Jody Harris is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer who was born in Kansas and became a central figure in the seminal

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 ...

scene in

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 ...

in the 1970s.

Career history

Harris was lead guitarist in the Contortions, an influential

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 ...

band. He was also a key member of a number of bands that emerged from the

scene, including the Raybeats and the Golden Palominos. Harris has also recorded as a solo artist and with guitarist

Robert Quine Robert Wolfe Quine (December 30, 1942 – May 31, 2004) was an American guitarist. A native of Akron, Ohio, Quine worked with a wide range of musicians, though he himself remained relatively unknown. Critic Mark Deming wrote that "Quine's eclect ...

. In 1977, he joined Quine in a band backing rock critic

Lester Bangs Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist and critic. He wrote for ''Creem'' and ''Rolling Stone'' magazines and was also a performing musician. The music critic Jim DeRogatis called ...

on Bangs' 7" single, ''Let It Blurt'', produced by

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 ...

. He was also briefly a member of the Voidoids and played on many recordings by a wide range of artists, including

Matthew Sweet Sidney Matthew Sweet (born October 6, 1964) is an American alternative rock/power pop singer-songwriter and musician who was part of the burgeoning music scene in Athens, Georgia, during the 1980s before gaining commercial success in the 1990 ...

, Syd Straw, Kip Hanrahan and

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conducting, conductor, saxophonist, arrangement, arranger and record producer, producer who "deliberately resists category". His Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimental music, ex ...

. With Quine, he composed all the music on their collaborative album, ''Escape'', as well as co-writing virtually all the Raybeats' material. He also composed all the songs and instrumentals on his one solo album, except for one song co-written with Don Christensen. As part of

Anton Fier John Anton Fier III (June 20, 1956 – September 14, 2022) was an American drummer, producer, composer, and bandleader. He led The Golden Palominos, an experimental rock group active from 1981 to 2010. Family Fier, known as Tony, was born in Cl ...

's supergroup the Golden Palominos, he co-wrote the majority of the songs on the band's acclaimed second album, '' Visions of Excess''.

Critical appraisals

One critic described Harris as a "seasoned campaigner from the late-1970s flowering of American postpunk",''New York Times''
Apr. 15, 1987 while another called him "one of the most underrated guitarists" on the New York scene. Robert Palmer, writing in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' in 1987, praised "the luminous clarity" of Harris's lead guitar work for the Golden Palominos, while the Village Voice's

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

obliquely criticized what he called a "weakness for the genre exercise". Quine himself, however, declared Harris's work "tragically underrated -- he's so far advanced, way past me and people can't hear it".''Perfect Sound Forever''
Nov. 1997

Discography

The Contortions

* ''

No New York ''No New York'' is a no wave compilation album released in 1978 by record label Antilles under the curation of producer Brian Eno. Although it only contains songs by four different artists, it has been considered important in defining and docu ...

'' (

Antilles The Antilles is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and east. The Antillean islands are divided into two smaller groupings: the Greater An ...

1978) * '' Buy'' (1979) * ''Paris 1980 Live Aux Bains Douches'' (1980) * ''Live in New York'' (1981) * ''NY No Wave'' ( ZE 2003)

The Raybeats

* ''Start Swimming'' ( Stiff 1981) (live compilation) * ''Roping Wild Bears'' (Don't Fall Off the Mountain 1981) * '' Guitar Beat'' (PVC/Passport 1981) * ''It's Only A Movie!'' ( Shanachie 1983) * '' Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era, 1976-1995'' (

Rhino A rhinoceros ( ; ; ; : rhinoceros or rhinoceroses), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant taxon, extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyls) in the family (biology), famil ...

2005)

Solo

* ''It Happened One Night'' (Press 1982) * ''"Mr Control"'' ( Tellus #1) (1983)

Jody Harris & Robert Quine

* '' Escape'' (Infidelity \ Lust/Unlust Music 1981) * ''Come Together: Guitar Tribute to the

Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

, Vol. 2'' (NYC 1995) (compilation)

The Golden Palominos

* '' Visions of Excess'' (

Celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common present-day ...

1985) * ''Blast of Silence'' (Celluloid 1986)

Richard Hell and the Voidoids

* ''Funhunt'' ( ROIR / Important 1989)

Other artists

* ''Let It Blurt'' -

(SPY 1977) * '' Off White'' - James White & The Blacks (ZE 1979) * '' Press Color'' - '' Lizzy Mercier Descloux'' (ZE 1979) * ''Stop Vicious Cycles'' - Jill Kroesen (Vital 1982) * ''Desire Develops an Edge'' - Kip Hanrahan (American Clavé) * ''

The Big Gundown ''The Big Gundown'' () is a 1967 spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Sollima, and starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian. It was followed by Run, Man, Run in 1968. Plot Possessing a reputation for bringing criminals to justice, ready-to- ...

'' -

( Nonesuch 1986) * ''

Inside Inside may refer to: Film * ''Inside'' (1996 film), an American television film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Eric Stoltz * ''Inside'' (2002 film), a Canadian prison drama film * ''Inside'' (2006 film), an American thriller film starri ...

'' -

( Columbia 1986) * ''Surprise'' - Syd Straw (1989) * ''What Baby?'' - Canine Tricycle Bereavement (1990) * ''The Trouble Tree'' - Freedy Johnston ( Bar/None 1990) * ''Music for Films'' (

Tzadik Tzadik ( ''ṣaddīq'' , "righteous ne; also ''zadik'' or ''sadiq''; pl. ''tzadikim'' ''ṣadīqīm'') is a title in Judaism given to people considered righteous, such as biblical figures and later spiritual masters. The root of the word ...

)

References

External links

Jody Harris-penned tribute to Robert Quine in Perfect Sound Forever
May 2007
Interview with Dusted webzine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Jody Living people No wave musicians American punk rock guitarists American rock guitarists American male guitarists American session musicians The Golden Palominos members Richard Hell and the Voidoids members Year of birth missing (living people) Raybeats members James Chance and the Contortions members