This wasn’t the major reason the place went from 1300 logged on at once to under 300 (and only 30 people to be seen chatting), but it may have been one of the minor ones. Hell, if my coitus be interrruptus repeatus, the least I’d want from it was to turn up the heatus. Meaning, most of these reviews were one sentence long, and limp. Lame. In 1976 they’d have been saying that Jimmy Page is God. In 1996, Thurston Moore, and both of them already past their prime. Moore rather than Page could be called progress, but do you think either of those guys cared what the fans were saying about them? Of course not. That’s what made them cool in the first place. Yes, Sonic Youth’s guitars are godlike. Yes, their charisma and legend are, well, charismatic and legendary. They’ve made an honest contribution, pushing the envelope, dragging elements of the underground far enough into the mainstream that the boundaries of what could be considered avant-garde were pushed back another hundred miles. (Arguably. Either that or they almost destroyed the concept of avant-garde because hardly anything remained beyond the pale.)

And yes, Kim is so devastatingly sexual that if you don’t stop listening, you’ll go blind. She could say the most innocent, girl-scoutish thing, and you would still feel that primal neeeeed bubbling up from your nether regions. A onetime lover of mine once suffered pangs of delighted embarrassment when Sound Choice printed a letter of hers that pleaded for a story entitled “Kim: Do We Want To Fuck Her Or What?” (howdy-do, Rhonda, long time no see! Still wanna go into politics?) Of course we do. So what? You’re never gonna fuck her. I’m never gonna fuck her. (Hell, I’m never even gonna fuck Rhonda.) So why bother? For me, walls go up the minute I sense I’m being manipulated on that level, and I’m pretty good at seeing to it that all appropriate tables get turned in the end.

If I won’t take shit in real life, then a bad attitude is a point of honor when media-types ask me to buy it. I have no use for artists who use sex to sell themselves. They do nothing up there that makes me feel a need to part with cash. What I always liked about Kim Gordon--self-obsessed and sexxee she may be--is that with all her obvious charisma she could never be bothered marketing herself that way. She lives to play her instrument onstage. Dancing hormones out in the pit are an industrial byproduct, no more. She's married to Thurston and fortysomething besides--not exactly the primary demographic for sexual iconography. Which is precisely what makes her sexuality something real, that and the fact that it's never been manipulative, forced, or even particularly packaged to begin with.

Although I must note in passing that Kim once said in to Rolling Stone--in apparent seriousness--that she considers Madonna “the foremost philosopher of the age.” Which is a little like Truffaut wanting to be Alfred Hitchcock. Thurston’s response was, “um, well...I don’t.”

That’s one more thing to like about Thurston, come to think of it. He at least knows how and when to be embarrassed. Or that’s how it read, anyway. I wasn’t in the room. Which is a shame, because I’d have brought up the question everybody else was avoiding: namely, “isn’t there a fatal flaw in the entire concept of ‘sex symbols?’ I mean--who in their right mind has a need for symbols?” Do you care? No. Do I? No. Does Kim? Kim is much too cool for the question to even apply.

Somebody cared, or thought they did. I kept getting these pathetic little reviews in my mailbox, and they all said the same thing: “They’re cool. Kim is sexy. I hope the poseurs don’t end up liking them too. Poseurs suck. I hate people who like SY but aren’t cool. SY are cool. I’m cool. Thurston is God. Do we wanna fuck Kim or what? Got to. Real life.” except that most of ’em weren’t nearly that long. Small mercies.

This SY-as-litmus-test-of-hipness thing had to go; even in ’96 it was long overdue. Had to. Real life. Put yourself in their shoes. What if it was your band who were the name-to-drop? How cool is that? It ain’t. It sucks canal water. It means that you’re nothing more than a fashion accessory. Nobody listens or cares what you actually do up there, and obviously, they never did. You’re just something they use to impress other people; one more way to feel elitist. Your music, your art, your creativity, doesn’t mean shit--it’s just a placebo for suburban tadpoles, a button to wear, street cred they can buy from Columbia House. Faced with that knowledge, you can either deny it or digest it. Either way you burn out in the end, and your CDs hit the bargain bins, right next to Sopwith Camel.

They deserved better, but it was already far too late. By mid-1997, the Sonic Youth reviews were no more. Who came along to take their place? Beck! Oh, and Alice In Chains, after the (excellent) Unplugged album came out. “Rooster, man, Rooster! Never gonna die. Wonder why these guys never play my town? They kick ass, dude!” Yes they do, son, yes they do. Hoo-yeah. They kick butt, they got the beat, they be jammin, they be rockem-sockem robots. Just like Black Sabbath.