Jon Waine Afro Nu-Wave Band (1975–1983)

In the McPhee, Corbett vs. Dempsey presents _Jon Waine Afro Nu-Wave Band (1975–1983)_, an exhibition of historical ephemera and musical instruments. In mid-seventies New Jersey, two college students discovered a common passion for music, in particular that of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Sun Ra. Working first as an experimental duo, Bill Pope and Brian McCormack began to make their own sounds, using drum machines and analog synthesizers, making tape collages, reciting found poetry and singing their own songs, which developed into a repertoire. They started performing at local colleges and more adventurous Jersey clubs under the name Jon Waine. In 1980, McCormack and Pope met drummer Franc Palaia. With Palaia on drum-kit and their filmmaker friend Ellen La Forge on electric bass, McCormack and Pope.L (as he would soon call himself) on guitar and vocals, respectively, they started working as a full unit. As a band, Jon Waine played even more extensively, performing up and down the New Jersey/New York club scene, including CBGB's, Maxwell's, The Dirt Club, Danceteria, Kenny's Castaways, Club Mod, and R.T. Firefly. In 1983, just before disbanding, Jon Waine released its only record, a self-produced flexidisc including two of their most beloved live songs, "Do The Tic" and "Boogie Down the Congo." The music of Jon Waine was funky, punkish, and deeply political, with some of Pope.L's earliest explorations of the problematics of race in America, as on songs such as "Some Fresh White Boy" and "Second Skin." Pope.L's work in Jon Waine was largely unknown to his artworld peers; meanwhile his bandmates moved on in their own careers unfazed by his mounting national and international success as an artist. This exhibition unearths a formative part of Pope.L's artistic output, with previously unseen photographs, flyers, lyric sheets in Pope.L's hand, McCormack's Ibanez guitar, Palaia's hand-painted tom-tom, and the amplifier and speakers used in rehearsals and performances, each component stenciled JON WAINE.