Sonic Youth

I need to say something about Sonic Youth, anything. It's hard to be at all concise about a band this great, but let me try.

First, they are the greatest band in the universe. They join The Beatles, who've mastered pop, Pavement, who've mastered their own style of suburban pop, the Stones, who've mastered rock (and its ego), and certainly others you can come up with, bands which never disappoint, which always do something new but discernible.

Second, in a 30 year existence, there is no weak album. Some I admit I haven't fully "gotten" yet, but it's obvious the potential is there. I've heard the usual love-of-dichotomy "SY is split on a continuum between artsy noise and hard-rock songs," but there is so much more than that. There is always ambience, and there is always some kind of melody. The rhythms are pronounced (sometimes the rhythms are the melodies), and there's almost always some kind of "noise," an all-encompassing term if ever there was one.


Mostly what I would like is for others to notice how fucking amazing this band can be, a hard task, admittedly. Their discography is huge, and ambient noise isn't always the easiest thing to notice, even if sometimes the songs are clearly in the pop form or the melodies are highly pronounced (Teenage Riot, anyone?) And while every album is indeed unique, at distant listens they all sound the same. And consider that every critic and fan out there has their own opinions about which is the best album. How diverse is their discography?

2000's NYC Ghosts & Flowers is pure ambient, while 1992's Dirty is a Butch Vig-produced noise/grunge fest (they're both wonderful). Their first 1982 album is no-wave. Their second, 1983, is ambient noise rock (check out the Stooges cover and the lyrics to Confusion is Next). 1988's Daydream Nation is about as catchy as they can get, while 1998's A Thousand Leaves is about as laid-back as they can get. I could go on. I used to think Thousand Leaves was my favorite, but really it's just my first vinyl fetish and the first SY that I truly got into, opening up this wonderful world. I could always go for parts of Washing Machine, Confusion is Next, Dirty, and of course, shuffling through the entire discography.


And so to close, if there is any doubt about the ever-constant strength of this band, listen to a song from each album:

1982 S/T: I Dreamed I Dream
1983 Confusion is Next: Freezer Burn/I Wanna Be Your Dog
1985 Bad Moon Rising: Death Valley '69
1986 EVOL: Shadow of a Doubt
1987 Sister: Schizophrenia
1988 Daydream Nation: Teenage Riot
1990 Goo: Kool Thing
1992 Dirty: JC
1994 Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star: Sweet Shine
1995 Washing Machine: Little Trouble Girl (or Unwind...)
1998 A Thousand Leaves: Snare, Girl
2000 NYC Ghosts & Flowers: Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)
2002 Murray Street: Sympathy for Strawberry
2004 Sonic Nurse: I Love You Golden Blue
2006 Rather Ripped: Jams Run Free
2009 The Eternal: Massage the History

Help - Thee Oh Sees (2009)

okay. i admit it. i'm obsessed with this album, not just the album art:



originally, i simply wrote, "another quick, short post. what i imagine when i think about good and fun psychedelic rock: a purple smiling bat that can magically make rainbow arcs squiggle."

i tried to reduce my love for this album to its album art. let me try again: in less than a month, this has become one of my favorite albums of the year.

it's grungy. it's one of the dirtiest albums i've listened to in a long time. the drums are simple, but they provide a perfect backbone to the swampy, distorted humming of the guitar. i can't tell if the vocals have tons of effects put on them, or this guy just sings like a maniac, but i'm at last sure the reverb is out of control. it's like he's singing for a football stadium inside a garage. which brings me to my next point.

it's psychedelic. this guy sings like a retarded angel shaman, or something. i don't know how else to describe it. his voice is high-pitched and harmonious and wonderful, but it's also kind of whiny and just plain weird. beyond the vocals, this will FEEL just like good old rock & roll, nothing psychedelic at all. and yet, there is something in the sound that i think you will find makes it teem with rainbow sparkles and talking purple bats coming out of walls.

it's fun. all i want to do when i listen to this record is get off my goddamn chair and jump around. it's not particularly danceable, it's not what you'd call headbanging music, but i can't stop myself from dancing and headbanging to it.

ambiguous descriptions of a few tracks (which can all be listened to fully and freely here):

electric guitar and bass guitar wind, wind, wind, wind in the first three seconds and then, suddenly, the album blasts off with "Enemy Destruct." drums splashing, maybe some tambourine, and the singing comes in, trippy, like we just got dropped off on the peak of an acid trip.

the second song, "Ruby Go Home," is my favorite on the album, but i don't know why. it starts off relatively simply, with some basic guitar riff, basic drum thrashing, etc etc. the verse involves all sorts of nonsense and the phrase "ruby go home!" the chorus involves a bunch of oh!s and "ruby go home!" the bridge involves repetition of "ruby go home!" there's nothing inherently special about this song. but the band sinks into this moment, this glowing red moment, and they just feel it. they sit there and rock and rock and rock. the moment doesn't end. the guitarist starts fucking around a little bit, nothing fancy, nothing to suck us out of the moment, nothing extraordinary, just more rocking out. and it's catchy, too.

what the hell is that sound at the beginning of "Meat Step Lively?" i have no fucking clue, but it sounds like a baby guitar crying. more rocking out, more living in the moment. except halfway through this one, a wind instrument comes out of nowhere. somebody's blowing on a flute or something, transforming what just sounded like acid-tripped-out Kinks into the pop version of King Crimson or something.

the sixth track, "Can You See," definitely reminds me of something i've heard before. the way it swings back and forth like a pendulum. no, more like a crowd at a show. it's like swaying, not swinging. the bass does it. do do do.......do...do do do......do... and so on.

unfortunately, (for me) the album sort of tapers off towards the middle after an explosive first half, barring one song:

"Destroyed Fortress Reappears" is my second favorite song on the album. this is where the vocal reverbs go nuts. for five minutes he just chants like a high priest over this snare drum march and simple bass/guitar strumming, highlighted with this awfully catchy hook every so often.

i'll admit. the first time i listened to this record i was baked out of mind. i was sitting on a couch in my friend's apartment in the mission, facing one of two tower speakers bellowing out the cool tunes. i really couldn't speak, but i periodically checked with other people to make sure they thought the music we were listening to was as good as i kept thinking. i think i downloaded it the next day.

then a few weeks later, a couple days ago, i went to a bar to see them live for $7. seven bucks! well, not counting beers. but the show was outstanding. short, maybe. but they've only got two albums and each one is full of 1-3min tracks. i expected people to enjoy the show but not rock the fuck out like they did. we were practically moshing. they played "Ruby Go Home" thank god. and i'm pretty damn sure they played it twice as long, illustrating my point that the band has found an inescapably savory moment in that song.

this is good fucking rock & roll, plain and simple.

listen to whole thing here.

Expressway to Yr. Skull - Sonic Youth (1986)

the other night i was hanging out at a friend's apartment on mission doing one of my favorite things to do past midnight: getting stoned and listening to rock & roll. most of the guys there listen to really solid stuff and, considering how baked i was, most records they'd throw on on any given day would make me lean back, close my eyes, and cry rainbows of happiness in my mind at the bliss pounding my face from tower speakers.

this particular night, we were listening to Sonic Youth's third studio album, Evol, while a couple guys played some awesome zombie-killing video game on the tv. i was definitely feeling the album as a whole (and definitely downloaded it right after i went home), but it wasn't until the last track that i melted.

right as "Expressway to Yr. Skull" began, i reached down next to the speaker and picked up the record to check out the album art. then i pulled out a sleeve, looking for the lyrics for the particular song we were on.



sorry i couldn't find a better-quality version, but this will suffice. the song is listed here at the bottom under the alternate name "The Crucifixion of Sean Penn." actually i don't know what the official name is. whatever, it doesn't matter.

like i said, i was searching across the sleeves for the lyrics of the current song. "we're gonna kill the california girls." what the hell? "we're gonna find the meaning of feeling good and we're gonna stay there as long as we think we should." hell yes! i found it!

and right at that moment of Eureka! Thurston Moore cries out "Mystery Train....." at the same moment a sliding guitar sound flies overhead. then comes "Three way Plane....." with the same guitar swooping over me. before i could even gather my thoughts, the last line comes, "Expresswayyyyyyyyyyyy ... to yr. skull!"

i found the meaning of feeling good in three short lines.

Mystery Train
Three-way Plane
Expressway to yr. skull

before you even have the time to settle into that "chorus," though, the band slams into high-gear as if they are entering a long drawn-out jam. you soon doubt this expectation, as the guitars wail solemnly in the background begging for some space to breathe, the drums come crashing down, and the song calms down. you wait for some words. you beg for the mystery train to come pick you up.

but it never comes. the song spends half of its seven building up, only to spend the second half winding down, into a pristine tapering off of noise rock that's anything but noisy.

listen (last.fm has a live version available)