Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

May have mentioned this on the board elsewhere, but I got into them through Alec Foege's Confusion is Next book from 1994. My freshman year of college I was just really starting to spread my wings into new music and I randomly came across that book in an art supply store. To a kid from the middle of nowhere Illinois, it made them sound like the best band ever. A few months later DGC started their reissue project around the release of EJST&NS, so my first albums were actually the Screaming Fields comp, EJST&NS and Made in USA. Interesting entry, to say the least, but I was enthralled. Washing Machine was the first album that came out after I was a new fan, so that one will always have special place for me. I remember pissing off my roommates on a technicality on the nights we used to rotate songs and I chose "The Diamond Sea" for my turn.

I don’t know if I hear sheen on Goo and Dirty. I think they were just different attempts at presenting their sound, though it is interesting that their desire, after Dirty, was for something more primitive.

Definitely more sheen on Dirty to my ears, that album sounds great. The irony imo is that "more sheen" actually translates to louder and more abrasive in this case. I think the nature of their noise before that resulted in a sort of fuzzy haze, but the stuff on Dirty is jagged and shrill in all the ways feedback and distortion should/could be.

OTM

I actually think Daydream Nation’s sound is fairly clear and, again am not sure that Sonic Youth gained something invaluable in what they were trying to do sonically with Dirty (though I like its sound well enough). There are all sorts of approaches and this was a major label band who perceived their contemporaries to be groups like the Dead C.

I don't know that it's invaluable or that it was required for this band but I do think there is more sheen there (a hyper-realistically brighter sound, stricter stereo separation, more layered overdubs) that gave it a distinct quality and worked with what they were doing then. Goo actually sounds pretty naturalistic to me, like DN with higher fidelity.

xp I'll take any excuse to bring up the classic Bananafish description of the Dead C as "sound[ing] like Sonic Youth in a wind tunnel with broken microphones"

This came on the radio yesterday, the singer sounds *exactly* like Ranaldo, I was giggling to myself, from now on I'm going to pretend he and Kim had a side project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65YIlwxBuvM

I hate that song more than anything in the universe

Maybe we should revive to talk about the Bandcamp archive stuff? Because there's a lot now!

The Rarities comps have been great -- the second, with all the weird live 80s singles, is top-notch -- but I appreciate how they're slowly but surely putting up all the 80s catalog stuff now. Bad Moon Rising just added:

https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/bad-moon-rising

I want to go into the Rarities releases in more detail, but I gotta say real quick that the SY Forced Exposure single (Kill Yr Idols b/w Making The Nature Scene) was so hard to find back in the day that i have never actually heard it. now that I have, the version of "Nature Scene" on this is the most stomping, blown out, destructo-awesome version of it I have ever heard, totally smoking the LP take.

I await the more detail with interest!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4uL9fAeoXc

I await the more detail with interest!

ok well...

these are weirdly organized, but make sense if you step back and think of #1 as a live overview, #2 as an odds and ends, and #3 as unreleased/demo.

the sound is a little thin going into the 1st live one, but by the time we get the the 1990 Irvine gig (where shakey mo is immortalized on the "Dirty Boots" 7") everything gets full and loud, I especially dig the takes on JC, Wildflower, and No Way

some of the weirdo semi-legal singles on Vol. 2 are ones I've never seen, and one (the Warpower 7") I had never even heard of. As noted above the "(Over)Kill Yr Idols" single is one of the most powerful documents of the Confusion Is Sex era.

it's weird that they don't include the boot 7" of them and Iggy doing "Wanna Be Your Dog", I don't get that at all:
https://www.discogs.com/Sonic-Youth-Town-Country-4-June-87/master/272904

nice to see the Chemical Imbalance live version of "Marilyn Moore" get a digital home at last.

this promo 12" of "Candle" was my special secret for a long time, something I could pull out to impress other fans. I got it at a sale from a radio station I used to DJ at in the 90's, but the music director/dictator had a bad habit of putting tape DIRECTLY ON THE LP TRACKS if there were swear words, or (in the case of "Ghost Bitch") suspected swear words (there aren't, asshole). So for years I have suffered with a playable but VG- copy of these tracks, and the "Ghost Bitch" here is one of the most towering, smoldering, impressively heaving piles of sonic rubble in their entire catalog IMO.

I was also familiar with the (relatively unimpressive imo) Forced Exposure single that makes up the last 3 tracks of Vol. 2, but it's the stuff in between that's the treat. The long outro to Xpressway is glorious, you can't go wrong with Kotton Krown or World Looks Red (which really THUMPS, great sound) and OK Kat N Hat might be kind aunfocused on first listen but it's fun to hear these scraps.

Disc 3 is even cooler from a fan standpoint, I had no idea they were dropping all these weirdo tracks as MP3s on their website 15 years ago. I haven't dug into it all the way yet but "Machine" sounds great, like an SYR outtake, and it's nice to have some of the first Peel Session (but again, where the hell are the other 3 tracks?).

sorry shakey is on the Dirty Boots *CD single* bonus live tracks, from the same 1990 UCI gig

for reference:

https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/rarities-1
https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/rarities-2
https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/rarities-3

Are these versions of the 80s albums different from the mixes that were previously commercially available?

Listening to Rarities 2 rn. The Murray St-era Chicago show is the only thing I've bought so far but a lot of the live stuff has been v good.

I saw someone online complaining that the mixes are different, and that they're new and due to tape degradation don't sound as good as the DGC/Geffen releases. Can't speak to the truth of that, just spreading gossip.

Haha wow, thanks for mentioning that Chicago show, I was at that one. It was killer! Had no idea they uploaded it, I need to grab that.

And the debut EP is up on Bandcamp now, in the expanded version with the live tracks:

https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/sonic-youth

Wow, I had no idea they had so much cool shit on Bandcamp. I'm honest enough to admit I'll never listen to it, but I like that it is there!

i found a decent, relatively inexpensive copy of Bad Moon Rising yesterday :D

My challop is that the debut EP is their best record. Burning Spear slaps everything.

DESTROY: the *entire* NYC Sonic Youth Cult Of Art and all the pretentious jazzwankers who hang out at the Cooler wishing they could be Lee Renaldo. You're not. Now shave off the chin-rag and go home.

I really miss the Cooler, actually! Pretentious jazzwankers sounds more like Tonic tho (which I also miss).

She wore a dress once. That was a whole news cycle. The Cooler was the pre-Tonic that wasn’t the Knit.

She wore a dress once. That was a whole news cycle. The Cooler was the pre-Tonic that wasn’t the Knit.

Wow that’s weird. Ignore the first part of that. And the dupe.

Thought you were making up some Sonic Youth lyrics.

just listened to their debut for the first time. the music feels very Glenn Branca-esque, plus hand percussion. I really like the cover image.

It was on Glenn's label.

Ignore the first part of that.

No way, that was exquisite, I wouldn't change a word of that.
Not how I remember the place but love the idea of pretentious jazzwankers having to set foot in the X-Large boutique on Lafayette to buy their Cooler tix.

Evol and Sister have hit Bandcamp

https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/evol

https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/sister

That's all the 80s full lengths and I think the only studio things not on Bandcamp now one way or another from the decade are Kill Yr Idols and Into the Groovey.

If you could re-sequence/revise the track list for one Sonic Youth album, what would it be and how would you change it?

I’m going with Washing Machine, an album that’s near to perfect but slightly half-hearted about its desire to be psychedelic.

Here’s what I’d do:
- cut “Junkie’s Promise”
- cut “Panty Lies”
- merge “Becuz” and “Becuz Coda” into a single song
- would I cut “Skip Tracer”? Maybe
- replace the 19:35 version of “Diamond Sea” with the ~25 minute long version from the CD5
- Bliss out

Skip Tracer is p psychedelic for me, w/Lee's free city rhymin'. And I love Junkie's Promise and Panty Lies, but that long version of Diamond Sea is bliss. I had a hunger back in the days of Napster to find every live version of that song I could and try and mix them into an epic symphony of feedback.

they finally put up a 1995 show on their live archive — it smokes. https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-austin-1995

Oh and hey, I interviewed Steve Shelley about said live archive. Some cool insights, stories, etc. He talks about wanting to do a Washing Machine boxed set and it sounds amazing. seems like Lee wants to do something similar with "Diamond Sea" ...

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2021/11/30/sonic-youths-steve-shelley-selects-10-gems-from-the-bands-archive/

cut "Skip Tracer"??!? also I don't often like Kim's spoken / grunt songs but "Panty Lies" is perfect.
Washing Machine is brilliant, it's A Thousand Leaves which needs some attention.

Yeah, nevermind re “Skip Tracer”. For whatever reason I always compare it to “Saucer Like” (which is far more enjoyable) but Lee’s lyrical swinging is crucial.

I sure hope that box set happens, thanks for posting that Tyler!

wow thanks Tyler! great stuff

That 1996 “Diamond Sea” blew my mind

Matt, what would you change about A Thousand Leaves?

Rob Sheffield in the blue 2004 Rolling Stone album guide proffered a version of ATL I have no problem with, and I love the album.

Sheffield's suggested edit of ATL is brilliant. I tried it and it sounded perfect, like one of my very favorite Sonic Youth albums.

(If anyone wants to try it, you basically remove every track with Kim on lead vocal - nothing against Kim, I love what she brought to the group, but in this particular case, it really creates a perfect album to cut out those tracks.)

There are good things on ATL but overall I feel like it's too unfocused and jammy. Probably not the right attitude but I like their propulsive and rhythmic work more, e.g. the band only hit high gear when Steve joined, for my money. I do like their experimental side too but sometimes it feels a bit indulgent rather than challenging.

ATL the album is on the right side of the jam boundary for me, but the ATL tour was drowning in jam

I really wish some of these archival treasures on Bandcamp were getting physical releases too. I've bought some of them and will likely continue to do so, but some of this stuff deserves to be around in another format too. I mean, I get it, but anything like this being hosted primarily on one digital platform only gets me nervous about just how long into the future this stuff will be relatively easily accessible.

XP Jon 1000%

bird/word: whoa because ATL is *such* a Kim record. But it is also too long. I will check it out, because even as a long time fan I've always had a hard time with that one. (But then, I put NYC Ghosts and Flowers in their top five, so ....)

I’d buy more of these live sets if I could buy them on CD.

atl is the best sy record, i will never stop claiming this