America's Greatest Noise! book by Frans de Waard

‘America’s Greatest Noise’ tells the story of Ron Lessard, owner of RRRecords, a record store in Lowell, Massachusetts and, from 1986 to 2009, a record label, releasing the albums of Blackhouse, F/i, PGR, the first Merzbow LP outside Japan and many more, regional compilations, three widely acclaimed lock groove records and a series of anti-records, records with no music but a more conceptual and visual edge. RRRecords is also responsible for the RRRecycled Music series, which has over 300 releases on re-purposed cassettes.

Ron Lessard played music with his group Due Process and solo as Emil Beaulieau. Up until his retirement from the noise scene in 2006, he played many concerts and released a string of cassettes, LPs, and CDs. During his concerts, Lessard dressed up like a businessman and used a four-armed turntable, dubbed the Minutoli, and his performances were comical.

In this book, he tells for the first time his story in music about the highs and lows of running a label and a record store, weird projects, unfinished projects, encounters with other musicians, being on the road, and much more. Also included are two appendices: one with interviews from the past (fanzines and websites) and a chapter from Michael Tau’s ‘Extreme Music’ about the anti-records released by RRRecords.

Images used were sourced from flyers, invitations and fanzines. Introduction by Dominick Fernow (Prurient, Hospital Productions)

This is the second edition. It does not include the flexi-disc that was part of the first edition (The first 1000 copies came with an anti-flexi, cutting up a conversation about anti-records between Ron Lessard and the author of the book, Frans de Waard. Cut up by Howard Stelzer).

Paperback book, 144 pages, black and white images. Design by Alfred Boland