Sonic Youth Biography

Thurston Moore (guitars, vocals)
Kim Gordon (bass, vocals)
Lee Ranaldo (guitars)
Steve Shelley (drums) (1986- )
Bob Bert (drums) (1983-1985)
Jim Sclavunos (drums) (1983)
Richard Edson (drums) (1982)

When Sonic Youth began as a downtown New York band in the early 80s, they rejected most traditional rock & roll formalities such as Western tuning and song structure. With screwdrivers randomly stuck into their guitar necks, the quartet created discordant, droning, mantralike songs, which were quietly forceful. As they matured, their material became more accessible and the songs more conventional, even as they retained their discordance. By the early 90s, Sonic Youth was approaching mainstream acceptance. The band (Kim Gordon, bass and vocal; Thurston Moore, guitar and vocal; Lee Ranaldo, guitar; Steve Shelley, drums) had several releases before their sound crystallized. SONIC YOUTH, CONFUSION IS SEX, KILL YR IDOLS, and SONIC DEATH document a band learning to express their complex ideas. These releases are often coarse and brash, sometimes unlistenable, and frequently startling in their power. The band's cult following continued to grow throughout the late 80s, culminating in a major-label contract with Geffen Records. The corporate machine helped them develop a still-larger following. After their Geffen debut, 1990's GOO, Sonic Youth rested for two years. Their past indicates that a pause to regroup is usually followed by a burst of new creativity. The band re-emerged with DIRTY, their most direct stab at traditional pop/rock songwriting. The album was more successful than any of their past efforts, making the band popular with MTV-weaned adolescents. Naturally, Sonic Youth responded with a change in direction. EXPERIMENTAL JET SET, TRASH AND NO STAR (1994) was their calmest record, yet it was more abstract than either of their major-label releases; it had an instant alternative radio/MTV hit with "Bull in the Heather." -- Robert Gordon, All-Music Guide -- Sonic Youth is the most important American band of the 80's; one of the most successful attempts to transform the language of rock, and to transport it beyond conventional labels. Late 1970's: New York is recovering from the punk hangover. Television, Patti Smith and the Voidoids are ready to hang up the gloves. The Cramps are headed to West Coast. In downtown Manhattan, the bands of the moment are fascinated with an extremist idea: to bring punk rock to the limit of the listenable. They called it No Wave, after the title of a celebrated compilation curated by Brian Eno. They recorded very little, but their apperance signaled a radical shift in the music of their city. Whether they wanted to or not, the bands in question - DNA, Contorsions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars - were faithful to Eno's line; they drove rock and roll off the physical instinct track. They were faithful to Eno's way of thinking; up until that time, he had complained that rock was brainless. Thus, Intelligent Music became the order of the day. Not to be outdone by the English New Wave, New York came up with its own holy writ. At the center were the Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson and Peter Gordon; to the right sat the Feelies, Suicide (the Ric Ocasek edition), Material and Polyrock; while the Lounge Lizards, Rhys Chatam and Glenn Branca were on the left. The Central Committee of Art Rock (as it was baptised with a touch of disdain by American critics) ruled Manhattan for at least five years, transforming New York music into a vast experimental laboratory, a sea of influence for widely divergent theories of music: pop, dance, funk, noise, minimalism and so on. It was precisely this climate that the first version of Sonic Youth was born. The founder was a tall, spindly blond guy named Thurston Moore, a Connectitut native. Moore had already seen combat in other downtown groups (Even Worse, The Coachmen). For his new band, he chose his friend Kim Gordon. She was a budding bass player, enamoured of experimental art, and she'd performed with Christine of the German group Malaria, in an all-women band named CKM. Completing the picture was drummer Richard Edson of Konk, who hadn't yet caught the celluloid bug of his later years ( Stranger than Paradise, Platoon, Eight Men Out). Sonic Youth held their first concert during the 1981 Noise Festival at New York's White Columns Gallery. This one and only time, guitarist Ann DeMarinus joined in. Moore recalls that "from the beginning, we clearly wanted to have a typical rock setup - two guitars, a bass and drums - and scramble it all up". At the time of the Noise Festival, Moore got in touch with Glenn Branca, one of the most important figures in the experimental movement. Not only did Branca's guitar fury attract Moore, who later helped him record some of his pieces, but it also had such a strong effect on Sonic Youth that they were driven to recruit Lee Ranaldo as their second guitarist; Ranaldo had begun his career in Branca's band. The very first gigs received two polar opposites that would define the bands entire career. At one end was a visceral love of rock'n roll (Ranaldo once said that "John Fogerty is my idol. I can barely wait for his new album"). At the other end came an irrational urge to dismantle it, to use noise and dissonance to transform it into something new and unexplainably beautiful. The debut mini-Lp came out on Glenn Branca's Neutral label in 1981, despite its objective value, it doesn't reveal much about that first period. Lee Ranaldo explains: "Our drummer at that time was very disciplined. He wanted everybody to stay together. Our first album was just a bunch of songs we wrote because we had the chance to record them. After that, we understood better and better what we wanted to do". -- SONIC LIFE -- An interview with KIM GORDON by Pamela A. Ivinski -- excerpted from Publicsfear magazine (#3). B B When did you start playing music? I was in a band at York University with this friend of mine who is a pretty well- known percussionist, a guy I went to high shool with, and these two Chiliean guys who were reallly funny and really serious, and then this girl. We would sing, me and the girl. We played at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. They pulled the plug on us. We were really noisy. Actually, Mike Kelley saw us play there, which is amazing to me. He said it inspired him to make noise music. When you started Sonic Youth, it seems there was a closer tie between artists and musicians. Yeah, I don't know if you're familiar with No-Wave, but when all those bands started up it was before people like Robert Longo and Cindy Sherman were into their careers. They were young artists living in New York and they were into going to shows. I don't know what happened, that scene sort of died out. I became really separated. Either you did really experimental music like John Zorn or more serious composer stuff. When we started up we didn't really want to align ourselves with the art world because we weren't writing music we could get grants for, and we weren't really doing improv like those people. So when the hardcore scene came along, even though we weren't hardcore, we could kind of align ourselves with that network of distribution. And people were definitely more interested in us in Europe because of our arty image, but for the most part, anywhere else it worked to our detriment. It seems to me that, not just Sonic Youth, but your entire body of work is very aware of the fan/performer relationship. I'm interested in that. I used to write articles about that. I was being interviewed by Pamela Des Barres, and I asked her if she was attracted to musicians because she wanted to be a musician, and she said "Oh yeah, absolutely." At that time, even though they had the GTOs and they sang, they never really took it that seriously and never competed with Jimmy Page or guys like that, but they should have. For the most part, the whole groupie industry is different from when she started. Something that fuels the music industry is an absolute desire for another person, but it's something we characterize as feminine in our culture, although rock ‘n' roll is such a masculine thing. I've always felt that in order to figure out what it's like to be a girl in rock -- because that's what people always ask -- you have to look at what it's like to be male in rock. It is pretty unique -- it's the only place where men sing about their emotions, and to other men, in some accepted way, and get up on stage and wear dresses. It's a totally feminine acting out. I think for women it's the opposite -- for some women it's being able to be aggressive. Not necessarily wanting to be male, but to be aggressive, and for men to be vulnerable. Sonic Youth is very much about New York. It seems like it would be a pretty good place to live if you have some fame, because most New Yorkers wouldn't bother you. Yeah, people pretty much leave you alone. I spend a lot of time in L.A. because I grew up there. I'm as bad a star spotter as anyone, but I rarely go up to someone. It's funny, you do feel empowered if you're a fan. I remember seeing that comedian, Stephen Wright, at a phone booth and I walked up to him and said "you're really great,"and he was totally taken aback. It's almost like a way for people to have control over you, and I do it every chance I get just because it makes me feel so much more powerful than someone coming up to me and saying "you're a role model,"or whatever. Even though it's nice when you see young girls and you know they're into you, it doesn't make you feel powerful. But going up to someone else does. How does pop culture affect your work? After "Tunic"and the Carpenters thing, I felt like people wouldn't take seriously the fact that I really liked the Carpenters. It wasn't about liking kitsch, or The Partridge Family, though you could make an interesting case for The Partridge Family or whatever. I was afraid that people would look at it as a novelty: "Oh yeah, they like pop culture." I didn't intend it to be superficial. Do you identify yourself with feminism or any feminist causes? I guess so, though I find feminist ideology too strict in a way. I don't necessarily get along with strict feminists because I find them intolerant of some things. I like a looser interpretation of things. As you've done you're own work, have you had some idea of your audience in mind? Not really, I think you make music for yourself. We're influenced by what's going on around us, but our audience keeps getting younger and younger because of MTV, which is nice but bizarre; it's not like we're making teeny-bopper music. It's kind of scary sometimes when your audience is too big, you feel too responsible. When we have to do a big show, we can't just play for 40-minutes, we've got to do better. It's kind of a burden. What about stage-diving? I think it's sort of a drag. I don't like it when people come up on stage, they knock the microphone into your teeth and they unplug all the cords and boxes and stuff. It's a drag for everyone else, and then they kick all the little girls. THURSTON MOORE . . . FUCKIN' BIO FOR SONIC YOUTH'S new CeeDee: EXPERIMENTAL JET SET, TRASH & NO STAR thurston is 6'6"tall and plays wild, stun-vol gitarr. He sings too! LIKE A DOG WHO ATE A FROG. He helped start SONIC YOOTH with his luv'r Kim Gordon. Kim you know about : SHE'Z HOTT! They decided not to take music lessons cuz . . . well, they couldn't fuckin afford it! But they listened to lots of BLACK UHURU rekkords and Kim mastered her own Kim-style bassisms. Thurston was interested in building toolboxes which could never be opened! This activity led him into the notion of sticking slide-rules beneath the rusty strings of his borrowed Teleblister. The sound was magnanimous. And enligtening! They liked what they did better than that of B. Uhuru! Not to mention the then reigning Althea & Donna! Ya, dub was their call . . . but they also needed to apply the teachings of theorist WALTER BENJAMIN into their scheme as he (along with M. FOUCAULT and next-door neighbor DAN GRAHAM) was instrumental to their primary views concerning "tunings." GLENN BRANCA was thrashing the Soho district with mind-numbing aplomb when he saw a flier that literally jumped off the wall (corner of Greene St. and Prince). He called Thurston and said, "Let's baggie!"and Thurston replied, "I think the word is ‘boogie' dude,"at which time Kim grabbed the phone and explained how it was important that Glen should start a record label, call it NEUTRAL, and, before anything else, release a record by this new band called SONIC YOUTH which she and Thurston had "formed." Glenn was indeed inspired and not only did as she said but went on to compose no less than NINE SYMPHONIES!! Time passed through time's econium and Sonic Youth raged a-global and shed their sound/light mystications upon whoever would show up at their "events.” They decided the future was to have babies so signed to DGC/GEFFEN records and recorded a concept LP concerning such matters titled GOO. The rest is fucking history dude: THEY FOUND ANSWERS WITHIN BOTTLES OF EROS and within those sightings begin explorations: The new CD/LP/MC is the first chapter post the apprenticeship. check it out. peace, thurston NAME: Lee Ranaldo NATIONALITY: Italian (Roman Catholic) PLACE OF BIRTH: Glen Cove, Long Island, New York DATE OF BIRTH: 3 February 1956 HOBBIES: Began guitar at 13 years CHILDREN: One son, Cody Linn Ranaldo, now almost 9 years BANDS PRE-SONIC: The Fluks, later The Flucts (1978-1980, Binghamton/NYC) Plus Instruments (1981, NYC/Holland) PLEASE GIVE A SUMMARY OF RECENT ACTIVITIES: This last year has seen lots of activity. Experimental Jet Set half-writ spring '93, rocked at summerfests, second half thrashed out and the whole alb recorded fall '93, done by November. No touring this year thanks to further Sonic children allows for a cool break from the write/record/tour cycle. In February of this year Leah Singer and I did our second European tour. The shows feature me on stage reading stuff I've written, playing guitar and mixing tapes, and Leah's films projected over the whole thing. She uses film the way a DJ scratches records -- images jogging back and forth. More shows to come. I'm looking forward to having some writings in print this year. My first book, Near Here, will be out in June from Soft Skull Press in NYC. A CD of spoken words and music, with an accompanying book of the texts, will be released by the Barooni label in Holland as soon as I finish it up. On other fronts, I will be accompanying pal Michael Morley (Dead C., N. Zealand) in his GATE alter-ego on U.S. dates in late April. Sporadic shows with Wm. Hooker also continue. I look forward to recording with both of these fellows. I-I- eye-I-me-ME ha lets see lets roll it all out and let it dry in the sun for ya. I hope also to get a proper solo record (songs) done before the summer's through -- I know at least a few of you noted my lack of a vocal track on the new rec. Lastly, some collage/images which began on European tour buses will be issued as silkscreen prints by ArtRock in San Francisco this summer. Summer looks to include lots of activity, not least of which will be a good bit of baseball with Cody (his first league year), bicycling, and the contemplation of such things as gun control, ozone layers, meteor showers, anti-tobacco, true friends, lost friends, cloud watching, Paris, the sea, and finding a new apartment -- anyone with knowledge of any of the above may contact me through the DGC Hardcore Hotline. RECENT/UPCOMING OBSCURA: tracks on the following compilations: MELT, Works In Progress, U.K. -- a collection of noise works CAGED/UNCAGED, Cramps, Italy -- John Cage tribute for Venice Biennale AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, RRRecords, Mass. -- RRR 10th anniversary dbleCD 7"singles: Pieces for 8 Gtrs, Table of the Elements, S.F. -- ambient stuff (I'm Silicon) Five spoken wd. pieces, Precious Metals, N.Z., cover by Morley blah blah seee ya . . .