[rating=9.00]
Picture this: you’re hanging in a dingy barroom somewhere in the East Village – maybe it’s CBGB – in the late 70s. Outside the Bowery bums are splayed across the sidewalk and the streets are filthy. Inside, you’re surrounded by a crowd that consists of a who’s who in the downtown club community. Alex Chilton, Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, and critic and sometimes musician Lester Bangs come and go. Can you imagine the electricity (and probably the drugs) in the air?
This scene was the context for what was one of the first American indie labels to showcase punk rock: Ork Records. The label’s archives are the subject of the beautiful new box set from the documentarians at Numero Group. Spanning 4 LPs and a 120-page booklet loaded with photos and stories, Ork Records: New York, New York hones in on a particular time in music when a Jewish kid who went by the name Terry Ork, who had no background in music, happened upon a scene, felt that something magical was taking place, and took a chance on the musicians he met. The curly-haired eccentric was no stranger to scenes, having spent the previous handful of years entrenched with Andy Warhol’s The Factory, among other endeavors. Though movies had always been his bag, a chance meeting with a young Richard Hell opened the door to the numerous bands that lurked around the lower East Side. Ork Records was born in 1975 and would serve as a predecessor for not just the movement that would spawn acts like Television, Blondie, the Talking Heads, and Patti Smith, but for the DIY indie rock ethos that would dominate the hippest areas of the music industry over the next few decades.
Partially due to a lack of funds and partially due to having little access to music industry resources, Ork Records only put out 13 releases in its four-year history, but considering that the first single it dropped was Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel”, the label’s legacy was made. These 13 releases, including material from the likes of a post-Big Star Alex Chilton, Prix, Chris Stamey & the dBs, Richard Hell, and others are included in the box set. There are also loads of other unreleased tunes from acts like the Feelies and Cheetah Chrome, among others. None of the songs included in the set are simple enough to lump into the “punk” or “new wave” categories, which may be one reason why this assortment is so interesting, at least historically speaking. The binding thread between them all is the crusty, jagged, in-the-moment nature of the recordings. You can practically smell the cigarette smoke and stale beer filling the room as these musicians plugged in with minimal technical oversight and simply captured the brilliant madness that was swirling around them.
Amidst what one can only imagine was a bit of a drugged out haze come 49 songs that play like a wet dream for anyone who’s ever desperately wished they could go back to the dirty streets and clubs of lower Manhattan in the late Seventies. Many names would be placed upon the styles of music that would evolve out of the Ork Records scene but, simply put, this is rock and roll in one of its realest forms. It’s that music you hear in a dark club and the rawness of it all completely engulfs you, filling every crevice of your being with abrasive yet glorious noise. Most importantly, Ork Records: New York, New York is a reminder that music wasn’t always so clean cut and that there was a time when people did what they wanted just because they were swept up in the energy of what was happening around them and not for financial incentive or to look cool on social media. For this reason, Numero Group’s latest release should be required listening (and reading) for any aspiring musician looking to make a mark with a few songs and scrappy band.
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