America’s Greatest Noise

America’s Greatest Noise book — RRRecords, Ron Lessard, and underground noise history

America’s Greatest Noise follows the history of Ron Lessard, his record store in Lowell, Massachusetts, and the label RRRecords, which operated from 1986 to 2009. The book is less concerned with a standard cataloguing of releases than with the broader shape of a life in underground music: running a label, managing a store, dealing with unfinished projects, and building a scene through persistence, contradiction, and invention.

That makes the book especially strong as a document of noise culture. RRRecords released work by Blackhouse, F/i, PGR, and the first Merzbow LP outside Japan, but it also became known for stranger formats and ideas, including regional compilations, lock groove records, and anti-records — records with no music and a more conceptual or visual edge. The book allows that wider practice to remain central rather than treating it as anecdotal detail.

Ron Lessard’s own activity as Emil Beaulieau and in Due Process also runs through the story. His performances, the Minutoli turntable, the comic businessman persona, and the accumulated oddness of RRRecords all point to a culture in which sound, object, performance, and distribution were inseparable. With appendix material, black-and-white images sourced from flyers, invitations, and fanzines, and an introduction by Dominick Fernow, the book works as both narrative and archive.

Anti-records, RRRecycled Music, and the wider RRRecords world

• Focuses on Ron Lessard and the history of RRRecords
• Covers noise, underground label culture, and experimental music distribution
• Includes material on anti-records and RRRecycled Music
• Uses appendices and black-and-white source material to extend the archive
• Relevant for readers of noise history, cassette culture, and DIY music publishing

Edition details for America’s Greatest Noise

• Title: America’s Greatest Noise
• Author: Frans de Waard
• Publisher: Korm Plastics
• Edition: second edition, no flexi disc
• Format: music history / label history / archive publication
• Binding: softcover
• Size: 17 × 24 cm
• Extent: 144 pages
• Images: black and white
• Introduction: Dominick Fernow
• Design: Alfred Boland

Publisher / Manufacturer: Korm Plastics
Country of origin: Netherlands
Website: https://www.kormplastics.nl

Email: info@kormplastics.nl
Address:
Korm Plastics / Frans de Waard
Acaciastraat 11
6521 Nijmegen
Netherlands

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