Monday's Long Song

My April/ May 2026 Sonic Youth immersion continues- I can't enough of their music at the moment, inspired mainly reading Thurston Moore's Sonic Life and I've been going back into their 80s albums, 1986's EVOL and 1987's Sister especially. 

EVOL was their third full length album and the first with Steve Shelley on drums and as much as any of their records shows them moving from a fairly full on post- punk/ noise ascetic towards some tunes that could be decribed as pop (or at least informed by pop). The altenrate tunigns and unconventional structures are still there. They never really dealt in classic rock verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ middle eight/ verse/ chorus, willfully creating whatever verse and chorus structure they wanted. But there are songs on EVOL that show tunes and melodies were becoming important to them. Kim Gordon called it a 'faux goth' record. 

EVOL has several songs that would qualify for a Sonic Youth best of- Shadow Of A Doubt and Starpower would both be contenders and in Expressway To Yr Skull one of their best songs, their first truly great song and one of the best of the 80s. Neil Young agreed. He called it 'a classic... incredibly good, so beautiful' and in 1990 invited them on tour (a tour that Thurston describes in detail in his memoir, their battles with the Neil Young and Crazy Horse road and sound crew a feature that pissed them off until Neil intervened). 

Expressway To Yr Skull (listed as Madonna, Sean And Me on EVOL's back cover) kicks in with clanging, wrecked guitar chords, wind blasted, sunglasses and hair blown away chords. Thurston eventually sings the opening verse, Brian Wilson on bad drugs, 'We're gonna kill the California girls' and then more obliquely, 'We're gonna fire the exploding load in the milkmaid maiden head'. They build, Thurston, Kim and Lee clanging up and down the necks of their guitars, noise and atonality but still with the musicality of outsider late 60s rock. 'Mystery train', he sings nodding to Greil Marcus and Elvis, 'Three way plane/ Expressway to your skull'.  They understood dynamics, the importance of tension and release, and there's a pause with the hum of amps and guitars, stretched out, before Thurston comes back in and drawls... 'to your skuuuuuuuulllll...'. 

There are different versions of Expressway. This one has a long fade out that takes it over six minutes. I've added another version of the song to the end of it, doubling its running time. Belgian artist Wixal recorded a cover of Expressway in 2007, part of a seven song EP of Sonic Youth covers, that he made after seeing Sonic Youth play a gig in Leuven. You can find it at Bandcamp. 

The Long Champs, a Weatherall approved Welsh cosmic/ ambient/ chug artist, took Wixal's cover and added a shimmering, padding ambient/ cosmische aura to it, sending Wixal's already blissed out cover of Sonic Youth's blasted alternative 80s art- rock into new places. I thought the two would work well as one thirteen minute piece- and happily they do.

Expressway To Yr Skull/ Expressway Long Champs Bonus Beats

Lloyd of The Long Champs has had a significant loss recently and this post is dedicated to him and to Delyth. 

While being inspired by Thurston's book I pulled my copy of Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground, 1981- 1991 off the shelf, a history of D.I.Y. US indie- punk from Black Flag to Beat Happening, published in 2001. My copy is hardback and I guess bought around 2002/ 3 when it was published in the UK. I opened the front cover and the first page had a scrawl in red pen all over it, done I remembered instantly when I left the book lying around and a young Isaac picked up a pen and opened the book and doodled away. It made me jump, this sudden contact with Isaac. 

When I skipped to the Sonic Youth chapter, he'd done the same over two pages there too. It made me smile- Isaac, gone four and a half years ago nearly now, scribbling over my book, suddenly there in front of me, or at least his marks were there in front of me, and the coincidence that reading Thurston Moore's book and listening to the records again had led me to this mark Isaac had made a quarter of a century ago in the Sonic Youth chapter struck me as, well, just a coincidence I guess. I could hear him speaking at that point too, a flashback, him unaware of what he'd done and laughing. Funnily, it also made me think it was pretty Sonic Youth, the home made, handwritten/ scrawled album sleeves, liner notes, gig posters and fanzines Thurston Moore was responsible for. 

'We're gonna find the meaning/ Of looking good/ And stay there as long as we think we should/ Mystery train/ Three way plane/ Expressway... to your skull'

Gonna Keep It Underground

One of last month's books was Thurston Moore's memoir Sonic Youth, written during lockdown and published two years ago bit I only got around to it now. Thurston writes directly and economically but at length (Sonic Life is over four hundred pages). His memory is fantastic- he can vividly recall aspects of his life, gigs particularly. His life changed when his older brother exposing a very young Thurston to Louie Louie by The Kingsmen, the addictive joy of distorted guitar chords planting a seed that grew and grew in the pre- teen Thurston. He recounts his teenage years, the growing interest in leftfield and proto- punk bands in the early and mid 1970s. Tragedy strikes the Moore family with the sudden death of his father and the impact that has on himself and the family, Thurston briefly heading down a self destructive road of teenage delinquency. 

He writes of his teenage friendship with his best friend Harold and their trips to New York City in the mid- 70s to see the bands and singers they'd read about in magazines- the New York Dolls, The Ramones and Patti Smith- coupled with his first attempts at playing the guitar (inspired primarily by Ron Asheton's guitar sound on The Stooges and Funhouse). Thurston is above all a fan and his fandom, his love of bands and music and the associated culture- records, cassettes, posters, flyers, magazines, books, gigs- drips off every page. He loves experimental artists and noise, genuinely thrilled by artiness and one- off gigs that many people leave early from. 

His depiction of New York is also vividly drawn. Thurston moves there in 1978, looking to become part of the scene he's been tiptoeing into as an out of town punter. Pre- gentrification it was possible to rent an apartment in Lower Manhattan for less than $100 a month. Thurston notes the changes in the mid- 80s as bands, poets and artists and the various ethnic minority groups who live down there begin to get priced out by the arrival of people with money. For a while Thurston lives in a crime ridden but exciting post- punk playground where you had to watch your step- don't go out to buy cigarettes at 3 am he notes- but also where you could see Patti Smith and Ramones play at CBGBs and The Dead Boys at Max's Kansas City, the bands mere inches away from the crowd, where the fledgling New York noise of James Chance and Liquid Liquid rubbed shoulders with really obscure art- funk and punk rock. 

The early 80s scene which he gradually becomes a part of, first via his role as guitarist in The Coachmen and then by the beginnings of Sonic Youth (and playing as part of Glenn Branca's guitar orchestra), is filled with a vibrancy and energy and partly populated by people who become legendary in years to come- Madonna, Keith Haring, Jean- Michel Basquiat and The Beastie Boys are all doing their things in early 80s/ mid 80s Manhattan and in this creative maelstrom Thurston gives birth to Sonic Youth, meeting Kim Gordon and enrolling Lee Ranaldo. They go through several drummers before Steve Shelley takes up the drum seat permanently. 

Thurston's recall of these years, the details of gigs and recording studios, trips out of New York to play gigs elsewhere, several people crammed into vans with all their gear and no money, the connections made with similar bands doing similar things in other cities- Minutemen, Bad Brains, Black Flag- is incredible. He outlines Sonic Youth's artistic growth Sonic Youth as they hone their sound, the alternate tunings, with drumsticks and screwdrivers jammed into guitar necks, writing songs and lyrics, untutored and expressive, each album a step on from the previous one-  1986's Evol and 1987's Sister being breakthrough records and then the mighty Daydream Nation in 1988, putting the band on a level with the groups he moved to NY to see play. Sonic Youth's move to a major label and the 1991 tour with Nirvana brings the group to European festivals and big crowds and his friendship with Nirvana, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love is central to several chapters. Kurt's death too. 

There's warts and all as well as the rush of being in a band on the rise- his own (sometimes bratty) behaviour and the tensions between bandmates and crew jammed together in confined quarters is alluded to if not detailed. There's also the whole Kim Gordon situation- Thurston and Kim split in 2013 after a 27 marriage and even longer time as bandmates. In 2013 Kim published her own book, Girl In A Band, a book that opens with Thurston and his betrayal and makes their relationship central to her view of things. Thurston's book deals with the split, his relationship with Eva Prinz that led to it, and the end of the band, right at the end of the book- literally a few paragraphs in the last chapter. It's too personal to speak about in public is his defence. The end of the marriage ended the band and it ends the book too. 

I enjoyed Sonic Life- Thurston writes well and he really brings 80s New York art rock scene, the downtown hip hop/ art- world crossover and Sonic Youth's career to life, and (sign of a good book) it sent me scurrying back to their records and his endless enthusiasm for music, bands and records is genuine and palpable. But one of the things that struck me about Sonic Life is that it's really not a book about the people in Thurston's life. Kim gets a part and their daughter Coco does towards the end, his teenage friendship with Harold too, but I don't feel like I came away knowing anything about what Lee Ranaldo or Steve Shelley were actually like as people despite Thurston spending decades playing with them. Really, Sonic Life is about music and its attendant culture and its transformative effect on Thurston- other people's music, via gigs and records and shared stages, and Sonic Youth's music, music made by a fan of music. 

Kotton Krown is from 1987's Sister, the album where they married their experimental art- noise to tunes and really nailed how to write affecting leftfield, post- punk, where they transcend their influences. The lyrics on Sister are personal but oblique, sung by Thurson and Kim intuitively. Someone called it 'the last great album of the Reagan era' which rings true. Distorted guitars as a response to trickle down economics. 

Kotton Krown

A year later Daydream Nation distilled the Sonic Youth sound and songwriting into one of the best albums of the 1980s. It's an exhilarating blast of energy and electricity, it led them to a major label and Goo and Dirty and giant festival stages but remains at heart an album made by kids with scruffy pumps and ripped jeans. 

Hey Joni

I Learned It All From You Girl

Busy wasting time/ conducting research on the internet recently I found some pages from Sonic Death, the fanzine published by the members of Sonic Youth between 1990 and 1994 which ran to seven editions. It was written and assembled by the band with Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo especially involved and was riddled with Sonic Youth's DIY, scissors, glue and photocopier, punk energy. There are photos and drawings, interviews with other bands, reviews of obscure, underground 7" singles and albums, letters from fans accusing SY of selling out (they were on Geffen at the time), tour dates and updates, gig reviews, all the things that fanzine culture covered. Here are two front covers, from issue 5 and issue 4, Royal Trux and Sebadoh and much more...

Actual copies of Sonic Death rare as hen's teeth and accordingly expensive; second hand- copies at second hand sites are listed at hundreds of dollars/ pounds. Luckily, at Sonic Youth's own website you can download every edition, #1 through to #7 as pdfs. If you're really dedicated, find some low grade paper and a stapler, print them and read as physical artefacts. Even better, sneak them into work and run them off there. You can find them here. Time capsules from a vanished age. 

Fanzines and music television were both high points of the early 90s pop culture world. Snub TV was a very fondly remembered  BBC2 early evening programme covering late 80s and early 90s indie with videos, live performances and interviews. It was essential viewing. I had stacks of clips and episodes recorded onto VHS to watch repeatedly at leisure. 

Sonic Youth appeared on Snub on 16th January 1989, thirty seven years ago today (not planned, a totally fortuitous coincidence I noted earlier this week when writing this post). There's a sense no one really wants to be interviewed and Thurston Moore stuns everyone at the end with a quote about punk rock and Sharon Tate that goes way beyond what the interviewer was expecting in a discussion about punk rock...

In 1992 Sonic Youth released Dirty, a double album that followed 1990's major label debut Goo. Dirty is loud and grungy, not sloppy grunge but punky grunge, noisy, experimental and chaotic but also with some very focussed and well arranged songs, produced by Butch Vig. Youth Against Fascism, 100%, Sugar Kane, Drunken Butterfly and Swimsuit Issue are all first rate and Dirty is an hour of Sonic Youth at their 90s best. 

The UK release of Youth Against Fascism came with a version of Dirty album song Purr, one of the earliest songs written for the album, recorded at a session for BBC's Mark Goodier, half acoustic and very fine indeed. 

Purr (Mark Goodier Session Version)

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Three

A third Sunday covers mix for October this time with an 80s indie edge and some repeat offenders from the last two weeks present and correct. Starts out all small hours and hushed, goes noisier, comes down again and finishes where it started with The Velvets, one of the most covered bands. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Three

• Cowboy Junkies: Sweet Jane
• Sonic Youth: Superstar
• Primal Scream: Carry Me Home
• The House Of Love: Who By Fire
• Ciccone Youth: Into The Groovey
• World Of Twist: This Too Shall Pass Away
• Red Snapper: Sound And Vision
• R.E.M.: Indian Summer
• Minutemen: Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
• Calexico: Corona
• Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins: Pale Blue Eyes (Western)

Cowboy Junkies covered Sweet Jane on their magical 1988 album The Trinity Session. The album was famously recorded in Toronto's Church of The Holy Trinity. Their cover was based on the version the Velvets played on their 1969 Live album rather than the one on Loaded. Lou Reed said the Cowboy Junkies take on the song was his favourite, the way the song was meant to be done. 

Sonic Youth featured twice last week and do this week too- their version of Superstar came out on a 1994 tribute to The Carpenters. Richard Carpenter didn't like it at all. Sonic Youth take a blow torch to the song, a huge amount of reverb, one massive piano note, some wobbly guitar sounds and surely nail something true about the song. The Carpenters released it in 1971 with LA session musicians The Wrecking Crew and a toned down, less suggestive lyric ('I can't wait to sleep with you again' was changed to 'be with you again'). The song was written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell and recorded first by Delaney and Bonnie in 1969, a song about the relationships between rock stars and groupies in the 60s.

Carry Me Home was on Primal Scream's Dixie- Narco EP, a bleak Dennis Wilson song made bleaker still by Primal Scream and Andrew Weatherall while recording at Ardent in Memphis in 1991. Weatherall's production and arrangement is superb, an extension of the Screamadelica sound into darker places. Dennis' song is sung from the point of view of a dying soldier in Vietnam.

Who By Fire is a Leonard Cohen song covered by The House Of Love on a 1991 tribute album, I'm Your Fan- there are loads of 80s/ 90s alt/ indie stars on the album including R.E.M., Pixies, The Lilac Time, Ian McCulloch, Lloyd Cole, Robert Forster, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, James and John Cale. I'm not sure any of them really improve on the original songs. 

Ciccone Youth were a Madonna inspired Sonic Youth side project with Minuteman Mike Watt on bass. Watt was in a bad way after D. Boon's death and what became The White Album was a way to get him playing again. Into The Groovey is a cover of Madonna (obvs) and samples her too. SY loved Madonna in the 80s, they loved Into The Groove. They also covered Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love. 

World Of Twist did a few covers- Kick Out The Jams, She's A Rainbow, Life And Death- and this one, This Too Shall Pass Away, which sits in the middle of side one on their sole album, 1991's Quality Street. Quality Street is a heady stew of psychedelic pop, Northern Soul and late 80s Mancunian indie. The original version of This Too... is a 1964 single by the Honeycombs.

Red Snapper's cover of Bowie's Sound And Vision is on Ban- Di- To, out earlier this year and thoroughly recommended. Red Snapper are a formidable live band and Sound And Vision is a live favourite- I saw them do it at The Golden Lion in 2023.

Indian Summer is a semi- legendary song by Beat Happening, lo fi indie pioneers from Olympia, Washington. The song is a slow burning tale of youth and lust, originally released in 1988. R.E.M.'s cover is from a 2008 single, Hollow Man. I have versions by Spectrum (Sonic Boom), Luna and The Jazz Butcher as well as this one. In fact Spectrum's may be the best version and should probably have been included here- R.E.M. find some late period magic and intensity here though.

Minutemen covered Have You Ever Seen The Rain? on their fourth and final album, 1985's Three Way Tie For Last, a cover of Watt and Boon's teenage heroes Creedence Clearwater Revival. AT two minute thirty seconds long it's an epic by Minutemen standards. D Boon died shortly after the album's release.

Calexico's cover of Minutemen's Corona was on their 2003 masterpiece Feast Of Wire. The original is from 1984's Double Nickels On the Dime, one of D Boon's best songs, a heartfelt protest song for the downtrodden people of mid- 80s Mexico. Calexico played it live and then covered it, adding mariachi horns. Let's forget the fact it became the theme tune to Jackass. 

Back to The Velvets. Paul Quinn and Edwyn Collins covered Lou Reed's Pale Blue Eyes for a one off single in 1984, done for the soundtrack of Alan Horne's Punk Rock Hotel. It's a much loved cover, Edwyn and Paul both sounding as good as they ever did. 

It's The Song I Hate

Two weeks ago JC at The Vinyl Villain posted Sonic Youth's 1992 single Youth Against Fascism, the CD single version with a mix he picked up second hand some time after the event (one I didn't have either). Youth Against Fascism has taken over in my world ever since, not least during last weekend when approximately seven million Americans marched in cities across the USA against the ever- increasing authoritarianism of Donald Trump's regime. 

There are mid- terms next year when conceivably Congress could swing to the Democrats. Trump keeps deploying the army into cities with Democrat mayors, under the spurious excuse that it's to restore law and order. Trump's acolytes/right hand men, Hegseth and Vance, further stir the pot- see Hegseth's recent demand of loyalty from army chiefs. ICE agents pick up people on the streets without any due reason other than skin colour. Women and people of colour are routinely fired from government posts. Trump pursues his enemies in the courts and orders them removed from the airwaves. 

Sonic Youth's Youth Against Fascism has lost none of its power in the thirty three years since it was released. In fact it only gains it. The version JC posted was this one, a cleaned up version produced by Butch Vig for radio consumption back in the early 90s...

Youth Against Fascism (Clean- Ex Mix)

Kim Gordon's distorted bass riff, four notes pushed hard, and Thurston and Lee's guitars- detuned, drum sticks against the frets- and Steve Shelley's tom tom thumping drumming are exhilarating enough, a powerful smack in the chops for dictators everywhere. Thurston sings of cans of worms, stupid men, the Ku Klux Klan, impotent squirts, fascist twerps and believing Anita Hill- all in all, the sound of resistance. Minor Threat/ Fugazi's Ian MacKaye turned up in the studio to add feedback guitar.

A friend remarked over the weekend that this song and the album it's from (1992's Dirty) were from the point when Sonic Youth had singed to a major label (Geffen) and were perceived in some quarters to have toned their sound down to become commercial. Go back to the cleaned up version of Youth Against Fascism above or this one from the album and see how commercial they sound now in the hyper- commercialised world of pop music in 2025... 

Youth Against Fascism (Album Version) 

In 1992 Sonic Youth played Youth Against Fascism on Italian TV- the band's performance is great, they play it like they truly mean it. As ever with music on TV, the response of the crowd is as much part of the fun. 

Sonic Youth signed to Geffen for 1990's Goo, taking R.E.M.'s move to Warners as a model of how to be on a major and still keep your credibility. In the 80s and 90s, especially in US indie- punk/ hardcore, independence and credibility were everything- to sell out was punk rock death. Signing to a major label carried huge risks. 'Corporate rock sucks' stickers and t- shirts were everywhere, in the UK as well as the US.

Now, in 2025, the war against selling out has long been lost; selling out is an attitude that is very last century. Primal Scream soundtrack Marks and Spencer. London Calling sold British Airways. Unknown Pleasures and Bummed are in Primark. It's a lost cause. The Cult's She Sells Sanctuary currently flogs a betting company's wares- you could argue that The Cult were already corporate rock by 1985 when the single came out but you'd like to think that advertising a gambling company might be a step too far. Apparently not. 

I tut loudly and roll my eyes noisily when 'our music' soundtracks multinational corporations and their products, their adverts reducing our songs to mere content, vintage cool co- opted for capitalism. But, before I get too far on my high horse and try to be too purist about this I should add that when The Clash went to number one in 191 via an association with a Levi's ad I thought it was great, Should I Stay Or Should I Go blasting out of TV and cinema screens worldwide. 

Eight years later I thought this was a superb, tick following tock... 

Meanwhile, to go back to where we started, here's Sonic Youth and some perfume, Marc Jacobs and Teenage Riot combining to make you smell better... just like teen spirit. 

 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

Last Sunday's cover versions mix worked well enough for me to undertake a second. I started with Jah Divison and went from there, a succession of dub and reggae covers, wasn't happy with it and scrapped it and started again, setting off again with Jah Division but heading in a noisier, more guitar laden direction, all a bit more shambolic. Then it slows down and blisses out before kicking up a storm again for the finish. 

After I posted last Sunday's mix Steve from Andres y Xavi messaged me to say he had a series of cover version mixes called Under The Covers, up at Mixcloud. The latest, his ninth, covers a lot of ground from Lady Blackbird to The Droyds with Isaac Hayes, Bobby Womack and Jose Feliciano among the people sandwiched in between. Plenty to enjoy. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

• Jah Division: Dub Will Tear Us Apart
• The Fall: Mr Pharmacist
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Surfin' USA
• Sonic Youth: I Know There's An Answer
• Sonic Youth: Computer Age
• Hardway Bros: 1979 GLOK Remix
• Andy Bell: Our Last Night Together
• The Liminanas: Ou Va La Chance
• The Vendetta Suite: Who Do You Love?
• Fontaines DC: 'Cello Song

Jah Division is a Russian reggae band, formed in Moscow in 1990. This is what it says in Wikipedia. It also say that the founder of Jah Division, Gera Morales, was the son of Leopold Morales, an associate of Che Guevara's. Elsewhere (Bandcamp) it says Jah Divison are from Brooklyn and their 2004 12" of four covers of Joy Division songs is their sole release. According to Bandcamp Jah Divison features members of Onieda and Home, began as a joke and the four tracks were recorded in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. Take your pick. None of which stops Dub Will Tear Us Apart from being a genius cover version whoever recorded it. 

The Fall's Mr Pharmacist is a cover of a song by Los Angeles 60s psyche garage band The Other Half, a 1986 Fall single from the Brix period and produced by John Leckie. The original was on an early 80s Nuggets compilation. Mr Pharmacist was also on The Fall's Bend Sinister album, an opinion splitting album derided by Mark E. Smith and John Leckie.

Surfin' USA was a Darklands outtake, all feeedback, rough and rowdy drums, breaking glass, East Kilbride sneers and TV preachers. The Reid brothers knew how to cover a song. The original was a 1963 Beach Boys single...

... and I Know There's An Answer was a 1966 Beach Boys album song (from Pet Sounds). Sonic Youth's cover comes from 1989, recorded for a Brian Wilson tribute album released in 1990 and sung by Lee Renaldo- no one else could sing it according to Lee who says J. Mascis helped out in the studio too. Appropriately squally and rather wonderful. 

Sonic Youth also recorded a Neil Young cover in the same time frame for a Neil Young tribute album, The Bridge (a superb album). They chose a song from Neil's most misunderstood album, Trans. Like the Mary Chain, Sonic Youth instinctively know what makes a good cover version. Computer Age is a gem in the SY back catalogue. 

Sean Johnston's Outre Mer label is an outlet for Hardway Bros recordings. In January 2024 he released an EP called My Friends which included a cover of Smashing Pumpkins 1979 (a song which is itself pretty much a New Order tribute). A remix EP saw GLOK tackle 1979, and has a massively overloaded guitar sound that makes you check your speakers are OK. 

Andy Bell's covers EP Untitled Film Stills contains four covers- Our Last Together is an after hours beauty, impressionistic, woozy and moving. Well, it moves me. 

The Liminanas featured in last week's mix and they're back today with a song from this year's album Faded. Ou Va La Chance is a cover of a Francois Hardy song, closing the album in fine style.

The Vendetta Suite are from Belfast and their 2021 album The Kempe Stone Portal is packed with electronic, acid house, Balearic and cosmische sounds plus this slowed down, electronics and feedback rumble version of Bo Diddley's classic (also covered by The Mary Chain back in the 80s). The Vendetta Suite's Gary Irwin goes all the way back to David Holmes and Iain McCready's nights at Belfast's Art College in 1990 and has worked with Holmes on and off ever since. 

Fontaines DC's cover of 'Cello Song has featured in at least three previous Sunday mixes- a Nick Drake one, a Fontaines one and an end of 2023 mix. I make no apologies for its re- appearance here. They take Nick Drake's 1969 song, a beautiful poetic song and retune it, turning it into a modern rock 'n' roll thrill with Grian Chatten finding new meaning in Nick's words. Both versions, original and cover, struck me quite profoundly in the time since Isaac' died, these lines in particular...

'For the dreams that came to you when so young
They told of a life where spring is sprung

So forget this cruel world where I belong
I'll just sit and wait and sing my song

But while the Earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky on the crest of a wave'

And that's where we're ending today. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Sunday Songs

It seemed too obvious for a while but then a few things came together and a Sunday mix of Sunday songs was staring me in the face. I managed to give it a kind of narrative too with a beginning and an end. Not to mention plenty of good music in the middle- Sunday likes its ambient and its electronics. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Sunday Songs

• Kris Kristofferson: Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down
• Kevin McCormick: Sunday Farmway
• Sabres Of Paradise: Blackfriars Sunday (Peel Session)
• 10:40: Sunday's Cool
• Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve: Sunday Morning Sun- g
• Sonic Youth: Sunday
• Perry Granville: Cleveland Sunday
• Justin Cudmore: Sunday Lemonade
• Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds: Frogs

Kris Kristofferson is the starting point for this mix. He died in September at the age of 88. Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down was written in 1969 and was been recorded and released by Johnny Cash and Ray Stevens. Kris' version is the best though. He wrote it and he lived it and felt it. 'Well I woke up Sunday mornin' with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt/ And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert'. Then he finds his cleanest dirty shirt and heads out. There are cigarettes, cans being kicked, frying chicken and 'the disappearing dreams of yesterday'. 

Kevin McCormick is from Manchester and in the early 80s made some wonderful but very lost and overlooked ambient guitar music. Thankfully, Kevin's albums have been rediscovered, dusted down and re- released recently and they are very much worth diving into. Sunday Farmway it from Sticklebacks and you can get it here. I reviewed the latest one, Passing Clouds, at Ban Ban Ton Ton last month- you can read that here. 

In March 1995 Sabres Of Paradise recorded a Peel Session that has never been officially released, three tracks also never appearing anywhere else- Duke On Berwick, Stanshall's Lament and the one here, Blackfriars Sunday, the sound of the Sabres Sunday service. Next year the reformed Sabres Of Paradise live band will perform at Primavera and then hopefully in the UK and elsewhere. 

Sunday's Cool was on of the tracks on 10:40's Transition Theory, one of my favourite albums of 2023. The album was intended as a whole piece, each track segueing into the next and containing the seeds of the next one. Removing Sunday's Cool from its moorings didn't feel completely right but it fits nicely into its new surroundings here too. 

Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve marry 60s psychedelia with acid house, Richard Norris and Erol Alkan experts at both. Sunday Morning Sun- g is from a fairly rare 12" from 2007.

'Sunday comes alone again/ A perfect day for a quiet friend', sang Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth in 1998. Sunday was the only single from A Thousand Leaves. Full on Sunday guitar vibes.

Perry Granville's Cleveland Sunday is from a 2022 EP, a take- no- prisoners acid thumper. Get it and a pair of remixes here. Sundays spent dancing and warding off the horrors of Monday morning. 

Justin Cudmore's Sunday Lemonade came out on New York label Throne Of Blood, as part of a series of releases in 2022 to celebrate their sixteenth birthday. Sunday Lemonade is all bleeps, filters and FX with a kick drum thundering away underneath. Messy Sunday mornings. 

Frogs came out this year, the second song ahead of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' Wild God album. It has followed me round all year, soundtracking my daily life, one of this year's best songs and one of Nick's best too. In Frogs a couple (him and Susie I assume) are walking home in the Sunday rain, having heard the story of Cain and Abel. Nick becomes aware of the Sunday rain and the natural world around him, the sheer aliveness of everything, frogs in the gutter and Nick 'amazed of love and amazed of pain/ Amazed to be back in the water again'. Kris Kristofferson walks by kicking a can, in a shirt he hasn't washed for years, and there we are, back at the beginning. Happy Sunday. 

Forty Five Minutes of Sonic Youth

One of the evenings out in Fuerteventura, while pottering around, having a drink and getting ready to go out for tea, I had a sudden urge to hear Teenage Riot by Sonic Youth. One of the wonders of the internet age and mobile phones is that almost any song is only a few seconds and clicks away and within a few seconds the sound of Sonic Youth's 1988 masterpiece, the New York band's imagining of an alternative USA with Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis as President, was filling our hotel room. From there a worked my way through a few of my favourite SY songs, some of which I've pulled together into a forty five minute mix here. This could easily have been twice the length- or a part two could appear at some point. It focusses mainly on their 80s and early 90s output, the Sonic Youth of my youth- and their singles mainly too, not too many deep cuts. There's lots of 21st century Sonic Youth that's worth investigating and maybe I'll come back to it. 

Forty Five Minutes of Sonic Youth

• Teenage Riot
• Youth Against Fascism
• Computer Age
• Kotton Krown
• Death Valley '69
• Kool Thing
• Bull In The Heather
• Sugar Cane
• Dirty Boots

Teenage Riot is from 1988's Daydream Nation, a standard setting 1988 double album, an album which felt like the culmination of something, everything coming together. I could have included half the songs from it on this mix- Silver Rocket, Eric's Trip, Candle, Hey Joni... all indie- punk songs blending the art, noise and alternate tunings with  verse/ chorus melodies. Teenage Riot- one of the songs of the 80s.

Youth Against Fascism- how apt eh? A 1992 single and song from Dirty, the album from the same year, and one that shows the band engaging with politics, twelve years into Republican presidencies in the USA, Kim Gordon's bass a constant grinding menace, Thurston and Lee's guitars distorted and buzzing and Minor Threat/ Fugazi's Ian MacKaye guesting and doubling up on vocals. Sugar Cane is from the same album, the video filmed at a New York fashion show which had a Marc Jacobs grunge collection. It is also Chloe Sevigny's first appearance on film.

Computer Age is a cover of a Neil Young song, one from Neil's mind blowing 1982 album Trans. Sonic Youth take a song with vocoders and keyboards and reverse it into Neil's Crazy Horse backyard, a squealing lesson on how to do a cover version. Their covers of Within You Without You, Electricity and Superstar and as Ciccone Youth, Addicted To Love and Into The Groove are all similarly good. Computer Age was one of several highpoints on The Bridge, a 1989 Neil Young tribute album that also featured Pixies, Psychic TV, The Flaming Lips, Loop, Nick Cave, and Dinosaur Jr. 

Kotton Krown is from Sister, their album from 1987, an album loosely based around the writings of Philip K. Dick. Sister is one of the art rock/ noise milestones of the 80s. Kotton Krown is a blur of dreamy psychedelic noise.

Death Valley '69 is on 1985's Bad Moon Rising, written by Thurston who duets with Lydia Lunch, screwdrivers rammed into the necks of guitars, The Stooges summoned up, along with Charles Manson and the Spahn Ranch.

Kool Thing is from 1990's Goo, the first album released after singing to a major label, one of the album's standout songs. Kim wrote it after an uncomfortable interview with LL Cool J, two people coming out of New York music with very different perspectives. 'Are you gonna liberate is girls from male white corporate oppression?', she asks. Public Enemy's Chuck D responds. 

Bull In The Heather is from 1994's Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star, produced by Butch Vig. Kim wrote it with a viewpoint of seeing passiveness as a form of rebellion- 'I'm not going to participate in your male- dominated culture, I'm just going to be passive', she said of the lyrics. By 1994 Sonic Youth were big business in the indie/ alt- rock/ fashion/ video/ MTV worlds. Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna stars in the video. 

Dirty Boots is from Goo, the opening song and one that features every SY hallmark- tunings, noise, distortion, drawled vocals, building to a massive release several minutes in when the chorus finally hits, 'I got some dirty boots!'

Friday TV Noise

Two blasts of noise from the late 80s/ early 90s indie/ punk/ alt- rock underground on the verge of going overground on Tv to celebrate reaching the end of the working week and getting to Friday. First is Sonic Youth at their peak, Daydream Nation era, playing the epic rush of Silver Rocket live on MTV in 1988. I remember being quite anti- MTV in 1988, it was one of the frontlines in the indie wars. This performance holds nothing back, Thurston, Kim Lee and Steve bringing the noise, the tempo, the melodies and the energy. 

This live version of Silver Rocket was released as part of disc 2 of the Deluxe CD edition of Daydream Nation that came out in 2007. Thurston dedicates it to Andy Warhol. Daydream Nation is the perfect summary of Sonic Youth's abilities, ambition and expression. An essential album.

Silver Rocket (Live in NYC, June 1988)

The second blast of noise is from My Bloody Valentine, miming on Spanish TV on a programme called Plastic in 1991. This is around the time Loveless was recorded, the second giant leap they made in terms of sound and songs. On Plastic they mime to You Made Me Realise, released in 1988. There is an contrast between the energy and flailing that Debbie and Colm put into miming on bass and drums respectively and the complete lack of physical action from Kevin and Belinda which really does make this clip. 

That song, it's wooziness, the slurred vocals, the rattling drums, and the life affirming noise kicked up the guitars, is a late 80s pearl. Live it's middle section would become a test of how much an audience could take, pushing the freak out to its extreme in terms of noise, volume and length. This is the studio version, as released on Isn't Anything. 

You Made Me Realise

An Hour Of The Flightpath Estate AW61 Afternoon Set

This is my hour's set from last Saturday afternoon at AW61 at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, re- created at home. The photo above shows my view from the DJ booth as my set ended and the auction and raffle began- you may recognise some of the faces getting ready to bid on items from Andrew Weatherall's studio. 

Once we've got all the other sets and the evening's rotations recreated we can upload the entire thing but I thought I'd share mine in the meantime. It comes in at over an hour and I only played for an hour on the day- from memory, I mixed Biosphere's En- Trance out because the file seemed very quiet (even for an ambient track) and it is in the mix below too. I think I mixed out of Underworld's 8 Ball halfway through as well but just left it playing in full here because, really, what sort of person mixes out the second half of 8 Ball? I'd just faded the GLOK Starlight Dub of A Mountain Of One's Star in when Gig, the Golden Lion's legendary landlady, took the mic to start the auction (along with Lizzie and Sofia) so that track was left mostly unplayed- you'll have to imagine the auction and raffle taking place when you reach that point in my set (unless you were there in which case replay it in your mind). I played Emotionally Clear as the raffle ended and to provide my handover to Dan who was waiting in the wings. 

Adam's Flightpath Estate Afternoon Set At AW61

• Coyote: Western Revolution
• Durutti Column: Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• Four Tet: Loved
• Rick Cuevas: The Birds
• Biosphere: En- Trance
• Underworld: 8 Ball
• Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil: Edit To The Siren
• Bjork: One Day
• James Holden: Common Land
• A Mountain Of One: Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet: Emotionally Clear

Western Revolution is Coyote's sublime edit of Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I had half a mind to start with Lonely, which is from the same vinyl only EP out last year, Magic Wand Special Edition Vol. 2, but Mr Holmes played it the night before. 

Bordeaux Sequence was on The Durutti Column's 1987 album The Guitar And Other Machines, a moment of genuine beauty from Vini Reilly. It is a re- recorded version of Bordeaux from 1983's Another Setting. A couple of people in the room gave me a 'thank you for playing Durutti Column' look.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me. Test Card Girl was a digital only single from 2023 and I'm not over it yet

Loved was a single from Four Tet, also from last year and is now the opening track on his Three album. Another 2023 song that has stuck around well into '24. 

The Birds is by Rick Cuevas, from a self - released, private pressing album called Symbolism that came out in 1984, an album described on Discogs as 'soft rock/ AOR'. I wouldn't necessarily call The Birds either- a friend once described it as 'Durutti Column on steroids' which I'm happier with. I'm fairly certain I only know of this song because of Andrew Weatherall referencing it in an interview or playing it on a radio show. 

Biosphere's En- Trance is ambient/ techno from Belgium in 1994, an album called Patashnik. It's just some synth drones and an acoustic guitar- I say 'just', it's much more than that obviously. Shame this WAV file I have is so quiet. 

Underworld's 8 Ball was on the soundtrack to The Beach, the Leonardo Di Caprio film from 2000. 8 Ball is a nine minute low key epic with fluid guitar playing and some of Karl's loveliest singing, lyrics about men with empty whiskey bottles and walkie talkies and flaming 8 ball tattoos on their arms, a man who eventually throws his arms around him. They gave this away to a soundtrack, a soundtrack where it was overshadowed a little by All Saints and Moby- most bands would kill for a tune this good and would make it a single or the track they built an album around. Someone in the Lion asked me what this was and took some convincing it was Karl on vocals.

Wixel are from Belgium (with hindsight, there's a bit of a Belgian theme running through this mix) and put out a cover of Sonic Youth's Expressway To Yr Skull in 2008, part of a seven track EP of Sonic Youth covers. The Long Champs edit turns it into a shimmering, semi -ambient haze that led to a couple of enquiries in the pub- and if you turn a couple of people onto something new to them, that's what it's all about isn't it. 

Edit To The Siren is an In The Valley edit of Song To The Siren, This Mortal Coil's signature cover of Tim Buckley's song. Someone once told me this was sacrilege but for me its got a dubby/ Balearic splendour and is perfect Saturday afternoon vibes. 

One Day is one of the key early Bjork solo songs, from 1993's Debut. The dubby bassline, house shimmer, Nellee Hooper's production and Bjork's delivery are all superb. 

Common Land was one of the tracks on James Holden's 2023 album Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, an album I still go back to a year later. The burbling synths, birdcall, techno- ish drums and warbling sax combine to create something very heady and transportative. It's also a tribute to the free party movement and early 90s rave and felt quite fitting for the Lion and Todmorden.

A Mountain of One's Stars Planets Dust Me was one of my favourite albums from 2022. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a spaced out, sun- baked treat. 

Emotionally Clear is from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse, 2023's number one Bagging Area album. Seeing David Holmes bidding at the auction at AW61 from behind the decks will take some beating in 2024. 

Burning Groove

Everyone loves a cover version, don't they? In 1987 Mike Watt, suffering from depression in the aftermath of fellow Minuteman D. Boon's death, pitched up in New York and stayed with Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore for a while, playing bass on some of the sessions that would become the EVOL album. In an effort to get Watt active and enthusiastic about music again they hatched a plan that become Sonic Youth offshoot Ciccone Youth. Watt covered Madonna's Burning Up (as Burnin' Up) playing all the instruments (except for a Gregg Ginn guitar solo). Watt's cover is rough and ready, fuzzy and lo fi, a thing of beauty in many ways. 

Madonna's original dates from 1983, early 80s New York dance pop that has buckets of charm and some key Madonna tropes already well in place.

Burning Up

The sessions Watt played with Sonic Youth resulted in this cover of Madonna's 1985 smash Into The Groove.

Into The Groove(Y)

Like Watt's cover it's lo fi and sounds made for ghetto blasters and C90 cassettes, with grungy bass, a hissing drum machine and handclaps and Thurston's ultra- drawled vocal. When playing in the studio Sonic Youth would play the original version through one of the channels and fade it into and out of their own version. Yes, I'd love to hear a recording of that too. In the meantime here's Madonna's Desperately Seeking Susan associated single. if you get both playing at the same time on your computer you might be able to recreate Sonic Youth's experiment. 

Into The Groove

When Ciccone Youth's album The Whitey Album came out in 1988, a few months after their landmark Daydream Nation, many people assumed they were taking the piss or covering Madonna ironically. Thurston says this was most definitely not the case, that they loved the song, danced to it in NY clubs and were paying tribute to the woman who'd played in two No Wave bands, including one (spinal Root Gang) that eventually transformed into Swans. Sonic Youth loved that someone from their downtown scene had broken out and become huge. 

The Whitey Album probably overdoes it, fifty minutes when it could have been a really good twenty minute EP but Sonic/ Ciccone Youth were into sprawling records in 1988. The album includes the track Two Cool Rock Chicks Listening to Neu, a track with J Mascis on guitar and the first time I was aware of Neu's existence and Ciccone's cover of Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love, a cover with a vocal recorded by Kim in a karaoke booth and the video filmed with her lip syncing, looking cool as fuck in cut off jeans, while footage of the Vietnam War is projected behind her. 

Bizarrely, Robert Palmer had already crossed over into the US 80s indie- punk scene with his cover version of Husker Du's New Day Rising, played live at San Diego University Amphitheatre in 1987.  

Double Dub

Accidental/ ambient art- this is the detail of a large piece of plywood boarding up the windows of an empty shop in Chorlton with a small piece of black tape stuck in the centre. If I set out to paint something like this deliberately, it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as this. 

Richard Norris has taken a detour recently. Alongside his always excellent monthly twenty minute ambient/ deep listening excursion Music For Healing (the most recent release in that series is the autumnal Equinox 9) Richard is now making dub and has a new label to put it out under- Oracle Sound. The first volume of Oracle Sound is out in October with three deep dubs available to listen to in advance- Lightning Version, Birthday Dub and Sodium Haze. This is dub created from scratch, allowed to unfold over long periods of time, beds of echo and space, ambient/ drone backdrops, kicking rhythms and lovely warm bass. You can find Oracle Sound Volume 1 here. Subscribers to Richard's Bandcamp can get hold of the twenty minute long Shark Tooth Dub, experimental, ambient dub that glides on and on. 

More dub now, of the dubbing out already existing songs variety. Panda Bear and Sonic Youth's album of last year Reset has been dubbed out in full by Adrian Sherwood. The original album was a brightly coloured, sweeter than sugar blast of 60s psyche- pop. Sherwood has applied forty years of dub experience at On U Sound to the songs, re- imaging the songs, breaking them down, smothering them in dub FX, pulling basslines and drums/ percussion to the fore, adding new horns/ melodica lines and adding those cymbal crashes, whirrs, gurgles and thick bottom end.  I could post every/ any version from Reset In Dub but perhaps its best just to go for Getting To the Point Dub.

 

Saturday Live

Sonic Youth are a band who I sometimes have mixed feelings about but there's little doubt that back in 1988 they were heading upwards with a furious punk rock/ art rock energy melding noise and tunes. In October 1988 they released Daydream Nation, a double album opus recorded in July and August of '88, a record that somehow caught the U.S. punk zeitgeist, building on the bands from a decade earlier who laid the foundations- Husker Du, Minutemen, The Replacements, Black Flag et al. Daydream Nation led Sonic Youth to Geffen and their 1990 album Goo and their experience and advice led Nirvana to the same major label. 

The 2007 re- issue of Daydream Nation came with a second CD, live versions of every song on the album recorded as they toured in 1988 and 1989. The songs on the album are a band on a songwriting hot streak, alternate tunings and tight playing fused with melodies and a careering confidence- driving drums, squealing guitars, feedback and distortion, drawled vocals, Sonic Youth giving it their NY punk/ art all while touring venues in the USA and Europe.

Hey Joni (Live at Paradiso, Amsterdam, 1989)

Silver Rocket (Live at Noise Now Festival, Dusseldorf, 1989)

Candle (Live at Cabaret Metro, Chicago, 1988)

Teenage Riot (Live at Paradiso, Amsterdam, 1989)

Total Trash (Live at Maxwell's, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1988)

In 1996 they pitched up at Rockpalast in Germany, the world by that point a different place in punk rock terms and Sonic Youth terms. Sometimes they could play gigs and be so obtuse that it seemed a little pointless. I remember reading a review of them flying to the UK for a single gig at All Tomorrow's Parties (or somewhere similar, one of those festivals) where a usually sympathetic reviewer described them tuning up for an hour and concluded that he couldn't work out why they'd bothered to cross the Atlantic to do this. But here, they do a good job, songs, noise, focus, the 'hits' (Teenage Riot, Bull In The Heather, Sugar Kane). 

Thurston Moore's autobiography is due soon and being well talked about already. It will have to be good to equal Kim Gordon's Girl In A Band which is a superb account of her life and times. The end of their relationship, following Thurston's affair with another woman, led to the end of the band and Kim is pretty open about it in her book. The live version of Bull In the Heather at Rockpalast in '96, Kim at the mic, shows how vital a part of the band she was. No Badger Required has dedicated August to female artists and yesterday featured Kim with a few words from me. You can read it here. 

Day Or Night No One Knows

It's a funny thing- over the years since Daydream Nation came out I've fluctuated in my appreciation of Sonic Youth. Working backwards from Daydream Nation threw up lots to enjoy (Bad Moon Rising, EVOL, Sister) and then forwards as well but with more mixed results. I loved Goo but there are swathes of their albums from the 1990s and 2000s I missed and was fine about missing. I bought and enjoyed NYC Ghosts And Flowers and Murray Street but completely missed and still haven't heard Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves (both highly rated I think). I sometimes think they seem like style over substance but when they hit the target they hit it good and proper.

Teenage Riot (Live at Paradiso, Amsterdam, 1989)

Thurston Moore doesn't come out of Kim Gordon's 2015 autobiography Girl In A Band too well and he can come across as bit worthy on punk documentaries. I saw him play with his group in Manchester last year. I'd gone along on a whim in a way and was glad I did. It looked interesting, the venue is a former garage across the road from Strangeways prison, MBV's Debbie Googe plays bass in the band and his Spirit Counsel album last year was a good if infrequent listen.  His cover version of New Order's Leave Me Alone had pricked my attention too, a really good take on the song. Sometimes maybe you're just more in tune with things than at other times. Three weeks ago I posted his lockdown release, a nine minute instrumental for three guitars called Strawberry Moon. Last week Thurston announced the release of an album recorded back in March, just before lockdown hit. By The Fire has Debbie on bass and Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley on the drums on some songs plus Jon from Negativland. In advance he put out this single, Hashish. According to Thurston the song is 'an ode to the narcotic of love in our shared responsibility to each other during isolation'. The opening guitar drones and atonal picked notes followed by the thumping drums and wasted vocals are exactly what you'd expect from Thurston Moore and if this had been a few years ago I could easily have shrugged and moved on but right now they are hitting the spot completely.

Isolation Mix Four

A bit of a change again for this week's hour long isolation mix, this time a trip into more psychedelic and psyche areas, some guitars, a couple of cover versions, some remixes and a re-edit of an 80s alt- classic with an eye, a third eye maybe, on the cosmic and the blissed out. One of the segues is a little bit clumsy but I can live with it. I've had to move the host over to Mixcloud as I'd used up all my available space at Soundcloud without going to the paid for service.



Tracklist-
The Durutti Column: Otis

Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)

Moon Duo: Stars Are The Light

Curses: This Is The Day

Le Volume Courbe: Rusty

Sonic Boom/ Spectrum: True Love Will Find You In The End

Mogwai: Party In The Dark

The Liminanas: The Gift (Anton Mix)

Goldfrapp v Spiritualized: Monster Love

Julian Cope: Heed Of Penetration and the City Dweller Head Remix by Hugo Nicholson

Edit Service 8 by It’s A Fine Line: The Story Of The Blues (Talkin’ Blues)

The Early Years: Complicity

Expressway

There's an album of acoustic guitar cover versions of Sonic Youth songs, all texture and ambience and small hours vibes, by Belgian artist Wixel. It came out back in 2008 and lives on in Wixel's Bandcamp page (Wixel doesn't seem to have released anything since 2013). Welsh outfit The Long Champs have taken Wixel's cover of Expressway To Yr Skull and blissed it out, turning it into a gorgeous, shimmering, meditative haze, perfect for this time of the year. I can't recommend this highly enough, it's sublime. If you move quickly- and I appreciate moving quickly two days after Christmas may be relative- there's a free download.



Wixel's cover versions are worth some of your time too.

Joni's In The Tall Grass

Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation turned 30 this year, a double album that was some kind of apex of US indie-punk. I tested it out this week, seeing how it sounded after not having heard it for years. It's front loaded with Teenage Riot, their most essential song and the few that follow it are almost as good- Silver Rocket, The Sprawl, 'Cross The Breeze and Eric's Trip- but not quite as good. Lee Ranaldo's Hey Joni was the one that stood out to me, a noisy, full throttle tribute to Joni Mitchell (possibly) or a girl from Lee's past (possibly) that breaks down towards the end, twin overdriven  guitars feeding back, with Ranaldo saying 'It's 1963, it's 1964, it's 1957, it's 1962.... put it all behind you, now it's all behind you'. Lost youth.

Hey Joni

Their 1989 cover of Neil Young's Computer Age is a blast and a joy, pretty much my favourite Sonic Youth track (and somehow typical of them to cover a song from Neil's most misunderstood record, his 1982 vocoder and synths album Trans, an album that baffled his fans and record company alike). Sonic Youth rewire it for guitar and burn it up. 

Computer Age

She's A Sad Tomato

Watching an R.E.M. documentary the other night reminded me a) what a good band R.E.M. were in the 80s but also b) how they kept that going into the mainstream- such an unlikely band to be stadium size, multi-million selling albums big. After Automatic For The People I always think they tail off very quickly but the fade was delayed longer than that. I didn't think too much of Monster when it came out but Crush With Eyeliner is really good- it shimmers and throbs and has groove. New Adventures In Hi Fi has several 90s peaks on it too. Being massive and mainstream and still being interesting is a difficult trick to pull off. In retrospect they should have called it a day when Bill Berry left- that would have left everything intact.



Which then led me to this 90s Sonic Youth masterpiece. Sonic Youth crossing over with New York fashion shows and Cara Delevingne in tow. Sonic Youth crossed back pretty quickly.

Girl In A Band

I read Kim Gordon's memoir Girl In A Band last week and very good it was too. The book divides into three main parts: her upbringing in California and her entry onto the world of art in the late 60s and early 70s; her move to New York and the best part of three decades spent in Sonic Youth and married to Thurston Moore; the bringing up a young family of her own while being part of an experimental guitar band and the effects of Thurston Moore's affair and the break up of her marriage. The entire book is cut through with a sense of loss and questioning, as the ramifications of Thurston's actions lead her to re-assess most of what went before. The breakdown of the marriage clearly brings the band to an end- more loss. Her childhood also contained the loss of a brother to mental illness and she constantly questions her relationships- with men, with art, with life. The chapters are often brief but full of insight, a series of postcards from her life. By the 90s the book also brings in a wide supporting cast, including Kurt Cobain (more loss), the New York art and fashion worlds, the gentrification of the city (loss again), Beck, and The Beastie Boys. It's sad in parts, angry and furious in places too, moving but uplifting too as a new Kim emerges at the end. It's a thoroughly affecting read and another first rate female rock autobiography from the last couple of years to hold up alongside Viv Albertine's and Tracey Thorn's books.

Sonic Youth moved from indie to major in the 1990s, having seen the pitfalls of The Replacements and Husker Du doing the same in the 80s and wanted to avoid making the same mistakes. Their output didn't really suffer- Goo (on Geffen) stands up strongly, close to Daydream Nation and their 80s indie-punk classics. Dirty Boots, Kool Thing and Bull In The Heather are all just as good as Teenage Riot (well, almost as good as Teenage Riot), Expressway To Yr Skull and Death Valley '69. They were just recorded in bigger, more expensive studios.

Death Valley '69

Ciccone

In 1988 Sonic Youth put out The Whitey Album, not very well disguised as Ciccone Youth and in tribute to Madonna Louise Ciccone. Most of the attention was on the record's cover versions. These had been put out as a single on New Alliance in 1986 and were expanded out for the album. Coming at a time when Sonic Youth were being praised to the heavens for Daydream Nation this was possibly an effective way of defusing some of the hype- some noise, contributions from Mike Watt, jokey covers plus a hip reference to krautrock with the song Two Cool Rock Chicks Listening To Neu! The cover of the album was a photocopied close up of Madonna's face. Madonna apparently gave her blessing to it, remembering the band from her clubbing and Danceteria days. Ciccone Youth did their Madonna thing on Into The Groove(y) and Burnin' Up. Someone on Youtube has done the decent thing and set the music to clips of Desperately Seeking Susan (the only Madonna film that is actually watchable).



Better still though was their version of Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love. The video and vocal were recorded in a karaoke booth for $25- D.I.Y. punk rock in attitude, style and cost. It was also a very effective way of sending up Palmer's video with Kim Gordon singing the song deadpan and dancing with images from the Vietnam War flashing over the top.



This is the standard setter and last word in ironic cover versions. And still sounds great.