Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

make no mistake, they redefined the guitar. they didn't simply dumb down branca for rock audiences (which someone could argue the velvets did re lamonte young), they added their own signature with new prepared guitar textures and tunings and ecstatic dissonant climaxes. they went from the post-pil jamming on the first ep to the mix of hardcore punk and no wave and dark noise on the first album to the industrial grind/shimmer of bad moon rising to the blissful intimate genderfuck of evol (generic??? want to argue that case?) to the rock-from-another-planet of sister. vocals and lyrics added a twisted but relevant dimension. and that's just the 80s.

ignoring daydream nation, which i've discussed elsewhere (read that thread, kate?), they continued to signify when they went mainstream. despite their numerous obvious errors, they continued to make inspiring work. dirty is not at all a watering down of any of their ideas. the instrumental breaks are constructed entirely differently than in their other work. the noise is used entirely in the service of abrasive, challenging songs. and how it is used! they have continued to display moments of genius in their post- washing machine work. they have unfortunately released a glut of product in recent years, only some of it as exciting as their best work. yet to simply dismiss the band, as it has become fashionable to do in indie circles (cf smiths backlash in uk), is just absurd. the best parts of goodbye 20th century are truly great.

pinefox: if it was anything like their montreal set last summer, it must have been divine. could you explain exactly what you dislike about public enemy, sonic youth, and iron maiden? anything beyond "tunelessness?" i am genuinely curious. i'm not even sure that tunefulness is the primary appeal of "to here knows when" or even "suffer little children."

My Sonic Youth Top Five:

1. Sister
2. Bad Moon Rising
3. "Kool Thing" (only really great if you read the Kim Gordon profile of LL Cool J for Spin, which inspired it)
4. Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star
5. Goodbye 20th Century

I'm actually shocked nobody brought up that last one, whether pro or con. I think it's fantastic, really beautiful in parts and really ugly/beautiful in others. Much better than any "regular" album they've put out since Goo.

Oh and Phil, do you know where I can find that LL profile?

That said, I think their career arc is pretty interesting -- starting weird and then getting conventional (by their standards, anyway) and then getting weird again, except that the weirdness on the other side is so much better than the early stuff.

I like the Sister-Daydream-Goo-Dirty quartet and then A Thousand Leaves best. Also liked Murray Street more than most I think.

"DY" is incredible, though. the kim gordon tracks especially - "kissability" is just filthy. i think "washing machine" may be undervalued - the first song on side two (can't remember the name) is their best Pop track.

People hating on Murray Street? Are you fucking kidding me?! Murray Street is an OUTSTANDING album that 99% of indie rock bands would have to consider themselves LUCKY to accomplish.

Wow; I don't know, Kilian. I mean I don't know how to respond to your disdain for Daydream nation. LIke, normally when I post around here I sort of try to acquit myself well and like mount intelligent defenses and stuff. But fuck it if you don't get Daydream Nation - one of the most consistently fascinating documents of four human beings picking up two guitars, a bass guitar, and a drum kit; - if you, kilian murphy, can't listen to that record and find meaning in it... well, I dunno. Fuck it, I guess.

But Christ, Sonic Youth! Ah well, whatever.

he's only saying that their long players, if played back-to-back, would start to grate: i think this could be said about most long players by most bands (though not many got to make them).

a couple of Mr. Snrub's "destroys" strike me as so counter-productive that i'm assuming he's playing devil's advocate. but generally, isn't arguing about this song or that song just a bit like arguing about spare change in the case of this band ?

I'd always thought that they were presenting their image as a send-up: "We love our indie roots, and still we're not afraid to let you know it." Still, many people love SY cause they can connect certain songs to specific events that happened in their lives. That's not unusual, however.

oh come on: i think its great that some 40 year olds are still making rock music and still having a group that they started with unlike awful 'solo' projects that rockstars have to cash in on their 'fame' (they do have solo projects but just as another thing, SY is always something they all come back to).

that is true, but not for sy
and Jim O'Rourke, after ten years of frantic activity, and he's a rock star ? so sy are looking after him, ok..
but where does so-called Thurstin' f'r Moore get off calling O'Rourke "our Eno" ?

George if thurston did call O'rouke their ''eno'' i'd say its probably a fair comparison: O'rouke makes solo records, collaborations and produces other people's records.

x-post: I thought it was a joke at first but thiking more abt it i think its a half-joke/half-compliment too.

I'd prefer if he got round to focussing on making GOOD records for a change.

Thurston had hevay flu at the ICA show that some of the tracks come from, and was shivering backstage and was sweating and wearing every item of clothing he owned just to stay warm, and all the London scenesters thought he must have been some dopesick smackhead. He gets on stage and they begin playing and he's burnin' up under the lights and begins removing all his shirts and jumpers, one item at a time, as the show wears on, and everyone tells him afterwards that it was a genius bit of stagecraft on his part.

I remember when I was researching my SY book Paul Smith of Blast First telling me he pressed up the boot to make SY some extra money, because he thought it was immoral that Thurston and Kim had to work at a photocopy shop to make rent and that they should be able to live off their music, and that's why he did the boot. but they heard about it before he could explain that to them, and they thought he was ripping them off, and he reckoned it caused a profound crack in their friendship.

That excuse might have worked had he not pulled the exact same trick on Big Black...

That excuse might have worked had he not pulled the exact same trick on Big Black...

Sound Of Impact? i had always thought that was with the band's consent.

i sold my Walls Have Ears, to my eternal regret so this is good news.

Sound Of Impact? i had always thought that was with the band's consent.

I'd have to dig out my copy of Our Band Could Be Your Life to check, but I believe it was supposed to be a promo-only thing sent to radio stations, and then Albini spotted copies in record stores and confronted Smith about it.

actually, that sounds familiar.

Of course there's an Albini interview about it (from Quietus):

Tell me about Blast First re-issuing records without your permission.

SA: It's kind of complicated, in that my relationship with Paul Smith who runs Blast First kind of broke down over a Big Black bootleg that he had done. He had originally done the bootleg with our blessing, under the precondition that we weren't trying to milk the audience; we just wanted to put out a live record and we wanted to stop the inevitable bootlegging of the band by putting out a very high quality live record. And that was The Sound Of Impact. The record was intended to come out as a limited run, to cover its costs and nothing else. Just put the record out, sell as many copies as necessary to cover the cost of making it, and that's it. Right?

OK.

SA: A second run of that record was done, and started showing up in stores, with some very slight manufacturing differences that allowed me to tell that these copies were not part of the initial run. So I confronted Paul Smith about it, and he told me a story about someone at the pressing plant deciding - because he was a fan of the band - that the world needed more of the record, and pressed up another edition. That story didn't sit well with me, and it seemed completely incredible. Previously to that, there had been a problem with the band Sonic Youth, where he had done a bootleg for Sonic Youth under similar circumstances where it was obvious that they were going to get bootlegged anyway, so he thought, "Let's cut them off at the pass, and do a really nice bootleg, get it out there and you guys can make a little money."

The band kind of went along with it at first, then decided better – decided against it – but Paul went ahead and made this edition and released it, and the band found out about it and the band got mad about it and they almost broke off their relationship with him. This had happened a couple years previous to this thing with the Big Black record, and I knew about it, and he knew that I knew about it. So the story that this second edition was done by somebody at the pressing plant seemed completely incredible. So I asked him to put me in touch with this kid who he claims was a big Big Black fan, and he claims did this edition of the record all on his own. I said "Just let me talk to this guy, and it's all over; if it's somebody else then I have no complaint with you. I'll verify the story then we can move on". And that effort went on for a couple of years, literally a couple of years, during which time Big Black ended, and the posthumous record came out and the Rapeman record came out, and ultimately he was just never able to produce this other person. And it ended our relationship. I said, "I can't deal with someone who's bullshitting me, and this seems like bullshit, so I guess we're done". The problem with just ending the relationship there is that, at the time, the Rapeman record was still un-recouped. Meaning we had been given an advance from Blast First, and the bulk of that money was spent just relocating Rey and Dave from Texas to Chicago, and not spent on the record itself. But regardless, the money was spent, so the Rapeman record hadn't yet recouped at the point where our relationship broke down to the extent that we weren't going to be working together anymore. We haven't spoken about it, but it seems to me like it would be callous of me to reissue the record without clearing the books with Blast First, despite whatever my feelings might be about any duplicity on Blast First's part regarding the Big Black record. I wouldn't want to reissue their record and do a new, worldwide edition of the record. That record hasn't been available in the UK since Blast First ran out of them, I don't think that they've bothered to reprint them, although they would certainly be within their rights to do so. It's been available continuously in the US, and so if we were to reissue it and make it available in the UK it would be through Touch And Go, and I would be self-conscious about doing that without clearing the books with Blast First, and I honestly don't know how much money we owed them. There's potentially a prohibitive debt there, I really don't know.

I have a CD boot of Walls Have Ears which is currently in a box to sell on Discogs (if it's not blocked on there which it might be). I ripped it first obviously

it is blocked, it's this one https://www.discogs.com/release/2748209-Sonic-Youth-The-Sonic-Youth-Sound-Experience-Walls-Have-Ears

Well not directly them but this is one of the best/most unexpected things I've heard in a while -- liv.e doing a cover of "Kissability"

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2fjP3HPLs5/

Listening to Walls Have Ears now and it's really incredible. Would have loved this in high school (1988-90) when I was listening to them the most.

yeah it rules

Hoping this is sitting at home waiting for me when I get there.

Mine arrived this morning, just spinning it now. Great start to kick it off with one of my favourite SY songs (no, not yer man from Slash’s speech).

Liked Walls Have Ears so much I made their first decade the subject of this week's BA newsletter.

Really liked this early years visit. I just finished reading Moore's memoir and have been on quite the SY kick lately. 'Sister' just gives and gives - definitely a fave album. For absorbing the NYC no wave and post punk and glam rock and hardcore scenes around them at their inception, they came up with such a unique sound that would serve them throughout their career. Truly an exciting band.

I appreciate seeing I Love Her All The Time getting some kudos in your piece. One of my SY all time favourites. Loving the Walls Have Ears version of it too.

Nice essay!

i will read later when i have time. somehow i ended up spending too much time reading about phish! that is definitely my SY era.