Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

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.

In retrospect the end was clearly in sight last time I saw them in 2010. They threw everything out from the major label era. I mean, this was the setlist:

Candle
The Sprawl
'Cross the Breeze
Catholic Block
Stereo Sanctity
Eric's Trip
Death Valley '69
Shadow of a Doubt
Hey Joni
The Wonder
Hyperstation
Shaking Hell
--
White Kross

I never really got that "prevailing wisdom". Dirty was the first I heard so that may have slanted my pov but that one and Goo don't seem that much poppier than Sister and Daydream Nation (on which they fully embraced rock song structures and beats) to me. Certainly not like the mainstream pop/rock of 1990-92 (the era of "More Than Words" and "Life Is a Highway"; maybe you could argue that there are some more hard rock/metal moves, in keeping with the popularity of GnR and Metallica...?) Jet Set also doesn't any less pop to me; if anything, there are a few songs like "Waist" that seem to come even closer to being straightforward pop-punk; it seems like possibly the least ambitious to me. Not really sure what would make latter-day singles like the "Superstar" cover, single edit of "Sunday", "Empty Page", or "Incinerate" less 'pop' than "Dirty Boots" or "100%", other than the relative popularity of alternative/indie rock at different times.

Tbc, I do think the SYR series marks an obvious move towards greater interest in improv and avant-garde composition, and I get why ATL is more sprawling and thorny than Goo, but the mix of rock tunes with expanded song structures, dissonant tunings, and guitar noise actually seems pretty consistent through the DGC albums.

Am I alone in finding Dirty one of their most disappointing and boring?

I saw them three times. The first time was at a WFMU benefit at the Ritz where the lineup was Love Child, Gumball, Dim Stars, Sonic Youth and Painkiller. I had been a Sonic Youth fan for a few years but was about to "progress" to being more into John Zorn's Painkiller. I barely remember Sonic Youth. Now of course I'd rather listen to Sonic Youth at their worst than Painkiller. The only other times I saw them were 1000 years later in the mccarren pool in brooklyn. Once with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and once with the "Slits." (I don't think it was actually the slits but Ari and friends?)

I had to email Byron Coley to get Thurston to put me on the guest list to the show with the YYYs.

xp I believe so, yes. I love it.

I like Sister and Daydream Nation a lot, and Murray Street and Sonic Nurse even more, but I've been catching up with the records in between and have found them all disappointing for different reasons (haven't heard A Thousand Leaves or NYC Ghosts yet). There's a couple of good songs on each but I feel there's a lot of confusion and trying to do things that don't come naturally.

Today was fun listening! Murray didn't really stand out too much until the last three songs, 'Plastic Sun' to 'Sympathy For The Strawberry' to 'Street Sauce' was reminded me of what I loved about seeing SY live and maybe the best of Kim's songs I've heard on these later records, until I heard 'I Love You Golden Blue' from Sonic Nurse. There's something bright about the sound of Murray St and even Sonic Nurse, almost a California feel, esp. 'Peace Attack.' Wasn't Jim O'Rourke a member/producing them? I'm not sure if I can hear his influence, maybe that's the sunshine I heard? Then I listened to Rather Ripped which I think next to ATL is my favorite of these albums, On 'Incinerate' I hear everything I loved about Daydream Nation and even Sister distilled into almost pop. I think I've listened to enough SY for awhile. I finished the drive home listening to Bad Moon Rising, which was my first album to buy. and I still get lost in it.

After spending two days with these albums I had sort of dismissed, I think they are one of the greatest bands of my generation. The guitar tones on Rather Ripped, ATL and Sonic Nurse still recall the same sounds I first fell in love with the band for but are refined but more austere, no one does it in a rock song like this. There's beautiful moments on these records I wasn't expecting.

i saw them on the EVOL tour with My Bloody Valentine supporting.

setlist -

Marilyn Moore
The World Looks Red 

Star Power 

Death to Our Friends
Shadow of a Doubt

Tom Violence 

White Kross 

Shaking Hell

Expressway to Yr Skull 

The Burning Spear

And then twice on the Sister tour with Firehose supporting.

setlist -

Schizophrenia
(I Got a) Catholic Block
Tuff Gnarl
Pipeline/Kill Time
Expressway to Yr Skull
Pacific Coast Highway
Kotton Krown
Stereo Sanctity
Beauty Lies in the Eye
Tom Violence
White Kross
Hotwire My Heart
Brother James
I Wanna Be Your Dog

And then twice on the Daydream Nation tour with Mudhoney supporting.

setlist -

Brother James
The Wonder
Hyperstation
Eric's Trip
Candle
Kissability
The Sprawl
'Cross the Breeze
Teen Age Riot
Hey Joni
White Kross
Eliminator Jr.
Silver Rocket
Expressway to Yr Skull

and then one more time when they did the Don't Look Back: Daydream Nation tour which is the show Lance Bangs filmed.

i still kick myself that i didn't get it together to travel to London to see them on the Bad Moon Rising tour.

Dirty was my first SY but these days I can’t listen to it really. It’s just …. too long, too much. It could use a trim.

I saw them:

1. Lollapalooza ‘95/ early August, West Virginia
2. October ‘95/ something ballroom, NYC
3. Late summer ‘98, somewhere in DC or Philly

If I was editing Dirty down, the cuts would need to be near the middle. Wouldn’t cut a single Kim lead song.

Scratch that “Orange Rolls …” could go.

“Theresa’s Sound World” could go, too.

xps yeah O’Rourke was a member for Nurse. I saw them at the Enmore in Sydney on that tour, the single best sounding concert I’ve been to. Absolutely beautiful record too.

1. Lollapalooza ‘95/ early August, West Virginia
2. October ‘95/ something ballroom, NYC

I also saw them at Lolla and then (I thought) the Washing Machine tour... but checking this website, it was technically the next tour, in April '96 (apparently it was their Last known performance of "No Queen Blues," whatever that song is)

I saw them only once, in Seattle in a stadium opening for Neil Young in 91(?)

Wish I had clearer memories of the show

I saw them in 1986, Evol tour, Firehose opening

Marilyn Moore
Tom Violence
White Kross
Shadow of a Doubt
Death to Our Friends
Secret Girl
Green Light
Brother James
Expressway to Yr Skull
Star Power
The Red & the Black

(the last an encore jam with Firehose)

Still what I'd consider one of the best shows I've ever seen. I may have been on psychedelic drugs, but still. I saw them again in 1995 in their peak mallrat days and it was fine but not nearly the same.

That’s the tour I would have liked to see

I remember that they did their own light show, which was incredibly effective, very intense

I saw the London debut supporting SPK at the Venue in December 83. They went on much earlier than they would have liked. Danielle Dax wouldn't compromise about having to have a stage within a stage thing built. Turned out years later that I met one of the guys who built it when I was living in Dublin.
Anyway they were trying to get a slot late enough to accommodate the press that were coming down to review them. Nothing doing do they played a really intense 15 minute set blowing out a bass amp as they did so. Unfortunately nobody appears to have taped it cos I'd love to hear it again.

only time i got around to seeing them was towards the end at Prospect Park and Thurston made a few cracks at Kim that now feel telling.

holy heck stevolende! shame that SY didn't play for longer but that sounds like a fun bill. i guess they were all doing their own particular versions of noisy tribal pounding stuff at that stage

“Theresa’s Sound World” could go, too.

hard disagree. that song is like a huge pulsating boil of psychedelia, like a fairground ride of fluorescent noise.

I like tonnes of Dirty. It was my second SY, after Bad Moon Rising - I heard both in 92, after getting into Nirvana and then going in search of the source.

I don't know if I'd cut anything off any SY albums. They're not about concision to me, but radiating concentric circles taking you further out.

Saw them at the Castaic Lake gig on the Dirty Tour with Pavement, Mudhoney and a surprise appearance of Kurt Cobain. Still love the vibe of that album but agree it’s too long. Can’t really choose any favorite, all their LPs are great on their own and different way. I love the haunted mystery of the early years but the sunshine bliss of the O’Rourke years rock me just as much.

“Theresa’s Sound World” is one of my favorite SY bask-in-sound moments.

Saw them at CB's in 92 as Drunken Butterfly. They basically opened for Charles Gayle if I remember correctly and at the end of Gayle's incredible set (with William Parker on bass) Ranaldo and Moore came out and improv'd with him.

Also saw them at City Gardens and Maxwell's (both New Jersey) a few times in the 90s but the shows were only ok. A truism going around among NYC music heads at the time is that SY never played their best shows on home turf.

Maybe Dirty just needs a reshuffle? I dunno.

I do love a lot of it.

I saw the London debut supporting SPK at the Venue in December 83.

how were SPK? i saw them the year after but it was the more sanitised junk funk version. i bet they were better in '83. that gig sounds so great, danielle dax too!