Sonic Youth on film doesn't come across so well, does it?

Sonic Youth doesn't come across so well on album either.

Also I noticed that they misquoted one of the video clips they were showing as "Sugar Kane" (it was actually "Titanium Expose"). I think it's anal to nitpick about certain flaws and inconsistencies in films, but come on -- this was a documentary about the band and they couldn't even get the names of songs right. I could make a better SY documentary than this one.

I might give them a hard time sometimes but I do find something to like in pretty much all their albums though. I was listening to Murray St today. I quite enjoyed it all except the last song.

later video i've seen seems to endlessly posit the band as feeling they are above their audience and maybe even wasting their time half bothering to do anything interesting (and producing 'throw-away-art' first and obvious so as to slouch around without having to actually achieve much) -- this 'why bother' thing has caught up with them -- these days you can see the band itself has little self-confidence in it's product and probably would not cross the street to see themselves do a standard rock gig

the film 'year punk broke' is pretty bad but it's a good film in showing how lame s.y. were at that time and why whatever they took to their new mainstream audience was too lazy and indulgent to cut it with anyone anyway -- it's 'broken' or 'faulty' punk rock from s.y. that's the problem -- as if these middle-class art-minded hippies gave a fuck about the kids or thought they might be able to educate the kids or show them some actual attitude !! they showed the kids no respect and set a low benchmark for any of the other bands on that tour, a trend that has taken grunge as the predominant legit/street rock to embarassingly new lows from bands that followed (leading to the blink xyz attitude kids expect in the us today from a rock festival)

s.y. had a chance to effect tastes riding on nirvana's back, but by aiming so low and playing their most retarded music (as preserved for 15 years in 'year that punk broke'), the mainstream u.s. grunge/rock tours do not have any of the class of the british mainline festivals, and none of the grace however naive of the woodstock times

the kids were young, un-educated, impressionable, yet i'm sure they could all tell they were being patronised by s.y. in 1991, the year s.y. delivered 'broke'(bankrupt) 'punk' 'rock'

(though i would love to see the video of s.y. last gig)

1991 is great! all the preformance footage is pretty slendid, imo.
i think alot of people forget how nirvana rode the SY/melvins coat-tails into fame. they aped a mutant melvins/sy sound and laid claim to it like no one else.
i'm glad sy are who they are and don't expect to be taken seriously. they never really did and look where it got em. i'm not saying they're good people, hell, i don't wanna meet em, BUT, they've put some rather impressive sounds to tape/disc/wax. more impressive than say, most of thier peers, but not while they're peers were even still around.
that's the beauty of it all, they've outlasted the best and worst of it and still can do whatever the fuck they want.
now, it ain't all good. in fact, there's a good amount of filler in the past few years, but, still...
btw-never saw that silver rockets thang. didn't sound too good.

Something unpleasant is watching Thurston and Kim make out in Titanium Expose (that's the right vid, right?). God, that's nasty!

also, I saw them do a live version of Schizophrenia on SNUB (but I don't think anyone was in the theater). Lee doing his tremelo thing was super cool.

I think they're great live. I don't have much more to add. I just think that if you like them, you'll enjoy the show; if you don't care for their aesthetic you probably won't enjoy being forced to listen to it for a couple hours.

Was The Year That Punk Broke annoying? Yes. But that's just Thurston being Thurston. He's really the only one. You just live with it. I liked Year that Punk Broke for all the Dinosaur and Nirvana footage, honestly.

This is in fact true. I am eight.

It occurs to me that in comparison the random googler crowd for Kanye et al are at least earnest and generally kind if utterly misinformed.

Producers?

Bullshit.

change my original statement to 'rock' band and i'm standing by it 100%.

Also I have no idea what this entity, rite of passage thing is ("If you have heard of Sonic Youth then you can be in MY club. And here's the new issue of Sassy.") but it sounds scary

Public Enemy - two good, if overrated albums.

KRS One - made a few decent tracks, only good album all the way through is Criminal Minded. Has proven himself a complete idiot over the years.

EPMD - would make a kickass Greatest Hits album (if they haven't already) But SY at their worst (say, "Into The Groov-Y") >>> "You Had Too Much To Drink." Parish Smith way more a weak link than any SY member.

Mobb Deep - I shouldn't even dignify this with a response, but I'll say this: Aside from the halfway decent "Shook Ones," they are utterly disposable and not even half the group Black Moon was.

Wu-Tang Clan - One great debut album. One at times great, but often boring but certainly no more wildly uneven than any Sonic Youth album post Sister. Two very very good albums each with one very weak song. And more than half-a-dozen great solo albums in which the entire group basically appeared on half of the tracks. And then a bunch of very good if someone exploitive compilations of great tracks which were spread across soundtracks and other folks albums and god knows where else.

OK, maybe not those last three, but still...Mobb Deep??!?

C0L1N - i have friends who swear by the so called Mash Out Posse but I can't take all the yelling. They've been remaking "Downtown Swinga" for years. In that sense, they're just as bad as Mobb Deep, and for the same reasons.

We'll just agree to disagree.

For what it's worth, the most groundbreaking hip hop group to come from NYC since 1990 is Company Flow, easy.

(psyched for Ghostface's new solo shit too tho)

ok, ok, low blow...

What's inventive about it aside from RZA's production?

"A three-girl punk band from Glasgow in Scotland, Pink Kross were discovered by Bill Bartell: the Californian who has spent two years putting together the Germs tribute album (which features 1992's cut "The Holez" by Courtney Love and onetime Germ Pat Smear). Bartell was also the man who "broke" cult group Shonen Knife."

this thread is so depressing. why can't ILM have a single fucking thread about even someone like Sonic Youth without it turning into a bunch of hand wringing about whether certain people like hip hop enough?

Although I am SY defender -- and always will be -- I must say that 'A thousand leaves' is a shit album. mostly offensive and shit. I've tried so hard to like it. but it is shit.

OK,yes, the Youth are geeks. I know.

One last thing: Alex in Nyc is going to wake up one day and realize that he has always been a closet SY lover. Yr in denial Alex, face it.

Oh, yeah, I do. I know, I know "just a kitten" - but besides that...

describe the touch, no it's the thought
it's warm and yellow and has a ruffle
it's warm and yellow and...
he's so quiet i forgot he's there
and i think here i am.
oh alice, come back he's just a kitten...
he's just a kitten
a thousand leaves for your disguise fall on
the sky and looking up from down is a sea to
realize the leaves are falling up and down
up and round.
and this is from my heart to you
a crazy wind will stir me too and contre de la
sexisme
i am with you.

Wait. Ninety.