BLAST OFF!
THE ULTIMATE BLAST
BLAST!
SONIC YOUTH
by Joni Hollar
Know how to tell if a band is really
good (as in great and original?
When someone asks you to describe
what they sound like and you're
stumped for an easy description.
Such a band is Sonic Youth. On the
simplest level, they are a rock and
roll guitar band. But, well, you've just
gotta hear them to know!
Sister, their latest album (on SST
Records) has been slathered with
critical praise, as was last year's stun-
ning EVOL. Both albums, plus 1985's
Bad Moon Rising, have sent Sonic
Youth on an upward spiral of acclaim
and popularity. I caught up with Kim
Gordon last summer in between their
European and American tours, and
chatted via telephone during that
you can tune another guitar, but quite
often the songs are written for a (par-
ticular) guitar. It's really embarass
ing when things go out of tune, too,
because if we start retuning, people
are standing there going. "Whoa, do
they have to tune these ai?
Intent on achieving unusual
sounds for that army of subverted
guitars, the band recorded Sister at
same things all the time. You don't
want to forever put drumsticks in your
guitar and bang on them."
Does Gordon recognize a new
crop of bands imitative of Sonic
Youth?
I don't know that I really hear
bands that sound like us. What
bands do you think sound like us?"
she questioned, then answered. "I
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The four Manhattanites who are
Sonic Youth (Thurston Moore, lead
Gordon,
vocals/guitars: Kim
vocals/guitars; Lee Ranaldo, guitars:
Steve Shelley, drums) are like ar-
chitects of a tight new sound. They
do things with guitars that make them
sound like new inventions. They real-
ly seem to work hard at being good.
Sonic Youth are the best American
band around today. You could, say,
hear some early Joy Division tune
years from now and immediately
know the band. Sonic Youth is like
that too. No one else sounds like
them, though probably hundreds of
bands will try to.
Sonic Youth tune and play their in
struments in weird ways: tapping
them, lodging drumsticks in the frets,
stuff that no one else does or would
want to do, ever. Beyond that, they
write terrific, scary, pop/rock tunes
about love, sex, death and destruc-
tion. Thurston and Kim sing these
nightmarish gems in this detached
yet possessed way that is really
unsettling. They're cool. They proud-
ly sport jeans, bools and tees in a
country, driven berserk by fake MTV
style. The great Mike Watt (from the
Minutemen and now Firehose) has
sung with them, as has Lydia Lunch
The music is both gorgeous and dif
figúlt. It all combines to make one hell
of a great band.
interval.
While playing at the London Town
and Country club, the band was join-
ed onstage for their normal ondore
of Iggy's "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by
Mr. Pop himself. According to reports
from the gig, it was an amazing mo
ment. I mean, how many bands that
do Iggy's songs would kill to play with
the man himself? I asked Kim Gor
don how it all came about.
"We had met Iggy the day before
at the rehearsal studio. We were both
rehearsing 'I Wanna Be Your Dog.
she said with a laugh. "He came up
to us and asked to be on the guest
list. Someone brought him backstage
and asked if he wanted to play with
the band. It was kind of a sur-
prise Yeah, everyone went crazy!
It was a real rock and roll thing
Aside from an exploding Italian
van, the European tour went
smoothly and sold as well as the
American tour would prove 10.
However, a Sonic Youth tour presents
logistical problems other bands
would never encounter As each song
is performed with a certain guitar tun-
ed a certain, unique way, they have
to lug around more than a dozen
guitars
"They're all tuned differently. It's
not like we have three guitars, all on
a normal tuning. It's very strange. If
something goes wrong, sometimes
a New York studio on vintage, early
50's equipment to add a strange at-
mosphere to the record.
In the near future is the release of
a 12" Ep, a version of George Har-
rison's "Within You/Without You" for
an NME compilation charity album,
and a bit on the soundtrack of a new
movie, "Made in the USA" Gordon
explained how the movie deal came.
about.
"They had wanted to use this
Replacements' song, 'Bastards of
the Young, but were unable to get
it. We were brought in to do a
Replacementesque' song. We wrote
this Replacements-type song per-
formed it live once, and never per-
formed it again. It was too weird. It
was like wearing someone else's
clothes, she said.
Replacements-style pop may
seem weird to a band that has forever
been categorized as a "noise band."
Long-time fans have seen a definite,
though gradual. change in Sonic
Youth's songs, from noise to
something a bit more accessible and
structured.
"We've always thought of
ourselves as doing songs. We never
thought of ourselves doing noise,
Gordon pointed out. "We never tried
not to write songs. Our songs had a
different kind of structure. I think it
kind of evolved-you can't do the
don't hear it myself. There are some
bands that I can hear some elements
in The best bands are ones where
you can kind of hear what they're in-
spired by, but they really stand on
their own. Or the attitude is really
good-it's not a literal adaptation.
"I mean, I have people come up
to me and give me heavy metal death
tapes and say, 'Wow, I just know
we're inspired by the same thing."
People think we're, like, into death
and doom
It's like having a con-
versation with somebody. thinking
they're understanding what you're
saying, and they don't at all," she
lamented
Perhaps trying to "understand"
Sonic Youth is a pointless endeavor.
It occurs to me that maybe we're tak-
ing them all too Seriously, and that
Gordon is implying that with her cau-
tion against misinterpretation. Could
it be that they're just four scruffy rock
'n rollers who happen to do it
beautifully? As English DJ. John
Peel points out the best and original.
bands of recent years (Joy Division,
the Smiths, the Butthole Surfers)
wore bands one and couldn't
categorize, couldn't compare to other
bands. These are bands that are
elusively original and exciting. And
that is Sonic Youth.
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