America's Greatest Noise

America's Greatest Noise — Ron Lessard, RRRecords, and Underground Noise History

Published by Korm Plastics, America's Greatest Noise is a book by Frans de Waard on Ron Lessard, his record store in Lowell, Massachusetts, and the label RRRecords, which operated from 1986 to 2009. It is a noise music book concerned less with cataloguing releases than with the actual shape of running a label: unfinished projects, distribution decisions, scene-building through persistence and contradiction.

RRRecords released work by Blackhouse, F/i, and PGR, and issued the first Merzbow LP outside Japan. But the label's practice extended well beyond its catalogue. Regional compilations, lock groove records, anti-records — objects with no music and a conceptual or visual edge — and the RRRecycled Music series all figure in the account. These formats were not peripheral; they were central to how RRRecords operated.

Ron Lessard's own activity runs through the book in parallel. His Emil Beaulieau persona, the Minutoli turntable, performances that folded the comic businessman into noise practice — all of this is treated as part of the same structure rather than as biographical colour. Sound, object, performance, and distribution were not separate concerns at RRRecords, and the book does not separate them. An introduction by Dominick Fernow opens the text. Appendix material and black-and-white images drawn from flyers, invitations, and fanzines extend it into archival territory. Design is by Alfred Boland.

This is the second edition, issued without flexi disc. It sits within the broader Music Books & Sound Culture catalogue alongside other publications on label history, sound culture, and experimental music documentation.