Kim Gordon
February 8, 2015 9:47 AM Subscribe
"The couple everyone believed was golden and normal and eternally intact, who gave younger musicians hope they could outlast a crazy rock’n’roll world, was now just another cliche of relationship failure – a male midlife crisis, another woman, a double life."
Smashing Pumpkins...were in no way punk rock.
She says that like it's a bad thing.
posted by thelonius at 10:38 AM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
She says that like it's a bad thing.
posted by thelonius at 10:38 AM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
I mean, it sucks to be thrown into the same old boring story. But, it's a...boring story.
posted by josher71 at 10:46 AM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by josher71 at 10:46 AM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
I mean, it sucks to be thrown into the same old boring story. But, it's a...boring story.
I feel just like this (on the male side) about a whole lot of Cheever, Updike, Roth, etc. stories, but that doesn't/didn't stop them from telling it or others from publishing or buying it. That interpersonal drama is also a very small potion of the story in the article (I don't know how much it predominates in the book).
posted by blue suede stockings at 10:59 AM on February 8, 2015 [13 favorites]
I feel just like this (on the male side) about a whole lot of Cheever, Updike, Roth, etc. stories, but that doesn't/didn't stop them from telling it or others from publishing or buying it. That interpersonal drama is also a very small potion of the story in the article (I don't know how much it predominates in the book).
posted by blue suede stockings at 10:59 AM on February 8, 2015 [13 favorites]
Smashing Pumpkins...were in no way punk rock.
She says that like it's a bad thing.
I didn't read it at all like that. It comes across so much more like someone who is willing to look honestly at their own past. Almost in a positivist sense - that, she was, at the time immersed in an ideology of "punk rock" and from the standpoint of which the Smashing Pumpkins were "crybabies".
posted by mary8nne at 11:00 AM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
She says that like it's a bad thing.
I didn't read it at all like that. It comes across so much more like someone who is willing to look honestly at their own past. Almost in a positivist sense - that, she was, at the time immersed in an ideology of "punk rock" and from the standpoint of which the Smashing Pumpkins were "crybabies".
posted by mary8nne at 11:00 AM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I feel just like this (on the male side) about a whole lot of Cheever, Updike, Roth, etc. stories, but that doesn't/didn't stop them from telling it or others from publishing or buying it.
Agreed. Just as dull from the other side. Any side.
posted by josher71 at 11:03 AM on February 8, 2015
Agreed. Just as dull from the other side. Any side.
posted by josher71 at 11:03 AM on February 8, 2015
I mean, it sucks to be thrown into the same old boring story. But, it's a...boring story.
How could you ever accuse Kim Gordon of being boring?!
posted by Flashman at 11:07 AM on February 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
How could you ever accuse Kim Gordon of being boring?!
posted by Flashman at 11:07 AM on February 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
How could you ever accuse Kim Gordon of being boring?!
Touché
posted by josher71 at 11:10 AM on February 8, 2015
Touché
posted by josher71 at 11:10 AM on February 8, 2015
I was a rock band roadie for 40+ years.
A hundred people I know could have written that.
posted by Repack Rider at 11:55 AM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
A hundred people I know could have written that.
posted by Repack Rider at 11:55 AM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
WTF is going on with the far right of that photo? I thought they were the ones taking the drugs, not me.
And yeah, this sort of story was trampled to death by VH1's Behind the Music years ago.
posted by dhartung at 12:13 PM on February 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
And yeah, this sort of story was trampled to death by VH1's Behind the Music years ago.
posted by dhartung at 12:13 PM on February 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
Someday I want to read something, anything, that suggests that Courtney Love has a redeeming bone in her body (other than her talent). She must have one. I have heard not a whisper of it.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:22 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Bookhouse at 12:22 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
That's some enjoyable Smashing Pumpkins trash talk. I know it's an easy target, but still...fun, fun, fun!
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:32 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:32 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think the story is very interesting. I've always thought that being in a band with a spouse is insane. Then add in a child? How do people do this? But they made it work for a long time.
posted by thelonius at 12:34 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 12:34 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
I enjoyed the article. She seems like someone I'd like to know.
posted by salvia at 12:54 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by salvia at 12:54 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Seems to me, if you're kick ass without being kick ass as a means-to-an-end, then it doesn't matter squat whether others allow it or not.
imjustsayin'
posted by humboldt32 at 1:17 PM on February 8, 2015
imjustsayin'
posted by humboldt32 at 1:17 PM on February 8, 2015
i think she says really true things about being a woman - in a relationship, in a band, in the media, in a parenting partnership - about how those things can wear you down. i've known my share of men who turned me into their mothers and then resented me for it. i'm glad she's telling her story and i'm glad she's not pretending it's all fine.
posted by nadawi at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2015 [35 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2015 [35 favorites]
...slim sword in...
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 1:24 PM on February 8, 2015
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 1:24 PM on February 8, 2015
Someday I want to read something, anything, that suggests that Courtney Love has a redeeming bone in her body (other than her talent). She must have one. I have heard not a whisper of it.
My guess is that she's smart but that along with the talent doesn't mean she's a good person.
posted by rdr at 1:35 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
My guess is that she's smart but that along with the talent doesn't mean she's a good person.
posted by rdr at 1:35 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Goo came out when I started listening to punk and alt rock, and "Kool Thing" was all over the radio. I wish I could say I fell in love with it, but I found the ugly noise and the baby-talk vocals and nursery rhyme lyrics just dumb. They were an aberration, though -- if I turned the dial for a few minutes, eventually something better would get broadcast.
Jump cut to a year later, and the progeny of Sonic Youth (as I would, in my uneducated state, view bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains) were all over WFNX, alongside Nirvana and Sonic Youth themselves. I felt alienated from what alternative culture had become, and I developed a precocious interest in show tunes while waiting for grunge to blow over. Even after "the Seattle sound" passed its sell-by date, though, all my favorite bands genuflected to the Yoof, and any artist who had any guitar feedback or a smattering of dissonance in their songs drew comparisons to SY. I started to resent their noisy, trend-hopping, name-dropping selves, since they were so far from anything I loved. (The fact that Kim Gordon had allegedly said something mean about the Elephant 6 bands made me dislike them even more.) At some point the popular consensus started to turn away from them, and I felt a little more at home in alt culture.
As an adult, I recognize that their music is not for me -- I like gorgeous melodies and whiffs of redemption, which seem anathema to SY's raison-d'etre. I still think this is the best double album with the word "Nation" in the title that Enigma Records released in the late 1980s, and I believe that the first Throwing Muses albums worked in ways that SY's work did not. At the same time, though, I've come to terms that not everything -- even marquee bands in subcultures that resonate most with my own -- is made for me, and it's okay to not love the big-name tastemakers. That being said, I've come to respect Kim for her insightful observations about being a female artist, and for the amount of shit she had to deal with as she made her way through the world. (Her scenes in The Punk Singer were among the parts of that film that worked the best for me, and caused me to re-apprise my thoughts about her.) I'm looking forward to reading her book when it becomes available.
posted by pxe2000 at 1:49 PM on February 8, 2015 [9 favorites]
Jump cut to a year later, and the progeny of Sonic Youth (as I would, in my uneducated state, view bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains) were all over WFNX, alongside Nirvana and Sonic Youth themselves. I felt alienated from what alternative culture had become, and I developed a precocious interest in show tunes while waiting for grunge to blow over. Even after "the Seattle sound" passed its sell-by date, though, all my favorite bands genuflected to the Yoof, and any artist who had any guitar feedback or a smattering of dissonance in their songs drew comparisons to SY. I started to resent their noisy, trend-hopping, name-dropping selves, since they were so far from anything I loved. (The fact that Kim Gordon had allegedly said something mean about the Elephant 6 bands made me dislike them even more.) At some point the popular consensus started to turn away from them, and I felt a little more at home in alt culture.
As an adult, I recognize that their music is not for me -- I like gorgeous melodies and whiffs of redemption, which seem anathema to SY's raison-d'etre. I still think this is the best double album with the word "Nation" in the title that Enigma Records released in the late 1980s, and I believe that the first Throwing Muses albums worked in ways that SY's work did not. At the same time, though, I've come to terms that not everything -- even marquee bands in subcultures that resonate most with my own -- is made for me, and it's okay to not love the big-name tastemakers. That being said, I've come to respect Kim for her insightful observations about being a female artist, and for the amount of shit she had to deal with as she made her way through the world. (Her scenes in The Punk Singer were among the parts of that film that worked the best for me, and caused me to re-apprise my thoughts about her.) I'm looking forward to reading her book when it becomes available.
posted by pxe2000 at 1:49 PM on February 8, 2015 [9 favorites]
You should have listened to Shoegaze
posted by Nevin at 1:58 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Nevin at 1:58 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sonic Youth are the most overrated band of their generation, and maybe of all time. Take the hipster credentials of Pixies or Velvet Underground and drain away all the talent and inspired music and you have Sonic Youth. What a bunch of boring and shitty records they made... The anecdote of Thurston's breakthrough of playing guitar with a drumstick is hilarious though
posted by batfish at 2:07 PM on February 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by batfish at 2:07 PM on February 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
Sonic Youth are the most overrated band of their generation
Pavement would like a word.
posted by josher71 at 2:18 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Pavement would like a word.
posted by josher71 at 2:18 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Pavement were overrated, but are now rated correctly
posted by batfish at 2:20 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by batfish at 2:20 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
How are they rated now?
posted by josher71 at 2:22 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by josher71 at 2:22 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Exactly.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:23 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Sys Rq at 2:23 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
i think the new orthodoxy on Pavement is "not as cool as we once thought."
posted by batfish at 2:27 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by batfish at 2:27 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
I saw SY for the 2nd (or 3rd, I dunno) time opening for Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the Cow Palace in '91. They were perfectly OK, being all noisy and artsy and things. They closed their set with "Expressway to yr Skull", and really went all out, ending up piling their instruments triumphantly on the amplifiers and leaving them, feeding back, as they exited the stage. Like, whoo! Way to rock, guys!
Then Neil and CH came out and made more, and more interesting, feedback & noise during the solo on their first song (and of course everything thereafter). I don't know if they were set-up by the sound-guy, or Neil just knew the Cow Palace's feedback dynamics by heart, or flat-out had better gear, but man, it was really something. Put their dicks in the dirt, as they say.
That said, I always thought Kim Gordon looked cool and attractive (viz the anecdote in the article), best thing about that band for sure.
As far as Courtney Love goes, I've heard from somebody who knew her that she'd come home at the end of the night with her stuff all ripped and torn, as though she were so chaotic and unpleasant even her clothes were trying to get away from her.
posted by hap_hazard at 2:36 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Then Neil and CH came out and made more, and more interesting, feedback & noise during the solo on their first song (and of course everything thereafter). I don't know if they were set-up by the sound-guy, or Neil just knew the Cow Palace's feedback dynamics by heart, or flat-out had better gear, but man, it was really something. Put their dicks in the dirt, as they say.
That said, I always thought Kim Gordon looked cool and attractive (viz the anecdote in the article), best thing about that band for sure.
As far as Courtney Love goes, I've heard from somebody who knew her that she'd come home at the end of the night with her stuff all ripped and torn, as though she were so chaotic and unpleasant even her clothes were trying to get away from her.
posted by hap_hazard at 2:36 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
I read this article yesterday, and although I've never given two craps about SY, it made me respect Kim Gordon in a new way.
posted by dotgirl at 2:36 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by dotgirl at 2:36 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
eh, I meant to say that she- not just the way she looked- was the best thing about Sonic Youth. Bass, vocals, stage presence, etc. Should have made that 2 sentences.
posted by hap_hazard at 2:43 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by hap_hazard at 2:43 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Neil Young is my number one "Tried so many times to get into it but just can't" musical artist of all time.
posted by josher71 at 2:44 PM on February 8, 2015
posted by josher71 at 2:44 PM on February 8, 2015
pavement are great for right up until halfway through crooked rain crooked rain.
posted by nadawi at 2:57 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by nadawi at 2:57 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Someday I want to read something, anything, that suggests that Courtney Love has a redeeming bone in her body (other than her talent). She must have one. I have heard not a whisper of it.
Well, I mean, here's the thing: Courtney Love and Kim Gordon knew each other for about two seconds more than twenty years ago. The former is currently on a bit of a hatchet-burying jag with everyone lately -- including Gordon, who recently fronted Nirvana to rave reviews from Love. And now here comes Kim Gordon out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, blathering about what a pathetic, dangerous, starfucking drama queen Courtney Love was twenty years ago, in an article ostensibly about the recent breakdown of her own marriage. Why even bring that up, except to drop a bunch of famous names and/or kickstart some "drama"?
Also, I couldn't help but guffaw over this: "Smashing Pumpkins took themselves way too seriously and were in no way punk rock" (as if they ever claimed to be) ... being followed by this ... "During Sugar Kane, the next-to-last song, an oceanic blue globe appeared on the screen behind the band. It spun extremely slowly, as if to convey the world’s indifference to its own turning and rolling. It all just goes on, the globe said, as ice melts, and streetlights switch colours when no cars are around, and grass pushes through sidewalk cracks, and things are born and then go away."
posted by Sys Rq at 3:07 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Well, I mean, here's the thing: Courtney Love and Kim Gordon knew each other for about two seconds more than twenty years ago. The former is currently on a bit of a hatchet-burying jag with everyone lately -- including Gordon, who recently fronted Nirvana to rave reviews from Love. And now here comes Kim Gordon out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, blathering about what a pathetic, dangerous, starfucking drama queen Courtney Love was twenty years ago, in an article ostensibly about the recent breakdown of her own marriage. Why even bring that up, except to drop a bunch of famous names and/or kickstart some "drama"?
Also, I couldn't help but guffaw over this: "Smashing Pumpkins took themselves way too seriously and were in no way punk rock" (as if they ever claimed to be) ... being followed by this ... "During Sugar Kane, the next-to-last song, an oceanic blue globe appeared on the screen behind the band. It spun extremely slowly, as if to convey the world’s indifference to its own turning and rolling. It all just goes on, the globe said, as ice melts, and streetlights switch colours when no cars are around, and grass pushes through sidewalk cracks, and things are born and then go away."
posted by Sys Rq at 3:07 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Pavement would like a word.
Would that word be "OohOohOohEeeOohOooh" or "OohOohOohEeeOohEeeeOohOooh?"
posted by salvia at 3:08 PM on February 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
Would that word be "OohOohOohEeeOohOooh" or "OohOohOohEeeOohEeeeOohOooh?"
posted by salvia at 3:08 PM on February 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
I have never seen anyone own a stage the way Kim Gordon did at a weird-ass gig where Sonic Youth were opening for the Flaming Lips at the Minnesota State Fair. She was this human incarnation of Having Fun While Rocking Out.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 3:12 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by the phlegmatic king at 3:12 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Are Sonic Youth really overrated? They're like a legendary band, a critic's band, an audio engineer's band. It's like saying Steve Albini is overrated. I think they're unrateable because they have been around in alternative culture for so long and they (the members) aren't dead yet. It's like rating, idk, Minor Threat or Henry Rollins or something. Or even Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney. It's weird to think of Sonic Youth as being rated in general when I can only think of them as "just are".
posted by gucci mane at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2015 [14 favorites]
Is it really such a surprise that someone with personal experience is saying Courtney Love brings drama everywhere she goes?
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 3:19 PM on February 8, 2015
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 3:19 PM on February 8, 2015
I couldn't help but guffaw over this: "Smashing Pumpkins took themselves way too seriously and were in no way punk rock" (as if they ever claimed to be) ... being followed by this ... "During Sugar Kane, the next-to-last song, an oceanic blue globe appeared on the screen behind the band. It spun extremely slowly, as if to convey the world’s indifference to its own turning and rolling. It all just goes on, the globe said, as ice melts, and streetlights switch colours when no cars are around, and grass pushes through sidewalk cracks, and things are born and then go away."
Those two comments don't seem incongruous to me. The last quote seems to be saying, "Well, the world spins on and really, it will keep doing so despite our own personal dramas that seem big to us, like Thurston's and my marriage falling apart. We're small in the grand scheme of things too."
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Those two comments don't seem incongruous to me. The last quote seems to be saying, "Well, the world spins on and really, it will keep doing so despite our own personal dramas that seem big to us, like Thurston's and my marriage falling apart. We're small in the grand scheme of things too."
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
in an article ostensibly about the recent breakdown of her own marriage.
surely you mean the guardian excerpted part of her book which is about many things, not just her breakup, and decided to use the courtney love and other name dropping parts for their own reasons...
posted by nadawi at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
surely you mean the guardian excerpted part of her book which is about many things, not just her breakup, and decided to use the courtney love and other name dropping parts for their own reasons...
posted by nadawi at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm curious to read this book less so for the gossipy details (not that I don't read that stuff!), but more for her own experiences in attempting to navigate a life on her own terms. She's expressed a lot of things in interviews that resonate with me.
I'd imagine for her to sell this book to a publisher she pretty much had to include the juicy bits.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 3:27 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
I'd imagine for her to sell this book to a publisher she pretty much had to include the juicy bits.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 3:27 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Would that word be "OohOohOohEeeOohOooh" or "OohOohOohEeeOohEeeeOohOooh?"
Zzzzzzzzz is the one I was thinking of.
posted by josher71 at 3:30 PM on February 8, 2015
Zzzzzzzzz is the one I was thinking of.
posted by josher71 at 3:30 PM on February 8, 2015
Then Neil and CH came out and made more, and more interesting, feedback & noise during the solo on their first song (and of course everything thereafter). I don't know if they were set-up by the sound-guy, or Neil just knew the Cow Palace's feedback dynamics by heart, or flat-out had better gear, but man, it was really something. Put their dicks in the dirt, as they say.
When those guys are on point, no one can touch them.
posted by sallybrown at 3:32 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
When those guys are on point, no one can touch them.
posted by sallybrown at 3:32 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
sonic youth are sonic youth - there's no one like them, never was and probably never will be - now whether you like them is another matter - i do - but there's no questioning the originality of their music
posted by pyramid termite at 3:46 PM on February 8, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite at 3:46 PM on February 8, 2015 [13 favorites]
josher, stereogum does a pretty decent worst-to-best walkthrough of the NY catalog, if you're so inclined. But if that caustic warble and weeping fragmented psych guitar don't grab you by the very viscera, it may be a lost cause indeed...
Guccimane, you must belong to a younger generational cohort than I. There's something right about what you say about Rollins and Albini though. "Rating" somehow doesn't seem like the right lens there, although over-exposed is a distinct possibility in the Rollins case. I see Albini as a kind of Zappa-esque figure. His fingers are in so many pies that you can't use any of the normal metrics to think about him. On the other hand, I see SY as the ultimate and in some ways primordial scenesters who discovered how to parlay that into a loong career without ever having to make any actually very good music. I guess there's something impressive and even interesting about that, but their records are still 98% dreary pretentious crap that doesn't even sound interested in its own conceit.
posted by batfish at 3:49 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Guccimane, you must belong to a younger generational cohort than I. There's something right about what you say about Rollins and Albini though. "Rating" somehow doesn't seem like the right lens there, although over-exposed is a distinct possibility in the Rollins case. I see Albini as a kind of Zappa-esque figure. His fingers are in so many pies that you can't use any of the normal metrics to think about him. On the other hand, I see SY as the ultimate and in some ways primordial scenesters who discovered how to parlay that into a loong career without ever having to make any actually very good music. I guess there's something impressive and even interesting about that, but their records are still 98% dreary pretentious crap that doesn't even sound interested in its own conceit.
posted by batfish at 3:49 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
josher, stereogum does a pretty decent worst-to-best walkthrough of the NY catalog, if you're so inclined. But if that caustic warble and weeping fragmented psych guitar don't grab you by the very viscera, it may be a lost cause indeed...
I have seriously tried many times. I like a few songs but I think it just doesn't speak to me. And that's ok. I want to like it because so many people seem to love Neil Young and I love to love stuff. Thankfully, we are living in a golden age where there are so many artists and access to them so easy, that I'm finding stuff I love all the time.
Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of all of SY's output but I think Schizophrenia is a legit classic.
posted by josher71 at 3:55 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I have seriously tried many times. I like a few songs but I think it just doesn't speak to me. And that's ok. I want to like it because so many people seem to love Neil Young and I love to love stuff. Thankfully, we are living in a golden age where there are so many artists and access to them so easy, that I'm finding stuff I love all the time.
Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of all of SY's output but I think Schizophrenia is a legit classic.
posted by josher71 at 3:55 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I hear you. And I admit that I may be somewhat overcommitted to hating on SY, but, like, somebody has to do it. I mean really.
posted by batfish at 4:15 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by batfish at 4:15 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's like saying Steve Albini is overrated
Remember about 10 years ago, the breathless excitement with which some people greeted the discovery that he was posting on a poker forum? Poker! There are Albini fans who've put him on a pedestal of what I think are over-sized dimensions.
posted by thelonius at 4:47 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Remember about 10 years ago, the breathless excitement with which some people greeted the discovery that he was posting on a poker forum? Poker! There are Albini fans who've put him on a pedestal of what I think are over-sized dimensions.
posted by thelonius at 4:47 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I knew I didn’t want to raise Coco on the fringes of Soho.
Another song lyric alert!
posted by telstar at 5:25 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
Another song lyric alert!
posted by telstar at 5:25 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
Remember about 10 years ago, the breathless excitement with which some people greeted the discovery that he was posting on a poker forum? Poker! There are Albini fans who've put him on a pedestal of what I think are over-sized dimensions.
Sure do! It was my first FPP.
posted by josher71 at 5:33 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Sure do! It was my first FPP.
posted by josher71 at 5:33 PM on February 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think maybe I saw it here but I was really stoked to find out he had a cooking blog.
posted by gucci mane at 5:37 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by gucci mane at 5:37 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Then Neil and CH came out and made more, and more interesting, feedback & noise during the solo on their first song (and of course everything thereafter).
I saw Sonic Youth and Neil Young & Crazy Horse in Vancouver for that same tour. I quite liked Sonic Youth, but I can still remember Young and Crazy Horse's performance. Neil Young and Crazy Horse contributed way more to the Seattle Sound of the era than Sonic Youth ever did, I must say.
posted by Nevin at 6:16 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I saw Sonic Youth and Neil Young & Crazy Horse in Vancouver for that same tour. I quite liked Sonic Youth, but I can still remember Young and Crazy Horse's performance. Neil Young and Crazy Horse contributed way more to the Seattle Sound of the era than Sonic Youth ever did, I must say.
posted by Nevin at 6:16 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's like rating, idk, Minor Threat or Henry Rollins or something. Or even Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney.
I think Bikini Kill are underrated as a matter of fact. What a band they were!
posted by Nevin at 6:18 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
I think Bikini Kill are underrated as a matter of fact. What a band they were!
posted by Nevin at 6:18 PM on February 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Well, at least he was holding forth answering questions about his music career. I had thought people were just wanting to sit at his feet for card room wisdom or something.
posted by thelonius at 6:24 PM on February 8, 2015
posted by thelonius at 6:24 PM on February 8, 2015
“I have to go home and interview Yoko Ono over the phone,
Adding another line of lyrics....
posted by telstar at 7:03 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Adding another line of lyrics....
posted by telstar at 7:03 PM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well how is his cooking blog? Did anyone make the two-nuns-and-a-pack-mule energee smoothee?
posted by batfish at 7:08 PM on February 8, 2015
posted by batfish at 7:08 PM on February 8, 2015
What impresses me most about Sonic Youth is how long they kept at it. Fucking professionals. And good music too, even if the best stuff is front loaded.
posted by Nelson at 7:16 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 7:16 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I just came here to smack talk about Radio Head, am I in the right building? Next one over? Ok, um, OMG Fugazi - more like emo threat, amirite?
posted by freebird at 8:39 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by freebird at 8:39 PM on February 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
After 30 years, we played our last show, just outside São Paulo
Third line, maybe one more to finish the verse...
posted by telstar at 8:44 PM on February 8, 2015
Third line, maybe one more to finish the verse...
posted by telstar at 8:44 PM on February 8, 2015
All together now, with last line:
I knew I didn’t want to raise Coco on the fringes of Soho
I have to go home and interview Yoko Ono over the phone
After 30 years, we played our last show, just outside São Paulo
An oceanic blue globe...spun extremely slow
posted by telstar at 8:56 PM on February 8, 2015 [21 favorites]
I knew I didn’t want to raise Coco on the fringes of Soho
I have to go home and interview Yoko Ono over the phone
After 30 years, we played our last show, just outside São Paulo
An oceanic blue globe...spun extremely slow
posted by telstar at 8:56 PM on February 8, 2015 [21 favorites]
I think a way that SY differs from the other bands mentioned here (Neil Young, Pavement) is that those bands mostly make noise as a side-effect of playing their songs. For SY the noise is written into the song, on equal footing with the melody and lyrics and whatever. I'm a longtime fan and I think the sound of their music really holds up. Much more than, e.g., the lyrics, which I've always thought were a weak point. I can't think of a band that does a better job of marrying noise to rock and roll or even pop sounds.
I'm that guy who listens to The Diamond Sea all the way to the end, every time.
posted by jomato at 6:42 AM on February 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm that guy who listens to The Diamond Sea all the way to the end, every time.
posted by jomato at 6:42 AM on February 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
I've been lucky enough to see Sonic Youth probably around a dozen times, from early days after their first EP through to the aforementioned Minnesota State Fair show with the Flaming Lips. I have never seen them put on a bad show. Also, people always talk about their noise and feedback, but the one thing they really excel at is writing a great melodies and riffs. That's what has always set them apart.
As far as the article is concerned - every marriage is unique and weird in its own way. I find it best to not speculate on things I have no part of.
Now let's all watch the Kool Thing scene from Simple Men.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:41 AM on February 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
As far as the article is concerned - every marriage is unique and weird in its own way. I find it best to not speculate on things I have no part of.
Now let's all watch the Kool Thing scene from Simple Men.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:41 AM on February 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
I was surprised what a good read this was. I was struck with a couple things.
One: how ordinary their life was in Northhampton, where I would have assumed it would be glamorous. Granted, SY are practically the Beatles in my world but the whole vignette about talking to a dad while picking Coco up from school: so mundane it hurts. She works at home. She has to schlep her kid to school and make small talk with the other parents. Then she has to go home and do some bullshit conference call.
Second: that Gordon was kind of SY’s anti-Yoko. I had heard stories like this before and it was interesting to hear it from the horse’s mouth, basically. The story I had heard: the SY group dynamic revolved around Gordon & Moore’s marriage, which revolved around Gordon kind of maintaining Moore. Ultimately she had to do what Thurston Moore couldn’t, and end it; and then the band ended too.
posted by axoplasm at 11:04 AM on February 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
One: how ordinary their life was in Northhampton, where I would have assumed it would be glamorous. Granted, SY are practically the Beatles in my world but the whole vignette about talking to a dad while picking Coco up from school: so mundane it hurts. She works at home. She has to schlep her kid to school and make small talk with the other parents. Then she has to go home and do some bullshit conference call.
Second: that Gordon was kind of SY’s anti-Yoko. I had heard stories like this before and it was interesting to hear it from the horse’s mouth, basically. The story I had heard: the SY group dynamic revolved around Gordon & Moore’s marriage, which revolved around Gordon kind of maintaining Moore. Ultimately she had to do what Thurston Moore couldn’t, and end it; and then the band ended too.
posted by axoplasm at 11:04 AM on February 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
"Then Neil and CH came out and made more, and more interesting, feedback & noise during the solo on their first song (and of course everything thereafter). "
I saw SY probably about 7 times, and they really suffered in stadium style venues. I didn't see the Neil Young tour, but I saw them open for Public Enemy and despite the fact that they were one of my favorite bands of all time, it wasn't great.
The dynamics of the stuff they generate gets turned into an undifferentiated wall through a huge pa system. There's probably a way around it, but doubt they ever had the clout for it.
I love Kim, and hope the best for her going forward. She was really nice to me the few times I ran into her and went all fanboy all over her.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:15 AM on February 9, 2015
I saw SY probably about 7 times, and they really suffered in stadium style venues. I didn't see the Neil Young tour, but I saw them open for Public Enemy and despite the fact that they were one of my favorite bands of all time, it wasn't great.
The dynamics of the stuff they generate gets turned into an undifferentiated wall through a huge pa system. There's probably a way around it, but doubt they ever had the clout for it.
I love Kim, and hope the best for her going forward. She was really nice to me the few times I ran into her and went all fanboy all over her.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:15 AM on February 9, 2015
looks like she's doing a book tour in rock clubs. Anyway, I just saw a flyer for her, being interviewed, at the local indie rock bunker.
posted by thelonius at 11:36 AM on February 9, 2015
posted by thelonius at 11:36 AM on February 9, 2015
I can't think of a band that does a better job of marrying noise to rock and roll or even pop sounds.
Pfui. Yo La Tengo, Jesus and Mary Chain... VELVET UNDERGROUND?!? Red Krayola...?
posted by batfish at 12:02 PM on February 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Pfui. Yo La Tengo, Jesus and Mary Chain... VELVET UNDERGROUND?!? Red Krayola...?
posted by batfish at 12:02 PM on February 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sonic Youth are the most overrated band of their generation, and maybe of all time. Take the hipster credentials of Pixies or Velvet Underground and drain away all the talent and inspired music and you have Sonic Youth. What a bunch of boring and shitty records they made...
Tell us how you really feel. But seriously, given a few minutes, I can think of about 1000 bands "of their generation" (let alone "all time") who are way more overrated than Sonic Youth. Holy mackerel.
posted by blucevalo at 12:48 PM on February 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Tell us how you really feel. But seriously, given a few minutes, I can think of about 1000 bands "of their generation" (let alone "all time") who are way more overrated than Sonic Youth. Holy mackerel.
posted by blucevalo at 12:48 PM on February 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
No you cannot think of 1000 bands who are way more overrated than sonic youth. Eeerrrnntt! Thanks for playing!
posted by batfish at 12:54 PM on February 9, 2015
posted by batfish at 12:54 PM on February 9, 2015
the progeny of Sonic Youth (as I would, in my uneducated state, view bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains)
You looked for the forebears of the 90s most macho, regressive, shirtless viking man-bands and you picked an arty, feminist NYC post-punk collective as the most likely candidate, at least you were upfront about the uneducated thing.
I will never understand the tendency towards ruffled fan-feathers when artist A says something mean about artist Y or Z, especially when Y & Z have earned it as much as Love & Corgan. I loved Siamese Dream too, but no one who has ever listened to any two words Corgan has ever said could possibly have issue with him being called "whiny".
posted by anazgnos at 1:27 PM on February 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
You looked for the forebears of the 90s most macho, regressive, shirtless viking man-bands and you picked an arty, feminist NYC post-punk collective as the most likely candidate, at least you were upfront about the uneducated thing.
I will never understand the tendency towards ruffled fan-feathers when artist A says something mean about artist Y or Z, especially when Y & Z have earned it as much as Love & Corgan. I loved Siamese Dream too, but no one who has ever listened to any two words Corgan has ever said could possibly have issue with him being called "whiny".
posted by anazgnos at 1:27 PM on February 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
I have issue with that, anazgnos, because you missed a chance to use "constipated."
posted by Pronoiac at 2:27 PM on February 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Pronoiac at 2:27 PM on February 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
the progeny of Sonic Youth (as I would, in my uneducated state, view bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains)In my defense, I was twelve. I actually made mention of my youth in that reply, and I have posted in other threads here about discovering alt-rock when I was at the early end of adolescence. Thanks for playing, though.
You looked for the forebears of the 90s most macho, regressive, shirtless viking man-bands and you picked an arty, feminist NYC post-punk collective as the most likely candidate, at least you were upfront about the uneducated thing.
posted by pxe2000 at 3:17 PM on February 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sonic Youth were never my favorite, but I enjoy reading Kim's perspective on being a woman in a band, a woman in that scene, a woman in a marriage, and so on.
I was also intrigued a year or so ago when I read an interview with her about the dissolution of her marriage. I did the whole punk rock / garage rock thing in my 20s and ended up dumping my long-term, love-of-my-life guitarist boyfriend for being a cheater and lying liar, so I have a self-centered sense of identification with her.
WTF is going on with the far right of that photo?
It looks like Nick Cave's arm is cloned over the person next to him, but not over her face? It's strange.
posted by Squeak Attack at 3:35 PM on February 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
I was also intrigued a year or so ago when I read an interview with her about the dissolution of her marriage. I did the whole punk rock / garage rock thing in my 20s and ended up dumping my long-term, love-of-my-life guitarist boyfriend for being a cheater and lying liar, so I have a self-centered sense of identification with her.
WTF is going on with the far right of that photo?
It looks like Nick Cave's arm is cloned over the person next to him, but not over her face? It's strange.
posted by Squeak Attack at 3:35 PM on February 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Sonic Youth were never my favorite, but I enjoy reading Kim's perspective on being a woman in a band, a woman in that scene, a woman in a marriage, and so on.
I like Updike, I like Alice Munro, I like Richard Linklater and I liked this. Hearing about the experiences of other humans on this planet is inherently satisfying.
posted by Nevin at 3:47 PM on February 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
I like Updike, I like Alice Munro, I like Richard Linklater and I liked this. Hearing about the experiences of other humans on this planet is inherently satisfying.
posted by Nevin at 3:47 PM on February 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
I thought the New Yorker profile on Gordon a couple years ago was quite good and touches a little on the "shit you deal with as a woman in a touring band" thing too (the best detail I thought was her eye rolling recognition the dudes in the band had no clue about that stuff...also, she's a Tim Riggins fan, hee). And I like anything that gets into the fact she identifies as NY art scene more than "just" the guys-in-a-basement rock band thing (her marriage of the two, high and low, obscure and pop common, to me is her trademark). Thanks for this post (yes, that Corgan line made me crack a smile).
posted by ifjuly at 11:04 AM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ifjuly at 11:04 AM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
It looks like Nick Cave's arm is cloned over the person next to him, but not over her face? It's strange.
Looks like Kim's smile, with Iggy's torso on the top. And a Guardian photo editor that wasn't paying attention.
posted by effbot at 4:58 AM on February 11, 2015
Looks like Kim's smile, with Iggy's torso on the top. And a Guardian photo editor that wasn't paying attention.
posted by effbot at 4:58 AM on February 11, 2015
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This, itself, could be a song title.
posted by ardgedee at 10:02 AM on February 8, 2015 [21 favorites]