Beautiful Jukebox: The Music of Sonic Youth (Selection 18--A Respectful Distance)

JUNE 2006

Sonic Youth's sixteenth album would be their final one for DGC after an equal number of years. Recorded at Sear Sound (like Sister and Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star before it) alongside master mixer/recorder/producer John Agnello (one of the few who can claim they've worked with both Patti Smith and Patty Smythe), Rather Ripped was a stunner for anyone expecting Sonic Youth to embrace their abrasive side. Content to watch the likes of Wolf Eyes and Double Leopards, smart to not feel any silly need to "compete," they set out to make an airier, gentler set of songs. Thurston Moore grew fond of telling interviewers that RR was their version of Blondie's Parallel Lines, and while one must always take Thurston interview answers with the entire shaker of salt, better that album than, say, Auto-American.

If you had told me, back in '06, that the upcoming SY wreck-hard would feature naught colors but red and black, I would have Snoopy-jigged in muted glee. My two favorite colors, my favorite band, together at last. Well if you'd been a real pal you would've set me down and then explained that the cover would also feature some shit stenciling. Then, after rubbing my back while I choked on my own sad fangirl tears, you'd whisper that it would alllll work out in the end, to just have faith in the black-haloed angel. Beautiful. Looks like the bloody blowback of a gunshot wound splat on some scary guest room wallpaper.

"Reena"--"You keep me comin' home again."

Rather Ripped is not precisely a fan favorite, at least not if we're using the Internet as a barometer. I generally don't care about that (or critical opinion; Rolling Stone named it the third-best album of 2006, which is worth about as much as buffaloes bouncing 'round the terrain in their own crap), but I took notice when the negativity came from people I actually knew. Most of the SY fans I am friends and/or friendly with are the type with ecumenical musical taste, voracious and rapacious consumers (and oftentimes also producers) of sounds. To them, Rather Ripped is a once-great band picking at the frayed ends of the nerves that once made them vital. I disagree, respectfully, because I understand that while we're all hearing the same music, we're listening with different standards. I don't expect Daydream Nation from 21st-century Sonic Youth and frankly, comparing Rather Ripped to that record is like comparing a pop-up book to Shakespeare. Which is not a slight; those books can be wildly enjoyable, depending on what exactly pops up.

"Reena" is Reena Spauling, a fictional "It" girl in the circles of fashion and art, a figure made out by artists to be utterly fascinating but impossible to truly know. (In this way, at least, Reena Spauling is art.) Kim does a better job than all other interpreters at making the myth magical, imbuing it with sensual tension that holds up under scrutiny. The boys whip up a sweet, bang-lifting breeze as crystallized pop replaces labyrinthine skronk (I found it actually breathtaking when the wind picks up 'round 1:23 let's go!) but basically this is Kim G.'s showcase. How exactly does she keep her static cool? Double-tracking never hurts!

"Incinerate"--Thur-bone's first appearance is catchier'n a Village People medley. The badgering guit in the chorus is like a bleating call to the bat phone, straight from the husband of the real Commissioner Gordon.

Thurston is almost a little too calm for a song about fulminant heartbreak, but that's actually perfect. He knows that no one really wins in a firefight. I adore also the gentle string plucks juxtaposed against the lyrical conflagration.

Three things to take from "Incinerate":

1. Bitterness over love had and lost is missing the point.
2. When in doubt, take the last verse out.
3. Firefighters are like cops that people actually like.

"Do You Believe in Rapture?"--The failure of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election (understood more accurately as defeat at the hands of hick schlubs and apathetic youth) means more songs on how much Bush sucks, when really Thurston should be writing about sucking bush.

The dull thud throughout created by Kim striking her pick against a single bass string doesn't make up for the rest of the song, which is thuddingly dull. "Do you believe in rapture, babe?" Yessir I do. And I further believe that you best get on with it.

("Do You Believe in Rapture?" was also considered as an album title. That woulda been weird.)

"Sleepin' Around"--In 2005 SY posted a short video clip, comprised solely of still photos, called "Summer Sonic." Over shots of band members, friends, family, records and dogs both real and fictional played a demo instrumental version of what would become "Sleepin' Around." It chugs like only a garage band comprised of the oldest, coolest fuckers breathing could. It's a bit sneaky, too, a bit shaky, and as a listener I could only imagine how it would sound once they double-bolted the thing.

Surely it starts fat as a promise ain't. Poltergeist possesses the alarm clock, and Preacher Steve is summoned to roll it on out, and all seems smooth as far as demon evictions go until...the lyrics spew pea soup all over the place.

"Sleepin' around, sleepin' around/What would the neighbors say."

I got some ideas.

Thurston, you are demonstrably better than this. You fucking wrote "Tom Violence," my dude. "My violence is a dream/A real dream." "I'm sleeping nights awake." And I could bust out other examples of letter-chain genius from other songs, but I won't, 'cause you already know.

If I ever cross paths with this song on the street, I'm gonna shoot it in the legs. And I'll be aiming for the femoral artery.

"What a Waste"--Funny then, that the lyrical nadir of the album is immediately followed by its apex. Thurston and Kim shared lyrical duties but the vocal honors are all Kim.

Ooooh, I feel like making a shitty neologism...Kimpeccable!

The first verse of "What a Waste" has left an indelible impression on my noodle, especially the very first line: "You gimme hollow stimulation." The longer I live my life, the more cracks and crevices I explore, the more I see what "hollow stimulation" is, and feel gripped by a great sense of guilt which is subsequently subsumed by a greater determination to no longer feel so empty. This is no commentary on what I personally feel the song as a whole is attempting to communicate, mind you. I dare not even begin with that one.

The chorus is much-maligned, and absolutely fabulous like a drunk bitch falling into an open grave.

"What a waste
You're so chaste
I can't wait
To taste your face"

First, gotta love beneath and beyond, when Lee steps in and up, like, "This provides an opportune time for some magus mastery, courtesy of me," and proceeds to clash some earth wind and fire together. Dude is dependable.

Now to the chorus. I love it for a number of reasons. There's the sexiness inherent in just the desire to taste one's face, much less the action itself. It also reminds me of the chorus to El-P's "Dr Hell No and the Praying Mantus."

"Don't make me bite ya face/'Cause it ain't like I like the taste."

Then Vast Aire does a battle rap, and El-P drops some gnarly sex rhymes. Cohere on concepts much? Anyway.

Point! Say Nick Cave put that in a song, "I can't wait to taste your face." It would no longer be considered barely worthy of an eye-roll, it would be all haunted and swoony and goth as a black moth attracted to liquor-drenched cloth. Like sittin' in a laundromat with the ghost of Flannery O'Connor on Halloween while the Deliverance kid plays the theme from A Clockwork Orange on the banjo while waiting for his delicates to dry.

But since it's Kim Gordon, it's weak, it's bad, it's ruining all my good memories! I must turn my disillusionment into snark! Wait while I think of a really epic age joke!

"Jams Run Free"--At the risk of getting smirked at...ignored...shunned...I cannot lie. The main riff of this song has always reminded me of "1979" by Smashing Pumpkins. I do not find this as off-putting as you may, namely because while Billy Corgan is an insufferable douchenozzle, the fucker could, on more occasions than he'll ever get credit for, write a decent-or-better song. I do not, however, operate under even the remotest delusion that anything he ever wrote has ever influenced Sonic Youth. Ever. It's just a funny coincidence, is all.

"Jams Run Free" is arguably the most intelligently-structured song on Rather Ripped, which makes it stick out more than it should (usually SY have such brilliant quilt patterns all over their albums, not so much here). The guitars whorl the suggestive into submission. Thurston so wisely gave his lyrics to his wife, 'cause she speaks the language of magnetism. Kim is agonizingly on the edge. "I love...the way...you move." I almost want to comfort her, knowing how that kind of pained attraction can only end in disaster.

("Jams Run Free" was another contender for an album title. While in theory I would have loved it, it would have guaranteed endless interviewer questions about Sonic Youth making an appeal to the jam band crowd. And the fact they played Coachella in '06? Oh Lord.)

"Rats"--Oh hi Mr. Lee. Is this better than "Paper Cup Exit"? By leaps and bounds, m'lord.

Kim and Thurston switch roles, with the tall man playing bass on an SY wreck for the first time since Goo, and Kim blessing us with dusty diamonds. (Seeing Sonic Youth for the first time on an album tour is frequently enlightening, and no moment moreso on the Rather Ripped tour when I realized that Kim is the one who's really helping us feel the noise.)

The abrupt volume switches from verse to bridge to semi-chorus are odd, but ultimately serve a purpose by making Lee's simple call to "Shine down" sound like a plea for salvation. The three vocalists in SY each evoke unique universes, and all told, Lee's are the ones I'd like to inhabit the most.

"Turquoise Boy"--Another song where Kim sings lyrics written by her husband. The likes of "Sleepin' Around," "Do You Believe in Rapture?," and "Lights Out" had caused me to proclaim a precipitous drop in the quality of Thurston's lyricism, but then I realized--he's still capable of fantastic wordplay, he's just not singing any of it himself. That's kinda beautiful. Giving your wife all your good lyrics is the new "I love you."

Recommended activity: chuck this marvelously combobulated song on the stereo (or mp3 player, if you must), sprawl out on a comfortable surface (and yes it must be comfortable, no objects on the ground jutting into any part of your body and making you squirm), and enjoy the sensation of molecules escaping your body, up up and away, hooray for everything.

"Lights Out"--Follow the bouncing guitar line on screen and sing along. Smart move not giving this one to Kim, because there's magic and then there's miracles, and there's only so much of either one human being can be expected to perform.

"The Neutral"--This has usurped "Reena" as my favorite on the album; it's almost that tracks inverse, an ode to a barely-comprehensible icon of the mundane everyday. It's interesting to compare the languorous descriptive styles of both "The Neutral" and SY's ultimate nod to the star-fan nexus, "Star Power." One is sensual while just avoiding oozing over into sleaze, the other fawning to the point of an eventually developed disinterest.

Both feature instrumental flourishes worthy of accompanying souls into the afterlife.

Me: "You know what rules most? Right after the li'l kinda chorus, when they casually step on the pedals and just gently fuzz it out, like beatin' somebody in the forehead with a toasted marshmallow on a stick."

Patrick: "Huh?"

Me: "It's like persistent, and it tickles, and it's so sweet you wanna eat it."

Patrick: "Yeah?"

Me: "Yessir. It pricks all my senses into hyper-alert mode."

Patrick: "That's cool. Is our exit coming up soon?"

"Pink Steam"--A reverse "Rain on Tin": extended instrumental first, then Thurston spewage. Influenced by Dodie Bellamy's novel of the same name. One of the most enrapturing things they will ever commit to record; everyone is operating at maximum demigod capacity--have I not mentioned the bad-ass perfection that is Steve Shelley's drumming yet? Dude would make a hell of a referee in another life--and at the three minute mark, it becomes almost unbearable, like hearing the angular momentum before getting sucked into the black hole, like feeling the bones underneath your skin strain to rip through.

"We cannot possibly keep this up," the collective Sonic mind realized. "It sustains or improves, and either way, it'll make all future music, by us or anyone else, utterly pointless. We gotta take it down a notch."

Breaking free momentarily from the braintrust, Thurston Moore offered a solution: "It needs lyrics. I'll write some lyrics."

Well, there's taking it down a notch and then there's taking off the whole goddamn belt. The lyrics veer between flushed eros and "ugh, bro."

I just came by to run you over
I just came by to watch you quiver

Damn, I feel some condensation.

I'm the man who loves your mother

Oh man.

Deep in love you need no other
Deep in love your lonely lover

For the longest while, I thought Thurston was singing "lovely lover," which sounds almost too ridiculous to exist, but put no thing past no one at no time, I always say. "Lonely lover" is better by a baby's breath.

"Or"--A fitting way to end the album, a song that comes off like a Thurston poem surrounded by incidental sounds (not the least of which would be Lee giving love taps to an acoustic). I dig T's delivery here; easy, not lazy; smug as a pug in a hug, as opposed to smug as a shrug from a lug.

"The plan is to go to DC and hang out/Go see girls rock."

Mary Timony, Mira and Christina Billotte, Kathi Wilcox, Jenny Toomey. If you don't know these names, learn these names. Then listen to the music. Know the history, so it won't be a mystery.

The song ends with Thurston's wispy recitation of the innocently vacuous queries inevitably posed to the touring musician.

What comes first
The music
Or
The words?

Thank you forever to the smart ass in the audience at SY's show in Seattle on 6/30/06 for screaming out "The words!" right after the song ended. I cannot hear the song without your not-sober attempt at humor blaring in my head. Good job. You fuckin' penis head. That's why Kim told the Portland crowd the very next night that "you guys rule over Seattle." Less yelling dumb shit, more enjoying the music. Quel fumier! (And if you actually do ever read this, don't feel all honored and shit that I remembered you; my memory is so legendarily sharp that I'm pretty sure I remember floating in the amniotic sac.)

Beautiful Jukebox: The Music of Sonic Youth (Selection 17--Shards of Sweetshine)

JUNE 2004


Murray Street was cool, yes, but Sonic Nurse is for the soul-babies.

Ten songs and 62 minutes long (its predecessor was only 7/45), this is a record to spend some quality time with. Some easy laughter, some concentrated conversation, and fantastic food and drink. (Only the finest meats and spirits, please; save the bum wine for NYC Ghosts & Flowers.)

The nurse-centric paintings of Richard Prince adorn the front and back covers of the greatest SY album artwork since Daydream Nation. (For maximum appreciation, please acquire by means deemed most suitable the vinyl. In addition to the added benefit of greater size, the back lacks the terrifyingly ugly anti-piracy label that ruins the CD version.) I'd trust Prince's nurses with my health, but not my secrets.

Get ready for your sponge bath....

"Pattern Recognition"--No foreplay; straight to the raw fuckin'. (Or the sweet lovemakin', depending on how you hear it. Always, always subject to change.)

"Pattern Recognition" is a book by sci-fi demigod William Gibson (or Dub Gib, as we in the drunken bitch trying to amuse herself business refer to him) that addresses the comfort and risk in the need to detect patterns, both significant and trivial. I love that the members of Sonic Youth are such ardent readers and straight up jack novel titles for songs.

Kim our protagonist is "a cool hunter" who will both "know" and "show" us, 'cause after all..."You're the one!" I believe it. I'd believe Kim Gordon if she said Galapagos turtles ran the world with cap guns, walkie-talkies, silly putty, and gallon cans of Hawaiian Punch.

The central riff is a knotty guitar line that nevertheless has some sweet-meat bait attached at the end of it, all the better to leave you reeling, my dears. This is an album-long motif, actually.

Oh, and you hear Steve back there on the drums, that ballast-ic bastard? Get used to that, too.

"Unmade Bed"--In the lax-yet-heavy manner of "Disconnection Notice," Thurston slips into the "caring big brother" persona that made "Psychic Hearts" so affecting. While I find "Unmade Bed" nowhere near the song that was, a crucial element that unifies them is Thurston's decision to speak directly to the suffering girl, with no inkling that he would be interested in ever speaking advisory word one to the dude. Thurston Moore knows a lost cause when he sees it, hears it, or imagines it.

This is the only song on Sonic Nurse to not surpass four minutes, and even then it misses the mark by mere baby hairs.

"Dripping Dream"--Repetition breeds love--or at least, the affection a big sister feels for her goofy fucker of a baby brother. This song used to bug me. I always loved the arrangement: fuzz field to synco-drop to classic riffage, but Thurston's hippie drippings would always give me the "blarghity" face.

I could never, ever skip the song though. The music was so seductive in its surprise, I couldn't deny my soul the pleasure. Then, inevitably....

Howling scriptures to the Mother Earth
O Mother Africa awake yr son
To all the mommas with the money eyes
This kind of love comes as no surprise
Caught shadow
In sex meadow
Little darlings describe the scene
Purring notions of the dripping dream
We've been searching for the cream dream wax
Lathe killers make the meters crack
Caught shadow
In sex meadow
Purring notions of the dripping dream
The kinda girls with the money eyes
Howling scriptures to the Mother Earth
O Mother Africa awake yr sun
Caught shadow
In sex meadow
Little darlings describe the scene
To all the mommas with the money eyes
Purring notions of the dripping dream
This kinda love comes in any size

It was not unlike realizing that far from hating that asshole you work next to everyday, you are in fact so deep in love with them that it's permeated your shoes and is currently mucking up your favorite pair of socks.

"To all the mommas with the money eyes/This kind of love comes as no surprise"

Fucker! I loved those socks! They have Winnie the Pooh sewn into them and kept my feet ever-so warm!

"Caught shadow/In sex meadow"

I think it was the vocal harmonies that did me in, finally, with this. "Sex meadow," just the idea of it, never appealed to me. I've never been one for the outdoor fucking. Way too afraid of inadvertently attracting stray animals with sensitive hearing.

"We've been searching for the cream dream wax/Lathe killers make the meters crack"

I have no idea what this is, but it's forcing me to believe it. Also? Kinda sexy.

"The kinda girls with the money eyes"


Damn you, metaphor for aroused vagina. I resisted you for so long, believed you the opposite of everything I was inside, and you just hung around till I gave in and admitted the truth to myself. And now, the world.

The "That's right/He's gone" parts will never stop reminding me of the theme to Green Acres, however.

"Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream"--How meta. Not meant to be though. As you may know, this started life as "Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream," but fear of litigation prompted the change.

The entire band, for the first time ever, had a hand in the lyrics (whoever wrote "That's what you get when you use a box mix" gets a Snoopy pin) and while the explicit aim seems to be making the future Mrs. Cannon a sympathetic figure, I ain't buyin' it. I mean you gots to woman up at some point. Every time I see A Streetcar Named Desire I yell at Blanche, "Calm down, it's just a dress!" Likewise, "Bitch, take your clothes off before you get in the bath!"

That's why I love this song not for its curious brand of empathy, but for the truculence and serration of the guitars and Kim's vocals, which hearken directly back to her performances on Dirty. (Lee helps out during the chorus, proving yet again that Kim vox plus Lee vox equals KLOX and KLOX is just another way of saying "we should kill time.")

The guitars, as I said, are just gnarlsty. Like the Stephen King short story Grey Matter. Never read it? It's about this alcoholic workman's comp casualty who once upon a time guzzled a can of slimy beer and began a slow transformation into a blob resembling "a huge wave of grey jelly." That's the guitars. They swallowed some fetid gunk and shape shifted into a beast that eats the previously deemed unappetizing.

"Stones"--Unstoppable, this song is. I say, try to stop it! You will fail. Whether man, animal, or apparition, all are helpless to cease this glory of a blaze.

It's anthemic, but not anemic. You won't be joining in synchronized arm-waving amid a stadium crowd or singing along to it on the radio, because it's too deeply felt to be shared so haphazardly. What you will do is ascend a hill, raise your arms and exhort mightily, 'cause the D(d)ead are alive and their message is accessible with patience and compassion. It could come in cryptic missives or simple sensations, but it comes. "We're not gonna run away."

"Dude Ranch Nurse"--Oh Christ, 2004. The end of Baby Bush, Pt. 1. 'Cept we didn't know it was just the first part. We thought a change was gonna (maybe) come. This is the first--and least obvious--of the anti-Prez tracks on Sonic Nurse. I love Kim. Only she could make a "fuck you" to one of the most destructive figures of the 21st century sound like a full-body massage.

The music lopes and loops as she sighs out the sweetest everythings. And ohhh, when that little finger comes up your back after every line in the verses...caught in the lasso, just can't escape.

There's a callback to the echoing desperation of the band's salad days in the extended instrumental break, but like on the rest of the album, it doesn't snap clean through. Not everyone who visits Niagara Falls thinks, wow, I wonder what it would be like to go down it in a barrel. This is awesome, but it would be even more awesome if... Stop right there. Existing amidst exquisite beauty and lamenting is the scourge of modern mankind. Just enjoy.

"New Hampshire"--Steve Shelley never throws his sticks into the crowd--those are his sticks. His beat sneaks up on you, actually, this whole track is deliciously duplicitous. The magnificent rupture into the rapture that precedes the vocals; Kim's slide guitar; and the very inspiration for the song itself, a B.B. King tribute gig attended by one Thurston J. Moore, wherein he was left impressed by the reverence and passion exhibited by guests Joe Perry and Steven Tyler, "the New Hampshire boys." (Buddy Guy, on the other hand....)

Best of all is between verses, when ya get mushed in the face by some hands that had spent the last hour or so pulling around at honeysuckle vines.

"Paper Cup Exit"--So if Lee is the George Harrison of SY, then we can break it down thusly:

"Hoarfrost"="Something" (exquisite masterpiece)
"Rain King"="Only a Northern Song" (overlooked genius)
"Karen Koltrane"="I Me Mine" (searing, gorgeous, but you can only waltz to one of them)
"Paper Cup Exit"="Blue Jay Way"

Ouch. Sorry, LR, but no one bats a thousand, in any league. While I wholeheartedly support the message, all I can think is shit, Sleater-Kinney did it better two years ago. Lee's words here aren't a particularly interesting type of scritti politti, and the music is rote. Also, the fact that lotsa voters didn't seem to mind being slaves after all just makes this an overall depressing listening experience.

"I Love You Golden Blue"--Like watching a loved one, or maybe even the loved one, slowly slip away. Before the color drains away completely, before functions cease and respiration expires, there's the moment when that which animates us, that essence, reaches the pinnacle before continuing on its peregrination. "Is it time to go? It's a place I know."

Kim's voice is barely there and all the more beautiful for it. She illuminates the chilled terror, the hysteria felt whenever caught in that space between awareness and oblivion. "I can't feel the thrill. I don't have the will."

"I Love You Golden Blue" sounds so precious, so fragile. The introductory instrumental feels like a shroud but when it's finally lifted there's just even greater mystery shimmering underneath.

"I don't glitter like the stars above. I don't glow like neon alone. Don't blush. It's just the wind outside. Don't rush to be by my side." They stop it there because they have to. You can't just keep going on like that, shining blinding light on all that which was gorgeous to illustrate how finite it all is. You don't just break someone's heart and steal away their joy, and then stick around to watch them fall apart. There's only one last heartbeat.

"Peace Attack"--And "I Love You Golden Blue" shoulda been that heartbeat.

God. Damn. It. Thur. Ston.

T-man's anti-Dubya turn is clearly inspired by his late hero Ginsberg, but the less I know about who inspired that lachrymose singing the better.

Sometimes, prosaic words make better poetry.

Is it anti-war or pro-peace? Why is "nature sex" in there? Is that like "sex meadow"? Is nature sex what nature kids have? I, this song don't have no function.

Smart move to put the weakest song at the very end. I can just turn it off after "Golden Blue" and be the happiest sad woman in the world, a gracious smile cutting up into my moist face.

Beautiful Jukebox: The Music of Sonic Youth (Selection 16--Days Spent Catching Magic)

JUNE 2002

Sonic Youth albums have been integral to my survival since 1990. Over the next years I would hear--in addition to the reissued classics--a total of five fresh records, with mine ears perceiving neither drop nor drip in quaity. Then, ten years into my rabid fandom, the band put out NYC Ghosts & Flowers, and for the first time showed signs of pete-out.

My blase reaction hardly iced my bones, however; give any creative individual(s) a decent amount of time with which to work their human magic, and they will slip. Probably also fall. Possibly through the goddamn floor. But if a decade spent listening to the greatest band extant has taught me anything--and it has actually learned me many things--it's that you don't give up, in, or out. You just give.

Sure as sugar, two years later, here comes five pairs of hands reaching out from the gaping black hole, grasping for steady boards to help pull themselves up, to make themselves visible again. Five pairs because Jim O'Rourke had in the interim taken the blood oath. Despite any fan misgivings, SY both wanted and needed his formidable musical and technical presence, not so much to "inject new life" into their sound (whadda cliche) but rather to spin it on its head--yet again. While there was some dread (anticipation?) that O'Rourke's influence would encourage a detour into Whitehouse-style sear-and-slash, the songs on Murray Street had more in common in songs like "Get a Room" than anything on Musique Concrete. Not shocking; despite being vociferous cheerleaders for noisy bastards, the Youth have always--as a group, mind--dabbled in that world sparingly. (A gracious exception is Silver Sessions, which I could not include in my review series as A) the band does not cite it as an official album and B) each song summation would read thusly: "Holy fucking hog maw, this is like someone cracked open my skull with a watermelon encased in a block of ice. And I've never felt more alive!")

"The Empty Page"--Ah, stymier of Styron, but Sonic Youth make you sound so appealing. The "new" sound is made instantly apparent, with strings seduced by a modified "Pavement tuning" so that they fall in a gentle, perching pattern of love and refuse to ruckus till a couple minutes in.

The lyrics remind me of "100%," Thurston this time waxing on a star-crossed woman (mind you, no real-life inspiration for this song has ever been cited; Thurston has made mention only of John Cage's musical philosophy as a trigger to throw out a seemingly-unrelated slug).

Lee joins in for the last four lines. Beautiful fit.

(The band shot videos for two songs off the album, this the first and best, featuring precisely edited footage shot by Chris Habib during the Murray Street tour. You can see me at 0:50 and 1:08. For a full seven years, the fact that I appeared multiple times in a Sonic Youth video was the unabashed highlight of my life.)

"Disconnection Notice"--Many of the songs on Murray Street were presented by Thurston Moore to his bandmates as skeletal melodies that he knew he could flesh out only so far on his own. They fatten 'em up well, but there's still a minimalism here that hearkens to Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star.

With one notable difference being Thurston's lyrical maturity. There's nary a "hop hop hop!" to be found. Case in point: "Disconnection Notice" (also known as "Disco Notice" if I'm feeling particularly cute that day). Thurston was moved to craft this melancholy-slathered reflection on the pain of exclusion after his young daughter was deemed inadequate for a particular private school. Turning his instinctive parental upset into calm indictment--even in the face of Lee Ranaldo conjuring up a potent brick-dissolving spell--Thurston bears his heart and soul without being treacly, using wordplay to show and create empathy. Well played, sir.

"Rain on Tin"--September 11th resulted in the loss of thousands of lives and several buildings. Sonic Youth's Echo Canyon studio on Murray Street was one of the feared structural casualties, but the place that SY called home, the building that Jim O'Rourke ran from on that Tuesday morning after a night on the couch, convinced he was living his last moments--amazingly, the studio still stood. Kim Gordon would later tell Filter mag years later that "Murray Street was like our shelter after 9/11." Sonic Youth aver that they do not take matters such as album titles and covers lightly, and Murray Street proves it.

"Rain on Tin" is a solicitous eight-minute embrace.

We all hope
To signal kin
Rays of gold
Now rain on tin
Gather round
Gather friends
Never fear
Never again

Of course there will always be fear. But sometimes things that go without saying need to be said any way. And anyway, there will always be more to us than our anxieties. Love trumps fear, and if Thurston's simple stanza doesn't convince you, the interplay between the three guitars should do nicely. Each section is immaculately crafted, and fits with the next like pieces of a master puzzle. The culmination at 4:50 to 5:03 is almost choral in effect, and demonstrates how terrible a world without light would be.

Leave it to Sonic Youth to assess the damage, collect it, and compact it into a shining cube that can fit into any hand. They aren't a band; they're spirit communicants.

"Karen Revisited"--In the same vein as "Karen Koltrane," Lee Ranaldo immortalizes an ex-lover turned life-casualty in his own ceaselessly fascinating way. ("You smell of memory"; "She's not in your history books/Lost her mind and kept her looks.") When he explains to us just who Karen was/is/ever shall be, the walls open up around him, including the ones human sight can't capture, and the resultant holes emit a squall that just may be a more accurate assessment of the woman than his words--anyone's words--ever could be.

Lee starts to fight the memory of this intense, frustratingly incomplete connection with some forced apathy, and then--the cacophony vanishes from the air. She's turned to dust now.*

"Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style"--A beaut that got off the boat at the first-ever American All Tomorrows Parties festival in 2002, and I was one of the many standing in the audience thinking that no way that song was gonna end up on the album called what Thurston just said it was called.

Thurston's skewed gifts with the letters is at its apex here. (It's like the anti-"Small Flowers Crack Concrete.") He not only traces some stunning figures with alluring angles, he's taken the time to fill them in with rich colors.

"Killer tunes, bubblegum disaster/Radical adults lick godhead style." And if you don't believe 'im, here are the Borbetomagus beast-men to bleat the most obdurate sounds this side of an English ambulance.

You want a powerful message? You want something that genuinely says something? Hope I don't die before I get old.

Note: the official lyrics show "Bells together outrageously." I have always heard the more referential "Girls together outrageously," but that's just 'cause I wanted to. "Bells together outrageously" sounds like a Lee lyric.

Another note: Accomplished Chicago-based music critic/part-time drummer Jim DeRogatis has repeatedly called Steve Shelley "the weak link" of an otherwise top-notch racket-gang. This is just madness Did he not listen to this song? Or the rest of the album? Or any of Sonic Youth's output from EVOL on? Fuck that mess-talk. Jim DeRogatis thinks the salad bar is the weak link of the buffet.

"Plastic Sun"--Another that premiered at ATP LA (what a show that was!) and pretty cute for a trifle. Kim sings Thurston's "pissed woman" lyrics like the champ she can't help but be, but Jim O put the red cape on for this one. His bassline should be some nation's flag. (Possibly Paraguay.)

(When I'm having another one of those "cute" moments, I like to imagine that "Get your hands off my tomato" is a nod to Devo's "Smart Patrol.")

"Sympathy For the Strawberry"--A nine-minute epic that gives ample room for super-mischievous Kim to wrinkle her nose and curl her toes. She's setting limits--then daring the line to be crossed.

"Let me introduce you," she sings to start it off, and it's pretty incredible. Introduce you? This is the last song! Kim's not particularly mindful of listener comfort, however; I don't know if her own comfort is that desirable to her all the time. Complacency=death? Keep your distance, prickly patch, but don't leave her sight. She'll make sure you don't, in fact. Never know--you just may come quite in handy.

Gorgeous sound forever: frazzled, sweet chordplay; barely perceptible keys jangling; one of the most singular people in music history, double-tracked; the tip toes of trespassers who pop open the forbidden fizzy to protect the vines.

And oh yeah--debuted with vocals live at ATP '02. I'd like a time machine right now, one large enough to fit me and y'all in it, 'cause sometimes--lots of times--words just don't slice right.




*Debuted, with vocals, at the All Tomorrows Parties festival on the UCLA campus, on March 17,2002. I was there, maybe you was too. If you were...wasn't that just fuckin' fantastic?

*Lee wanted to rename the song "Karenology," but the album went to press before the change could be made. Tour setlists would feature the revised title. (I like to call it "Madonna, Sean and Karen." You know, when I'm being cute.)

*When Sonic Youth finish up instrumentals, they divvy them out to each lyricist for's to spin their relative gold. "Karen" was originally Kim's, and "Sympathy for the Strawberry" was Lee's. They switched, and the rest is history.

*'80s Southern rapper Gregory D once recorded a song where he castigated many a ho most viciously, by name. "Karen is a muthafuckin' ho!" Yeah! Retroactive burn! But then he went: "Kim is a muthafuckin' ho!" later in the song. Whoa. Watch out now.

Beautiful Jukebox: The Music of Sonic Youth (Selection 15--More Casper Than Brown Lady, Really)

MAY 2000

On July 4, 1999, thieves made off with the van housing all of Sonic Youth's gear. One minute it's in the Ramada Inn parking lot, the next it's being pushed through congested California roads to meet its destiny.

SY soldiered on, playing their scheduled gig at the This Ain't No Picnic festival thanks to the generosity of the other bands on the bill, who likely did not have to be asked twice. A lesser band, comprised of lesser people, may have quit. The guitars you spent years collecting and modifying to specifications that 0.7% of anyone in the history of the instrument would ever conjure, the effects, the drums...all gone. Forcing Thurston Moore for the first time in his life to play a goddamn Les Paul.

While I believe--I mean, yeah, let's get this outta the way--that NYC Ghosts & Flowers is the band's worst album, I do not blame it's inferior quality on the gear theft. I don't "blame" anything. Great artists aren't always great. 1942. Beatles For Sale. Floaters. Ya know? Everyone, given time, will slip. Maybe even fall.

The Yootz recruited master musician/producer/remixer/prepared-sound craftsman Jim O'Rourke for some guidance and extra squiggle. He would soon take on a much greater role.

"Free City Rhymes"--For being the nadir of their discography, it sure has a stunning start. The chiming notes are apportations materializing over a screeching, vibrating swamp. Thurston wastes no time: "Ghosts passing time." More lines of casual spectral travel follow.

A harbinger of things to come, though, is the seven and half minute run time. Not the length, but the padding. The noise at the end seems there for its own sake. Before this song, that was one accusation I didn't feel you could rightfully hurl at them.

"Renegade Princess"--Thurston, Kim and Lee on vocals should be a treat on par with a fat plate of Mississippi Mud Cake. But this album isn't called MS Ghosts and Flowers now is it?

Minute and a half of tedious wordage passes before they wake Steve up. Once he is free to be his other alter ego, Stevey Shell the Unflinching King of Bap!, "Renegade Princess" actually gets interesting! It gains menace ("They're gonna fight for your blood tonight") and Thurston's subdued snarl sounds better here than it has in years.

Rafael Toral contributes galactic guitfiddle as the song nears its conclusion. Would've really helped at the beginning too.

"Nevermind (What Was It Anyway?)"--Tense and sultry, with sonics wisely tamped throughout. Nowhere is this more evident than the infamous "Boys go to Jupiter/Get more stupider/Girls go to Mars/Become rock stars" section, where it seems like the fellas could really blast windows out if they wanted to, but they're just not.

And about those lines...my God, every argument for the alleged uselessness of Kim Gordon in Sonic Youth seems to begin and end with reference to those lyrics. Which she borrowed from her young daughter. Kim Gordon did not, repeat did not come up with that couplet on her own. It's a pretty basic playground chant throughout history, people, or at least the history of playgrounds. It ain't all genius outta the mouths of babes, okay, Tina Fey's daughter is the extreme exception.

Variations include:

Boys go to Jupiter, get more stupider
Girls go to Mars, and drive red cars

Boys go to Jupiter, get more stupider
Girls go to Mars, eat candy bars

It's fucking hilarious that after references to Basquiat and being naked she just throws that in there. Every review I read decrying the puerile terror I just love the part that much more.

"Small Flowers Crack Concrete"--This here? This is some sloppy Thurston. A turgid, urgent turd masquerading as beatific poetry.

NYC street scene
The ripped shirt, a bloody mattress
Lying on top of a Puerto Rican pirate
The clairvoyant homosexual pretzel vendor
Plugitin bloitout
Cheap dirt carpet marijuana

Basically.

"What did you bring me?
Not a goddamn thing, yeah
And what did you leave me?
Another tombstone dream, yeah"

"Oh salacious mansion." "Salacious" is one of the greatest words ever. It sounds like you're licking barbecue sauce off of an especially exquisite body part. And this is what he does to it?

"Panic net." Okay, that one actually sounds good. Quality band moniker, too, if anyone is so inclined. But I cannot make it through this song. Nothing memorable I actually want to remember happens during it.

"Bleed for nothing, nada."

I'm surprised he didn't go on, "Squat, bubkes, zilch. Mister Dobalina, Mister Bob Dobalina."

"Side2Side"--Jim O and William Winant help out on this art piece that features Kim stoically reciting commonplace words whilst rolling up pot in pans. Mind-fucking live, trust me.

"StreamXSonik Subway"--A quirky quark, imaginatively constructed. There is quite a bit to enjoy here: the main guit part could inspire Doozers to erect cave-smashing towers; Thurston's A, A, A, B, C, C, C, B scheme, wherein he spins up some colored and coded wordplay; his snug-not-smug delivery, featuring the personality that "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" lacked. Jim swooshes in with wacked-out schiz so it all sounds like the fire that will inevitably flare up when you fail to clean the lint filter in the dryer.

"NYC Ghosts & Flowers"--Allright, enough. We aren't fucking around anymore. Put that goddamn magazine down and throw your dispassion to the wind. This is the epic tale of dragons and fire in a centuries-long battle for domination, except the dragons are poets and they're breathing out drugs and it runs eight minutes. For the second straight LP, LR takes the gold, crafting an engrossing tribute to the artists that the entire album sought to honor in the first place. His readings are meaningful, like every line that escapes past his lips sets off white-hot flashes throughout his limbic system. Contrast this with Thurston's detached, superficially descriptive stanzas on "Small Flowers Crack Concrete." (Both songs, interestingly, reference mass arrests.)

"I last saw you alive/Inclined to thrive."

Always puts me in mind of small rooms that are almost totally dark, save for some natural light peeking in from the outside world, occupied by people born with a perception so profound it renders the standard routine of human survival useless. So they're just in their space, waiting for a friend to tell them a story that they can spit back out to a world that will, at best, grasp a third of the significance.

The climax is nothing less--or more--than the dirt filling in a hole, stealing away the light, sucking away the breath, and stilling the heartbeat, preparing the soul for transmigration.

On the "old" sonicyouth.com forum, this track won the honor of Greatest SY Song Ever. I miss that fuckin' board sometimes. So disorganized and glitchy.

"Lightnin'"--Kim on trumpet? Thurston mating a bike horn with his guitar? This should be--should be--a must-hear, a never-skip, a brain-frazzler, a toe-curler, a teeth-loosener.

It ain't. It's good. It's there. Live they would go the shit off on it, and when possible, soul-scatters like Mats Gustaffson and William Winant would aid and abet the Sonic cause, propelling the basic idea into the stratosphere. As a hint, a promise, it really had no place on an album, much less the last track. This ball don't bounce. It squiggles and squeaks, and I'm sure some alien canine's head began to vibrate, but it just makes me wanna throw in a bootleg from 2000.



I don't give letter or number grades to these albums, because doing so prejudices the readers perception of the review before they start word one. If I did go by either system, though, I sure as sloppy pig shit wouldn't give NYC Ghosts & Flowers a "0.0."

Sadly, Pitchfork's review is inextricably linked with the album even ten years later. The utter gall, the sheer audacity of this Bread the Crescent Rolls, this hack with no saw. A zero means nothing, empty, devoid of anything redeeming. And that, sonic friends, is ludicrous. "Free City Rhymes" and the title track on their own assure nothing less than a 5 of 10 (again, if I was so inclined). The album's most grievous sin is not being poor, but being average. The most scathing indictment in the whole P-fork review is of the author's own taste. If you purport to have enjoyed the music of SY in the past, yet fail to glean the beauty of either song I just mentioned...but you know something? I guess someone could say the same thing about me and this review? How could I just adore A Thousand Leaves but be so unimpressed by this record? It's a ponder.

This is not the only thing wrong with the review. It is the bane of the music journalist to constantly reference the universal "we" and "our." I? Use "I." I would never presume; presumption of collective opinion indicates insecurity in your opinion. That ad populum stuff is for the lazyboned. I stand by my writing till the cows eat the moon cheese.

You may very well adore this album. You may find "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" mesmerizing and artistic, a grand example of Thurston Moore's inextinguishable punk spirit. You may feel that Sonic Youth utterly lost the plot after this album and have yet to retrieve it. You aren't "right" nor are you "wrong." You, like me, just "are." Some folk can't handle purgatory. They're the ones who vomit out self-serving articles full of snark, pointless pseudo-analysis, and flat-out prevarications and libel.

It's all gracious, y'all. Living the Sonic life means: step up, bare yourself and only yourself, and don't fucking lie. Three steps that once taken mark out the path to a bliss you can walk in and out of at will.

I didn't give up on Sonic Youth even after being sorely let down by NYC Ghosts & Flowers; because even their failures contained more hints at success deferred than the triumphs of most other bands. Because not everyone is always beautiful when appearing naked. Because they don't lie.

Beautiful Jukebox: The Music of Sonic Youth (Selection 14--Collecting the Ravelling)

MAY 1998

A Thousand Leaves saw light three years after Washing Machine, a gap previously unmatched in Sonic Youth's recorded history. Every second of the record shows the band as far away from the sound of Goo and Dirty as possible, the prevailing aesthetic sentiment one of squawk-boxes prodded and pounded, of simple words fit into abstract sentences, of every excess bit of fabric dropped on the studio picked up, collected and re-threaded to create some marvelous new garb. The first album they recorded at their new Echo Canyon just happened to be their best ever.

The cover is a piece by Marnie Webster called "Hamster Girl." Sometimes I stare at in hopes it will make some kind of sense, but in the end it makes no kind of nothing. The hand makes me think of the "Time Warp Tickers" game in the legendarily garbation Action 52 collection, and why are they touching the goddamn hamster and why is there a hamster, was it going to try and crawl up in that poor little girl in the background?

The tri-guit deployed yet again, showing the effects of effects. Seriously, they are phased the fuck out all over this album, and I couldn't be happier. It's like a Caraviggio painting, cloaked in shadows with beams of light perfectly elucidating key moments and figures of the work.

You ready to see me bloviate even further? I know I love this album, but I'm not sure about you.

What are you doing? Looking at my blog. And what do you see? The words of a woman in rapt adoration of recorded sound. I see--someone who shares this passion. So let's adore.

"Contre Le Sexisme"--What incantatory force drives Kim Gordon to enter into a non-lysergic wonderland, "Eat Me" shirt stretched over her chest, dead bent on exploring and exclaiming while ducking the pebbles the rabble hurl at her in their ignorance?

"A calm wind will stir me too," she assures the peculiar, unfriendly creatures who surround her. Searching for allies, she waves at the sound. The sound waves back.

Streeeeeeetch. Kim plays her vox like she and the fellas tend to play their electrified banjos. Yet many who marvel at the latter take umbrage with the former (and atop it all, neglect to acknowledge Kim's role, making it all about Lee and Thurston, like Kim isn't deadly when she straps on six).

"A thousand leaves for your disguise" is not only the first of several lyrical refs to the album title, but reminds me of Margaret Cho's last resort plan to get laid: "I'm just gonna have to cover with leaves, and hope somebody falls in."

"Sunday"--A tribute to torpidity that sucks all the helium out of the one-eyed prude balloon and recites lyrics that can potentially strike the listener as personal while remaining ambiguous enough to make said listener wonder what it is they're relating to.

Sunday--lazy, languorous, beasts with ambiguous features lurking in crooks and cracks. Thurston's Sundays sound hopeful, wistful, and in love. When I was young, Sundays meant the last day before school started again. When I got older, Sundays meant the last day before work started again. Extended unemployment brought the joy back, but one thing about being a wage slave? The "wage" part. Thurston Moore is a real lucky fucker.

The delicate intro, relentlessly familiar riff, which eats itself after some time in the deep fryer--"Sunday" is like the rest of the album, immaculately structured to reward repeated listenings.

"Female Mechanic Now on Duty"--One of the greatest song titles in their history, for sure. Kim took her lyrical inspiration from Meredith Brooks' insipid smash "Bitch" ("I'm a bitch, I'm a mother, I'm a child, one-hit wonder"). You'd think Kim would straight smash on a triflin' ho, twist gnarled wire into a Barbie head, but her words are actually underwhelmingly inscrutable.

None of that matters; the guitar work is carving itself into the side of a mountain. It's the kind of skronking raunch that either turns you off or turns you on--you don't shrug when faced with Sonic Youth at the height of their powers. "Female Mechanic" is a pedal clinic, but far from sterile. The careening wails give way to falling leaves 'round about 300 seconds in, and I can just see Snoopy blowing them over to a waiting orange and brown pile.

(The second half of the song was taken directly from the band's performance on Sessions at West 57th, one of their most breathtaking television appearances.)

"Wildflower Soul"--"I don't want to be cynical. That's one artistic temperament that I don't feel has any real place in music"--Thurston Moore, Rolling Stone, 1994

I don't know that I agree with that opinion, mainly because I don't see why any temperament shouldn't cross all art forms, but I appreciate what he's saying. It means "Wildflower Soul," a breathtakingly cohesive appreciation of blissful, carefree youth that also celebrates the inevitable growth. From the first molten notes to the gentle breeze that churns into a full-blown wind storm freeing seeds from their puff, it's more epic poem than song.

Kairotic Youth.

"Hoarfrost"--The only song from A Thousand Leaves I've seen live more than once. (My ideal SY setlist? The entirety of this album, with "Silver Rocket" and "Starpower" as the encore. You're not in the mood? Well you get in the mood!)

Inspired by a hike on the white Canadian hills that Lee took with Leah Singer, and shit, you can walk gingerly around inside this song. Second best song about snow ever, just behind "Skating" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and a league ahead of "Snodland" by Soft Machine. So much happening, but it converges in the middle of an imperfect circle.

In the winter, when the streets are buried underneath inches of flakes, Patrick helps his pops plow paths clear. One year "Hoarfrost" popped up on his mp3 player as he toiled. When I was able to speak with him the day after, weary myself from shoveling, the first words out of his mouth were wrapped up with wonder--not over the hills of snow, but over looking at said hills while listening to "Hoarfrost."

"It was perfect. That song is what snowfall looks like, what winter feels like."

Lee's voice is fragile ice, as key a component to the vibe as the sounds he walks alongside. "We'll know where when we get there."

(Now is the perfect time to pull out the parentheses and point out yet again how amazing and bang-on Steve Shelley is behind the kit. Just death from above. I don't know how dude can keep from jumpin' back and kissing himself most days.)

"French Tickler"--A french tickler is a condom featuring pleasurable protrusions. I've never had any experience with a prophylactic of such a sort, but I did once have sex to this album. Wasn't great. Kept getting frustrated that the act was distracting me from listening to the songs.

Kim is alternately sultry and raw, crackling with exposed lusts. You can be forgiven any involuntary paroxysms incurred while listening.

"I feel combustible," she sings, and it's not just her. "Forever fabulistic, blowup, pleasuristic." You know you're doggy paddling in some ecstatic waters when you start making up words.

The guitfiddles and boss bongos hit your palette like a tasty pastry during the mellowed-out verses, and your gut like a cassowary's kick when Kim throttles her throat, in the throes of recess bliss.

"Nothing excellent can be done without leisure"--Andre Gide

"Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise"--Jacques Attali

"French Tickler" takes those two quotations to heart and soul.

"Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)"--Art is palliative at its best; when it clicks, it can reduce the pain of this terminal condition known as life, but never can it reverse the cycle of suffering or stop it altogether. It just aims to improve the quality of life.

That'll do.

Given it's eleven minute runtime, you could reasonably expect "Hits of Sunshine" after a couple verses to slide slow into a pit of savagery. Funny thing though--it never does. There's something very classical-sounding about the watercolor tones they achieve here, segueing from one intelligently played section to the next. It sprawls. It stains.

"Karen Koltrane"--I'm at an emotional crest the whole album long; that's why it made such an indelible impression to begin with, why I respond so instantly and powerfully to the pulses contained thereon. The romance reminiscence that is "Karen Koltrane" may be the most stirring moment of the whole album, even more so than "Hoarfrost," and no shock I suppose that both songs are helmed by Lee Ranaldo, the most earnest of SY's vocalists. His delivery of the first two lines here absolutely seize the heart.

Lost love, lost mind. The ring modulator as metal detector/map of the world's heart. Thurston's supporting voice on the "Will she stay forever?" section is spectacular. It curdles around Lee's straining queries and cuddles up next to the sparse sounds that lose any answers to the ether.

Could have done without the infrequent little frog farts, though.

"The Ineffable Me"--Kim catches shit for goof-squad lyrics that she didn't actually write ("A cum junkie's job/Makes my dick throb" is clearly Thurston scribble). Fuck the Kim hate.

A pattern on A Thousand Leaves is how Thurston and Lee sing their plaintive meditations on the inexorable progress of life with a studied gentleness while Kim eats dirt and spits it back out as flame. (So much for the pacifying effects of motherhood.)

Do fools realize the extent of Kim's influence on the band they aver would be that much better without her in it? It's real simple--real simple-- to say 'Well, Thurston started the band and she was already his girlfriend and had no musical experience, she's just along for the ride', but if you study the history, Kim's art background pretty much drove the band's direction for years. Thurston and Lee--each far more accomplished than Kim musically--would often run ideas by her in the studio, and defer to her judgment. Lee and Thurston wanting to record an album where piano replaced guitar as the primary instrument? Guess who shot that half-ass idea down with a .600 Nitro Express Magnum?

"Listen to her bass parts, her guitar parts. Anyone could play what Kim plays."

Yeah, but could just anyone think of the parts she plays? Uh huh.

"Snare, Girl"--Tempting to listen to this sweet (yet somehow spooky) lullaby teeming with nubile imagery and mark it as another example of papahood unleashing Thurston's inner hippie. However, the man himself insists the lyrics date back to his high school poet years.

One man's treacly is another woman's gorgeous. I have to remember to take a ball of yarn with me when I listen to this song, so I can find my way back out of the maze when it's over.

"Heather Angel"--Heather Angel was an actual actress (I even walked by and snapped a pic of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame) but Kim plays her own role here, assumes her own persona, speaking in swaths of possibility, offering no ideas, only feelings. The music's unfettered ascension, the EVOL-esque martial percussion, makes for a most sanguine conclusion. An entire galaxy formed, in just under 75 minutes. (Where's your hammer, brother?) Fucking exquisite.


In M.O.P.'s legendary "Downtown Swinga," Li'l Fame expresses his desire to be buried with a tape of Paid in Full. Desire is nice, but it helps to put paper in front of your lips. See, I've already made out a legal last will and testament, and in it I stipulate that I am to be buried with my vinyl copy of A Thousand Leaves (along with a particular Snoopy doll). It is not only the greatest album Sonic Youth has ever made, it is the greatest album anyone has ever made. I feel like I only did 56% justice with this written review. But that I could do it justice at all, that I could elucidate with some competence the ways this wreck-hard has spun my brain around, and I mean that shit is still a-twirl, to where it won't stop till everything else does...I'm glad I could at least do that.

Beautiful Jukebox: The Music of Sonic Youth (Selection 13--Enter the Mutron: 36 Pedals)

SEPTEMBER 1995

Ever since Daydream Nation in '88, Sonic Youth had been releasing albums every couple years. This changed with Washing Machine, which came just a year and some change after Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. The very title of the record suggested cleansing, and after 1994, the band needed it. They'd put out an anomalous record that effectively exposed any dreams DGC had about them becoming super-profitable mega-stars as just that, dreams. And a friend of theirs who had become a super-profitable mega-star was found dead by his own hand.

Lee Ranaldo has more than once in interviews likened being in a band to being in a marriage: "There's something about what we do together that's further solidified by the solo things we do."

There is no secret to SY's longevity and fierce creativity, other than that of a consistent, persistent interest in the creative community around them that they can in turn take inspiration from. So while Sonic Youth were not touring or making new music, Lee and Thurston individually played around, sometimes locally sometimes globally, sometimes solo but more often in collaboration with free jazz musicians like William Hooker and Rudolph Grey.

When it came time to hunker down in a studio and make some new music, the band members decided to leave the city and record at the Pavement-approved Easley Studios in Memphis. The reinvigoration could not be stopped, even though big plates and buckets of fat sloppy down-home Southern-ass BBQ are pretty enervating.

So is a lunch consisting of a Whopper and fries, but damned if that's not what me and my best friend Angela were eating as we sat in a gazebo at Greenbrier Park, listening to a newly-purchased Washing Machine on her battery-powered CD player. First and only time I ever devirginized a Sonic record with someone else in the room. Felt kinda cheap, ya know, like how could I get all sensuous and exploratory, how could I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of the music with Angela's big ol' redhead in the back watching the whole time and exclaiming how NOISY everything sounded ohmigod.

"Becuz"--A nod to Patti Smith's "Because the Night," Kim kicks it off over guitars that sound like they're going through the "Charlie Brown's Teacher" pedal. With vox reminiscent of Wanda Robinson, Kim speaks to a young girl besotted by her new dude. (The line "Holding his hand like a brand new kite" leads me to believe the girl is less Lucy than Chuck in the situation.)

With this ring modulator, I thee wed. The ceremony takes place in the middle, and Monie is the flower girl. Shit is colorful as Monopoly money, but this stuff is of genuine, real-world value.

"Becuz" drops the listener brusquely into what is the most notable thing about the album before you even press "play." Kim Gordon has largely sworn off four strings for six, and her presence not only completes the mightiest trio that doesn't have the name "Brotzmann" in it but sets the tone of these songs in many ways. You'd do best to watch some WM-era live gigs to really get what she's bringing to the table.

"Junkie's Promise"--Thurston Moore swears on a three-pound plate of barbecued baby back ribs that this song is not about Kurt Cobain. Maybe 'cause he didn't want to be lumped in with the other artists who'd done blatant tributes to the recently-deceased, or maybe 'cause, well, it's not about him. (It is safe to assume Thurston has befriended more than one goodhearted tragic figure in all his years.) Still, "All I know is all and all is all I've heard"? "I heard you say/'You know I hate myself'/'But I love everybody else.'"? Hmm.

The very first seconds of this song almost made Angela drop her burger on the ground.

"Saucer-Like"--Many fans bemoaned the utter lack of Lee on Jet Set, and in spectacular atonement, he gets two songs on Washing Machine. But it wasn't through any triumph of the will.

"Those guys particularly asked me to sing on this record," Lee told huH magazine in an interview to promote the album. "I mean, if they hadn't I probably wouldn't have."

(That quote is amazing to me. I've never seen Lee admit anywhere else that he didn't even want to bring songs in for the album, that basically the Dirty experience apparently bruised his ego so deeply that he felt there would be little to no point of leaving himself vulnerable for Kim and/or Thurston to say, "Eh, not really feeling that one." And maybe not even saying that explicitly, which could wound worse.)

"Saucer-Like" feels more open wide than the first two songs, with a light wind hanging around, and the lyrics more evocative of the life lived inside one's own head. There's probably still people out there who don't know that's Kim "oooooh-aaaaahhhh"-ing at 1:19, 1:23, 1:27, 1:31, 2:12, 2:16, 2:20 and 2:24.

"Washing Machine"--There was a buzz before the album's release that Sonic Youth were going to change their name to Washing Machine (that cleansing metaphor again) and the fact that this news came from Thurston Moore should have immediately clued everyone in to its veracity. But Opie's so goddamn deadpan; when he said that the follow-up to Daydream Nation was "gonna have no notes, no tones, no music, but it's gonna blow your mind," there were some people who thought he was serious. I guarantee this.

Nine and a half minutes that seems to fly by. Angela didn't see it this way at the time. "God, why don't they just stop? They've made their point." Yeah. You know, you either have patience with art or you don't. She also felt compelled to imitate Kim's "All right now!"s. Every time. I never tell my friends they need to shut the fuck up. Is that a flaw of mine?

Kim's lyrics are playful throughout the record; on this song I get a series of scenes depicting 1950s malt-shop love, a coupla squeaky kids sharing no-soul kisses over a plate of fries.

Musically, it's almost immaculate. For the first few minutes the riffs are running off in different directions. The arterial riff is in fact a Kim G. original, and that's the key word with her on the guitar. Her style isn't as reliant on fall-back lines and chords like the fellas, who--notorious taste for innovation notwithstanding--still from time to time can be heard regressing into the typical traps of the rock guitarist.

"Typical" is not at all applicable to what goes on from 3:00 forward, however. The sun starts to set on downtown; the streets begin to decongest; the porch lights pop on. A minute later, Thurston goes off like some bizarro Michael Larson. Phase one to two, three to four...whew! Fluorocarbons thru ozone, kids.

I said "almost immaculate." My mild gripe is one that with only a couple exceptions I have for the whole album: the drum mix is sub par. People dog the drum sound on Sister, well, I think Washing Machine is even poorer. To say it's a disservice to Steve Shelley is a disservice to saying things. Best drummer in rock. Totally deserved better. Rant over.

"Unwind"--A rarity fa sho, a Lee/Thurston duet fa real. You can hear the first signs of fatherhood influencing Thurston's lyricism/poetry; "Unwind" is sweet, cozy, and comforting in the way domestic ecstasy is supposed to be. The serenading vocals are the highlight: Thurston reaches higher registers than usual, with Lee acting as a flashlight of sorts.

"Move out into his sundry eyes"? Inconceivable!

"Little Trouble Girl"--Two soft songs in a row? Well, this is a girls-only affair, Kim joined by the other Kim, Melissa Dunn and Lorette Velvette.

Like "Washing Machine," this is reminiscent of the decade everything seems to think represented the apex of innocence among humanity, with the girl-group vibe of the vocals (I still can't believe I'm listening to an SY song that has "sha-la-la"s throughout, sometimes). Word-wise, Kim is in the mind and heart of a young girl talking earnestly to her mother, pleading for some understanding and support ("Mama/I'm not too young to try.")

I have to be in the mood for this song. I don't always want to hear sweet soaring vocals with an undercurrent of darkness.

"No Queen Blues"--Up until Thurston does that "cloak my vocals in effects than bury them in the backyard for the dog to dig up later" thing, this is class. It worked for Psychic Hearts; here, not so much. Mainly 'cause I don't know if he's making reference to a specific woman here, like Courtney or Kathleen or Lydia or I don't give a shit. I'm not amused whatsoever, and less than interested. If screaming the word "hop" over and over on the last album didn't work, why try again with the word "no"? Unless you're going to surpass the record set by "Nobody But Me," just don't even attempt it, dude!

Everything else, though? Works.

The first couple minutes are actually the eight-track demo, before switching abruptly to the fuller 16-track. Strawberry fields are forever. The guitar lines and sounds here are among the greatest they've committed to tape (you know, back when that was the thing); they curdle, circle and squeal. "Wow wow wow," the kitties exclaim from their safety zone by the upset trash cans.
They're getting the kind of tones where you just scrunch your face and go "Uggghhhuuuuhhh."

The ending is fittingly shambolic, and thankfully Thurston doesn't excoriate his throat trying to keep up with the craziness. They musta felt real good for this mix, 'cause the drums even sound like drums should sound on a fucking record!

"Panty Lies"--Attack of the 8-Track Demo! Returns!

Some would say that Kim's lyrics never progressed beyond demo stage either.

Hush, puppies. Yer only good with fish.

Kim is awesome on this. She's having fun but still being bad-ass. "Don't just stare/'Cause she's not wearing underwear!" The exclamatory sounds that punctuate the end of each line provide entertainment for hours. I would be shocked if her daughter wasn't the impetus for this song. "Peekaboo," "First comes walkin'," the evidence is evident. Or something.

I wanna do cheerleading routines to this song. And I hate cheerleading.

(I've seen criticisms that this song is "lazy." I say listen closer. Even if you find Kim Gordon's delivery and lyrics wanting, the string work for each verse is varied and aberrant. My favorite: the bit under the second verse, which is just begging for pebbles to be skimmed over its surface.)

"Becuz Coda"--An instrumental excised from the end of the "Becuz" due to record company trepidation. Sounds oddly reverential coming right after the preschool mania of the previous track. Not too dissimilar to lying on the rocky floor of a chilly river cave and watching the current, moving so slow as red and orange lights glow underneath, flashing vibrant colors along the cave walls.

"Skip Tracer"--Lee's second song takes its title from William Burroughs but it's more upbeat than beat up or Beat up. The inebriated female performer is not Courtney, as pretty much everyone thought at the time, but rather Mecca Normal's Jean Smith.

Lee's about as wacked as Kim is lyric-wise on here, mentioning donuts, cheesecake and telling reflections they'd better "run that!" It's not precisely poetry, but he says it like a poet. Thus. It could come off smug, but he smudges the calligraphy nicely. High school journal keepers are prone to melodramatic recollection of mundane events.

What does "Hello 2015!" mean? Who knows, other than Lee Ranaldo. Who else needs to know?

"The Diamond Sea"--One of SY's most beloved songs, and at 19:35, the longest song to ever appear on one of their albums. Fans griping about the dearth of epics on Jet Set were secreting wildly over this one. Faced with a monolith like "The Diamond Sea," a piece of art that is less words and music than breath and flesh, a writer must take one of two paths: scratch out paragraphs to hopefully rival the greatest scribble they've ever manipulated from an ink pen or, keep it pithy.

Pith off.

I forget who it was...I really wanna say it was Fuppetsmaster Rob...but somebody likened the wah intro to the pained cries of Martin Prince being wheeled into the ER after his soapbox derby car crashes--OWIE OWIE OWIE. Classic. That particular nasty sound comes courtesy the Ludwig Phase II Synthesizer, an extremely rare effects pedal that was not only the new sound of the seventies, but also built to store snacks in.

Thurston takes the helm and it's clear yet again that the (positive) crisis of parenthood has significantly affected his artistic choices. His words have a lilt even gentler than the music, addressing the blooming wonder of love in its first days, and dispensing advice on how to never let slip away the sweetest memories, even as "time takes its crazy toll." Thurston's lyrics are basically the counsel of the best uncle you never had; sad in some parts, smart in others, and ultimately sweet without any threat of tooth decay.

Beginning at 2:41, I can hear the sky change. I don't need to be outside to actually witness the atmospheric alteration, I just know, from the sounds. It's got a nuclear shine to it. The clouds are morphing into shapes undreamed by silly little human minds, and no scope is necessary to spy the stardust storms.

Then, I can hear the sky expand. How could it expand? How could it just grow and grow until it stretches out over the ends of the planet? Well, I don't comprehend the precise process, I just know that it is. Can't you hear it too? Sonic Youth have a secret, a fucking fantastic one, and they're letting people in on it. Love is everywhere because life is everywhere. Anywhere. Elsewhere. And death? That's a word those aforementioned miniature minds created in a cute attempt to make sense of the indefinable.

Just exit via the closest door and step outside. Stare into the ordinary. See the orbs flutter and flicker. Hear the blood rushing in your head. We only give ourselves a raw deal. The lights are on to permit play, so toss off the anti-social security blanket and take a position.

Nineteen minutes of unceasing racket would not equal a daydream come true, so the Sonics are sure to land gracefully.

Hello. We're Sonic Youth.
Hello, Sonic Youth!
And, uh...we've been the best band on Earth for thirteen years. We make love to unconventionally beautiful guitars and our drummer is second-guess-proof, this unassuming dude is the most sublime blend of strength and subtlety and--
Hey, that's great. We have free donut holes and OJ in the next room.
How is it that a decrease in volume means an increase in temperature? A most peculiar febrility, indeed.

And you know what? I love it. I love when art throws me off, spins me 'round like a topman tribe, alters my beast, bodies my functions. 'Cause I'm not a Sonic Youth nerd, or a music/book/film/art nerd, or even really an "info freak," insomuch as I'm a life nerd. I geek the hell out over breath and sensation, the tactile and imperceptible, the tension and release, the vulnerable and invincible.

So do Sonic fuckin' Youth. Here's a quarter. You know where to put it.