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Archive for the ‘Sonic Youth’ Category

Sherman Alexie–“War Dances” (New Yorker, August 10 & 17, 2009)

Posted in Cancer as plot device, Death, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Military, New Yorker, Sherman Alexie, Sonic Youth on August 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

nySOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Dirty (1991).

dirtyI think of Dirty as a pretty commercial album.  I mean, it’s got Butch Vig as a producer for crying out loud.  And, it has three singles released from it.

The lead off track “100%,” and track three “Theresa’s Sound World” are as catchy as anything.

And of course, Lee’s “Wish Fulfillment” is just an amazing track, and is certainly a nod to a more poppy sound.  But it is “Sugar Kane” that strikes me as their most commercial attempt yet. Of course, saying all this, one must remember that Daydream Nation & even Sister had tracks that were short and catchy.  Dirty almost feels like a condensation of that sound.

“Orange Rolls, Angel’s Spit” is one of those songs that mixes catchy sections and utter noise so successfully.  And “Youth Aginst Fascism” has a wonderfully catchy vocal line but it is backed by the squeakiest most unmusical guitars on the record (and has the memorable “I Believe Anita Hill” line).

But despite all that, there’s also two completely un-Sonic Youth songs on the disc: “Nic Fit” is a one minute hardcore punk blast while “Creme Brulee” is a solo guitar (a sort of out-of-tune, cheapo amp effect) strumalong sung by Kim.  Kim also gets “Drunken Butterfly” which is certainly not easy listening, (although the mocking of The Door’s lyrics is pretty funny).  And “Shoot,” which is one of Kim’s menacing spoken-wordish pieces that changes the overall temperament of the disc.

But, yea, there’s no denying that this is a commercial album. It features some of their catchiest and easiest-listening tracks.  And yet, the disc is certainly done on SY’s terms.  For even if they did make it onto the Billboard charts (#83), they certainly never got played on Top 40 radio.

[READ: August 6, 2009] “War Dances”

I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this short story or not.  But then this story is broken down into multiple small sections and the heading on the first was My Kafka Baggage. Now, I like Kafka, but Kafka can also be an “lazy” indicator for “weird stuff ahead”.   Nevertheless, I read the opening and I was intrigued. By the end of that section I was hooked.

And even though I felt the second section wrapped up things really nicely (it wraps up a story about the narrator’s father, but not the whole story itself), I pressed on.

All of this sounds like it’s not a strong vote of confidence for this story, but that’s far from the truth. The story was fantastic. I couldn’t get enough right up until the end, which was very satisfying.

The story concerns a forty year old Native American Indian guy. He has two kids and his wife is away in Rome on vacation. When his kids start clamoring for food, he realizes that he can’t hear them very well.  And sure enough, when he goes to the doctor, his hearing has suddenly dropped to about 30% of his normal ability. (more…)

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Zev Borow-“A Guide to Summer Sun Protection” (New Yoprker, August 10 & 17, 2009)

Posted in Black Flag, Cancer as plot device, Essays, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, Nirvana, Raymond Pettibon, Sonic Youth, Zev Borow on August 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

nySOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Goo (1990).

gooI’m not sure exactly why this Sonic Youth album was the first one I really got into.  I assume it’s because I was working at the radio station and probably got a bit of hype about their switch to DGC records.

And, say what you will about DGC being a major label, DG had some really great taste at the dawn of that label.

Goo and Dirty are sort of lumped into a kind of sellout phase for SY.  But  Goo is certainly harsher than Daydream Nation, and yet it also seems to flirt with the mainstream (with Chuck D appearing on it, and “Goo” having something resembling a sing-along chorus”).

Yet “Mary-Christ”  has a crazy background vocal section.  Kool Thing, the one with Chuck D, has a catchy enough chorus but the squealing guitars are very harsh.

Lee’s “Mote” is probably the catchiest song on the disc, although really the middle section has these sort of smooth songs like “Mote” and “Disappearer.”  But with “Mildred Pierce,” you get the scariest , most abrasive ending to a song you can imagine (and from what starts as a really pretty instrumental too).  And “Scooter and Jinx” is pretty much just a minute full of noise.

While 1991 may have been the year that punk broke, it’s Goo, complete with its Raymond Pettibon cover that sent punk, kicking and screaming, mostly screaming, into the mainstream.  All ready for Nirvana to smash the door wide open.

I just looked up Raymond Pettibon and learned that he is Greg Ginn’s brother.  Ginn founded Black Flag and of course Pettibon (whose real name is also Ginn) did virtually all the artwork.  I would even daresay that it was Black Flag that propelled Pettibon into underground fame…  he even outlasted the band that gave him his fame.  Wow, thanks Wikipedia.

[READ: July 5, 2009] “A Guide to Summer Sun Protection”

I don’t normally mention the Shouts & Murmurs one-page items from the New Yorker, but since Zev Borow is in pretty much all the McSweeney’s I’ve been reading, I thought I’d bring him up again. (more…)

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Danica Novgorodoff, James Ponsoldt & Benjamin Percy–Refresh Refresh (2009)

Posted in Benjamin Percy, Death, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Kiss, Military, Sonic Youth, Threats, Unlikable main character, Violence, War, YA Books on August 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

rerefreshSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sister (1987).

sister

It’s surprising how catchy Sister starts.  “Schizophrenia” is wonderfully sing-songy.  And “Catholic Block,” while noisy, is certainly single-worthy (and would likley be one if it were released today).  Kim has two tracks, “Beauty Lies in the Eye” which is a spoken word piece ala “Shadow of a Doubt.”  While “Pacific Coast Highway” is one of her scarier/noisier pieces.

Track #5, “Pipeline/Kill Time” is Lee’s first entry on the disc.  It starts as an instrumental and continues into a raucous Lee track.  “Kotton Krown” is a mellow mantra-like piece, while “White Cross” returns the band to its noisier roots.  The disc ends with “Master-Dik.” It’s a noise fueled riotous song.  It starts in something of a rap style (hard to call it actual rap).  It features a Kiss sample (from “Strutter”) as well as some of the first references to Ciccone Youth.

Overall it’s a rocking, great album, and it contains everything from poppy singles to outright noise.  It’s  an excellent middle piece to the great triumvirate of EVOL, Sister and Daydream Nation.

[READ: July 20, 2009] Refresh, Refresh

Sarah received a copy of this book, and since it came from the very cool comics press First Second, I was very excited to read it.

I have to say right up front, the content of this book is just not my thing.  It concerns teenaged boys whose fathers are in the Iraq war.  Violence is all they know, and violence is what they do.  I just don’t read this kind of book at all.

However, the story was very gripping.  First, of course, because it could very well be real, but second because it is told so well.

The three boys of the story have started a fight club of sorts to toughen each other up.  And despite the possibility of that being an overused premise, you can almost assume that the boys aren’t trying to copy the movie Fight Club.  They are Oregon youths with virtually nothing to do.  They’re not trying to be hip and cool like Brad Pitt, they’re just bored.  And they’re angry. (more…)

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Neal Pollack–The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature (2000)

Posted in Adventure, Airlines, Books about writers, Death, Demons, Dip-in Books, Drinking, Drugs, Essays, Eyes Wide Shut, Funny (ha ha), Henry Louis Gates, James Joyce, LGBTQ, McSweeney's, Neal Pollack, Oprah, Racism, Sex, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Threats, Toni Morrison, Violence on August 3, 2009| 1 Comment »

nealSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Made in USA (1986 released in 1995).

usaThe liner notes explain a lot of what was behind this disc.  The then largely unknown Sonic Youth was asked to score a cool indie film, which later became a less cool more mainstream film and ultimately went straight to video.

The CD is mostly background music, but it is notable for how mainstream it sounds (for Sonic Youth in the mid-80s) and for how bad it sounds–like it was recorded in a can.

It’s mostly completely listenable soundtrack mood music.  It’s nothing to rush out and buy, especially if you like the noisier SY stuff, but, and this is something of a shock, its sounds quite nice, almost ambient at times.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, it’s worth noting that “Secret Girl” from EVOL appears in a slightly different form (twice actually).

[READ: July 29, 2009] The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature

This is the first book published by McSweeney’s Books.  And it is indeed handsome, with a nice yellow ribbon for marking your page.

And so, who is Neal Pollack?  Well, as you all know, Neal Pollack is the greatest living writer today.  He has been writing for decades and has written some of the most important books, and the most important articles that anyone has ever read. His book on life as an African America has not only impressed Oprah, but it has inspired Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates.

And, as you can see from the back of the book, everyone from Hunter S. Thompson to Normal Mailer sings his praises. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–This is Water [2005 commencement speech from Kenyan College] (2009)

Posted in David Foster Wallace, Demons, Essays, Infinite Summer, Morality, NPR/PRI/PBS, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Suicide, Universities on July 29, 2009| 4 Comments »

this-is-waterSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH in concert from NPR (July 7, 2009 at Washington DC’s 9:30 Club).

syI’m not sure how I learned that this show was online.  But I was pretty delighted to see NPR hosting a live Sonic Youth show (this is actually the 2nd Sonic Youth show they’ve hosted and the older one is still online.  Sorry, the previous concert is removed, but there’s a three song set from WXPN (with interview) available here).

The coolest aspect of this is that it is downloadable.  The uncool aspect is that it is one long stream, so it’s not easy to split.  Although they do give a track listing, which is nice.

This is a good, if somewhat mellow show.  It features all of their new album, The Eternal, as well as a few choice oldies: “Hey Joni,” “Shadow of a Doubt,” and the opener, “Tom Violence.”  There’s not a lot of crazy noise, and most of the songs don’t last more than 4 or 5 minutes.  In fact, the photos show pretty standard guitar setup (no drum sticks in guitar strings or anything).

I was only able to listen on really crappy headphones, which I ‘m sure do nothing to the layers of noise that the band produces, but as soon as I can get it switched over for car playing, I’m sure it’ll bust out the speakers.

The whole set is about 90 minutes.

And if anyone knows just what is going on at the 59 minute mark (just before “White Cross”), and possibly even what song that is, let me know!”

[READ: July 26, 2009] “This is Water” [sort of]

I hadn’t been planning to read any other DFW pieces before I finished Infinite Jest (why, I figured, confuse the issue?).  But when I was looking around Amazon for something or other, I saw this “new” book and was obviously intrigued.  Then I read the reviews, and almost every review (both 1 and 5 star) said that it is a speech from 2005 commencement at Kenyan College and that it’s available online.

But now, with the publication of the book, it pretty much isn’t available online anymore.  [I found my copy though the Internet Archive, and marginalia.org.]  The copy that I have isn’t exactly the same as the book (in the only part I compared, the word “uniquely” appears in the book where it didn’t in the transcript, while at the same time, in the transcript there’s a preface that is funny and endearing which isn’t in the book).  But for all intents and purposes, let’s say that I have read the book.  (Plus it was easier to put the cover image than to find an image from the speech). (more…)

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Kurt Vonegut–A Man Without a Country (2005)

Posted in Books about writers, Corporate skewering, Death, Essays, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), In These Times, Kurt Vonnegut, Old Age, Poetry, Political Humor, Prison, Religion, Short Books, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Technology, The Future, Threats, War on July 27, 2009| 1 Comment »

kvmanSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-EVOL (1986).

evolAh, EVOL.  Here’s where Sonic Youth became Sonic Youth.  Who knows how much Steve Shelley had to do with it, but he shows up and the band becomes amazing.  The cover art is pretty darn scary and yet the music inside is amazingly beautiful.  While by no means a commercial album, the album is chock full of melody.

And yes, I believe it is mandatory to type the title in all capitals.

“Tom Violence” opens it up with a fantastic chord progression and words that are sung almost delicately.  And “Shadow of a Doubt” is amazing!  Guitar harmonics drift around while Kim whispers about a dream.  An astonishing leap from their past records!  “Star Power” seems like their attempt to right a catchy hit.  It would certainly never be one, but it’s pretty close.

“In the Kingdom #19” is a lengthy spoken piece by Lee Renaldo.  My friends Lar, Aurora and myself saw Lee play a show with Mike Watt in the city on Bloomsday.  We have a  special affinity for Lee’s songs.  I’m going to try to remember to point out all of his vocal turns on SY discs, but on those first few, it’s nigh on impossible.

“Green Light” seems like it could have been a Velvet Underground song.  “Death to Our Friends” is a pretty instrumental, while “Secret Girls” morphs from a noisy abstract soundscape to a delicate piano backed poem read by Kim.

I tend to think that SY’s early stuff was all noise and bombast, and yet only three albums in and they produce a masterpiece like this.

Known as “Expressway to Yr Skull,” the originally titled “Madonna Sean and Me” shows just how much SY knew about catchy tunes.  And maybe that’s the key to longevity, having a catchy tune somewhere underneath whatever layers of nonsense you throw on top (and SY throws the best nonsense I know).  Admittedly, “Expressway” kind of devolves into a few minutes too many of fading notes. The disc ends with “Bubblegum” a surprisingly rock and roll song.  I especially like Kim’s “hit it girls” comment.

EVOL marks the beginning of a staggeringly fantastic collection of discs.

[READ: July 16 2009] A Man Without a Country

I hadn’t been planning to read any of Vonnegut’s book out of sequence (except for the collected stories which I figured I’d read in their own sequence).  But when I went to join my local library’s Adult Summer Reading Program (in mid-July, how punctual!), I received a coupon for a free book from their free book shelf. Largely they were books that I didn’t want.  And just as I was about to give up, I saw this small Vonnegut book poking its spine out from the rest.

I grabbed it and brought it home. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Slaughterhouse Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death (1969)

Posted in Death, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage (Happy), Military, Nazis, Prison, Record Labels, Sex, Slaughterhouse Five, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, War on July 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

s5SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Bad Moon Rising (1985).

Abadmoonnother Sonic Youth record, another record label.  Bad Moon Rising is a pretty big leap from Confusion is Sex, in that there are actual songs.  Well, that’s not fair, what I mean is that the songs have structure like proper songs do. In fact, “Death Valley ’69” (with vocals by Lydia Lunch) is quite catchy!

Indeed, the band doesn’t shy away from catchy at all.  The opening track, “Intro” is a pretty one-minute guitar piece.  And it’s followed by “Brave Men Run (In My Family)” a catchy (!) song sung by Kim.  The third track “Society is a Hole” returns to the stark tracks of yore, with Thurston’s despairing vocals, but it introduces guitar harmonics, a key SY staple in songs to come.

And if you like ” I Love Her All the Time,” and who doesn’t, check out this footage from a 1991 concert (complete with Thurston using drumsticks on his guitar).

Despite these signs of lightening up, there are some pretty heavy sounds on this disc.  “I’m Insane” and “Justice is Might” sounds kind of like you might think they would based on their titles.

The band has definitely gotten control over the noise they want to make; it doesn’t seem to be enveloping them, (like it envelopes the listener), it’s more at their beck and call.  We’re not quite to the levels that prime SY will sound, but it’s pretty darn close.

And songs from the attached Flower EP are okay, but “Flower” is especially good. It has a cool “Love the power of women” spoken piece from Kim that foreshadows some of her really fantastic songs to come.

And just to be difficult, they end the disc with the one-minute “Echo Canyon” which is just as it sounds,an echoic noisefest.

[READ: July 16, 2009] Slaughterhouse Five.

What is worse?  Reading a book and not remembering a single thing about it, or not reading a book but convincing yourself that you have?  I am stuck with this dilemma as I realize that one of the two options applies to me and Slaughterhouse Five.

I was certain that I read Slaughterhouse Five.  In fact, I was certain that I knew exactly when I read it (my junior year of college on Super Bowl Sunday, when I blew off the Super Bowl party to read the book).  I realize now that it must have been some other book (but what could it have been?) as I had no recollection of Slaughterhouse Five.  At all.  Even though the cover of my mass market paperback  (which I can’t find online anywhere) was completely familiar and there’s even a dog eared page or two.  Huh.

The first thing I want to say about the book is, having read all of the novels that Vonnegut wrote before S5 was a real boon to reading it because so many of the characters from the other books appear in this one!  More on that in a moment.

The book is also about the air attack that obliterated Dresden, Germany.

Amazingly, and this is common knowledge after you read the book, Vonnegut was in Dresden at the time of the air attack.  (more…)

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Jean-Paul Sartre–“A Fine Display of Capuchins” (Harper’s, August 2009)

Posted in Death, Essays, Harper's, Jean-Paul Sartre, Morality, Record Labels, Religion, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Swans, Wikipedia on July 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »

harpersaugSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sonic Death: Early Sonic 1981-1983 (1984).

sonicdThis document shows just how scary a Sonic Youth show could have been back in their early days.  Well, not scary so much as noisy!   They mention that they’ve been touring with the Swans, so you can imagine how intense these shows must have been.

This record is kind of a mess.  There’s no track listing (only 1 track on my copy of the disc). In fact, it’s mostly just snippets of songs and lots of distortion.  The Wikipedia Page shows the approximate breakdown of where the snippets are (and it gives you something of a track listing).  If you’re a fan of Sonic Youth circa Daydream Nation, and you haven’t heard their earlier stuff, don’t even bother with this.  If you like Confusion is Sex and you want to hear what they sounded like live back then, pick this up.

Under all of the noise, it shows the band being silly, with snippets of conversations and tape manipulation…exactly the kind of homemade tape that you might expect from Thurston Moore’s own record label (and one of the first releases on the label).  It seems like the kind of thing that nowadays would be included as bonus footage on a DVD, but heck, they didn’t do that back then.  So this feel more a home recording.

So, before you go hunting down this out of print title, be aware of just what you’re going to get!

[READ: July 18, 2009] “A Fine Display of Capuchins”

When I was a philosophy major I read only a small amount of Sartre.  I always wanted to read more, but never had call for it.  I especially wanted to read his fiction, which seemed like it would be interesting, or at the very least, some of his not too demanding essay work.

And lo, here is a piece that had been untranslated until now.

This is a fascinating piece.  Sartre goes into a crypt underneath a church in Rome.  In the crypt he finds that it contains the bones of thousand of friars which were exhumed and transferred there in 1631.  (more…)

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Wallace Shawn–“Is Sex Interesting?” (Harper’s, August 2009)

Posted in Essays, Funny (ha ha), Harper's, My Dinner with Andre, Romance, Sex, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Swans, The Princess Bride, Toy Story, Wallace Shawn on July 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »

harpersaugSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Confusion is Sex (1983).

confusionOn the Sonic Death album, a collection of live recordings from 1981-83, Thurston mentions that they are touring with the Swans, a New York City doom and gloom band of thunderous proportions.  [This was before the Swans put out their first album, an incredibly slow, bass heavy bombastic disc of nihilism.  I can only imagine how raw they were BEFORE that one.]  Anyhow, that explains somewhat why this disc sounds like it does…if they were a part of a scene with the Swans, then their music would naturally be all about notes, not necessarily music.

There’s a lot of slow, brooding pieces on this disc.  The bass is heavy and rather ponderous, and the vocals are pretty scary.  Although the inclusion of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” is an interesting cover choice.  The guitars are angular and quite harsh.  “Confusion is Next” is a stark song sung by Thurston and “Making the Nature Scene” is a similarly stark song sung by Kim.  These two tracks show that the disc is not all one style.  But the overall theme is consistent all the way through.

Later on, Sonic Youth would sound angry but it was often directed at something.  On this one they just sound angry.  Confusion is Sex is an interesting stepping stone to some really amazing Sonic Youth discs that will appear shortly. You can tell that they’re in there somewhere!

The remastered disc adds the Kill YR Idols EP which is more of the same.  But the live recording of “Shaking Hell” just goes to show how freaking scary a SY show must have been back then.  It also confirms anyone’s suspicion that the scariest member of the band was definitely Kim Gordon!

[READ: July 18, 2009] “Is Sex Interesting?”

Wallace Shawn is best known for a lot of things.  He was the “Inconceivable” guy in The Princess Bride, he is the voice of Rex in the Toy Story films, and he is the star and writer of My Dinner with Andre (among many other things).

I enjoyed My Dinner with Andre, both reading and watching it, and I rather enjoy reading what Wallace Shawn has to write.  So, I was pretty excited to read this which comes from a collection of essays called Writing About Sex.

vazziniI can’t help but hear his voice when I read his words, which makes it sound even funnier.

He writes that he is a sixty-four year-old man, and people seem to think that he is too old to be writing about sex (which he has been doing since he was 14).   And yet he (still)  thinks that sex is interesting to write about.  And he wonders why. (more…)

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Stephen O’Connor–“Ziggurat” (New Yorker, June 29, 2009)

Posted in Boredom, Fables, Funny (strange), Gods, Hüsker Dü, New Yorker, Short Story, Sonic Youth, Supernatural, The Cure, Video Games on July 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ny629SOUNDTRACK–SONIC YOUTH-Sonic Youth (1982).

syA new Sonic Youth disc (The Eternal) just came out which seemed like a perfect reason to go back and sift through their old discs as well.  And like Hüsker Dü, they were also on SST Records for a time.

This disc, their first, is possibly most notable for two things. One, their drummer (and this is the only disc of theirs that he appeared on) eventually became the parking attendant in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (“What country you think this is?”  “Relax…I’m a professional”) among other films.  And two: it is really not very noisy at all.

This disc falls into the No Wave camp, a style of music that I honestly don’t know very much about.  When I see lists of bands that are in this “genre” I sort of get it, and I even know a bunch of them, but I can’t ever say I sought it out.

I guess in many ways it’s not very Sonic Youth at all.  And yet for what it is, it’s quite good.  The minimalism is there.  (Except for the drums which are all over the place, including cool flourishes of tom toms!)  Kim’s bass rides pretty solidly throughout.  But the biggest difference is the guitars which don’t contribute waves of noise but rather occasional blasts of sound.  If anything it reminds me a lot of early Cure (like around Seventeen Seconds).

The guitars are very chimey, and I’ve read that the band is dissatisfied overall with the sound of the disc.  And yet despite that, it’s an interesting artifact.  Even if it isn’t a great Sonic Youth album, it’s a cool look at the alternative New York scene of the time.  And it’s cool to see the origins of this band.

I have just learned that it was reissued with all kinds of bonus material (I knew about the other back catalogue reissues on DGC but this one didn’t get the reissue back then).  The reissue has live tracks from around that time.  The samples indicate that the band played these songs a lot noisier live, but they don’t seem quite as chaotic as their next couple of releases..

[READ: July 8, 2009] “Ziggurat”

This was a weird little story that became even more surreal as it went along.

The story is set in the Labyrinth.  The Minotaur lives there and is currently lounging on a pool table in the game room. This Minotaur is not half bull, but is just a very large, very ugly creature.  He kills and eats anyone who comes near (whether as a sacrifice or as an attacker).

But now there’s a new girl.  She doesn’t flee.  She doesn’t even tremble, she simply plays a video game called Ziggurat (the object of which is to build a Tower of Babel before God can knock it over).  The Minotaur is dumbfounded by this behavior, so he lets her live.  Eventually, they start talking, and the Minotaur begins to feel emotions he didn’t think he had (guilt, longing). There’s also a very awkward and funny discussion about virgins. (more…)

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