Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

Tunic is pretty much a perfect song to me, the roaring sea of perfectly burred guitars, Kim drifting through it in a trance, haunted by the Carpenters, its seeming casualness and the void of horror beneath the surface.

and I loved your article Mark! Sent it to friends too.

where did rarities 3 go? not on Bandcamp anymore?

Too bad. The acoustic Starpower version is still on YouTube though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYZ1lil80Rk

"Tunic" was what initially attracted me to SY as a kid in '90. I'll not hear a word against it.

“Tunic” works really well if you imagine it soundtracking a post-Robocop dystopian cyber cop film

I didn't want to buy into "Tunic" at first because of the lyrics, if that is what NTI is getting at, but ultimately ended up getting drawn in all the deeper because of that, the effect being like a Douglas Sirk movie (hi Todd Haynes) where at first I want to laugh at or feel superior or most likely just keep the characters at arm's length, until I am totally relating to them and full-strength feeling their pain.

To make another unwarranted film reference, I recently read a pretty good Karen Carpenter bio called Little Gir Lost or something like that, and the story ending up having a Rosemary's Baby-like quality, Karen trying, mostly with the help of Phil Ramone and his wife Karen Kamon, to escape via her solo album, but then being thwarted at every turn.

Little Girl Blue, not lost.

Ok good, because “Tunic” was kind of blowing my mind. The part where she is disappearing as the titular article of clothing spins around her arms and legs reminds me of the Wicked Witch of the West melting – intentionally or not it’s an incredible (and indelible) image. What a tune.

I really like the music on "Tunic" but the lyrics seem pretty trite to me, which is hard to overlook when they are spoken and foregrounded.

She was in a disastrous marriage at the end too, prior to which it seemed family members and record company types would meddle in her romantic relationships.

It's hard to argue with the fact that the lyrics are kind of artless and it almost feels like to cheating to say "But it's a real story!" but there it is. It's kind of a True Life version of "The Gift."

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/06/magazine/karen-carpenter-s-second-life.html

SY version of "Superstar" for easy reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y21VecIIdBI

I acquired new respect for "Tunic" after Assayas used it as non-diegetic music in Irma Vep.

SY Superstar, big brooklyn jukebox jam (The Boat, back in the day)

Heh, don't recall that from my Boat days, mostly seem to remember In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

Would like to rewatch Irma Vep. He had an early reputation for knowing how to use music in his films but I didn't really get bowled over until Carlos.

I think of In the Aeroplane as more of a selection from...ugh I forget the name of the bar, on 5th ave, same owner as Boat but older?

Boat had a few mix CD-rs of mine in the jukebox thanks to bartender Tony. So if you ever heard Sparks or Klein + MBO in there that was me.

I've never seen Irma Vep but HBO Max has it. Maybe I'll check it out this weekend.

Criterion too. I saw Maggie Cheung and Olivier Assayas walking around New York once or twice. Maybe once at the Film Forum for this film and another time outside the Noho Star #OldWeirdNYC

"Superstar" might have its own undercurrent in addition to the lyric, what with Rita Coolidge being denied a writing credit à la "Layla," her relationship with Jim Gordon along with his later actions, and her sister Priscilla, the ex-Mrs. Booker T. Jones being the victim of a murder-suicide perpetrated by her last husband, although he wasn't famous so maybe this is a stretch.

Now I want to rewatch The Heroic Trio, which seems to be only available on Alamo on Demand #onemoresubscription

Sund4r I used to think the lyrics were trite and trivialising until I realised they came from deep empathy, an acknowledgment of the undertow women feel when they hear her story. It’s the banality of self destruction.

Kim's lyrics are often kind of defiantly dumb, in a smart way.

so are thurstons

case in point:

A sieg heil-in'squirt
You're an impotent jerk
Yeah, a fascist twerp

[Chorus]
It's the song I hate, it's the song I hate

one of my favorite Moore lyris.

Feel like in "Tunic" there is some kind of unvarnished truth banality of evil thing going on.

Yeah Thurston does it too, but not sure he's ever penned anything like: "Goo Goo Goo/ My friend Goo / Goo Goo Goo / Talkin bout Goo"

Because of this board I downloaded every album after Washing Machine I had never heard and spent today listening. I started chronologically with A Thousand Leaves. 'Hoarfrost' has to be one of more beautiful songs I've heard by them. 'Karen Koltrane' and 'Snare, Girl' were the other highlights. I listened to the whole album twice. Really different tone and sound from what I remember of the DCG records. I was surprised by 'Hits Of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)' they actually got funky? Next was NYC Ghosts & Flowers and it was just ok, aside from the opening song I think it's the weakest album I've heard so far, I'll have to listen again. I think these days I prefer mellow Sonic Youth. Tomorrow is Murray Street, Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped. I have a long drive out to a remote site for work and I'm excited to soundtrack the south Texas desert with Sonic Youth.

If you like mellow SY you are going to love Murray St and Nurse, is my guess. Late period masterpieces for me.

Yep. Hoarfrost + Murray St + (most of) Nurse are where it's at.
Murray St is so linked to a time and place for me. Must have listened only to that for 6 months. Didn't hit as hard when I recently put it on for the first time since

"Hoarfrost" persuaded me to give the rest of SY's catalog a go way back in '98 on hearing it on my college radio station.

Still my favorite Ranaldo jam.

ATL has, over the years, slowly made its way into my personal pantheon of great SY albums.

I did love them live in Dublin in 98 which was the last time i saw them. Tracks from A thousand Leaves sounding like Melody laughter VU and all like that.

That tour was the last time I saw them too, I think in Philly or DC. Shoulda seen them again.

I knew somebody at the time, a long term fan, who dissed and dismissed the 98 tour but at the time I had only heard teh Dublin show which I actually went to the bother of trying to get a live tape of the next day or whenever i was in Dublin next.
recordings from taht year have appeared on Dime over the last couple of months . I relistened to Dublin which the upper had said wasn't great sound., Did sound pretty good to me. & haven't listened to others that I d/lded so haven't compared it.

maybe i've mentioned this, but I saw this LA Thousand Leaves show (https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-los-angeles-1998) and at the time dissed and dismissed it (at least a little bit). I was 19 and it was clearly over my head. after hearing the recording many years later, it became one of my favorite SY releases ever. it's amazing.

I saw them on the tours for ATL (in Toronto, with the exact same tracklist as that LA gig iirc), NYC G&F, and Murray Street. ATL might have been the least interesting of the three, as they mostly just played the album, but I still had a magical time, although I know several people found it disappointing. CCMC, a long-running "experimental jerk-off band" as per TM (incl John Oswald, Michael Snow, and Paul Dutton) opened and were fantastic, if lost on a portion of the crowd.

Tomorrow is Murray Street, Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped. I have a long drive out to a remote site for work and I'm excited to soundtrack the south Texas desert with Sonic Youth.

Tomorrow is gonna be a good day for you.

NYCGAF is a notoriously divisive record, but I think the title track is Lee's best outing as beat-poet/noiser hybrid. The turn towards black noise right at the end is thrilling, and Lee's chronicle of New York shedding its poetic dirt and tramping the artists who made it what it is into the dirt really builds tension.

My first SY show was on the Washing Machine tour and it was just ridiculously sublime. Epid Diamond Sea! Murray Street and Nurse-era shows were excellent too. I was always less enthused if the show was more nostalgia-based.

Washing Machine tour was my first SY show too, it was insane.

CCMC, a long-running "experimental jerk-off band" as per TM (incl John Oswald, Michael Snow, and Paul Dutton) opened and were fantastic, if lost on a portion of the crowd.

opener for my ATL show was Jim O'Rourke, who played "Women of the World" for 30 minutes. It was great! I wish I could find a tape of that ...

Somehow, the last time I saw them was on the Dirty tour, in December 1992 (that week I saw Pavement + Sonic Youth on the 1st, Black Crowes on the 2nd and Faith No More on the 7th, all in the same venue) :-)

(oh yeah, L7 opened for FNM)

(Manic Street Preachers opened for Black Crowes!? I COMPLETELY forgot about that - anyway, nevermind, this is the SY thread)

NYCGAF is to my ears their weakest between 1990 and 2000 but not at all terrible; it's vaporous where ATL had at least some grounding. I'm not sure why such an okay album proved so divisive.

The last time I saw them was in 2002 at The Metro for the Murray Street tour, the night after the show they put up on bandcamp. Honestly thought the show I was at had the better setlist:

Kotton Krown
Bull in the Heather
The Empty Page
Rain on Tin
Skip Tracer
Plastic Sun
Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style
Karen Revisited
Schizophrenia
Shadow of a Doubt
White Kross
Sympathy for the Strawberry

Encore:
Disconnection Notice
Kool Thing

Encore 2:
Tom Violence

Okay looking again at the previous night's setlist maybe not "better", but I had so much fun at my show.

I'm not sure why such an okay album proved so divisive.

I think the prevailing wisdom was that Goo and Dirty copped mainstream moves, Jetset Trash & No Star (which I also love) seemed a reaction to that trend and the often thrilling and abstruse ATL confirmed that it was Goo and Dirty that were the anomalies and that SY actually weren't going to play what Royal Trux described as"music for teens on skateboards in malls".

ATL is the point where the industry and their new fans had to accept that pop SY was not going to be on the agenda anymore.

But also it arrived at a point where the press, in the UK at least, turned away from experimental stuff, still high off the fleeting profits of Britpop, etc.