Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse: The Poll

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well

http://masters-of-photography.com/images/full/cunningham/cunningham_bed.jpg

I love you, golden poll

pretty otm results

i love how this song is full of all these long jams and then "Unmade Bed" boils down the same kind of epic feel into a 4-minute track.

"Peace Attack" is my favorite of their recent closers.

least fave for me

They need to make another NYCGF

i rate that album about as lowly as anyone else, but i don't disagree with that -- the spirit the album was done in wasn't bad in and of itself, wouldn't mind them trying it again in some way, as much as i love the warm melodic hippie jamz they've been on since then.

nycgaf is glorious. the title track especially.

the sloppiness of the performance ruins it a little for me, like when steve is doing those snare hits four at a time and then once only does three and misses a hit, so takes me out of the song. still the 2nd best track on the album, though.

lee's vocals just give me such chills on that track, and also the way that wall of black noise right at the end suddenly changes tone, sounding like an airplane changing course, before just cutting out.

god, thurston and kim are so annoying

i've listened to this a couple times lately, & every time i'm focusing on the guitars and digging it to a great extent and i accidentally fail to tune out some lyric like

Howling scriptures to the mother earth
O mother Africa awake your son

and immediately i feel very sheepish and have to turn the volume down

extremely great sonic nurse era live tape here: https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/159756529077/sonic-youth-cats-cradle-carborro-north

My favorite of their '00s albums.

yeah i think it's where their 2000s approach really came together in a totally satisfying way -- probably my most listened to SY record these days.

also, i think some people on ILM have complained about steve shelley during this period (maybe being too same-y in his playing?) but man, on this tape the guy is incredible, just powering the whole thing along.

people on ILM are ingrates

hell yeah! been listening to Murray Street era shows a lot lately. the O'Rourke period is my favorite SY era.

I've probably said it half a dozen times on this thread but Nurse is my favorite SY by a substantial margin. So many great songs to love.

the mote > new hampshire transition on this live tape is unbelievable

thanks so much for sharing this - there's another SY boot from 2000 on there that looks amazing: two sets, the first is solo/duo/trio performances by all members, including two solo Jim songs (!!!)

https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/152688686497/sonic-youth-cats-cradle-carrboro-north?is_related_post=1

Sonic Youth - Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, North Carolina, August 5, 2000
“I don’t know what we’re gonna do tonight. I think maybe what we’ll do is … um, just whatever comes naturally.”
Let’s take a trip back to simpler times – the summer of 2000! It was the beginning of a new century, but it was still kinda the 90s. There were Clintons in the White House. I was about to start my senior year of college. And Sonic Youth was opening for Pearl Jam. Weird, I know.
SY took advantage of a night off from the arena scene to play a standalone show in Carrboro – and thank the lord that they did. This fantastic Cat’s Cradle recording, kindly supplied by Cory, is an awesome and unique document. The first set is a Perspectives Musicales showcase, featuring Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, and Jim O’Rourke performing solo or in various configurations. So you get such curiosities as: Thurston’s acoustic sketches for a few Murray Street numbers; Lee reading Gregory Corso; an amazing “Film Music” noise excursion; a charmingly fumbling O’Rourke mini-set (”I don’t do this very often,” Jim apologizes meekly after several false starts); and maybe best of all, three storming songs from Kim, Jim & Steve (“I think Kim, Jim & Steve win!” Thurston proclaims afterwards, suitably impressed.) It’s all great, though – a kinda Sonic-Youth-Does-The-Rolling-Thunder-Revue thing, with a loose, rambling vibe that shows off the impressive confluence of talent that came together in this one band.
But that’s not all! Sonic Youth in a more familiar form returns for a killer second set that was probably closer to the one they were playing for Pearl Jam fans that summer (Sorry Vedd-Heads, Eddie doesn’t jump onstage for “Kool Thing”). There are plenty of “hits,” but also plenty of tunes from the band’s then-new NYC Ghosts & Flowers LP. Now, that album may be one of SY’s least-loved efforts, but these performances will likely change any naysayers’ minds. The beat poetry stuff is still a little iffy, but the overall sound is astonishing – it was easy to take for granted back in the day, but no other band explored such massive feedback-drenched landscapes. Anyway! Enjoy this – and thanks again to Cory for getting it to us all …

yes! another great one, same taper. (that's my site)

I remember Kim saying Coco said she wished Vedder was her dad

jesus, that's a harsh curve

i've been re-reading/skimming Kim's memoir lately (mostly for O'Rourke drama - the woman that Thurston had the affair with was with Jim first, and it ended "crazy, theatrically badly," and was a big reason he moved to Japan), but fuck, Thurston is so dark, i find it hard to listen to his songs anymore.

Favorite album of 2004.

Favorite album of 2004.

I kind of hate "Peace Attack". I'm not sure exactly why. Musically, it feels like a retread of one of Moore's solo tracks, which haven't ever really been truly essential material in the first place. The vocals seem especially lazy and somehow grating for me in the sing-song nature, I dunno?

― EveningStar (Sund4r)

still can't believe that's a piano at the end of The Dripping Dream. Can anybody confirm?

been listening to too many dead bootlegs lately, was hoping to explore SY/YLT live recordings to scratch that noisy itch, good timing on this! too bad there aren't many YLT recordings on archive.org...

See if you can find their show at the Royal Festival Hall in 2000 (I think?). John Peel introduces it, and they do an amazing, epic Night Falls as the opening track. Lots of technical difficulties throughout but still a charming show.

has Ira ever sang "The Crying of Lot G" properly live, or does he always mumble and talk thru it? the studio version of that song is perfect, every live version i've heard is awful

i'll go on soulseek after work and check that out xp. nothing streamable/downloadable that i can find right now other than a review

https://www.musicomh.com/reviews/live/yo-la-tengo-royal-festival-hall-london

ha and this review isn't even for that show

ha, isn't "crying of lot g" a mumble/talk song to begin with?
i posted that ylt royal festival show a million years ago, but the link is dead. if you can't find it anywhere i can see if i can dig it up.
but yeah, as i've probably said a million times, would be great if bands like SY and YLT would let fans put recordings up on archive.org.

it'd rekindle my interest in them anyway, i haven't really listened to either since college

ha, isn't "crying of lot g" a mumble/talk song to begin with?

yes, but the pacing and delivery on the studio version is perfect- it's very musical while still being a talking song. whenever i hear him sing it live he sounds like Dylan doing Ballad of a Thin Man or whatever today.

I should try to spend more time with Sonic Nurse. For me, it was just kind of...there at the time of release. Maybe too centered, or too grounded, or too comfortable. Perhaps if I'd seen them live at the time it would feel different, but in '04 SN seemed like less interesting versions of stuff they'd done before or would do more satisfyingly on Rather Ripped, a record I much prefer. (This is the period of the band's history when the SYRs did more for me than the studio albums, with occasional exceptions.)

Looking through the tracklist I recall liking: "Stones" or "New Hampshire" (can't remember which) and, to an extent, "Arthur Doyle Handcream".

I didn't warm to "Sonic Nurse" at all right away. Felt like a lesser "Murray St.", which I loved. I came around on it after seeing it live for sure, and just getting some distance from the record. I really enjoy it now (but still not as much as M.S.).

Yeah I didnt warm to it either for a long time. I didnt like "Peace Attack" either. In hindsight, its a really good album although not as great as "Murray Street"

Thanks for the dl, tyler! Any videos I've seen from this tour have been great.

I love Nurse but it definitely feels a lesser album to Murray Street for me

i agree, imo a big part of that is it's too long

about that 2000 recording- i was looking on youtube for sets from around the same time, and none of them have Jim doing his solo songs. there's a two hour video from like 4 days later where they do everything in the first set except Jim's songs. maybe because he was nervous? i was listening to it last night and got so pumped when he went into the main riff from "Not Sport, Marital Art" but then he abandoned it.

haha, yeah, i don't know how much jim really liked doing the solo acoustic troubadour thing.

Such a drag - his Drag City records are my core, heart music. A hero uploaded these pro-shot, multi-camera full band JimO performances from 2000 recently. I've thought about it a lot and "Not Sport, Marital Art" is my favorite song of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xizxQ8L78T8

^^ that's great. And "heart music" otm. I always thought he'd have one last 'troubadour' record in him, but the wait is long and I think by now that ship has sailed.

I thought The Visitor was amazing, but I really wanted to hear him sing again. I was disappointed with Simple Songs - there's just something off about that record.