James Chance Doesn't Think Music Of Today Compares To That Of The '60s And '70s

"People don't usually start out planning to be in some kind of movement, it just kind of happens in a way. I was friends with a lot of the people, especially the ones that were on the No New York album," says James Chance of the seminal 1978 no wave compilation produced by Brian Eno documenting the divide between the city's jazz and punk scenes. It paved the way for Chance's wild, freeform fusion explorations, most notably with the instrument that inspired the albums Sax Maniac and Sax Education.

"I think we all had a common desire to do something a lot more radical than had been done before in rock'n'roll, in effect trying to sort of get rid of a lot of the stereotyped things like chord progressions especially, and do something that had more freedom to it, but for it still — in my case anyway — I wanted it to be still danceable and appeal to a kind of rock'n'roll audience, not just a bunch of artist types..." he recalls of the time.

"I listen to the music where my inspiration comes from which is mostly black music, all the way back..."

Chance's style is still too confronting for some. Though he can't stand the thought of musicians who play it safe, as he made clear in a wonderfully thought-provoking 1991 interview with New York arts mag BOMB. He admits to not having much time for music made beyond 1980, though at 62, the hurried, breathless pace as he speaks about the eras that do move him is indicative of a man forever on a journey of discovery.

"I listen to the music where my inspiration comes from which is mostly black music, all the way back — the whole history of jazz, but especially a lot of rare songs from the '70s and '60s. And Afrobeat I'm really into, also from the '70s. Lately I've been getting into a lot of sophisticated soul music from the early '60s, people like Ben E King and The Drifters... There's an incredible amount of riches of just beautiful music [of that era] — it was so well produced. To me, music of today doesn't compare to it... I just get this incredible blandness from a lot of the music now, and that's the one thing that I just cannot tolerate, emotional blandness."

Across six performances — a mix of DJ sets and band appearances with The Drones' Dan Luscombe and Clairy Browne & The Bangin' Rackettes' Nick Martyn and Jules Pascoe as The Contortions — James Chance will certainly provoke emotion, and perhaps teach Australian audiences a few things about music too.

"I do a DJ act that's a little bit different — it's not just pure DJing, I also play live sax over some of the records. I mostly play danceable stuff, a lot of obscure funk and lately I've been going further back and getting into more R&B stuff from the '50s and early '60s... I think you've got to put on some kind of a show, you know, be an entertainer. I'm really old school about that."