leonard Nimoy
In hindsight, & in the best underground tradition, leonard Nimoy advanced a range of political viewpoints, related to the making & the performance of rock music, initiated by the earlier TMA-1. These not only included obvious issues of noise versus melody or improvisation versus structure (where the Nimoy always took a distinctly ambivalent middle course) - but also a whole raft of other issues surrounding both audience & industry expectations of what rock music was supposed to do & how it was to be promoted & presented. As far as this latter area was concerned, leonard Nimoy stressed band democracy (everyone wrote lyrics, got to scream into microphones & play guitar) & independence (their best music was self-recorded & released). Not surprisingly, in the New Zealand context, these principles ensured that the 4-piece never achieved more (in a material sense) than a modest, albeit enthusiastic, cult following.
To further complicate matters, leonard Nimoy existed in a near continuous state of evolution during their 3 year existence. In a very real sense the band was always a project in search of itself. Not until early 1996 did the Nimoy adopt their most familiar & notorious form - a back to basics drum machine/guitar noise band, enlivened by acoustic skin & metal percussion & intent on the creation of the most brutal & dirgy music possible.
Sitting uneasily between rock excess & high-art minimalism the group deliberately sacrificed structure & melody in favour of percussive & rhythmic slabs of noise by which musical conventions were reduced to a kind of industrial wreckage. At times leonard Nimoy took themselves far too seriously - but theirs was a loud & original music performed with passion, intensity & integrity. We could all do with a little more of that!
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Text by David
Khan. Web-building by Ed Wilson. No apologies for disinformation.
August 2004