C/D: Sonic Youth - Washing Machine

Yeah man the title track really has some just great moments in it, but I completely hear you on that one in re the solo at that point.

I mean, SY kind of spoiled me in that I want moments like this from most bands, and most do not deliver. A brief set of them: Lee's solo in "Pacific Coast Highway", the totally bitching screaming note that precedes the second "freak out" in "Theresa's Sound World", the whold instrumental outro of "Rain On Tin", etc. etc. etc. I can tolerate all of the dismissive "screw that band" comments about SY (don't like Kim's vocals, they are pretentious NYC dorks, they are boring) cause I just point to those things and say "other bands do not provide payoffs like this". Pretty much the only reason I post about music online, or what got me started and eventually led to me finding ILM, was getting angry at a Stylus piece by Ian Mathers in which he tried to make the case "I don't care what people say, I am done pretending to like 'Daydream Nation' just cause I am supposed to, it is dull/boring". I mean, fine, but dude was slinging Mogwai or something and it is just like fuck give me "Cross the Breeze" alone over the whole catalog of most bands.

that gtr solo after Kim says "and I looked up" in the title track... something about it hits me just right, my favorite SY solo

― polyamanita (sleeve), Wednesday, June 25, 2014 10:38 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^^!!!!

This is my favorite Sonic Youth album. Top to bottom, perfect. Maybe not their "best" (that'd be Sister, I think) but definitely one of my favorite albums by anyone ever.

Sonic Youth live from 1997-2004/5 was so good. All the songs from those albums translated well live, and they seemed really into playing them. So glad I went to every show I could get to during those tours.

Fuck, I gotta get a new copy of "Washing Machine", I have no idea where my copy of this is.

haha, me too! could probably get a CD used for under a buck i bet.
and yeah i agree w/ what you said about payoff--they were almost always just a great rock band.
coincidentally, i'm seeing thurston tonight in boulder! he's doing some kinda thing w/ anne waldman.

Is it just a poetry/reading thing or is he playing too?

Haven't heard it in 10 years but yeah it's probably my favorite of theirs. I'm happy to see that it seems to have been canonized by now. The title track captures so well the feel of a very warm and pleasant dream.

xp - i think it's some kinda music/poetry action. should i yell out for "teenage riot" or not?

Nah, you should ask him what he thinks of Body/Head and whether SY is ever going to get back together.

it is a taping for a radio show, i almost wouldn't be surprised if the host dude (who can be a bumbler) asks something along those lines.

Will try to listen to that radio show if it airs online.

I loved this album when it came out. Listening to it again now, I'm not crazy about it, mainly due to the lack of bass - it sounds too thin and brittle. Still some classic SY songs on here though - Diamond Sea, Little Trouble Girl, Unwind, and Skip Tracer in particular.

not sure if it's my setup, but this record seems to lack a lot of bottom-end frequencies... bass feels a bit petrified, brittle. have always loved the album, however. even "pantie lies"

edit: wow, posted the same time as Immediate Follower...

It's the first album where Kim mostly plays guitar but they don't have a bass replacement so a lot of the songs just don't have bass.

Was this the record where Kim switched to playing guitar? She should have played through a bass amp.

Lol, NA on some preemptive mind-meld shit today.

For some reason the lack of bass never bothers me, it just has a different sound (and I get to bask in the glow of the guitars that much more).

lol i was starting to wonder if this thread revealed that Jersey Al had NA killfiled

beginning of proper dreamy shimmering guitars era sy. the WM solo is my favourite sy moment I think

beginning of proper dreamy shimmering guitars era sy

I feel like they got much better at this style later with e.g. "Free City Rhymes" or "Rain on Tin". The first and last tracks are awesome, though.

Well, and with Murray/Nurse more generally. Adding O'Rourke on bass helped a lot imo.

latter part of the title track was what won me over, and it's all the more rewarding after the difficult first half. I've always held the album in high regard for its production quality (heavy, crisp, spacious), and have only recently noticed the lack of low end. compared to Exp Jet Set, it's a little thin sounding. WM was the last really muscular-sounding SY album for me, until maybe Sonic Nurse, which has that soft-edged, Jim O'Rourke sheen.. is that a piano on the latter part of "the dripping dream"? wtf.

to call A Thousand Leaves a "better realized" album seems dubious, ATL feels very demo-ish and sketchy in comparison, which also makes it great.

I think they had kind of exhausted the "muscular" side of the band on "Dirty", and had probably gotten sick of the general rock action of the mid-90's, so the move to more expansive, loosely structured songs was really refreshing to me and a good move for the band in my opinion. I mean, I cherish those records now, cause there is so much cool playing amidst the spaces of the songs. I maybe like "Murray Street" the most out of that run/style, but I think "Washing Machine" has a more distinct overall feel of an album, in that it feels like a band really hitting on something and going with it for the lenght of the record. Both "Dirty" and certainly "Experimental ...." were a little bloated and all over the place, which made for plenty of cool songs but not great album-as-album listens for me.

here's mr. moore last night in boulder
http://photos-g.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xpa1/10448918_778698632150566_45093503_n.jpg
a few solo songs, an anne waldman poetry/music thing, and then, most bizarrely, a concluding jam (with a band called the greyhounds who were also on the bill) on Nilsson's "Jump Into The Fire." it was fun. thurst is actually in boulder all summer apparently, teaching something about Burroughs at Naropa. i think i need to find out what bar he's hanging out in.

Sounds like an alright night. But yeah you should track him down, maybe you can get him to jam with Forces At Work.

I'm sure all the available weed in Boulder probably swayed his decision to summer there.

no idea what you're talking about
http://photos-b.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xpf1/10388051_737073713020801_451066444_n.jpg
[across the street from the venue last night]

Did anyone go to this last night?
http://www.strandbooks.com/event/raymond-pettibon-kim-gordon

If I saw Thurston with an iPuff my enthusiasm for SY would wane a little I must admit.

yes but it's called THE VILLAGE GREEN SOCIETY, that's gotta count for something

all the different varieties.
but yeah those ipuff things seem to be popular. kids these days, back in my day etc.

http://instagram.com/p/pr32o_uT9L/

I think, having been a band for over 10 years at that point, the direction they went in with Washing Machine and then 1000 Leaves was pretty much the only one they could have gone. Release endless versions of Dirty by the mid late 90s? Go back to the Evol/Sister sound?. They had done that.

funny that people consider Washing Machine as the point where they turned into noodly free-jammers. For me WM is a transition point between these two phases. There are still quite a few Alterna Nation relics on it (eg. Little Trouble Girl, No Queen Blues, even Pantie Lies)

Yeah No Queen Blues and Pantie Lies sound like they belong on EJSTANS

Hello 2015!

crazy

this record is so skinny

really a whole gnarly ball of psychopathology and primitive interpersonal relationship dynamics tho huh, when was coco born

While some of the earlier albums maybe seem a little less consistently-great to me than they once did, my feelings about Washing Machine basically haven't changed since I first heard it: it's got, like, no spark, man. It's okay but it sounds like a contractual obligation, 'Compilation Blues' fleshed out to album length. Probably my least favorite SY album, truth be told.

I remember seeing them in a club soon after this record came out; getting crushed against the front of the stage at a random/unexpected moment; and saying afterward to a friend -- "Did a memo go out saying all the kids are supposed to go nuts when they play, like, 'Skip Tracer'?"

Not the best Sonic Youth album, but my favorite

definitely one of my favourites, for the title track and diamond sea alone

I saw Sonic Youth four times, three times were fairly average but the show in support of this LP was absolutely fantastic. Opened with Teenage Riot and closed with long version of The Diamond Sea.

Yeah No Queen Blues and Pantie Lies sound like they belong on EJSTANS

― Immediate Follower (NA)

take these out and this is a perfect record imo.

I loved Washing Machine when it came out and I love it now, and that's probably down to being 18 and seeing the band play almost the whole album lives around that time. But yeah, it retrospect, it could've lost maybe 2-3 songs and been even better. (Short version: NA OTM)

My favorite too, though I have listened to it pretty sparingly in recent years compared to, say, Goo or even Experimental Jet Set, for the spry SY. Washing Machine has such a lovely dankness, though (...maybe not quite in the sense people meant "dank" at the time, thinking back to college).

I suspect there's a different track order that would make this album hold together better, but I haven't bothered to try.

How can you dislike an album that has Little Trouble Girl and Diamond Sea on it ???

tbh I played it this morning and my 4yo stuck her fingers in her ears, shouted "I hate this music!" and demanded I put t Madness on