Description
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you land here and see that this item is sold out, it’s because Korm Plastics is on vacation and hasn’t been able to ship more copies. It should be back in stock around the end August. Order one now and I’ll ship it to you as soon as they’re available again.
‘America’s Greatest Noise’ tells the story of Ron Lessard, owner of RRRecords, a record store in Lowell, Massachusetts and, from 1986 to 2009, a record label, releasing the albums of Blackhouse, F/i, PGR, the first Merzbow LP outside Japan and many more, regional compilations, three widely acclaimed lock groove records and a series of anti-records, records with no music but a more conceptual and visual edge. RRRecords is also responsible for the RRRecycled Music series, which has over 300 releases on re-purposed cassettes.
Ron Lessard played music with his group Due Process and solo as Emil Beaulieau. Up until his retirement from the noise scene in 2006, he played many concerts and released a string of cassettes, LPs, and CDs. During his concerts, Lessard dressed up like a businessman and used a four-armed turntable, dubbed the Minutoli, and his performances were comical.
In this book, he tells for the first time his story in music about the highs and lows of running a label and a record store, weird projects, unfinished projects, encounters with other musicians, being on the road, and much more. Also included are two appendices: one with interviews from the past (fanzines and websites) and a chapter from Michael Tau’s ‘Extreme Music’ about the anti-records released by RRRecords.
Images used were sourced from flyers, invitations and fanzines. Introduction by Dominick Fernow (Prurient, Hospital Productions)
The first 1000 copies come with an anti-flexi, cutting up a conversation about anti-records between Ron Lessard and the author of the book, Frans de Waard. Cut up by Howard Stelzer. You may use this flexi as a bookmark.
Paperback book, 144 pages, black and white images. Design by Alfred Boland
Review by Robert Steinberger, published September 3, 2024 in Vital Weekly issue #1450
Frans wrote a book about Ron. Ron who? Ron Lessard. ??? RRRon? Ah, you mean Emil Beaulieau, wasn’t he the mayor of… No – well, yes and no. Now you’ve got me confused. OK, let’s start again.
Frans wrote a book about America’s Greatest Noise Artist, Ron Lessard. For some reason, it is only called ‘America’s Greatest Noise!’ –
which is fine because, as you will understand when reading the book, Ron is not necessarily the most narcissistic person in the world. To get back to the ‘confusing’ bit, the book is written in the first person from the point of view of RRRon. But is it just Frans typing out conversations they had with Ron? Is it Frans impersonating Ron? It could be all of this, and it does not matter. All that matters is delivering the goods. And this is what the book does.
If you remember the Staalplaat book Frans wrote a few years back, that was organised not as a continuous narrative in time, like a history book or biography – or even Kinkelaar’s Legendary Pink Dots book – but centred around topics. You had to make up the timeline, but details around specific topics were better collected in one place. Adding a few ‘old’ interviews, some facsimile flyers, letters, and catalogue pages make the book look a bit like a scrapbook, like the recent D-Generation zine (did that ever have a second
edition?). But far from. This is a thorough reflection on RRRecords, Emil Beaulieau, Due Process, and the many activities, releases, impersonations,
Reading led me back to my formative years – now long ago – seeing that Ron is my age. I used to buy direct from him when I started my mail order. Business was always straightforward, though it seemed a bit quirky at times. Who would start issuing a series of CDs with near-identical covers sticking to a price far lower than CDs fetched at the time without ever changing the price? Ron would. Now, things get set in more context. A lot of stuff I assumed or pieced together is contextualised in the book, but also new aspects. Ron is a general-purpose record store owner and has made his income off that, not performing and releasing noise music, giving him much freedom to artistically be as adventurous as he pleases. So we get the stories behind Emile Beaulieu, the real mayor of Manchester, NH, how the Pure sub-label got started, how the
anti-records idea developed, how Ron got to be more interested in live music than recordings and started extensively touring as Emil Beauliau (something I was not aware of), and who and what Minutoli is whom one of the Emil Pure CDs is dedicated to. And many other stories about collaborations, artist friends, performances, and releases.
If you know Uli Rehberg of Unterm Durchschnitt record shop in Hamburg, Werkbund, and more, impersonating Dr Ditterich von Donnersberg, you will see lots of parallels. There is the disdain for commercially issuing music, the humour, the pranks, the artistic recklessness, and the absolute focus on the artistry (music and performance) that ‘has it’, as opposed to the many acolytes and copyists.
The book is a fantastic read and monument to individualism, artistic freedom, cracking good jokes not everyone gets, determinedness – and the importance of work-life balance. On the last pages of the central part of the book, Ron confesses that he
wound up his label when he realised he was thinking more of the commercial side of releasing records than the quality of recordings. He retired as Emil long ago by accident, only then realising that he could live well without the extra hassle of touring life. Twenty years ago he told a friend that he envisaged working in his shop, cleaning used records at his counter up into his 60ies and 70ies. And that is where he is now, as he says, ‘living his dream’. And that – of course – is tongue-in-cheek but also has an element of truth. He says, ‘been there, done it, had enough, moved on’.
The first 1000 copies of the book have an anti-flexi accompanying them. So hurry to get your copy. It will unquestionably brighten your life.
