Photo by Makoto Lida
The year 1982 was a renaissance year for electronic music—particularly in New York, where hip-hop shifted from its “dip dip dive†disco-raps into the Afrofuturism of electro. “Planet Rock†hid its inspiration in plain sight, but beyond simply a desire to rework Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa’s main inspiration for making the record came from his experience DJing to the downtown crowds of New York’s post-punk scene at Mudd Club and Negril, where he’d been fusing B-boy breaks with the punk-funk and mutant disco records that sprang up in the wake of the city’s no wave movement.
Later that year, a New York four-piece armed with a bank of synths released their debut album on Factory Records. Ike Yard played with an instrumental palette similar to “Planet Rockâ€; like Bambaataa, who loved Gary Numan and Human League, their major inspiration came from England. “The UK post-punk thing was kind of signified by having a keyboard or a synthesizer in the group,†recalls Ike Yard’s drummer/vocalist Stuart Argabright, who cites Ultravox and Joy Division as key influences on the group’s sound.
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Argabright grew up listening to hard rockers like UFO and Nazareth before forming his punk band, The Rudéments, in D.C. He arrived in New York in the spring of ‘78 and, inspired by the burgeoning no wave scene, started a trio called Futants, which prominently featured keyboardist Martin Fischer leading a frenetic sound that the late Glenn O’Brien described in a live review as “a danceable brand of quick rock with a state-of-the-art tone, and interesting groove laminations.†O’Brien also singles out Stuart as “a precision drummer with software accessories,†a sentiment echoed by another recent New York émigré, Michael Diekmann. “I was lucky because I saw the Futants a couple of times,†he says, “they were extraordinary. Stuart was an amazing drummer.â€
Primarily a guitarist, Diekmann began dabbling with synths in the early ‘70s while studying at Rhode Island School Of Design, where he started a Stockhausen-esque “tape project†with analog enthusiast Fred Szymanski. Can, Cluster, and Weather Report were all early influences before he heard the Ralf & Florian album at a party in Providence in ‘73; “It was quirky and weird, but that became Kraftwerk.â€
Relocating to New York in ‘79, Diekmann’s band Moon Maid & The Theories Of Exchange played a single gig in the city before splitting up, but he chose to stick around and seek out like-minded musicians. Soon, he was introduced to Argabright, who’d planted the seeds of a new band with bassist Ken Compton; Diekmann suggested they bring in his old friend Szymanski, too. “He has an incredible EMS synth,†he told his new bandmates, “and I’m sure it’ll add to it.†Szymanski was in, and Ike Yard was born in the summer of 1980. Stuart, who’s currently piecing together scattered memories for a book he’s writing, vividly remembers the first time they jammed. “We were all looking around at each other and thinking, ‘hmm, something just happened,’†he says. Diekmann confirms, recalling: “That first rehearsal just blew me away!â€
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Ike Yard rented a room in the Music Building, a maze of ratty rehearsal spaces on the West side of Manhattan, frequented at the time by the likes of Circus Mort, The Senders, and most notably Madonna, who was Compton’s girlfriend at the time. Argabright recalls a jam session where “we were making fun of disco music,†he laughs, “and I started to sing ‘EVERYBODY… EVERYBODY… EVERYBODY GET ON DOWN!’ And after we reformed in 2006, Ken told us the story of how Madonna was [outside the door], listening to us jamming.†Argabright seems more amused than put out when noting that he may have inspired Madonna’s debut single “Everybodyâ€â€”another electronic watershed moment for NYC in ‘82—“Great title, I have to say,†he says, adding with a wry chuckle, “Madonna, you’ve gotta give me a call!â€
Ike Yard’s early setup was still fairly traditional—drums, bass, guitar, and a synth—“but we always aimed for the edges, we never made a straight 4/4 beat,†insists Argabright, citing the multilateral grooves of Miles Davis albums like On The Corner as a blueprint. That sound caught the ears of no wave forefathers Suicide, who became friends and mentors and gave the group some of their earliest live shows.
This first iteration of Ike Yard recorded their debut EP, Night After Night, for Belgian label Les Disques Du Crépuscule in 1981. Five tracks of spacious post-punk with flourishes of dissonant noise were laid down at Sorcerer Sound on Mercer Street, where the band’s fellow no wave offspring Liquid Liquid, Y-Pants, and The Del-Byzanteens had also recently made records. Soon, more machinery was added to their setup, with Argabright bashing brake drums and industrial percussion over their now-integral drum machine. “After we did the Crépuscule record, Fred got a little money,†Argabright recalls, “and we overhauled the equipment to the point where Fred became the drum programmer, he became the Korg controller.â€
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In November 1981, the band were booked for what should’ve been a dream gig opening for New Order, who were in New York to promote their album Movement. “It was a little bit of an awkward show,†Diekmann explains. “[Crépuscule label boss] Michel Duval was there with us, and he says, ‘Don’t go on yet, the sound man hates you!’†Perhaps he was stumped by a support band playing predominantly electronic gear; the resulting sound was a mess, the drum machine rendered inaudible. They had no choice but to fall back on earlier material with Argabright on drums—but even then, they were struggling to hear anything. “I started to do a vocal on a song, and I was like, ‘What the fuck? I’ve got no vocal here!’†Argabright exclaimed. Suddenly, a familiar face appeared at the mixing desk: New Order’s bassist Peter Hook took over mixing duties, and the gig was saved.
Technical mishaps didn’t deter Factory Records, who released Ike Yard’s eponymous album the following year. A huge technological leap from the previous EP, this was an almost entirely electronic offering with synths stuttering over polyrhythmic drum machines. Only snatches of agitated vocals and a simmering sense of menace remained. 1982 should’ve been Ike Yard’s year, but the album came and went, and, as Argabright recalls, “we never heard from Factory again.†The band split up soon after when Argabright moved to West Berlin. Aside from their brace of releases, they left behind a bundle of unreleased tracks recorded in early ‘82, when they were first coming to grips with their new electronic setup.
It was Madonna who suggested they record at Gotham Studio, upstairs at the Music Building. So the band lugged their gear into the freight elevator and plugged it straight into the desk. “We were lucky,†Diekmann reflects, “because at that point, all four of us were playing synths, we could run it all through a mixing board.†Stuart adds, “So, we’d just go in and set up and play live to stereo tape, and that’s the 1982 album.â€
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On paper, a long-lost LP recorded live in the studio might sound like little more than a curio for die-hard fans; but in practice, 1982 is possibly Ike Yard’s most accomplished work, bridging the gap between their no wave(ish) debut EP and the spacious electronics of the Factory album.
By 1983 Ike Yard was no more—but their story doesn’t end there. Argabright had made a demo during his stint in West Berlin, and returned to New York with the seed of an electro-funk song he recorded with Peter Baumann from Tangerine Dream, which would eventually become “The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight.†While Argabright was reworking it at Unique Studio in NYC, Arthur Baker, the chief architect of “Planet Rock,†passed by the control room; “Dominatrix†caught his ear. “He was like, ‘Hey, what’s that? What’s that music!?’†Argabright remembers. “We told him what it was, and we ended up being on Streetwise Records.â€
“Dominatrix†is a much floatier affair than Argabright’s previous projects, with shimmering synth bells bouncing over an impossibly infectious electro groove. It led to live performances in clubs like Funhouse, where another of Madonna’s former boyfriends, Jellybean, held court on the decks. The song crossed the already blurry lines between B-boys, Latin freestyle, and queer clubs. It should’ve been a pop hit. But radio wasn’t ready for the overtly sexual themes, and MTV balked at the video—directed by no wave filmmaker Beth B—which featured Argabright and Co. in fur and leathers, writhing around on hotrods, bashing anvils, and reveling in gleeful degeneracy.
And so, by 1985, it was time for Argabright to move on again. “I always get impatient in my groups,†he admits. “Having a hit record is a bit like you have to have all the bases loaded and then crack that bat. Because if there’s even one missing factor, it won’t be a hit.†Reconnecting with Diekmann, their new group side-stepped any anxieties about producing hit records, instead diving head-first into a pool of murky noise and thundering beats. It was hip-hop in the broadest sense of the term, but as Argabright puts it, “the music was really about shattering it and ripping it apart.â€
Inspired by Tackhead, who’d risen from the ashes of Sugar Hill’s studio band, and using Run DMC’s “Sucker MCs†as a springboard, Argabright and Diekmann’s Death Comet Crew explored the spot where hip-hop’s sonic bricolage intersected with avant-garde composers like Stockhausen and Stravinsky. Argabright even likens the raw boom-bap of the drum machine in “Sucker MCs†to Iannis Xenakis’s technique of bashing rocks and metal to make music.
Queens native Rammellzee had been prolific on the hip-hop scene for some years, pushing the limits of graffiti art, and appearing on the mic in Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style (1982). It was a chance meeting with Argabright in a gallery in West Berlin that led Rammellzee to join Death Comet Crew, lending his idiosyncratic flow to their debut single “At The Marble Bar.†That song is almost a dancefloor-friendly party track; it’s on the B-Side, “Exterior Street,†where we feel the Crew’s full sonic attack. Rammellzee takes us on a lyrical trip across 125th Street before barking party rhymes through a barrage of found sounds and gunshots, the groove held together by Shinichi Shimokawa’s funky bass guitar. It’s as cinematic as its title might suggest.
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Inevitably, Death Comet Crew soon fell by the wayside too, and Diekmann headed down an alt-rock path with his band Propeller, while Argabright launched an industrial project called Black Rain. Both featured their Death Comet collaborator Shinichi Shimokawa, and both acts carried on well into the ‘90s. Then, in 2001, a couple of tracks by Ike Yard and Death Comet Crew cropped up on Gomma Records’s Anti NY compilation, which almost single-handedly sparked a new interest in the (post-) no wave scene at the turn of the ‘80s. Soul Jazz followed with their New York Noise series—Argabright compiled Volume 3—introducing Ike Yard and DCC to a hungry new audience. Soon Argabright and Diekmann reformed both bands, producing two new Ike Yard albums, and a fresh Death Comet Crew LP released in tribute to Rammellzee, who died in 2010.
Following the recent release of Ike Yard’s long-lost album 1982 on the Dark Entries label, the duo are currently lining up an assortment of tracks they’ve unearthed, with a compilation of Diekmann’s Propeller songs from ‘87 to 1990 on its way, and a collection of soundtrack material in the works which will open with Argabright’s ill-fated “Dr Doom†from Nicolas Roeg’s 1985 film Insignificance. Perhaps there’s hope—however unlikely it may seem—that a copy of the Futants demo might rise from the ashes, too.
