Guitarist Fred Frith, who was a co-founder of the English
avant-rock group
Henry Cow, moved to New York City in 1979 after Henry Cow split up. There he met and began performing with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher, both of the
jazz ensemble
Material. In 1980, when
Peter Blegvad was looking for an opening band for his Valentine's Day concert at Soundscape in New York, Frith volunteered and invited Laswell and Maher to join him as a
power trio they called Massacre. The band was well received and soon began performing at venues all over New York City. Massacre was a high-energy experimental rock band, manipulating
rhythm and
timbre freely. They intended to recapture the energy of early
rock and roll, adding elements of
improvisational jazz. Their live sets consisted of both composed and improvised numbers, often short but always loud. In 1981 Massacre released their only album
Killing Time, comprising studio recordings made at
Martin Bisi's studio in
Brooklyn, New York City, in June 1981, and live recordings from their
Paris concerts in April 1981. They also featured on part of Frith's 1981 solo album
Speechless. In 1983 what was left of Massacre joined
The Golden Palominos, founded by drummer
Anton Fier. The closest thing to another Massacre performance came at a concert,
Two Against One, in
Boston in February 1985, when The Golden Palominos performed with only three members: Frith, Laswell and Fier on drums. They played as if they were Massacre, including a number of pieces from
Killing Time in their set. This unit also played in
Tokyo around the same time. Massacre reformed in 1998 when Frith and Laswell asked
This Heat's drummer
Charles Hayward to join them. The new line-up released
Funny Valentine (1998), culled from studio improvisations, and three live albums,
Meltdown (2001), a largely unedited concert recorded at
Robert Wyatt's 2001
Meltdown Festival in London,
Lonely Heart (2007), arranged from live recordings made in 2003 in Paris and Denmark, and
Love Me Tender (2013), recorded in 1999 and 2008 in Europe. All four albums were released on
John Zorn's
Tzadik label. == Members ==