Bay of Pigs – Addiction / Aliens

Bay of Pigs – Addiction // Aliens (Subterranean Records) 1980. Another great 7inch from the post-punk paradise that was San Francisco circa 1980. At the risk of sounding wildly off base, let me state that this single by Bay of Pigs is probably one of the more “No-Wave” sounding releases from the whole Bay Area scene. By that I mean that Addiction resembles James Chance. Now, I personally don’t think of No Wave as a genre of music. It kinda annoys me when bands describe themselves as No-Wave. It’s like describing yourself as a Fauvist. Please. No-Wave was an artistic movement from a certain time and place, namely Manhattan circa 1978-79. And with the fluid bass-lines, rubbery guitars and jittery David Byrne vocals, Bay of Pigs almost sound like a New York act. That’s what I am getting at. Calling them No-Wave would be ignorant and ill-informed. Mentioning that they sound “No-Wave” is far more socially acceptable. It’s all Semantics y’see. Bring me to your next sweater party and I’ll wow the crowd with my command of Semantics. Anyhoo, Aliens gives up the ghost that yes, Bay of Pigs was indeed a San Francisco act. The allusions to beat poetry and Henry Miller are a dead giveaway. I don’t know what it was with the bands from that scene but many of them (The Longshoremen, Inflatable Boy Clams and Ultrasheen for instance), often added a smoky, Film Noir, beat club style poetry to their skronk that would have seemed out of place in the Lower East Side artistic nihilism of No-Wave. Well except for Queen of Siam by Lydia Lunch which was steeped in Beat Noir imagery and sound. OK. So my theory doesn’t amount to shit. Its late on a Sunday night and I just finished a glass of Jameson. Now is clearly not the time.