The very wonderful TQ #72/73 is out this week. Please buy it & not just because it includes the following piece by yours truly that discusses the autobiographies of Sonic Youth alumni Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore -:
There are many different musical routes and experiences that have brought us all to this issue of TQ . Our interest in underground, experimental, outsider music could well have been engendered by an initial interest in one or more of the following genres, whether they encompass improvised or scripted practice: classical, jazz, folk, electronica (be that one or more of the ambient, dance or prog varieties) or rock, in any of its myriad forms. However, if your path involved detours among the many substrata of American post punk, including hardcore, straight edge, noise, or No Wave, I'd imagine the work of New York's Sonic Youth , especially during the 1980s, will have been of paramount important. Without a doubt, the vinyl triumvirate of Bad Moon Rising (1985), EVOL (1986) and Sister (1987), though markedly less avant gardethan the band's earliest material, are crucial highlights in the history of American art and noise rock, though everything the band released between their establishment in June 1981 and dissolution on November 14 , 2011, is of exceptional merit, even allowing for the fact that from Goo in 1990 onwards, Sonic Youth were a major label act, signed to Geffen Records .
Although Sonic Youth used both Richard Edson and Bob Bert as drummers in their early years, as well as Jim O'Rourke and former Pavement member Mark Ibold as bassists towards the end of the group's life, the quintessential line-up that played on most of Their greatest works consisted of Kim Gordon (bass/vocals), Thurston Moore (guitar/vocals), Lee Ranaldo (guitar/vocals) and Steve Shelley (drums). I only saw Sonic Youthin the flesh once. Having missed their 1986 tour, on account of residing in County Derry at the time (bands just didn't play in the north of Ireland back then), I caught them at Newcastle Riverside on March 17th , 1989. They were incredible. A stunning sonic maelstrom that almost literally lifted you off your feet. Perhaps not as extreme as Swans or as uncompromising as Big Black or as primal as Killdozer, but a seminal experience, nonetheless.
Musically, all the members of Sonic Youth were endlessly creative. As well as the band's 16 studio albums, the four of them participated in a baffling number of collaborations with many different musicians and released a shelf-bending series of solo records. Since the band's demise, both Moore (twice) and Ranaldo have played solo shows in Newcastle, at The Cumberland Arms in Byker of all places. Tickets sold out instantly and I didn't get to any of these gigs, but I did have dealings with both of the other members in 1994, interviewing them for Newcastle based listings magazine, Paint it Red . Steve Shelley, affable and charming, drummed for The Raincoats when they first reformed and I caught up with them backstage at Riverside between soundcheck and set for a relaxed chat. The other, considerably less enjoyable, encounter was a telephone interview with a tetchy Kim Gordon about her Riot Grrrl project, Free Kitten , that she'd formed with ex- Pussy Galore guitarist Julia Cafritz. I thought at the time, and still do now, that the Free Kitten project, especially the debut album Nice Ass , was an ill-disciplined, self-indulgent mess. I wasn't the only one to express that opinion, which Gordon was all too aware of. Presumably this is why she slammed down the phone on me after half an hour of small talk that studiously avoided reference to her new project, I asked when Sonic Youth would be getting back together. Fortunately this incident doesn't get a mention in Gordon's excellent 2015 autobiography, Girl in a Band , though in its pages, she still bristles at the reception Free Kitten got. Good job I didn't make mention of her Harry Crews outfit who released a steaming 12” pile of ordure in 1989.
Some important facts to consider: Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore married in 1984, had a daughter Coco in 1994 and precipitated Sonic Youth's public disintegration in 2011 when their marriage ended in highly acrimonious circumstances after Moore left Gordon for Eva Prinz, who he is now married to. Last year, Moore published his autobiography, Sonic Life , which is a very different beast to the one his ex-wife released 8 years previously, both in terms of content, approach, and attitude. In some ways, you'd think the two books are talking about a completely different set of experiences, rather than a shared, if disputed, narrative.
It was always a nagging regret of mine that I'd not read Gordon's book, which had been released to universal critical acclaim. That regret became an unquenchable thirst once I'd got about halfway through Moore's take. Her book is 273 pages long, concentrating on her childhood for about the opening quarter of the book, but focusing mainly on her and Moore's partnership, both from a personal and a musical perspective, with considerable emphasis on their daughter and her impact on their life . I know the cliché that time is a great healer, but back in 2015 both Kim Gordon and her daughter were absolutely decimated by Moore's desertion of the two of them. Girl in a Band features an unflinchingly honest account of the sudden disintegration of a previously happy, if not perhaps idyllic family circle, and how badly it affected both mother and daughter. In contrast, Sonic Life is 480 pages long, he spends the first couple of hundred pages cataloging all the records Moore loved in his early teenage years, then the gigs he and his best friend Harold drove to New York City from their home in suburban Connecticut , before he found a place to live in the Big Apple and formed Sonic Youth . From that point, we get an exhaustive, though completely fascinating, account of every album and tour the band embarked upon. In only the last chapter, barely a dozen pages in length, does Moore give his guilt-free account of how he turned his life round 180 degrees, in a matter-of-fact way that is astonishing for its lack of both emotion and insight . Frankly, I simply can't understand how such selfish, narcissistic actions can be validated by Sonic Life being awarded the accolade of Rough Trade's Music Book of the Year for 2023.
I'm glad I read both books and I certainly won't allow the revelations, or otherwise, gleaned from either publication to influence my attitude to Sonic Youth's extensive back catalogue, though I was certainly more interested in investigating Gordon's 2024 album , The Collective , than in anything Moore may release in the future.
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