Sonic Youth

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Sonic Youth
Kim Gordon (left) and Thurston Moore performing live in Stockholm, 2005
Background information
Origin	New York City, New York, USA
Genre(s)	Alternative Post-punk Noise rock Indie Rock Punk Rock
Years active	1981 — Present
Label(s)	Neutral Homestead SST Enigma DGC SYR Interscope
Associated acts	Ciccone Youth
Website	www.sonicyouth.com
Members
Thurston Moore Lee Ranaldo Kim Gordon Steve Shelley
Former members
Bob Bert Richard Edson Jim O'Rourke Jim Sclavunos

Sonic Youth is a seminal American alternative rock group formed in New York City in 1981. As of 2006, the group comprises Thurston Moore (guitars and vocals) Lee Ranaldo (guitars, vocals and organ) Kim Gordon (bass guitar, guitar, and vocals) and Steve Shelley (drums).

In their early career, Sonic Youth were associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City, but have outlasted most associated bands. Part of the first wave of American post-punk groups, Sonic Youth carried out their interpretation of the punk rock ethos throughout the evolving American indie underground (as the title of their documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke demonstrates) that focused more on the DIY ethic of the genre rather than its specific sound. They have found moderate mainstream success, and are generally seen as one of the leading alternative rock groups of their time.

Their inspirations were the likes of the guitar symphonies of Glenn Branca (with whom most of the band have performed), the heavy protopunk of The Stooges and The Velvet Underground and the punk poetry of Patti Smith. Sonic Youth were often praised for "redefin[ing] what rock guitar could do"^[1] using a wide variety of unorthodox guitar tunings, and preparing guitars with objects like screwdrivers to alter the instruments' timbre.

Members of the band have released books of poetry and prose, produced films, staged shows of visual art and more. There is also an abundance of musical material recorded and/or performed with other artists and side-projects.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Origins 1.2 Early releases: 1983-1985 1.3 SST and Enigma: 1986-1989 1.4 Major label career and alternative icons: 1990-1999 1.4.1 Diversification and side projects 1.5 Recent events: 2000-present 2 Musical style and influences 2.1 Alternate tunings 2.2 Influences 3 Samples 4 Discography 4.1 Studio albums 5 References 6 Notes 7 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Origins

Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo had performed (together and separately) in various short-lived punk rock groups. Ranaldo was a member of composer Glenn Branca's electric guitar ensemble; Moore and eventually Kim Gordon (who'd been introduced to Moore through a friend) would also perform with Branca. Gordon was not a musician at the time but had a fine-arts background, and in the early 1980s there was considerable crossover between the art and music worlds in New York City. Moore and Gordon began dating and decided to form a band where Gordon would play bass guitar and Moore would play guitar. The band went through a number of different names including Male Bonding, Red Milk, and the Arcadians.^[2]

The band then known as the Arcadians' first show was in June 1981 as part of a 10-day festival organized by Moore. Held at the White Columns gallery in SoHo, the "Noise Fest" festival also included a performance by Branca's ensemble. The band line-up at this event was Moore, Gordon, drummer Richard Edson and keyboardist Ann DeMarinis. DeMarinis did not stick around for another gig, but immediately after Branca's set Moore asked Ranaldo to join his band.^[3] Moore came up with the name "Sonic Youth" shortly before this concert, combining the name of Fred "Sonic" Smith of the band MC5 with the trend of reggae artists such as Big Youth featuring the word "Youth" in their names. Gordon recalled that "As soon as Thurston came up with the name Sonic Youth, a certain sound that was more of what we wanted to do came about."^[4]

[edit] Early releases: 1983-1985

Branca signed Sonic Youth as the first act on his record label Neutral Records. In December of 1981 the group recorded five songs in a studio in New York's Radio City Music Hall. The material was a released as the Sonic Youth mini-LP that, while largely ignored, was sent to a few key members of the US press that gave it uniformly favorable reviews.^[5] After their first record, Edson quit the group for a modestly successful acting career (noted for roles in Stranger Than Paradise and Ferris Bueller's Day Off); he was replaced by Bob Bert.

During their early days as part of the New York music scene, Sonic Youth formed a friendship with noisy New Yorkers Swans. The bands came to share the same rehearsal space, and Sonic Youth embarked on its first tour, a two-week journey through the southern United States starting in November of 1982, supporting Swans. During a second tour with Swans of the Midwest the following month, tensions ran high and Moore constantly criticized Bert's drumming, which he felt wasn't "in the pocket."^[6] Bert was fired afterwards and replaced by Jim Sclavunos, who played drums on the band's 1983 album Confusion Is Sex. Sonic Youth managed to set up a two-week tour of Europe for the summer of 1983. However, Sclavunos quit after only a few months. The group asked Bert to rejoin, and he agreed, on the condition that he would not be fired again after the tour's conclusion.^[7]

Sonic Youth had found themselves well-received in Europe, but the New York press largely ignored the local noise rock scene. Eventually, as the press began to take notice of the genre, Sonic Youth was grouped along with bands like Big Black, the Butthole Surfers and Pussy Galore under the "pigfucker" label by Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau.^[8] (Christgau saw these bands as sharing an abrasive, noisy and confrontational aesthetic.) Based on this classification, and on a negative live review by Christgau, a feud developed between Moore and the critic, with Moore renaming the song "Kill Yr Idols" "I Killed Christgau With My Big Fucking Dick" before the men sorted out their differences amicably.^[9]

During another tour of Europe in 1984, Sonic Youth's disastrous London, England debut (where the band's equipment malfunctioned and Moore consequently destroyed the equipment onstage in frustration) actually resulted in rave notices in Sounds and the NME. By the time they returned to New York, they were so popular they played shows practically every week.^[10] That same year Moore and Gordon were married and Sonic Youth released Bad Moon Rising, a self-described "Americana" album that served as a reaction to the state of the nation at the time.^[11] The album, recorded by Martin Bisi, was built around transitional pieces guitarists Moore and Ranaldo had come up with in order to take up time onstage while the other guitarist was busy tuning his instrument;^[12] as a result there are almost no breaks between the songs on the record, which feature walls of feedback and pounding rhythms. Bad Moon Rising featured an appearance by Lydia Lunch on the album's single "Death Valley '69," inspired by the Manson Family murders. In contrast to their abrasive, atonal material of the time, the band considered the song relatively conventional. Due to a falling-out with Branca over disputed royalty payments from their Neutral releases, they were signed to Homestead Records by Gerard Cosloy and by Blast First in the UK (which founder Paul Smith created simply so he could distribute the band's records in Europe).^[13] While even the New York press ignored Bad Moon Rising upon its release, now viewing the band as too arty and pretentious, Sonic Youth was becoming quite critically acclaimed in the United Kingdom, where the new album had sold five thousand copies in just six months.^[14]

Claiming he was bored with playing Bad Moon Rising live in its entirety for over a year, Bert quit the group and was replaced by Steve Shelley, formerly of the hardcore group Crucifucks. The band was so impressed with Shelley's intense drumming after seeing him play live they hired him without an audition.^[15] Bert has remained on good terms with the group; he and Shelley both appeared in the music video for "Death Valley '69", for Bert performed the drums on the song, but Shelley was the group's drummer when the video was made.

[edit] SST and Enigma: 1986-1989

Sonic Youth had a long fascination with influential indie label SST Records. Ranaldo said, "It was the first record company we were on that we really would have given anything to be on."^[16] Sonic Youth eventually signed to the label in early 1986 and began recording their SST debut EVOL with Martin Bisi in March of that year. EVOL itself represented an evolution of sorts for the band: in addition to increasingly melodic material and the impact of new drummer Shelley's playing, the record also dealt with themes of celebrity, particularly with songs like "Madonna, Sean and Me" and "Marilyn Moore". Signing to SST instantly catapulted the band to a national stage, something that did not happen to their peers in the New York underground.^[17] The mainstream music press subsequently was beginning to take notice of the band. Robert Palmer of the New York Times declared that Sonic Youth was "making the most startlingly original guitar-based music since Jimi Hendrix" and even People magazine praised EVOL as the "aural equivalent of a toxic waste dump."^[18] On 1987's Sister, Sonic Youth continued refining their blend of pop-music song structures with uncompromising experimentalism. Another loose concept album, Sister is partly inspired by the life and works of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. (The "sister" of the title was Dick's fraternal twin, who died shortly after her birth, and whose memory haunted Dick his entire life).^[19] Sister sold 60,000 copies and received very positive reviews, becoming the first Sonic Youth album to crack the top twenty of the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll.

However, the band was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with SST due to concerns about payment and other administrative practices.^[20] Sonic Youth decided to release their next record on Enigma Records, which was distributed by Capitol Records and partly owned by EMI. The 1988 double LP Daydream Nation was a critical success that earned Sonic Youth substantial acclaim. The album came in second on the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll and topped the year-end album lists of the NME, CMJ, and Melody Maker. A number of prominent music periodicals including Rolling Stone hailed Daydream Nation as one of the best albums of the decade and named Sonic Youth as the "Hot Band" in its "Hot" issue.^[21] Unfortunately, distribution problems arose and Daydream Nation was often difficult to find in stores. Moore considered Enigma a "cheap-jack Mafioso outfit" and the band began looking for a major label deal.^[22]

[edit] Major label career and alternative icons: 1990-1999

Managing to stay financially viable in the cut-throat music industry while maintaining some sense of self and dignity, Sonic Youth have proved highly influential on underground rock music. They played a particularly pivotal role in the proliferation of grunge: Their 1991 tour with the then-unknown Nirvana was captured in the film 1991: The Year Punk Broke.

1990 saw the release of Goo (their first album for Geffen), which featured the single "Kool Thing" on which Chuck D from rap group Public Enemy guested. "Kool Thing" became the song that most casual music fans associate with the band. The record is considered much more accessible than their previous work.

In 1992, the band released Dirty (DGC). Their influence as tastemakers continued with their discovery of acclaimed skateboard video director Spike Jonze who they recruited for the video for "100%" which also featured skateboarder Jason Lee. This song, along with the Gordon tune "JC" contain lyrical references to the murder of Joe Cole, a friend who worked with the band as a roadie. The album features artwork by Los Angeles-based artist Mike Kelley.

Moore and Gordon's daughter, Coco Hayley Gordon Moore was born in 1994, the year the band the band released Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. Possibly their most adventurous album, it was filled with low-key melodies and even had a semi-hit single, "Bull in the Heather", which gained even more attention when it was played at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in 1996. Many of the songs from Experimental Jet Set were never played live because there was never a full tour to support the album due to Kim's pregnancy.

The band headlined the 1995 Lollapalooza festival. By that time alternative music had gained considerable mainstream attention, and the festival was parodied on The Simpsons 1996 episode "Homerpalooza", which featured voiceovers from the band.

[edit] Diversification and side projects

In the meantime, members of the band diversified their talents. Kim Gordon collaborated in Free Kitten, and started an MTV-adored clothing label X-Girl, based in Los Angeles. Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore have played with many experimental/noise musicians, including William Hooker, Nels Cline, Tom Surgal, Don Dietrich, Christian Marclay and Mission of Burma, among others. Steve Shelley runs the Smells Like Records record label, as well as playing in backing bands for Chan Marshall (Cat Power) and Two Dollar Guitar.

From Sonic Youth's earliest days, Gordon had occasionally played guitar with the group. About the time of A Thousand Leaves and Washing Machine she began playing guitar more frequently, resulting in a three-guitar and drums lineup. These songs were something of a shift for the group's sound, and would lead to the introduction of a fifth member a few years later.

The Washing Machine album started a major shift in the band, away from their punk roots, that working with longer noise-jam sections and included two tracks that showed the new approach in full force (the track "Washing Machine" which is just under ten minutes long and the last track "The Diamond Sea" which is around twenty-five minutes long.)

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the band began releasing a series of highly experimental records on their own Hoboken, New Jersey-based label SYR. The music was mostly instrumental, and the album and track titles and even the liner notes and credits were in different languages: SYR1 was in French, SYR2 in Dutch, SYR3 in Esperanto, SYR5 in Japanese, and SYR6 in Lithuanian. SYR3 was the first to feature Jim O'Rourke, who went on to become an official band member.

SYR4 was different—it was subtitled "Goodbye, 20th Century" and featured works by avant-garde classical composers such as John Cage, Yoko Ono, Steve Reich, and Christian Wolff played by Sonic Youth along with several collaborators from the modern avant-garde music scene, such as Christian Marclay, William Winant, Wharton Tiers, Takehisa Kosugi and others. The album received mixed reviews, but most critics praised the group's efforts at popularizing and reinterpreting the composers' works.

[edit] Recent events: 2000-present

On July 4, 1999, Sonic Youth's instruments, amps, and gear were stolen in the middle of the night while on tour in Orange, California (see initial post on Usenet). Forced to start from scratch with new instruments, they recorded NYC Ghosts & Flowers and opened for Pearl Jam during the east coast leg of their 2000 tour.

When the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred, several members of the band were blocks away, Jim at their NYC studio (Echo Canyon on Murray Street) and Lee and his wife Leah nearby at home. After the attacks, they curated the first US outing of the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in L.A. The festival was originally scheduled for October 2001, but it was delayed until March the following year due to the attacks.

In the summer of 2002, Murray Street was released; many critics heralded a "return to form for SY", seemingly revitalized by the addition of Jim O'Rourke, who became a full member during this period.

This was followed in 2004 by the release of Sonic Nurse, an album similar in sound and approach to its immediate predecessor. "Pattern Recognition," a song named after the 2003 William Gibson novel, finds SY once again using Gibson's work for inspiration. As the opening track on the record, SY clearly signals a return to the postmodern well. The band also showed their pop culture commentary and sense of humor with the track "Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream," a faster-tempo song sung by Kim Gordon which spoofed Carey's life, including her short-lived relationship with rapper Eminem, which originally appeared on a 2003 split 7" with Erase Errata. (On the album cover, the reference to "Mariah Carey" in the title was replaced by "Kim Gordon" due to copyright issues, which presented the issue in an even more postmodern and ironic light). Sonic Nurse had decent sales, in part due to performances on TV talk shows including Late Night with Conan O'Brien and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The band was also slated to perform in 2004's Lollapalooza tour along with acts such as Pixies and The Flaming Lips, but the concert was cancelled due to lackluster ticket sales. When the band toured later that year, they played extensively from their 1980s catalog.

On October 6, 2005, Los Angeles CityBeat reported that some of the gear stolen in 1999 was surprisingly recovered and that it might be used for recording of the next album, then tentatively titled Sonic Life.^[23] The report also said that Jim O'Rourke might be leaving the band soon; his departure was confirmed by Lee Ranaldo in an interview to Pitchfork Media.^[24] When Jim O'Rourke did play for the group, he would play bass guitar, guitar, and occasionally synthesizer. In May 2006, the group announced on their website that ex-Pavement member Mark Ibold would play bass for the band on their upcoming tour.

In the early years of the 21st century, Sonic Youth has found a following in the community of neo-jam band fans. The band performed at the 2003 Bonnaroo Music Festival, which featured a large collection of jam bands. While Sonic Youth comes from a different background than the typical jam band (punk/post-punk as opposed to psychedelic), their approach to this background is similar to the jam bands approach to their own. Some prominent jam band musicians have long noted the influence of Sonic Youth; in the Phish documentary Bittersweet Motel, a Sonic Youth poster can be seen in the band's recording studio.

Rather Ripped was released in Europe on 5th June 2006 and in the USA on 13th June 2006. As with Sonic Nurse, the majority of the tracks were written by Moore. Compared to previous Sonic Youth recordings, the album features many short, conventionally structured, melodic songs and fewer feedback-fuelled left field improvisations (the band's avant garde tendencies nowadays have been largely exorcised through SYR releases and solo outings rather than band albums). Later that summer, Sonic Youth played the 2006 Bonnaroo Festival, as well as Lollapalooza.

In 2006 the band's album Daydream Nation, often cited as their best work, was inducted into The Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The Library of Congress' National Recording Registry documents America's history in sound. Its mission is to preserve recordings "that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." Here's what the National Recording Registry's website had to say about the album:

Pioneer members of New York City’s clangorous early 1980s No Wave scene, Sonic Youth are renowned for a glorious form of noise-based chaos. Guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo had previously performed with Glenn Branca’s large guitar ensembles, and their alternative guitar tunings and ringing harmonies attest to this apprenticeship. On Daydream Nation, their breakthrough album, the group’s forays into outright noise always return to melodic songs that employ hypnotic arpeggios, driving punk rock rhythmic figures and furious gales of guitar-based noise. Bassist Kim Gordon’s haunting vocals and edgy lyrics add additional depth to the numbers she sings.

The band released The Destroyed Room: B-sides and Rarities on December 12th, 2006. It features tracks previously available only on vinyl, limited-release compilations, b-sides to international singles, and even some material that had never before been released.^[25]

[edit] Musical style and influences

[edit] Alternate tunings

Sonic Youth's sound relies heavily on the use of alternate guitar tunings. Alternate guitar tunings had been used for decades in blues music, and to a limited degree in rock music (such as with Lou Reed's Ostrich guitar on The Velvet Underground and Nico), but Sonic Youth began using a variety of tunings more radical than nearly anything in rock music history. Azerrad writes that early in their career, Sonic Youth "could only afford cheap guitars, and cheap guitars sounded like cheap guitars. But with weird tunings or something jammed under a particular fret, those humble instruments could sound rather amazing—bang a drumstick on a cheap Japanese Stratocaster copy in the right tuning, crank the amplifier to within an inch of its life, and it will sound like church bells"^[26] The tunings were painstakingly developed by Moore and Ranaldo during the band's rehearsals; Moore once reported that the odd tunings were an attempt to introduce new sounds: "When you're playing in standard tuning all the time ... things sound pretty standard".^[26] Rather than retune for every song, Sonic Youth generally use a particular guitar for one or two songs, and can take dozens of instruments on tour.

As Branca used unusual guitar tunings, many assumed that his approach influenced Sonic Youth's. This was only partly true, and Branca served more as an inspiration than as a model: Branca's tunings were based on exacting application of music theory and were calculated with rigorous detail, while Sonic Youth's tunings were more freewheeling, based on whatever wild experiments sounded interesting. Said Ranaldo, among other approaches, Sonic Youth "used modal tunings, open tunings (ones we made up), octave pairs, two or three strings tuned to the same note, same gauge strings in different places or even half step tunings like pair of D strings and then a pair of D sharps."^[27] The latter examples (such as D and D# alongside each other) are very rarely used in pop music, and offer a distinctly jarring dissonance, imparting the teeth-rattling quality so especially prominent on the group's early albums.

[edit] Influences

Besides Branca, Patti Smith, and the Stooges, another influence was the hardcore punk of the early 1980s; after seeing a Minor Threat performance in May 1982, Moore declared them "the greatest live band I have ever seen" (Azerrad, 273). While recognizing that their own music was very different from hardcore, Moore and Gordon, especially, were impressed by hardcore's speed and intensity, and by the nationwide network of musicians and fans. "It was great," said Moore, "the whole thing with slam dancing and stage diving, that was far more exciting than pogoing and spitting.... I thought hardcore was very musical and very radical".^[28]

Members of the band have also maintained relationships with other avant-garde artists from other genres and even other media, drawing influence from the lineage of John Cage and Henry Cowell as well as European musique concrete (as evidenced by songs such as "Providence" on the album Daydream Nation). Sonic Youth has featured album art by several well-known avant-garde visual artists such as Mike Kelley and Gerhard Richter.

[edit] Samples

[edit] Discography

Main article: Sonic Youth discography

[edit] Studio albums

• Confusion Is Sex (1983)
• Bad Moon Rising (1985)
• EVOL (1986)
• Sister (1987)
• Daydream Nation (1988)
• Goo (1990)
• Dirty (1992)
• Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994)
• Washing Machine (1995)
• A Thousand Leaves (1998)
• SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century (1999)
• NYC Ghosts & Flowers (2000)
• Murray Street (2002)
• Sonic Nurse (2004)
• Rather Ripped (2006)

[edit] References

• Azerrad, Michael. Our Band Could Be Your Life. New York: Little, Brown, 2001.
• Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Sonic Youth". All Music Guide. Retrieved June 13, 2005.
• Foege, Alec. Confusion is Next: The Sonic Youth Story. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
• Ignacio, Julia & Jaime Gonzalo. Sonic Youth: I dreamed of noise. Barcelona: RUTA 66, 1994.
• Prendergrast, Mark. The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Trance, the Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age. Bloomsbury, 2000. ISBN 1-58234-134-6

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Sonicyouth.com
• Sonic's ghostsite with a very extended information archif by Chris Lawrence
• Sonic Youth Official RSS Feed
• Sonic Youth at Geffen Records
• Sonic Youth at MySpace

Sonic Youth
Kim Gordon | Thurston Moore | Lee Ranaldo | Steve Shelley
Jim Sclavunos | Richard Edson | Bob Bert | Jim O'Rourke | Coco Hayley Gordon Moore
Discography
Albums	Sonic Youth | Confusion Is Sex| Sonic Death | Bad Moon Rising | EVOL | Sister | The Whitey Album | Daydream Nation | Goo | Dirty | Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star | Screaming Fields of Sonic Love | Washing Machine | Made in USA | A Thousand Leaves | NYC Ghosts & Flowers | Murray Street | Sonic Nurse | Rather Ripped | The Destroyed Room: B-sides and Rarities
Extended plays	Kill Yr Idols | TV Shit | Silver Session for Jason Knuth | In the Fishtank
SYR series	SYR1: Anagrama | SYR2: Slaapkamers Met Slagroom | SYR3: Invito Al Ĉielo | SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century | SYR5 | SYR6: Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui
Singles	Death Valley '69 | Flower/Halloween | Flower/Satan Is Boring | Starpower | Into the Groove(y) | Teen Age Riot | Kool Thing | Disappearer | Dirty Boots | 100% | Youth Against Fascism | Sugar Kane | Drunken Butterfly | Bull in the Heather | Superstar | The Diamond Sea | Little Trouble Girl | Sunday
Video releases	1991: The Year Punk Broke | Screaming Fields of Sonic Love | Corporate Ghost: The Videos: 1990-2002
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