Jody Harris

Jody Harris is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer who was born in Kansas^[1] and became a central figure in the seminal no wave scene in New York City in the 1970s.

Career history[edit]

Harris was lead guitarist in the Contortions, an influential No Wave band. He was also a key member of a number of bands that emerged from the no wave scene, including the Raybeats and the Golden Palominos.

Harris has also recorded as a solo artist and with guitarist Robert Quine. In 1977, he joined Quine in a band backing rock critic Lester Bangs on Bangs' 7" single, Let It Blurt, produced by John Cale.^[2] He was also briefly a member of the Voidoids and played on many recordings by a wide range of artists, including Matthew Sweet, Syd Straw, Kip Hanrahan and John Zorn.

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'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[edit]

One esteemed critic described Harris as a "seasoned campaigner from the late-1970s flowering of American postpunk",^[3] while another called him "one of the most underrated guitarists" on the New York scene.^[4]

Robert Palmer, writing in The New York Times in 1987, praised "the luminous clarity" of Harris's lead guitar work for the Golden Palominos,^[3] while the Village Voice's Robert Christgau obliquely criticized what he called a "weakness for the genre exercise".^[5] Quine himself, however, declared Harris's work "tragically underrated -- he's so far advanced, way past me and people can't hear it".^[6]

Discography[edit]

The Contortions[edit]

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

The Raybeats[edit]

• 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 2005)

Solo[edit]

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

Jody Harris & Robert Quine[edit]

• Escape (Infidelity \ Lust/Unlust Music 1981)
• Come Together: Guitar Tribute to the Beatles, Vol. 2 (NYC 1995) (compilation)

The Golden Palominos[edit]

• Visions of Excess (Celluloid 1985)
• Blast of Silence (Celluloid 1986)

Richard Hell and the Voidoids[edit]

• Funhunt (ROIR / Important 1989)

Other artists[edit]

• Let It Blurt - Lester Bangs (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 - John Zorn (Nonesuch 1986)
• Inside - Matthew Sweet (Columbia 1986)
• Surprise - Syd Straw (1989)
• What Baby? - Canine Tricycle Bereavement (1990)
• The Trouble Tree - Freedy Johnston (Bar/None 1990)
• Music for Films (Tzadik)

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Jody Harris-penned tribute to Robert Quine in Perfect Sound Forever, May 2007
• Interview with Dusted webzine