Jon Waine Afro Nu-Wave Band (1975–1983)

Press Release

In the McPhee, Corbett vs. Dempsey presents Jon Waine Afro Nu-Wave Band (1975–1983), an exhibition of historical ephemera and musical instruments.

In mid-seventies New Jersey, two college students discovered a common passion for music, in particular that of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Sun Ra. Working first as an experimental duo, Bill Pope and Brian McCormack began to make their own sounds, using drum machines and analog synthesizers, making tape collages, reciting found poetry and singing their own songs, which began to resemble a repertoire. They started performing at local colleges and more adventurous Jersey clubs under the name Jon Waine. In 1980, McCormack and Pope met drummer Franc Palaia. With Palaia on drum-kit and their filmmaker friend Ellen La Forge on electric bass, McCormack and Pope.L (as he would soon call himself) on guitar and vocals, respectively, they started working as a full unit. As a band, Jon Waine played even more extensively, performing up and down the New Jersey/New York club scene, including CBGB's, Maxwell's, The Dirt Club, Danceteria, Kenny's Castaways, Club Mod, and R.T. Firefly. In 1983, just before disbanding, Jon Waine released its only record, a self-produced flexidisc including two of their most beloved live songs, "Do The Tic" and "Boogie Down the Congo."

The music of Jon Waine was funky, punkish, and deeply political, with some of Pope.L's earliest explorations of the problematics of race in America, as on songs like "Some Fresh White Boy" and "Second Skin." Pope.L's work in Jon Waine was largely unknown to his artworld peers; likewise, strangely, his mounting national and international success as an artist was barely registered by his bandmates. This exhibition unearths a formative part of Pope.L's artistic output, with previously unseen photographs, flyers, lyric sheets in Pope.L's hand, McCormack's Ibanez guitar, Palaia's hand-painted tom-tom, and the amplifier and speakers used in rehearsal, each component stenciled JON WAINE.

Jon Waine Afro Nu-Wave Band (1975–1983) accompanies the Pope.L exhibition No Thing Skin Sets, as well as The Lawnmower Video, which is screening in The Vault, all part of a complete Pope.L takeover of CvsD. In conjunction with the show, the gallery announces the release of Second Skin (1975–1983), a two-CD set of Jon Waine's music, with one disc devoted to the Pope.L/McCormack duo, the other given over to the band, recorded live, in rehearsal, and in the studio. This is the first comprehensive survey of Jon Waine's music and a major revelation of an important, unrecognized moment in Pope.L's artistic development.

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