How many bands on the Nurse With Wound List have you actually heard?

plz don't go telling me that william bennett has got there first

I think that back in the days before downloading/album blogs/Spotify I had probably only heard a handful of these acts. I didn't know what a NWW list was back then either. It would have been cruel to know such a thing.

lol

exackly, its fkn sadistic

I've never even seen this list

I feel like I must've seen this list before. If not, then I'm still in the dark as to how I stumbled upon that Anal Magic album.

I don't think it's inherently cruel or sadistic -- I think that says more about your approach(es)

oh no, I think the list is great. But if I had come across it in 1999 I would have spent a fortune tracking down oop albums that would be widely available by 2005 or so.

Napster started in 1999!

I remember spending hours waiting to download Moving Gelatine Plates or whatever from dudes in Europe on dialup.

I spent years in the mid-90s looking for a bunch of obscure-at-the-time records I'd made a list of from the 2nd edition of the Trouser Press Guide with no illusions or need to be a completist

Heard: 56
Seen live: 6
Stayed at their house: 1
Actually a really big fan of: approx 15

Napster started in 1999!

oh yeah, possibly that's why there are 5 cop cars across from my house right now

oh no, I think the list is great. But if I had come across it in 1999

Probably came across it in 2000 or so and I love a lot of the music but I wasn't that into tracking everything down. Also as I said I really think there is a sense of black humour to the thing. What would people in 1980 have felt? At least we had a search engine etc. and some mailing lists to ask about. I used to be a member of an old S3 list and the guys there were knowledgeable as hell.

Not that this list is that diff when looking through a record guide or reading a book on music and coming up with a list of tens of records to investigate. sarah otm.

dude i spent like three years on napster trying to find the (then) long-out-of-print "faust so far" and all i ever found was a crappy xing-encoded mp3 of "it's a rainy day sunshine girl" with diginoise everywhere. finding sphinx tush on napster? forget it!

how did u know it was xing encoded

krautrock was all labeled "Weird Al"

is it ok to like most of what i've heard (a bit more now than my number above) of this list but not NWW? despite the efforts of some i still don't get it at all

hell yes! and I say that as a big NWW fan

OK I dug up this ancient interview, partial transcription:

"As Steve puts on a cassette of the second NWW album, a list is produced from somewhere. This is, I'm told, a provisional tally of what the Nurses consider to be the thirty most original records. The bulk are already chosen, all that remains is to debate over a few of the more contentious ones. I scan the list, and though I pride myself on my ability to stay reasonably abreast of what's going down (I'm not the world's greatest collector but I'm an inveterate fax'n'info gatherer), I've only heard of half a dozen or so of the names, and probably only two or three of the actual records. Most of them are before my time - long lost obscurities from all over the place. There is very little I can offer in the way of mediation - but, and it's a big but, this list is of great significance because it's already becoming clear to me that NWW's music has arisen precisely for the reason that these records no longer circulate (or records like them), and the key to understanding the motivation behind NWW is to probe a bit deeper into the mentality of the collector, as represented by these three particular specimens."

(the article later notes that, since the interview, "there has been much more activity from the group")

Face Out magazine, March 1981

I'm surprised nobody's put out a book based on the list. Would expect something detailing who the band was, where from, discography and review of essential works. May be something similar is online but I don't remember seeing much detail. & I for one would like a physical copy to peruse.

I think I came across the list around the time I was first using the internet back around the milenium. I think there were already soundfiles posted for a lot of the music. Seemed to be a number of sites with the list decoded at least.
I'd come across some of the list contents earlier through other sources independent of the list. There are some not so obscure bands listed. Surprised how early they'd heard of a couple though. DAF for one.

I want to hunt down some magma on youtube but all I did was go down memory lane with the Dead C. what are you going to do!

I've heard around 100 of these and they're among my favorite artists/records of all time. I should really check out the rest.

Nurse With Wound is one of those artists I like more for the idea behind instead of the music. I think I'd enjoy more talking and geeking out to this albums with him instead of listening to his music. Also the name of the band is top 10 band names of all time for me.

Reminds me of a famous mexican poem (cant remember the poet) about a drunk neurosurgeon with a blade in his hand.

Hadn't counted the number of artists I've definitely listened to on there before and I think it's 175 and I have soundfiles and cds by a load of those..

I'm not that familiar with Stapleton's work and should have caught up with that much better than I have. I met him at an art college exhibition here in Galway back around 11 years ago. He lives in the Burren down in the next county down the Irish coast, or certainly did for years.

I liked the 2cd sampler that Sanctuary put out of his work with a lot of edited tracks on, Living Fear of James Last. I don't know how good an intro to his work it makes though

I want to hunt down some magma on youtube but all I did was go down memory lane with the Dead C. what are you going to do!

I was listening to Magma's "Udu Wudu" album on Youtube a few days ago. Surprisingly funky!

attahk is even funkier than udu wudu!

there used to be a super-great clip of the '75 band rehearsing theusz hamtaahk that i was going to link to but it looks like it's gone now. :( so here, take this classic appearance from a 1972 french comedy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK0qpTqfqC0

https://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/shop/strain-crack-break-nurse-with-wound/

I think I'm on 54 now, which is 11 more than last time, 11 years ago. so by the time I'm 280 years old I'll have heard the whole list!

57. Can't say I'm curious enough to check all of them out though.

How many of them are actually any good is the real question.

Just checked, and I'd heard 99 eleven years ago LOL. Not sure I've added much beyond that.

Depends on your tolerance to practical jokes.

xp

just going through the list, hurrah I've finally found a use for that click counter I bought for no good reason. Never listened to Dubuffet, have seen his work tho.

60

oops 61, thought I hadn't heard any of the D's despite owning a DAF album or 2 in the 80's.

About 50 I think, and about 10 new to me in the last 10 years. One of them being Catherine Ribiero + Alpes, who've moved near the top of my alltime favorites, so I should keep digging.

Just checked, and I'd heard 99 eleven years ago LOL. Not sure I've added much beyond that.

― Arthur Lowe & Love (Tom D.), Monday, 29 July 2019 10:03 (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just checked, I'm up to 176. I need to get out more.

wow I counted exactly 100

Conservatively, 59

38 that i can definitively say i have heard and know what they sound like

The List goes mainstream:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/sep/24/got-any-horrific-child-discover-the-list-of-the-worlds-291-weirdest-bands

It is about beginnings for Stapleton in another way, too – he has inadvertently played a long game in record collecting, and is now using the proceeds from selling his rare vinyl to build a house in Clare, Ireland, “near the Father Ted house”.

“I have maybe 1,000 albums left, but most of the rare ones are gone,” he says. “I could not believe the prices of some of them.”

Didn't know he really sold off most of his records!

How many Chilean avant-garde noseflute LPs does one man need?

At least five tbh.

Good article! The band that only recorded one song was Sphinx Tush (though there are two different versions of that song). I also appreciated Allan acknowledging that the list is not some comprehensive chronicle of the underground but is honestly fairly limited in scope.

My main hope is that Finders Keepers will somehow finagle the rights for a legit reissue of the Don Bradshaw-Leather LP. I love that record, but the pressing was apparently not very good, and all the online copies floating about sound extremely bad.

NWW That's What I Call Music! If only

"the Don Bradshaw-Leather LP"

The back cover of the album looks like a low-budget community theatre reworking of Zardoz - if only it had been the front cover. But the music is better than I expected, like early Tangerine Dream. And now Youtube's sidebar has me.

enjoy your Joe Rogan videos