Times New Viking Offers a Living, Breathing Museum Piece

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Perhaps the greatest effect of the Internet on the music industry has been the role of Web communities such as MySpace and Facebook, as well as individual Web logs, in helping to spread the word about regional independent music scenes, emerging groups, and their gigs and recordings. It’s a far more immediate tool, blanketing a thicker cross section of curious listeners, than the photocopied fanzines, college radio airplay, local record stores, real-time word of mouth, and record-label publicity of yore. But as is frequently the case with the World Wide Web and its enthusiastic bloggers and pundits, what’s happening now often reflects more on the messenger than the message.

“Where do the people who write blogs get all their information and ideas for their blogs?” the drummer and co-vocalist for the rock trio Times New Viking, Adam Elliot, asked recently via cell phone. “Well, from reading other blogs. They’re going to different blogs, copying words, and then cutting and pasting and putting it on their blog, you know?”

Shorn of Web-based ideological fanfare, Times New Viking — made up of Mr. Elliot, guitarist Jared Phillips, and co-vocalist and keyboardist Beth Murphy — is the picture of an elegantly brutal and intelligently stripped-down garage band. On the trio’s Matador records debut, “Rip It Off,” as well as two prior long-playing releases on the Siltbreeze label, TNV reduces three-chord, three-minute pop music to a two-and-a-half-chord, less-than-two-minute, aggravated, distorted, and unapologetically confrontational salute to rock ‘n’ roll in its least heroic, yet most anthemic, form.

The band’s overdriven electric organ sound, churning, bluntly swooping guitar mash, fulminating drums, and bilious nursery-rhyme unison vocals form a kind of dense sonic piecrust that bends the fork of expectation before yielding the filling within. Cracked, ragged, yet surprisingly tuneful songs such as “Dance Walhalla” and the aptly titled anthem “In My Head” simultaneously conjure Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd stripped of long-winded whimsy and the British alt-rock progenitors the Fall.

Yet outside of a mocked-up Eastern European fanzine biography reproduced on its label’s Web site, on the Internet Times New Viking is both identified and imprisoned behind such head-scratchingly categorical buzzwords as “low-fi,” “noise rock,” and “art rock.” Friday night, in New York at least, “art” won’t be too much of a stretch, as Times New Viking is set to appear at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the ongoing Whitney Live series of concerts.

The group’s apparent curatorial irresistibility came as something of a surprise.

“It was the weirdest e-mail I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mr. Elliot said about the Whitney’s overture. “We kind of booked a tour around that show. It’s kind of awesome.”

Indeed, the trio, which, like rock bands ranging from the Rolling Stones to Roxy Music, met at art school, has advertised its performance tonight on its MySpace page as taking place “in front of Rauschenberg’s goat.”

In reality, Times New Viking is scheduled to share the museum’s performance space with Acme, an octet that, according to the Whitney’s Web site, “juxtaposes aggressive post-punk influences with delicate harmonic and melodic textures.” Mr. Elliot puts the series in a less lofty context.

“They asked four different bands and they’re pairing them with some string quartets,” he said. “Acme is opening up. I’m not entirely sure what they’re doing. Like, interpretative string music kind of stuff? Sounds artsy.”

Does that mean Times New Viking is jumping on the bandwagon of such 1960s acts as Brian Wilson and the late Arthur Lee and performing in front of a string section? “No, no, no. That would be amazing, though,” Mr. Elliot said before deadpanning, “Gotta wait a couple years for that.”

The Internet’s much-vaunted democratization of information and opinion has become something of a double-edged sword for bands that, like Times New Viking, invite a certain tendency to semantic ossification.

“The casualness of it and the accessibility of it is kind of weird,” Mr. Elliot said. “I like the idea of people knowing about stuff and spreading ideas, but then, I don’t know, it’s like there’s too much of it. It’s too easy. It seems like people are getting kind of lazy.”

Also, with access also comes potentially awkward disclosure. “My mom found out about my tattoos on a blog,” Mr. Elliot said. “That was weird. She Googled me and found pictures from a gig on someone’s Photobucket page or something.”

Family forbearance notwithstanding, what remains the most accessible and enjoyable thing about Times New Viking as both a live act and on its hypnotically noisy recordings is what invariably escapes mention on computer screens. “They just don’t talk about us like we’re rock ‘n’ roll,” he said, “and about what rock ‘n’ roll can do.”

Times New Viking performs for free Friday night at the Whitney Museum of American Art (945 Madison Ave., between 74th and 75th streets, 1-800-WHITNEY).


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use