 remake. Filmmaker Henry Hills completed Heretic short film about Naked City and documented John Zorn, Christian Mar- clay and Fred Frith activities. The films were screened France in festival Vidéo Formes and by curator Jérôme Lefèvre in a program about New-York Avant-Garde in both Cinema and Music. ================================================================================================================== This is John Zorn's infamous turn-on-a-dime band. Although they can play any style of music, the majority of their songs are noisy and complex. At any moment, a beautiful melody can degenerate into a hurricane of white noise and then suddenly switch to something else. They've taken everything aggressive about jazz and heavy met- al, blended it together, and tightened it. They are disciplined players, but the music is a lot of fun. They look like a rock band: drums, electric guitar, bass, keyboards, and saxophone. On four of the albums, Yamatsuka Eye adds his unique vocals. He howls and snorts like a maniac instead of singing. It's very entertai- ning. (He is sometimes credited as "Yamataka Eye.") The band formed in 1988, playing live before they recorded their first album. They recorded their final alb- um in December of 1992. Probably Zorn's most popular and most controversial musical project, the music of Naked City has been debat- ed, analyzed, adored and reviled by fans, critics and academics alike, but nothing can replace the experience of hearing it in all its frightening glory. Most people know this music from the single domestic release on No- nesuch, but the major portion of their studio recordings were issued from 1989-1993 on the hard to find Japane- se labels Avant and Toy's Factory. The series includes an album of ambient music (Absinthe), the soundtrack for an SM film (Heretic), an album that consists of a single 30-minute track (Leng Tch'e), a live album (Knitting Factory 1989), and four albums of hardcore/jazz/rock fusion (Radio, Naked City, Grand Guignol, Torture Garden). Every member of the band has released a number of solo albums and played on other Zorn projects. ================================================================================================================== Naked City was a band of excellent N.Y.C.-based improvisers from the late '80s to 1993, led by avant-alto saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Unlike their self-titled debut and the second Avant release Grand Guignol, there are no cover tunes on this release, entitled Radio. Several genres and bands are skillfully evoked, how- ever, and helpfully listed in the liner notes in order of occurrence. Jazz, surf, R&B, death metal, funk, acid rock, and serialism are grafted together in this collection, often into the same song, and the band shifts ge- nres, tempos, and arrangements on a dime. Supposedly, Radio was conceived as a set for a college radio program, making it a kind of "Young Person's Guide to Naked City," beginning with accessible tunes, gradually building up listener tolerance to dissonance, and finally sandbagging the listener with evil blasts of dissonant metallic noise and convincing perpetrator- and-victim screaming. Zorn gives ace guitarist Bill Frisell and versatile keyboardist Wayne Horvitz the space to shine on this collection, and both more than meet the challenges of these pieces. Avant-garde guitarist Fred Frith takes a supporting role in the band, supplying an in-the-pocket bass that keeps the funkier tracks cooking, and the depth and range of his playing on these tunes is a consistent pleasure. Master drummer Joey Baron alternates restraint and abandon, keeping solid time on the jazz tunes, throwing tasty fills into the funk, and laying down a muscular, punishing thrash on the metal sections. Zorn himself does a fair amount of his balloon-animal-twisting squeals and sustained shrieking blasts, but he does vary the palette. Listed also as a full band member on Radio (but not performing on every piece) is Japanese noisecore /funk screamer Yamatsuka Eye of the Boredoms (now going by Yamataka Eye). His babbling, howling, choking, and flat-out screams of terror take many of the metal performances well over the top.