Jody Harris

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Jody Harris is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer who was a central figure in the influential No Wave scene in New York City. One esteemed critic described Harris as a "seasoned campaigner from the late-70's flowering of American postpunk" ([1]), while another called him "one of the most underrated guitarists" on the New York scene ([2]). He was a key member of a number of bands that sprang from the seminal No Wave movement, including the Contortions, the Raybeats, and the Golden Palominos. He has also recorded as a solo artist and with guitarist Robert Quine. In 1977, he joined Quine in a band backing rock critic Lester Bangs on Bangs' Let It Blurt album, produced by John Cale. ([3]) Harris also was briefly a member of the Voidoids and has played on many recordings by a wide range of artists, including Matthew Sweet, Syd Straw, Kip Hanrahan and John Zorn.

With Quine, he composed all the music on their collaborative album, Escape, as well as co-writing virtually all the Raybeats' material. He also composed all the songs and instrumentals on his one solo album, except for one song co-written with Don Christensen. As part of Anton Fier's supergroup the Golden Palominos, he co-wrote the majority of the songs on their acclaimed second album, Visions of Excess.

Robert Palmer, writing in the New York Times in 1987, praised "the luminous clarity" of Harris's lead guitar work for the Golden Palominos([4]), while the Village Voice's Robert Christgau obliquely criticized what he called Harris's "weakness for the genre exercise" in his solo work ([5]). Quine himself called Harris "tragically underrated -- he's so far advanced, way past me and people can't hear it" [6].

1 Discography
2 External links

[edit] Discography

[edit] The Contortions

No New York (Antilles Records 1978)
Buy the Contortions (1979)
Paris 1980 Live Aux Bains Douches (1980)
Live in New York (1981)
NY No Wave (ZE Records 2003)

[edit] The Raybeats

Start Swimming (Stiff Records 1981)
Roping Wild Bears (Don't Fall Off the Mountain Records 1981)
Guitar Beat (Don't Fall Off the Mountain Records \ PVC/Jem 1981)
It's Only A Movie! (Shanachie Records 1983)
Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era - 1976-1996 (Rhino 2005)