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Sonic Youth......


Brandon Burke

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Recently reading Kim Gordon's memoir Girl In A Band sent me back to some of the Sonic Youth records that I lived with in the late 1980s and early 90s, and they still hold up really well, especially Daydream Nation (which marks its 30th anniversary this Thursday).  God, they were an amazing band.  I really need to check out some of the later records... sort of drifted away from them after Dirty (not because I disliked that record--I like it better than many other SY fans do, I think--but just because I'd been listening to them so intensively for 6-7 years at that point and felt a bit burned out).  Daydream Nation, though, man, that's practically a Sgt Pepper of American indie rock for me, and it capped an incredible run of albums  (Bad Moon Rising 1985, Evol 1986, Sister 1987).  

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27 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Recently reading Kim Gordon's memoir Girl In A Band sent me back to some of the Sonic Youth records that I lived with in the late 1980s and early 90s, and they still hold up really well, especially Daydream Nation (which marks its 30th anniversary this Thursday).  God, they were an amazing band.  I really need to check out some of the later records... sort of drifted away from them after Dirty (not because I disliked that record--I like it better than many other SY fans do, I think--but just because I'd been listening to them so intensively for 6-7 years at that point and felt a bit burned out).  Daydream Nation, though, man, that's practically a Sgt Pepper of American indie rock for me, and it capped an incredible run of albums  (Bad Moon Rising 1985, Evol 1986, Sister 1987).  

I keep meaning to read that book.  How is it?

I agree with you about those earlier albums and 'Daydream Nation' in particular, and I like 'Dirty' too. I bailed out at 'NYC Ghosts and Flowers' but habit had kept me on board since 'Washing Machine' really.

I saw them play 'Daydream Nation' as a celebration of an anniversary so I'm now thinking that must have been the 20th - yikes!

Thurston Moore's a London resident now but I've not seen him play since a very unimpressive display with some leading Improv musicians a few years ago. I should give him another chance, he's quite regularly at Cafe Oto

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39 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

I keep meaning to read that book.  How is it?

I agree with you about those earlier albums and 'Daydream Nation' in particular, and I like 'Dirty' too. I bailed out at 'NYC Ghosts and Flowers' but habit had kept me on board since 'Washing Machine' really.

I saw them play 'Daydream Nation' as a celebration of an anniversary so I'm now thinking that must have been the 20th - yikes!

Thurston Moore's a London resident now but I've not seen him play since a very unimpressive display with some leading Improv musicians a few years ago. I should give him another chance, he's quite regularly at Cafe Oto

The Kim Gordon memoir is excellent.  It begins with Sonic Youth's final concert, then moves into a rather Joan Didion-esque rendering of her adolescence in southern California late 1960s/early 1970s, and then jumps to NYC at the beginning of the 1980s.  She crossed paths with a lot of people early on who went on to become "notable" in one way or another, which is also interesting.  

BTW, I highly recommend the deluxe edition of Daydream Nation.  The second disc includes some covers from the Daydream Nation period (an awesome one of the Beatles' "Within You Without You"--I bought the various-artists Sg. Pepper Knew Our Fathers tribute in 1988 just to get this track) and live versions of all the DN songs from 1988-89 concerts.  Good booklet, too.  

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2 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

The Kim Gordon memoir is excellent.  It begins with Sonic Youth's final concert, then moves into a rather Joan Didion-esque rendering of her adolescence in southern California late 1960s/early 1970s, and then jumps to NYC at the beginning of the 1980s.  She crossed paths with a lot of people early on who went on to become "notable" in one way or another, which is also interesting.  

BTW, I highly recommend the deluxe edition of Daydream Nation.  The second disc includes some covers from the Daydream Nation period (an awesome one of the Beatles' "Within You Without You"--I bought the various-artists Sg. Pepper Knew Our Fathers tribute in 1988 just to get this track) and live versions of all the DN songs from 1988-89 concerts.  Good booklet, too.  

Thanks. Book and deluxe DN will be tracked down

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I've only had a sort of passing familiarity with Sonic Youth over the years (mostly from radio-play on the various alternative rock stations I used to listen to in and around Kansas City back circa 1994-2003 (which is about when I stopped listening to anything by NPR on the radio, which is still the case now).

BUT, I've been listening to Pandora a lot more in the last year or two (after just some occasional use 4-6 years ago).  And the last 6-9 months I've been listening to a "Gang of Four"-based station that plays Sonic Youth fairly often, and they're also on a post-punk station I spin off Pandora too.  No idea what tunes, or which albums they're from - but generally I've been diggin' most of the Sonic Youth that Pandora's been serving up to me.

Probably time for me to look for a good compilation, maybe.

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6 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Probably time for me to look for a good compilation, maybe.

This is the only SY I have.  It's a compilation.  Per Wikipedia, "the album contains sixteen tracks: the first fifteen were selected by other artists, and the sixteenth is an exclusive new recording by Sonic Youth."

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