No New York

Downtown NYC of the mid-1970s and early 80s was the perfect landscape for reinvention. If the Lost Generation writers telegraphed the death of the American dream, the No Wave era, led by artists including Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Nan Goldin, Sonic Youth and the Contortions, challenged that dream by howling "NO" while creating a counterculture that brought punk, rock, jazz, funk, the art world, hip hop, and outlaw literature together into an international explosion of creativity. Why was this scene so compelling, and remains so today? What set this confluence of time, place, and people apart from the rest? The answer, in a word: women. Women, resisting stereotypes. Reinventing themselves according to their individual artistic visions.


Adele Bertei was a pivotal figure in the No Wave movement. She was an original member of the Contortions and Brian Eno's fascination with the band resulted in the seminal No New York record, released in 1978. NO NEW YORK: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene will provide an uncompromising testimony to the first significant, international movement of women artists creating work on an equal footing with the men, the fruits of which were some of the most striking and unique of this era.