According to the sleeve notes of their debut album, Massacre's first concert took place on Valentine's Day in 1980 as support act at a Peter Blegvad concert, and their final show was in Los Angeles in June 1981. For a band which existed for less than 18 months and only released one album (by the original incarnation), Massacre has had an uncommonly long afterlife.
When Fred Frith formed the avant prog power trio he chose to work with two of the New York downtown scene's hottest musicians, Bill Laswell (bass) and Fred Maher (drums). The pair were both members of Material and had played together on Daevid Allen's New York Gong project, and between them would play with or produce a staggering variety of musicians. Right from the outset Massacre was much more than Fred Frith plus rhythm section - Frith was looking for something that would reflect the music heard in New York's clubs, and Maher and Laswell were as steeped in funk and dub reggae as they were in experimental jazz and avant rock. Massacre was a meeting of equals with a unique chemistry. Most of their pieces were short, some were tightly composed, some were improvised and it wasn't always obvious which was which. Their debut album had a message: PLAY LOUD. Killing Time attracted rave reviews, and was reissued several times with extra tracks. Massacre also contributed to side 2 of Fred Frith's Speechless album, and numerous bootlegs of their incendiary concerts appeared. There were one or two semi-reunions, and then in 1998 Frith and Laswell started playing with Charles Hayward and Massacre was reborn. A studio album came out in 1998, Funny Valentine, and the band also backed vocalist Percy Howard on the excellent Meridiem album at about the same time. In 2001 they played at Robert Wyatt's Meltdown festival in London and the live set Meltdown was released shortly afterwards.
All 3 of Massacre's official albums are excellent, but it's their 1980's debut which remains their strongest. The later releases feature mostly longer pieces with a more jazzy structure, still extremely strong but somehow lacking the visceral power of the original line up.
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