"There is no such thing as New Wave"
Posted: Thu May 13, 2004 6:53 am<a href="http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Punk/pdraw4.htm" target="new">Claude Bessey</a>, aka Kickboy Face, a writer at Slash magazine during the early punk days <a href="http://www.ericactive.com/tunes/new_wave_doesnt_mean_shit.ram">said something funny about the term New Wave</a> in the 1981 film <em>The Decline of Western Civilization</em>. (Requires Real Audio and the last word is cut off because this is from a radio promo we used to play on college radio.)<br>
If you can't hear it, here's a transcription:<br> "I have excellent news for the world. There's no such thing as New Wave. It does not exist. It's a figment of lame kinds of imagination. There was never any such thing as New Wave. It was the polite thing to say when you were trying to explain you were not into the boring old rock 'n roll but you didn't dare to say punk because you were afraid to get kicked out of the party and they wouldn't give you coke any more. There's New Music, there's New Underground Sound, there's Noise, there's Punk, there's Power Pop, there's Ska, there's Rockabilly, but New Wave doesn't mean shit."
If you can't hear it, here's a transcription:<br> "I have excellent news for the world. There's no such thing as New Wave. It does not exist. It's a figment of lame kinds of imagination. There was never any such thing as New Wave. It was the polite thing to say when you were trying to explain you were not into the boring old rock 'n roll but you didn't dare to say punk because you were afraid to get kicked out of the party and they wouldn't give you coke any more. There's New Music, there's New Underground Sound, there's Noise, there's Punk, there's Power Pop, there's Ska, there's Rockabilly, but New Wave doesn't mean shit."