WA.C. Temple were an alternative rock band from Sheffield, England, formed in 1985. They released four albums before splitting up in 1991.
WThe Afghan Whigs are an American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Originally active from 1986 to 2001, they have since reformed. The group – with core members Greg Dulli, Rick McCollum, and John Curley (bass) – rose up around the grunge movement, evolving from a garage band in the vein of the Replacements to incorporate more R&B and soul influences into their sound and image. After releasing their first album independently in 1988, the band signed to the Seattle-based label Sub Pop. They released their major-label debut and fourth album, Gentlemen, in 1993. Pitchfork described them as "one of the few alt-bands to flourish on a major label" in the 1990s.
WBand of Susans was an American alternative rock band formed in New York City in 1986 and active until 1996. It originally consisted of Robert Poss (guitar/vocals), Susan Stenger (bass/vocals), Ron Spitzer (drums), with Susan Lyall (guitar), Susan Tallman (guitar), and Alva Rogers (vocals). The band would undergo several permutations over the years, usually involving three guitarists. Poss, Stenger, and Spitzer were the band's core members throughout its duration. They originated in the New York noise rock scene, but due to their layered guitar sound were sometimes seen as the American counterparts to the UK shoegazing bands and also drew influence from modern experimental composers Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca.
WBeme Seed was a New York based psychedelic noise rock band led by Kathleen Lynch, known for her collaboration with the Butthole Surfers. The band utilized guitar feedback and chanting to invoke a droning atmosphere in their music described as "panic inducing", and "supernatural". Trouser Press said of the band: "Lacking the minimal organization of even the Sun City Girls, Beme Seed captures unique psychic qualities on its three opaque and unsettling records." The demise of Beme Seed in 1992 can be seen as marking the transition from the "underground music" of the 1980s to the "alternative rock" of the early 1990s.
WBig Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band's initial lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Jeff Pezzati, both of Naked Raygun. In 1985, Pezzati was replaced by Dave Riley, who played on Big Black's two full-length studio albums, Atomizer (1986) and Songs About Fucking (1987).
WBig Stick is an American pop/rock/art-rock/punk/industrial band/duo formed in New York in 1985 by John Gill and Yanna Trance. Known mostly for their unconventional approach to songwriting and recording, Big Stick's music varies and jumps through different genres and categories. Big Stick achieved domestic and foreign cult status with their rock-punk-pop debut release, the Drag Racing EP in 1986. It was instantly recognizable for Yanna Trance's catchy voice repeatedly speaking the line "In the summer I wear my tube top, and Eddie takes me to the dragstrip" throughout the track. It was one of the 142 singles in BBC DJ John Peel's Record Box that he'd picked to leave behind in case of a fire. "Drag Racing" was later featured in the "John Peel's Record Box" BBC TV production and aired in conjunction with the UK Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame awards. Artist extraordinaire Robert Williams also picked "Drag Racing" for his "Chrome, Smoke & Fire" Hot Rod Music Picture Disc Compilation.
WGlenn Branca was an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. Branca received a 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
WButthole Surfers is an American rock band formed in San Antonio, Texas, by singer Gibby Haynes and guitarists Paul Leary and Jonathan Grisham in 1981. The band has had numerous personnel changes, but its core lineup of Haynes, Leary, and drummer King Coffey has been consistent since 1983. Teresa Nervosa served as second drummer from 1983 to 1985, 1986 to 1989, and 2009. The band has also employed a variety of bass players, most notably Jeff Pinkus.
WMichael Chapman was an English singer-songwriter, and virtuosic guitar player. Chapman originally began playing guitar with jazz bands, mainly in his home town of Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He became well known in the folk clubs of the late 1960s, as well as on the 'progressive' music scene, and released over 50 albums.
WKevin Coyne was an English musician, singer, composer, film-maker, and a writer of lyrics, stories and poems. The "anti-star" was born in Derby, Derbyshire, England, and died in his adopted home of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany.
WDinosaur Jr. is an American rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1984, originally simply called Dinosaur until legal issues forced a change in name.
WEarth is an American rock band based in Olympia, Washington, formed in 1989 and led by the guitarist Dylan Carlson. Earth's music is nearly all instrumental, and can be divided into two distinct stages. Their early work is characterized by distortion, droning, minimalism, and lengthy, repetitive song structures. Owing to their 1993 debut album Earth 2, Earth is recognized as a pioneer of drone metal. The band resurfaced in the early 2000s, with their later output reducing the distortion and incorporating elements of country, jazz rock, and folk.
WErase Errata was a band from San Francisco, California. They often named experimentalists such as Captain Beefheart, The Fall, and the Minutemen as inspirations. The group favored improvisation as a compositional tool and each of their performances were a unique manifestation of established songs.
WJohn Aloysius Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been enormously influential and has been described as the foundation of the genre of American primitive guitar, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate 20th-century classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian influences into his work.
WCharles Gayle is an American free jazz musician. Initially known as a saxophonist who came to prominence in the 1990s after decades of obscurity, Gayle also performs as pianist, bass clarinetist, bassist, and percussionist.
WKeiji Haino is a Japanese musician and singer-songwriter whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise music, percussion, psychedelic music, minimalism and drone music. He has been active since the 1970s and continues to record regularly and in new styles.
WHTRK is an Australian band formed in 2003.
WLiars is an Australian-American experimental rock band formed in Brooklyn, New York in 2000. Angus Andrew is the founding and only constant member of Liars, currently joined by multi-instrumentalist Cameron Deyell and drummer Laurence Pike. Aaron Hemphill played with the band from its inception until his amicable departure from the project in 2017. Julian Gross joined the band for their second album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned in 2004, and played with the band until his departure in 2014. Liars have released ten studio albums and are signed to Mute Records. They combine elements of punk-rock with electronica, with Andrew inspired by artists such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), The Cure, PJ Harvey, Underworld, The Doors and Michael Franks.
WLunachicks are an American punk rock band from New York City. The band formed in 1987 and had been on hiatus since 2000, with the band reuniting in 2019. The band cited influences including the Ramones, Kiss, and the MC5.
WThe Mekons are a British post-punk band formed in the late 1970s as an art collective. They are one of the longest-running and most prolific of the first-wave British punk rock bands.
WPan Sonic were a Finnish electronic music group founded in Turku in 1993. The group consisted of Mika Vainio, Ilpo Väisänen, and Sami Salo. Salo left in 1996 leaving Pan Sonic a duo. The group was originally named Panasonic until 1998. In December 2009, it was announced that Pan Sonic would disband after their concerts that month. Their final album, Gravitoni, was released by Blast First Petite in May 2010. Oksastus, a live album recorded in 2009, was released in 2014.
WThe Raincoats are a British experimental post-punk band. Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London.
WSonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo remained together for the entire history of the band, while Steve Shelley (drums) followed a series of short-term drummers in 1985, rounding out the core line-up. Jim O'Rourke was also a member of the band from 1999 to 2005, and Mark Ibold was a member from 2006 to 2011.
WSuicide was an American musical duo composed of vocalist Alan Vega and instrumentalist Martin Rev, intermittently active between 1970 and 2016. The group's pioneering music utilized minimalist electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers and primitive drum machines, and their early performances were confrontational and often ended in violence. They were among the first acts to use the phrase "punk music" in an advertisement for a concert in 1970.
WUt was an American band which originated from New York City's no wave scene, forming in December 1978. The inheritors of the fertile collision between rock, free jazz, and the avant-garde that first manifested itself in the Velvet Underground, Ut soon became a serious force within the New York music scene.
WAlan Bermowitz, known professionally as Alan Vega, was an American vocalist and visual artist, primarily known for his work with the electronic protopunk duo Suicide.