The Nihilist Spasm Band (NSB) is a Canadian

noise band Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibratio ...

formed in 1965 in

London, Ontario London is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River (Ontario), Thames River and N ...

. The term " spasm band" refers to a band that uses homemade instruments. Most of the NSB's instruments are modifications of other instruments, or wholly invented by the members. In addition to the homemade instruments, members are encouraged to improvise. The range of the improvisation is such that instruments are not tuned to each other, tempos and time signatures are not imposed, and the members push the ranges of their instrumentation by engaging in constant innovation and ever-increasing volume over the course of a performance. The band was founded by Hugh McIntyre, John Clement, John Boyle, Bill Exley, Murray Favro, Archie Leitch, Art Pratten, and Greg Curnoe. Leitch has since retired, Curnoe was struck and killed by a pickup truck while cycling in 1992. Aya Ohnishi (a Japanese fan who organized NSB tours of Japan) joined the band on drums starting in 1999. McIntyre died of heart failure in 2004. The band members are mostly local artists from the London area.

History

The Nihilist Spasm Band was formed in 1965, bringing together a group of individuals who frequented Greg Curnoe's art studio on King Street in London. The band secured a Monday night residency at the York Hotel, performing as a noise experiment in exchange for free drinks. That residency eventually moved to another bar (Victoria Tavern) and later, the band was given a permanent space at the Forest City Gallery (opened in 1973). The band played the Gallery regularly for years thereafter. Regular jam sessions would also take a place at No Haven, a cottage owned by Curnoe in

Grand Bend Grand Bend is a community located on the shores of Lake Huron in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is part of the Municipality of Lambton Shores in Lambton County. History In the 1830s a group of English and Scottish settlers bought lots from ...

, Ontario. The band also represented Canada at the 1969 edition of Biennale de Paris, performing at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris. The Nihilist Spasm Band has performed in France on several occasions, in addition to shows in England, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic and two different tours of Japan (1996 and 2016). Recordings from the second NSB tour of Japan were released on compact disc by Alchemy Records. The Nihilist Spasm Band celebrated its 50th anniversary of live performance in 2015. It marked the occasion with a series of live appearances with American jazz musician

Joe McPhee Joe McPhee (born November 3, 1939) is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who plays the tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, the trumpet, the flugelhorn and the valve trombone. Although born in Miami, Florida, McPhee grew up in Poughkeepsie, ...

in London,

Guelph Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as The Royal City, it is roughly east of Kitchener, Ontario, Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Ontario Highway 6, ...

and

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Influence and legacy

The Nihilist Spasm Band were one of the artists named on the Nurse with Wound list. They have also been cited as an influence on

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth were an American rock band formed in New York City in 1981. Founding members Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar), Thurston Moore (lead guitar, vocals) and Lee Ranaldo (rhythm guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of ...

Negativland Negativland is an American experimental music band that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. The core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills (aka "The Weatherman"), Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker (aka "Wobbly" ...

and

Einstürzende Neubauten (, 'Collapsing New Buildings') is a German experimental music group, formed in West Berlin in 1980. The band currently comprises founding members Blixa Bargeld (lead vocals, guitar, keyboard) and N.U. Unruh (custom-made instruments, percussion, ...

. The Nihilist Spasm Band opened for Sonic Youth at the

Kool Haus The Guvernment, formerly known as RPM, was a nightclub complex in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was also the name of one of the two main performance venues within the complex. The other venue was Kool Haus (formerly The Warehouse). Other smaller ro ...

in Toronto in 2002. Sonic Youth's

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter best known as a member of the rock band Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running ...

also played with NSB at the Forest City Gallery in 1998. This performance can be found on the ''No Music Box'' CD collection from

Forced Exposure ''Forced Exposure'' was an independent music magazine founded by Jimmy Johnson and Katie The Kleening Lady (Goldman) (zine). It was published sporadically out of Boston from 1982 to 1993, edited by Jimmy Johnson and Byron Coley. It was printed o ...

. In 2004, members of

R.E.M. (band) R.E.M. was an American alternative rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first ...

jammed with NSB members at the London's Dissent club. R.E.M. was visiting London to perform at the John Labatt Centre. Best-selling author

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is a Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published eight books. He is also the host of the podcast ''Revisionist ...

was taught and inspired by NSB vocalist Bill Exley at Elmira District Secondary School, where Exley worked for many years as a teacher. Zev Asher's documentary film ''What About Me: The Rise of The Nihilist Spasm Band'' premiered at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

in 2000. Drawing from the inspiration of finding a copy of the Nihilist Spasm Band's first L.P. ''No Canada'' in the pile of 1970's ephemera in his family's basement; the documentary explores the legacy of the NSB as Canadian noise music pioneers. The Nihilist Spasm Band were inducted into the London Music Hall of Fame in 2003, alongside

Helix (band) Helix is a Canadian hard rock and Heavy metal music, heavy metal band. They formed in 1974, and are best known for their 1984 single "Rock You". The history of the band has been marked by many lineup changes, with Brian Vollmer being the sole c ...

, The Demics and several other artists.

Discography

* ''The Sweetest Country This Side of Heaven'' (vinyl single, 1967; reissued on CD, 1996), Arts Canada * ''No Record'' (vinyl LP, 1968; reissued on CD, 1996; reissued on vinyl, 2000), Allied Record Corporation * ''Vol. 2'' (vinyl LP, 1979; reissued on CD, 1996), Music Gallery Editions * ''1984'' (audiocassette, 1984; reissued on CD, 1999), Chimik Communications * ''¬x~x=x'' (vinyl lp, 1985; reissued on CD, 1996),

United Dairies United Dairies was a United Kingdom-based creamery, milk bottling and distribution company. The company was formed in 1915 and merged to form Unigate in 1959. During World War I, there were dire shortages of men, horses and vehicles commande ...

Records * ''What About Me'' (CD, 1992), Alchemy Records * ''Live in Japan'' (CD, 1997), Alchemy Records * ''Every Monday Night'' (CD, 1999), Alchemy Records * ''No Borders'' with Joe McPhee (2xCD, 2001), Non Musica Rex * ''NSB Live at Western Front'' (CD, 2006), NSB * ''No Nihilist Spasm Band in Mulhouse'' (vinyl LP, 2007), Les Mondes Mental * ''No Borders to No Borders'' with Reynols (CD, 2007),

Disques Hushush Disques Hushush Inc. (also known as Disques Hushush or more simply as Hushush) is an independent record label created by Dimitri della Faille (aka recording artist Szkieve) in Montreal (Quebec), Canada in 1998 in music, 1998. Hushush mainly releas ...

* ''Live In Geneve, Switzerland October 2006'' with Fossils (cassette, 2007), Wintage Records & Tapes * ''theBESTweCANdo'' (best-of compilation) (CD, 2008), NSB * ''Nothing is Forever'' (LP, 2013), Wintage Records & Tapes, WRT-99 * ''Breaking Wind'' (LP, 2013), Rekem Records, Rekem 04 * ''No Record'' (vinyl LP re-re-release, 2014), Pacemaker Entertainment, Ltd., LION LP-136 * ''Fluxus'' (vinyl Split-LP with

Kommissar Hjuler Kommissar Hjuler (born Detlev Hjuler; 1967) works as a sound recordist in the field of Noise (music), Noise and Post-industrial music, visual artist, film maker and police officer at Flensburg, a town on the German border with Denmark. He often work ...

, 2015), Psych. kg * ''Last Concert in Japan'' (CD, 2016), Alchemy Records, TECH-24486

Appears on

* ''No Music Box'' — No Music Festival 1998 (6-CD box set, 1998), Entartete Kunst Recordings * ''no99'' — No Music Festival 1999 (5-CD box set, 1999), Entartete Kunst Recordings * ''No Nothing'' — No Music Festival (6-CD box set, 2000), Non Musica Rex

Members

*John Clement –

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

*John Boyle –

kazoo The kazoo is a musical instrument that adds a ''buzzing'' timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. It is a type of '' mirliton'' (itself a membranophone), one of a class of instruments that modify the player's v ...

thumb piano Mbira ( ; ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and ...

, drums *Bill Exley –

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

, cooking pot * Murray Favro – guitar *Art Pratten – "pratt-a-various," water-pipe

Guest performers

*Aya Onishi – drums, kazoo, "constant guest performer" since 1999 *Owen Curnoe - Drums *Mark Favro - Casio keyboard *Galen Curnoe - guitar *Tim Glasgow

Previous members

*Hugh McIntyre – bass guitar (1965–2004) *Archie Leitch – slide clarinet (1965–?) * Greg Curnoe – kazoo, drums (1965–92)

References

External links

20centsMUSIC — Record label of the Nihilist Spasm Band

Official Nihilist Spasm Band website
* Nihilist Spasm Band allmusic entry {{DEFAULTSORT:Nihilist Spasm Band Musical groups established in 1965 Musical groups from London, Ontario Canadian experimental musical groups Canadian free improvisation ensembles Canadian art rock groups Canadian noise musical groups 1965 establishments in Ontario