Boris Policeband (a.k.a. Policeband & a.k.a. Boris Pearlman a.k.a. Mark Perelman) was a

no wave No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...

noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound. Noise music include ...

performer who used dissonant violin, police radio transmissions, and voice. Boris Pearlman was a classically trained

violist The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the v ...

from

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Life and work

Boris Pearlman joined proto

band Jack Ruby in 1973 playing

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

"electrified...by running it through an FM transmitter and a bunch police walkie-talkies that he strapped around his waist.".

Randy Cohen Randy Cohen is an American writer and humorist known as the author of The Ethicist column in ''The New York Times Magazine'' between 1999 and 2011. The column was syndicated throughout the U.S. and Canada. Cohen is also known as the author of ...

was also in the group.

George Scott III George Scott III (October 16, 1953 - August 5, 1980) was a bass player for several New York City bands during the No Wave era. He was a founding member of 8-Eyed Spy and the Raybeats, and he worked with James Chance and the Contortions, James ...

who later played with

Lydia Lunch Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch; June 2, 1959)Martin Charles Strong. ''The Great Indie Discography''. 2003, page 85 is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker. Her career began during the 1970s New York City no ...

James Chance James Chance, also known as James White (born James Siegfried, April 20, 1953 – June 18, 2024), was an American saxophonist, keyboard player, and singer. A key figure in no wave, Chance played a combination of improvisational jazz-like musi ...

and

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, dr ...

(among others) joined in 1975, they broke up in 1977. He became known as Boris Policeband after a live performance in 1976 during which he monitored, on headphones, police communications from a scanner and recited their chatter while he accompanied himself on

electric violin An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fi ...

. Boris was fascinated by cop culture and the often prosaic and sometimes poetic reality of law enforcement chatter. Over the years the cop-talk and violin-screech coalesced into discrete songs that at times recalls the

dissonant In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unple ...

violin playing of the

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

artist

Henry Flynt Henry Flynt (born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is an American philosopher, musician, writer, activist, and artist connected to the 1960s New York avant-garde. He coined the term "concept art" in the early 1960s, during which time he was ...

. In 1978

Sylvère Lotringer Sylvère Lotringer (15 October 1938 – 8 November 2021) was a French-born literary critic and cultural theorist. Initially based in New York City, he later lived in Los Angeles and Baja California, Mexico.Hultkrans, Andrew"Bookforum talks with ...

conducted a one-page interview with Policeband (with a one-page photo) in

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

department publication of

Semiotext(e) Semiotext(e) is an independent publisher of critical theory, fiction, philosophy, art criticism, activist texts and non-fiction. History Founded in 1974, ''Semiotext(e)'' began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Syl ...

called ''Schizo-Culture: The Event, The Book''. In 1979 Boris Policeband released a 7" recording called: Policeband: ''Stereo / Mono'' that was produced by artist

Dike Blair Dike Blair (born 1952) is a New York-based artist, writer and teacher.Princenthal, Nancy. "Dike Blair," ''Art in America'', May 2002, p. 148–9.Rian, Jeff. "Dike Blair, New York, New York," ''Apartamento'', 2011, p. 194–207. His art consists ...

. He also appears with two tracks on the

recording ''New York Noise Vol. 3'' that was released in 2006. His live

performances were extremely loud/edgy aggressive/dissonant, and even though most songs were under a minute long and a set rarely exceeded 10 minutes, Boris could quickly empty a room. That was something he took

pride Pride is a human Emotion, secondary emotion characterized by a sense of satisfaction with one's Identity (philosophy), identity, performance, or accomplishments. It is often considered the opposite of shame or of humility and, depending on conte ...

in. He appears in the film that

Coleen Fitzgibbon Coleen Fitzgibbon (born 1950) is an American experimental film artist associated with Collaborative Projects, Inc. (a.k.a. Colab). She worked under the pseudonym Colen Fitzgibbon between the years 1973–1980. Career history Fitzgibbon was a stu ...

and

Alan W. Moore Alan W. Moore (born 1951, in Chicago) is an art historian and activist whose work addresses cultural economies and groups and the politics of collectivity. After a stint as an art critic, Moore made video art and installation art from the mid-1970s ...

created in 1978 (finished in 2009) of a no wave concert to benefit

Colab Colab is the commonly used abbreviation of the New York City artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. History Colab members came together as a collective in ...

called ''X Magazine Benefit'' that documents a performance of Boris Policeband, along with those of

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

and

James Chance and the Contortions James Chance and the Contortions (initially known simply as Contortions, a spin-off group is called James White and the Blacks) was a musical group led by saxophonist and vocalist James Chance, formed in 1977. They were a central act of New York ...

. Shot in black and white

super-8 Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format. The formal name for Super 8 is 8-mm Type S, distinguishing it from the ...

the film captures the gritty look and sound of the music scene during that era. In 2013 it was exhibited at

Salon 94 Salon 94 is a New York-based contemporary art gallery owned by Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn. History East 94th Street The gallery opened in 2003 in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood on New York City’s Upper East Side as an integral part of Jeanne ...

, an art gallery in New York City. Boris, a self-proclaimed materialistic-

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

who practiced

antidisestablishmentarianism Antidisestablishmentarianism (, ) is a position that advocates that a state church (the "established church") should continue to receive government patronage, rather than be disestablished (i.e., be separated from the state). In 19th centur ...

, was a downtown

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...

club fixture. His days were spent combing through

SoHo SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

art galleries, as he was fascinated with conceptual art, and

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

pawnshop A pawnbroker is an individual that offers secured loans to people, with items of personal property used as collateral. A pawnbrokering business is called a pawnshop, and while many items can be pawned, pawnshops typically accept jewelry, ...

s for material to add to his collection of used books, sunglasses (which he was never seen without), and wristwatches. Every night he was in

clubs, like

CBGBs CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in the East Village in Manhattan, New York City. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for ''Country, Bluegrass, Blues ...

, Tier 3 and the

Mudd Club The Mudd Club was a nightclub located at 77 White Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It operated from 1978 to 1983 as a venue for post punk underground music and no wave counterculture events. It was opened ...

, where he leaned against a wall while listening to

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

with an

ear plug An earplug is a device that is inserted in the ear canal to protect the user's ears from loud noises, intrusion of water, foreign bodies, dust or excessive wind. Earplugs may be used as well to improve sleep quality or focus in noisy environments ...

on his

transistor radio A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Previous portable radios used vacuum tubes, which were bulky, fragile, had a limited lifetime, consumed excessive power and required large heavy batteri ...

while engaging in snappy

repartee Wit is a form of intelligent humour—the ability to say or write things that are clever and typically funny. Someone witty, also known as a wit, is a person skilled at wit, making spontaneous one-line or single-phrase jokes. Forms of wit incl ...

and/or swapping insults with other club goers. Boris ended Policeband in the mid-80s to pursue classical

Footnotes

References

Carlo McCormick Carlo McCormick is an American culture critic and curator living in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, monographs and catalogues on contemporary art and artists. Pedagogic and art writing activities McCormick was Senior Editor ...

, ''The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984'', Princeton University Press, 2006 *Masters, Marc. ''No Wave'', London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007 *

& David Morris (Eds), ''Schizo-Culture: The Event, The Book'',

, 1978, re-published in 2013, pp. 64–64

External links

"X-Magazine Benefit." A film by Coleen Fitzgibbon and Alan W. Moore 1978/2009, video, 11 minutes."Colab's X Magazine Benefit" documents the punk rock performances ofDNA, James Chance and the Contortions, and Boris Policeband

Life and work

Footnotes

References

External links

See also