Thurston Moore's SONIC LIFE Became My Sonic Life

 

Sonic Life: a Memoir - Thurston Moore (2023)

I am a Sonic Lifer. In my heart, I truly came into my own when I first heard the sound of Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation" at age 16.  I had finally discovered an aural equivalent to the skronk in my own head.  There was no turning back.  While Sonic Youth was not the first band I rocked to, or first loved, or first thought of as "my fave," they were the band that crystallized me.  Because of this I hold them, their music, and the individual members in very high regard.  

When the inevitable happened, and Sonic Youth ceased operations as the premier skronk-machine live act around, I accepted it, and thanked them for the long musical ride.  Not many bands can continue to make new, interesting, challenging music for nearly thirty years.  In 2015, Kim Gordon published a wonderful book, "Girl in a Band." Part memoir of her formative years growing up in California and the fine art world, and part personal air-clearing about the break-up of her marriage.  After decades of fandom, I was allowed a peek into the mind of someone I had both idolized and adored.  It was as beautifully written and insightful as the Artforum essays she wrote in her early life.  

Many people thought Thurston would write his own version of the events, because that is what a public wants to see, the airing of grievances.  Instead, Thurston Moore wrote this memoir to his first and one true love, loud rock music, and the thrills of a truly transcendent performance.  

Thurston begins with his older brother playing "Louie Louie" over and over on a scratchy vinyl single.  This resonated with me deeply.  As a child who started paying attention to bands and music in 1981, I grew up in a house surrounded by music, stereos, 8-Track players, turntables, etc.  Music was of primal importance in our house.  My mother's oldies station would play some songs that I just loved, including 'Louie Louie."  I was always attracted to the wilder, more propulsive oldies.  I liked things that rocked and began looking for such music.

Thurston Moore was such a teenager, always searching for new sounds, driving to NYC with a friend to explore the record stores, eventually spending weekends in the city seeing shows and buying used books.  He found himself drawn to the seedy lower east side and the Bowery, areas where the fringe bands could perform, and where an underage kid could sneak in if he arrived to the show early enough (a method I also employed at various Houston area venues.)  It was at such a show that he witnessed an early performance by the duo Suicide, one of the fiercest, most transgressive acts ever to come out of the NY scene.  Thurston had a front-row seat to something completely new, what became the No Wave scene.  Bands such as Suicide, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, and others forged a separate sub-underground for themselves where the musical goal was not to craft songs, but to destroy the very foundation of song structure and performance.  

Apart from No Wave, the avant-garde music coming from people such as Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca, stylistic innovators and sonic risk takers, also shaped and forged Thurston's musical sensibility.  Throw in a healthy dash of hardcore punk and a deep love for the absurd, and you have what Thurston brought to Sonic Youth.  

Those looking for a deep dive into Sonic Youth themselves and the workings of the band will need to wait for a different book, yet to be written.  This is a tale about one person's inner musical life, and the many people he meets.  Thurston is a music fan, first and foremost.  His life outside of performing music appears to be spent looking for old records, books, and poetry ephemera.  His interactions with the fellow musicians he befriends are recorded faithfully, and it is amazing how much Thurston can remember, not just about a person, but about the bands they were in, the music they released, etc.

As a Sonic Youth fan, part of my joy came from discovering new music through Thurston.  He was always careful to select opening acts that would challenge the typical Sonic Youth audience, who, although normally open minded, had aged along with the band.  In the late 1990's, as most of the band reached their 40's, many acts 20-years younger gained wider exposure through their association with Sonic Youth.  I was fortunate to attend a 1992 concert where Houston's Pain Teens opened up, followed by a very early iteration of Pavement (3 guys, including the OG drummer doing handstands between songs).  It was amazing.

Many memoirs are either hyper focused on a few short years of an otherwise boring life, or they seek to pack every detail and aspect of a human's life into one hasty, and unsatisfying tale.  Thurston Moore has written a specific, informative, moving tribute to his life in music, and the glories he found within it.  These are not the glories of an international superstar such as Gene Simmons or Taylor Swift.  They are the glories of a man whose preferred state of being is attending an intimate performance, talking to musicians and fellow artists, and experiencing the bliss of a great show.  In this respect, Thurston is a truly blessed and fortunate man.  He has lived the sonic life many dream of, and provided that very same to his fans.  Few people are so lucky.  I highly recommend this book.

(I must give a shout-out to the always-wonderful Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas, where I found this book, a signed first edition, and the last one they had in stock. My wife and I were out about town, seeking a nice day after a sequence of unfortunate occurrences, and the good people of Brazos Bookstore helped us start off right.  Brazos is a haven for anyone seeking to explore the current landscape of literature.  The staff work like curators at a museum, and the selection of books is exemplary.  Books for all ages, all subjects, and all manner of curiosity.  It is a beautiful place. - RXTT)

(Sonic Life can be purchased here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/706260/sonic-life-by-thurston-moore/ )

Sonic Youth is Dead. Long Live Sonic Youth.

Spirit Desire – Jennifer Benningfield (2018)

            I am a Sonic Youth Lifer.  The skronkalicious foursome has been my favorite musical group for the past 30+ years.  As a part of my fandom, I have been a member of the Sonic Youth Gossip Forum for nearly the entire existence of the interwebs.  In that nebulous cul-de-sac I met and have befriended many a fellow Sonic Youth Lifer.  I have seen them grow up, rock out, and move on with their lives.  I have lost Sonic friends who passed too early (RIP Adam “atsonicpark” Cooley - http://directoradamcooley.angelfire.com/ ).  I was also exposed to some of the most creative, interesting, and downright bizarre people, all of them Sonic Youth nuts to one extent or the other.  One of these bad-asses is Jennifer Benningfield, or as she is known on the SY Gossip Forum, jennthebenn.  In 2009 she published her first book, No Setlist: Pieces of a Sonic Life, detailing her near-obsessive devotion to traveling for Sonic Youth concerts.  My review of that book is here: http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2017/06/rxtt-flashback-review-story-of-sonic.html .

            It is now 2018, Sonic Youth have broken up, and the individual members have moved on to new musical projects, as varied as one can imagine.  Jennifer Benningfield has released the follow-up to No Setlist.  The development of her writing voice and style are evident throughout, as the book is tighter, funnier, and in many ways more resonant than her debut.  Like before, the book is divided into sections detailing individual Sonic Youth concerts she attended, describes the moment she and her partner in crime, Patrick “pantophobia” Suddath learned of the imminent breakup of our favorite band, and finishes with her treks to various post-Sonic Youth concerts.

            If it was inspiring to me to read Ms. Benningfield’s initial love letter to the Youth, it was even more amazing to read this new book, appreciating the growth and maturity of writing that has allowed Jennifer Benningfield to submit her short stories to various hard-copy and online publications.  While I do not personally know her, having had little interaction with her besides the Sonic Youth Gossip Forum (and the Instigator Fantasy Football league which I run every year.  Jenn’s team is Snoopy’s Smash Squad, and anyone who knows her knows she has a near-fetishistic fascination with Charles Schultz and the Peanuts gang), I am so proud of this digital friend for grinding away, for continuing to write and submit, even though the rejections and tough times can seem never ending.  The band is very lucky to have someone such as her as a fan.

            One of the little oddities that I found endearing in this book, is the way that, as a super-fan, Ms. Benningfield describes the journeys taken to the shows, the people she meets and stays with, the long-distance friends she connected with, the fearful walks through unfamiliar neighborhoods in search of a pre-show meal, and everything that goes into attending rock shows.  I myself have attended countless hundreds of not thousands of rock shows, and these little details are the ones that actually make the occasions memorable, apart from the musical performances themselves.  There is a huge difference between going to a big, national touring show at a giant arena, and going to a small touring act performing at who-the-fuck-knows-where.  It is more personal, more intimate, and if you are one of the early arrivals, like Ms. Benningfield likes to be, you can be in the FRONT ROW!  (I never ever stand in the front row.  I am 6’2” tall, and no one likes my ass blocking their view.)

            Sonic Youth is no more.  The Sonic Youth Gossip Forum is creaky and increasingly less populated.  The Sonic Lifers have had to move on.  Our favorite band, the band that never even sold 250,000 copies of any release, that taught so many of us what noise as Art was, and the possibilities inherent in that, will never come together in skronk again.  All we have are our memories, and thanks to the mind and work of SY Lifers such as Jennifer Benningfield, we can all share in our collective Sonic Joy.  SONIC LIFE!

(This book can be downloaded and read here: https://trapperjennmd.blogspot.com/2018/07/spirit-desire.html)

*RXTT Flashback Review* The Story of a Sonic Youth Fanatic and her Adventures in Skronk

NO SETLIST: Pieces of a Sonic Life - Jenn Benningfield (2009)

(Today on RXTT's Intellectual Journey, we go back to a book review from several years ago, that I published on a different blog, -FUPPETS- , which is now-defunct.  The review has been edited slightly. - RXTT)

Long-time Sonic Youth fanatic and all around bad-ass, Jenn Benningfield, has documented her obsession with live Sonic Youth concerts, as well as the life that develops around such an obsession, in her book NO SET LIST: Pieces Of A Sonic Life.  I have absorbed the book, and what a book it is. While the omnipresent Sonic Youth are integral to the book, it is Sonic Youth's peripheral universe that is the real star here. 

The lines of uber-fans showing up hours early, the crowds of people that frequent the shows, the travel required to attend 40+ shows and the inevitable highs and lows of that travel, the camaraderie between people who are total strangers except for the fact that they love skronk rock, and most of all, the joy of the fleeting moments shared with one's musical idols, these are the main pillars of NO SET LIST. 

The bits that truly hook the reader though, are the relationships that Jenn builds with her fellow fanatics, whether at shows or through meeting those people she has corresponded with on Sonic Youth's infamous Fan Gossip Forum, including one who would become her partner-in-crime for much of NO SET LIST's duration. Her travels begin close to home but soon take her throughout the Midwest, California, Oregon, and as far as Britain in search of that sonic eargasm that only Sonic Youth can provide. Planes, trains, and automobiles are all endured, travails are overcome, and health issues are faced, all with humor and biting wit, and with the help of Snoopy's all-consuming love. What could easily become rote, (the endless bus/train stations, the countless opening acts, the obsession with Sonic Youth), never does and this is a testament to the quality of the writing within, not to mention the quality of the mind making the observations which we are absorbing. 

Sonic Youth is not an "easy" band to like. They go out of their way to test and expand their audience's ears. They are a group that seeks to make art, and that seek to push the envelope as to what can constitute great musical art. Jenn captures all of this, as well as the blinding white skronk joy that Sonic Youth give to those that are patient and keep their ears open. NO SET LIST opens this world and exposes it to the light. What we find inside is comforting, exhausting, exhilarating, and downright beautiful. I wish Jenn was put on retainer by Sonic Youth so as to document their every appearance! That way, I would have a mainline to the world's greatest band, and there is nothing better. I would like to thank Jenn Benningfield for writing NO SET LIST, and for having the balls to put herself and her writing out into the world.

(This book is currently out of print)

This One Is Personal

Girl in A Band – Kim Gordon (2015)

            This one’s personal.  To begin I must state my background as it relates to this book.  Kim Gordon was a founding member of Sonic Youth, my all-time favorite musical group.  (It still pains me inside to speak of them in the past tense.)  I always loved music growing up, the more energetic the better.  By the time I heard Sonic Youth, when I purchased Daydream Nation after seeing a review of it in People magazine of all places, I had plowed through Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Punk, and Hardcore.  The sounds I heard upon listening to Daydream Nation, my all-time favorite piece of recorded music, cleared my head, and altered my life. 

Everything about them spoke to me, from their lack of rock-star posturing, to the squalls of feedback-drenched noise-as-rock, to the fact that, like the Beatles, they had three different voices singing, to the amazingly bizarre smell that emanated from the Blast First-released cassette.  (I was certain that someone had dropped a shipment of these cassettes in industrial grease or something.  It was a truly odd odor, which I found out years later was a result of using shitty presses.)  Some songs seemed to end before they began, while others utilized noise breaks that I memorized as if they were an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo.  The band was very careful to never present themselves as a front-man with a back-up band.  Everyone was equally important to the music.  They were, as a group, older than most other bands I knew.  To top it all off, two of the members were a married couple!  How rare is that! 

Sonic Youth was a band that was “famous” but that no one I knew liked, much less loved.  They lacked a lot of the things that draw young people to bands.  They had no specific logo, they did not have a specific aesthetic.  They did not make their performances about anything other than the music.  They valued experimentation, and expected their audience to follow them.  Whether or not one liked everything they put out was irrelevant, as you knew that in a year or two Sonic Youth would progress in surprising ways yet again.  Through my growing love of the band I grew to love Kim Gordon. 

There are people that infatuate because of their looks, while others do so because of their attitudes.  I loved that Kim ROCKED as hard, or harder, than anyone I had ever seen.  I especially loved that she neither tried to make herself look more boyish-rocker, nor did she strike a clichéd feminine pose.  Standing between Thurston and Lee, two monsters of guitar freak-outs, she was an equal, with no fear visible, with no quarter asked nor given.  While Thurston and Lee would take the lead in interviews, and in discussing their musical ideas, Kim would seem detached from the circus that surrounds rock bands.  She was there because she wanted to rock, and we were lucky for it, and fuck you if you wanted something else out of her.  I loved all this about her.  However, this also made it very hard to actually get to know her inner self. 

Everyone in Sonic Youth seemed like an archetype.  Thurston was a record-collecting absurdist with a deep love for the culture of punk and marginal rock.  Steve was the young one, who was blessed with filling a drum seat in a band he idolized and to which he brought a flexibility they previously lacked.  Lee was like the Tragedy/Comedy masks in theater, singing with the most beautiful voice of the group, with the most poetic lyrics, yet absorbed in the deepest darkness of humanity, always bringing the most outlandish and intense noise of the four, usually right in the middle of a  beautiful melody while he sang about murder, death, and insanity.  (I still have a poster from the “Goo” era, yellowed and torn.  My wife says that Lee looks like a serial killer in it.)  Kim was the goddess balancing out the testosterone, always keeping the band grounded, and usually singing the most seemingly heartfelt stuff, obviously personal, yet obtuse sometimes to the point of incoherence, and above all, ANGRY.  I loved that about her.  Kim was experiencing catharsis through her music.  I deeply related to that, and still do.  The facts that her husband was right there next to her, never lorded over her, and never sought to diminish her role in the band were all very anachronistic in rock music.  The “wife” was always relegated to singing back-up, playing some barely audible keyboards or acoustic guitar, or, at worst, standing on the side of the stage clapping a shitty tambourine.  Not in Sonic Youth.

I think this is the reason that Kim and Thurston’s marriage-within-a-band meant so much to so many people.  It was like witnessing an achievement that many had attempted, but none had realized.  This is a lot of pressure to apply to a couple, and they bore it well, for at least a few decades.  They were the ideal that every underground rocker aspired to, to have music and love intertwine and to make it work for the long term.  When the announcement of their impending divorce hit the world, it was as shattering as if we had all found out our own parents were splitting up.  It really was, and like all divorces, the effect it had on the “children,” in this case the fans that had grown up with Sonic Youth, was chaotic and unpredictable.  Anger, sadness, dismissal, avoidance, and more rose up from the fandom.  Mostly it was straight up disappointment.  This was not just about the end of the band Sonic Youth, but about the end of a dream that they helped create in so many minds and hearts.

This all happened several years ago, and the world has moved on.  Thurston, Lee, Steve and Kim have all found new groups of musicians to play with, and for the most part the legacy of Sonic Youth stands untarnished.  Through it all, the band has kept their usual taciturn manner regarding the breakup.  No comments are made, and civility is maintained.  Because of this, when Kim announced that she would be writing a memoir, it created a storm of expectation.  Many thought that this time Kim was going to let it all hang out, to spill the beans and sling the shit.  Kim has never been one to push herself to meet other’s expectations though.

This book does detail the circumstances behind the marriage/band break-up, and they mostly book-end the story within Girl In A Band.  The first chapter describes Sonic Youth’s last show, before the news had leaked out, and the last chapters describe the slow, inevitable demise of their marriage.  To a devout fan like myself, this shit was fucking rough to read.  I thank Kim for actually sharing everything in the least sensational manner possible, as always maintaining her class and self-respect above all else.  People are people, and marriages worldwide end under similar situations.  One person has grown, or grown apart, while the other does not realize this until it is too late to do anything about it.  The splitting of a married couple hurts.  It always hurts and is always ugly.  Sometimes it is hard for someone to see what they failed to provide, or share of themselves, that the other person then goes on to find in someone new.  There is a reason that relationship stories are universal and that the details seem banal and constant.  We are all imperfect humans, right?

Having said that, the very best parts of this book were when Kim describes the events that made her who she is.  These are the stories and details that I used to scrounge for!  Kim, I always wanted to know more about you, to hear your tales, and to know why you turned out as awesome as you did.  Thank you for this.  I have read countless articles where the writer discusses the songs of Sonic Youth and the memories of past shows and records only from the point of view of Thurston or Lee.  To read Kim’s take on songs I love is priceless, and like my fellow Sonic Youth die-hard Jennifer Benningfield states in her review of this book, it only increased my desire that Kim write a book purely about music, and her experience in it, and what she loves and hates and dreams about.  There are passages where she speaks of the feelings she has on stage, while the dissonance and noise wash over her, and remove her persona, and she is just a living being sharing the skronk with a mass of people whose hearts and minds and ears are open.  These passages are the very best thing in this book.

There are some parts of the book that I did not find particularly interesting, but which I understand are necessary for Kim to share the art-world side of her that she has always kept subsumed for the sake of the band.  Her reactions and thoughts on these people are more important to me than their names and where she met them.  Either way, memoirs are not high literature and one can’t fault Kim for including the people she found important in her life.  I am so grateful that she wrote this book, and am even more grateful that she had the restraint to keep from writing a sensationalist tell-all.  I am sure there would have been a lot more money in her pockets if she did that.  Sonic Youth was never about money, and Kim has stayed true to that aesthetic.

I love you Kim. I always have, and always will. Thank you.

(To purchase a hard copy, an e-book, or a downloadable audio file of this book read by Kim Gordon, click here: http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062295897/girl-in-a-band )