SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 4: Goodbye 20th Century (1999).
This SYR recording consists of Sonic Youth’s interpretations of 20th century composers’ works. Some of the composers are obscure, but a few are more or less household names: John Cage, Yoko Ono, maybe Steve Reich. I knew a few of these composers from Kronos Quartet, but for the most part the pieces are all new to me. Since I don’t know the original pieces I have no idea how faithful they are.
The most fascinating thing about the disc is the CD-ROM video of “Piano Piece #13 (Carpenter’s Piece)” which shows the band performing. The “song” is literally the band nailing the keys of a piano down.
There are a number of guests on the CD, including the first (I think) performance by Coco Haley Gordon Moore (on the 17 second “Voice Piece for Soprano”). And, the liner notes are all in English.
This is the longest SYR disc (at over an hour and a half) and it is a fascinating mix of noises and sounds and screams and spoken bits (okay okay okay okay okay okay okay).
This is not for everyone, not even the average Sonic Youth fan. There’s absolutely nothing in the way of “songs” here. The abstractness of the disc is palpable. And, clearly, just knowing that one of the pieces is a bunch of people nailing keys of a piano, you get a fair idea of the breadth of “music” that the disc covers.
[RE-READ August 19th] J.O.I. Filmography
Before reading this week’s section, I had noticed that many people on Infinite Summer (and elsewhere) have discussed James’ films and how they relate to incidents in the overall story. So, I decided to go back and re-read his filmography Endnote, just to see what else I could learn.
In general, with more background, the Endnote is much more interesting. The first batch of films are more amusing to read about just to see the emphasis on pain and disfigurement. We also see that he had been using students and teachers from E.T.A. in his films for a while.
We have had an in-depth look at some of these earlier films: The Medusa v. The Odalisque; Homo Duplex, The Joke, The ONANtiad (which the endnote describes as unfunny). But the ones we haven’t seen show distinct commentary about the state of the country since the Reconfiguration (it’s clear that J.O.I. was against it). The American Century As Seen Through a Brick deals with anti-O.N.A.N. riots; The Universe Lashes Out is about the evacuation of New Hampshire during the Reconfiguration; Poultry in Motion concerns the toxification of Thanksgiving Turkeys; and No Troy is about miscalibrated Waste Displacement Units that crashed into Troy, NY (which was mentioned in the scene about people looking for entertainment outside of their living rooms).
[Unrelated to the story, on page 990 of my paperback IJ (with forward by Dave Eggers) every italicized word contains a superscript 1 after it (indicating, what? more footnotes?) It is an astonishingly weird glitch/typo and I can’t believe that it wasn’t spotted before going to print as it makes the titles actually harder to read.] (more…)
It took me going to Seattle to learn about 
ten. For reasons known only to my head, I was convinced that Sasha was a black woman. Little did I realize that he is not. And that he was in a band that I have a CD of called Ui. He is an excellent resource for all things music, whether I like the artist he’s talking about or not. Some entries are 
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 3: Invito Al Ĉielo (1998).
This SYR release adds Jim O’Rourke to the mix (O’Rourke played with with them on A Thousand Leaves too). I’ve always been aware of O’Rourke but I’ve never really listened to any of the bands that he’s been associated with (and there’s a lot). So, I’m not sure what his actual contributions are, but he seems to be pushing the SY members into a much more noisy/abstract direction. (A few samples of Gastr Del Sol shows them to be pretty out there, so perhaps pushing SY in a direction that was not too far from where they’d go on their own. And, I rather liked the Gastr stuff, too).
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH: A Thousand Leaves (1998).
This CD actually ties to the book because the crossed out title on the CD is “mille feuille” and the first song is called “Contre le Sexism.”
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 2: Slaapkamers Met Slagroom (1997).
The second SYR release is like the other side of the coin from SYR1. The premise is the same, the players are the same, but the result is rather different.
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH -SYR 1 Anagrama (1997).
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-TV Shit (1993).
This is a funny little addition to the SY catalog. It is essentially four covers of a song by Youth Brigade called “No Song II” (which is from Dischord records, Possible EP 
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Washing Machine (1995).
After the short blasts and diverse collection fo songs on Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star, Washing Machine sounds like almost a different band. For although there are a few shorter pieces here, they also give us the 9 minute title track and the, brace yourself, almost 20 minute “The Diamond Sea.”
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star (1994).
“Bull in the Heather” is one of my favorite Sonic Youth songs. I love everything about it (even if I haven’t got a clue what it’s about): the simple opening, the switch to harmonics, and, my favorite part, the drum break that leads to the chorus (who ever heard of getting a drum break stuck in your head?).
every IJ book jacket/promotional material designed in a sort of cloud motif. Well, in the section we lean that Uncle Charles’ office is decked out in an unsettling cloud wallpaper (which is coincidentally the same wallpaper as Hal’s dentist). It has only appeared briefly so far, so it seems odd that it would take on such an iconic feel. But we’ll see if it comes back.
I Just Read About That... 