Thurston Moore’s and Byron Coley’s photo history No Wave: Post-Punk, Underground, New York, 1976-1980 has a black-and-white-and-puke-green color scheme, which feels appropriate: The movement’s music was designed to be both stark and a little stomach-turning. Playing the role of Lower East Side oral historians, the Sonic Youth guitarist and longtime music journalist interview the scene’s prime movers, including James Chance, Lydia Lunch, Rhys Chatham, and, most provocatively, Brian Eno. Glenn Branca vents about No New York, an Eno-produced compilation that spawned jealousy among those not included (”what [Eno] did destroyed No Wave,” he says). But Eno wasn’t wrong to call it “one of those sort of flames that burns very brightly for a short time and then goes out,” and the dozens of photos included capture evidence of the fire: a chainsaw taken to a guitar, a scrum between Chance and critic Robert Christgau, and lots of empty lofts and rooftops reclaimed for art’s sake. Moore and Coley discuss and sign copies of their work at 4 p.m. at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Free, (202) 364-1919; at 7 p.m. at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th St. NW, $22, (202) 639-1770. —Mark Athitakis

(Also, see our interview with Marc Masters, local author of his own No Wave book, which was published earlier this year.)

Konono No. 1–everyone’s favorite African tranced-out dance band–are clearing the way for a new act to follow in the Congotronics brand. A third volume of Congotronics! Just got the press release from Motormouth media:

Hey Folks,

I’m honored to announce the next (and most exhilarating!) Congotronics release since Konono No 1 hit the map. Volume 3 features the Kasai Allstars and it’s out at the end of September….Real excited for people to hear this…

Think Africa!

If you feel like thinking Africa right now, read what we had to say about the band’s second volume. Or just buy this.

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Congrats to the Web site Fuse for the clever idea of celebrating July Fourth by setting up musical slapfights between acts from each of the 50 states. Did you know that Idaho has bands? It’s true!

The fine folks at Fuse forgot about D.C., though, denying locals the opportunity to choose between, say, Duke Ellington and Wale. Picking up the slack, the Boston Phoenix is attempting to start a Fugazi-vs.-Marvin Gaye-vs. Orthrelm battle. (Via)

Showing the grasp of the youth market that’s always been the musical-instrument industry’s forte, Fender announced yesterday that it will be issuing a Billy Corgan guitar. For our younger readers, Billy Corgan was the singer and songwriter of a band called the Smashing Pumpkins, who were popular until he went steampunk and made an album about a musician named Glass who talked to God and whose fans were called the Ghost Children. Then he was in a band called Zwan that definitely did not have God’s ear and began acting ever more strangely, to the point where even Homer Simpson might have taken back his praise for Corgan in the Simpsons‘ “Homerpalooza” episode: “You know, my kids think you’re the greatest. And thanks to your gloomy music, they’ve finally stopped dreaming of a future I can’t possibly provide.”

But now those of us who are as old as me (and, ahem, saw the Pumpkins play at Twisters in Richmond, Va., in 1991 (cough! wheeze!) can give our kids Billy Corgan guitars and say, Hey, here’s the tool of my generation, Generation X! And here’s his guitar!

(press release after the jump)
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OK. Late last week, Slate published a piece on African-American rappers and musicians obsessed with Space. Author Jonah Weiner begins in the late ’20s and carries on to Sun Ra, P-Funk’s Mothership, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West. In other words, all the usual far-out notes were hit.

I’m wondering what are the great songs about space? Who would be considered the Neil Armstrong of the genre?

George Clinton gets my vote.

Sasha Frere-Jones notes the laying off of a music reporter at the Times. He makes the argument that music reporters are almost more necessary these days than music critics–the business is free fallin’ (ugh–a Petty joke), bands are coming up with new ways to earn a living, no one can figure out how to get a kid to buy an album anymore, etc.

You can read his take here.

Jim Spellman, former drummer for Velocity Girl and current member of Julie Ocean, is now a producer for CNN. Recently, Spellman volunteered to be Tasered for a piece on non-lethal weapons. His take? It “hurt like the dickens.”

Thanks to a tip from a smart reader, we checked into the Bo Diddley-lived-here thesis. It’s true. Diddley lived at 2614 Rhode Island Avenue NE in the ’60s. [OK--the reader had all the facts completely correct]. He talks about living here in a Washington Post feature published in 2006:

Diddley lived here from 1959 to 1966, building a studio in the basement of his house at 2614 Rhode Island Ave. NE, where he recorded 1960’s classic Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger album.

“I just wanted to be in Washington, D.C., around the Howard Theater,” Diddley explains. “I did everything from D.C. At that time, I was driving all the time — I didn’t start flying until 1968 — and it was close to New York and the South.”

I checked with The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. The address has not been registered as a historic landmark. I will have more in a bit.

Update 10 a.m. June 4: The 2614 Rhode Island Avenue NE property is not listed as a landmark or part of a historic district, according to Kim Williams, the national register coordinator with the D.C. Historic Preservation Office. She goes on to say no application has been filed on behalf of that property in the last seven years. She’s “almost 100 percent sure” there has never been a landmark application submitted.

“If there are preservation organizations or neighborhood groups that are interested in having it designated, we will consider it,” Williams says.

In Sunday’s Washington Post, Jason Cherkis checks in again with Jack Carneal, the Malian music enthusiast and label owner of Baltimore’s Yaala Yaala.

Cherkis and I tackled Carneal’s first trio of recordings almost a year ago in City Paper (“Griot Grand” and “Interview with Jack Carneal”).

Now Carneal’s got a fourth Yaala Yaala disc, a self-titled release from Yoro Sidibe, a Malian hunter and musician who is “around 70.” The album came out last week.

According to Drag City, the Chicago label that distributes Yaala Yaala, “the grooves are as uplifting as any pep talk could be. They’re low and hypnotic — and after an hour of them shaking and rattling, you too will be loose and ready for what may.”

Given that there’s no music on Yaala Yaala’s MySpace page, we’ll just have to take their word for it.

A friend just pointed out this post from Jessica Hopper’s blog, in which the blacklist-happy music writer goes after Chicago black-metal band Nachtmystium. The problem? Well, Hopper thinks they’re racist and homophobic.

Now, I loved Nachtmystium’s last album from 2006, an arty slab of psychedelic metal called Instinct: Decay. But I don’t go around doing due diligence on every band I like, so I’d never read any interviews in which frontman Blake Judd uses questionable language, or expresses questionable ideas.

But I decided to Google Nachtmystium and “Zionist conspiracy” and got nothing but Hopper’s blog. (Googling “Nachtmystium” and “Zionist” gets you here.) I didn’t bother with the f-word, because it seems clear enough that the guy is upset with message board lurkers, not, um, gay people.

Now, I’m not going to condone what Judd said, but, if Hopper’s going to call out poor Stephin Merritt for not liking rap, then perhaps she will understand that–as Faulkner once said about the South–some of us like despite, not because of.