Chinese Forehead

Punk? Post-punk? Dance noise? We made up that last one; it seemed to best describe our sound. I think we saw ourselves as some sort of punk band, too, though that term seems to have become a narrow label for a simple pop-rock formula matched with bullshit anger.

Chinese Forehead didn't last very long, played maybe six gigs, and never released any records. That makes them prime cult material, which this page is happy to encourage.

To judge for yourself, catch an earfull.

  • Chinese Forehead day-glo poster for a gig at CBGB, August 4, 1979. These were the first day-glo, 3-D band posters ever. Hand-crafted, no two were alike. [Arena-rock sized version]

  • Chinese Forehead ground-breaking poster for CBGB gig, August 4, 1979

  • Chinese Forehead playing CBGB, August 4, 1979. The song being played is "Behavior." [Arena-rock sized version]

  • Chinese Forehead rocks the stage at CBGB, August 4, 1979

  • Chinese Forehead "Capitalist Tool" poster for a gig at Tier 3, November 15, 1979 . This turned out to be Black Thursday. Curiously, this event is not listed in Wikipedia.[Arena-rock sized version]

  • Chinese Forehead TR3 "Capitalist Tool" poster

  • Chinese Forehead "rock action" figure poster for a gig at Tier 3, November 15, 1979 . Those figurines were segmented so that they would pivot at the waist; really quite cool after a six-pack or eight of Old Milwaukee. They're perched atop the seriously hacked tape deck used for loop-processing the lead guitar. [Arena-rock sized version]

  • Chinese Forehead TR3 "Capitalist Tool" poster

Some related links

  • Independents Day: post-punk 1979-81, by Simon Reynolds

The rather sweet JavaScript for rendering the mid-sized images was swiped from Lokesh Dhakar