Vinyl Spins - James Chance

Listening to the No New York album the other day made me yearn for a little more James Chance. He was such a crazy sax manic back in the day. This was No Wave and certainly nothing sounded like the weird hybrid of free jazz and funk on Buy from James Chance and the Contortions when it was released in 1979. A few months later Chance came out with his take on disco with Off White released under the name James White and the Blacks. They re-recorded Contort Yourself with an August Darnell remix that I regularly played during my DJ days in the early 80's. There was a strangely awesome second song Stained Sheets with Lydia Lunch and also a cover of an Irving Berlin song. The band ran out of money after completing the first side and the second side is mainly instrumentals. Buy and Off White were a couple of my favorite albums from 1979.