Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth Release 1989 Kyiv Live Recording to Benefit Ukraine
Sonic Youth played a show in Ukraine back in the spring of 1989. Today, the band released a live recording from their set in Kyiv on April 14, in which its proceeds will benefit World Central Kitchen and relief to Ukraine. The nine-track recording is available via Bandcamp. It was the band’s first trek into the former USSR, stopping in Vilnius, Leningrad, Moscow, and Kyiv. Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz attended the Kyiv performance, and was forever changed by the captivating NYC underground rockers. This is what Hutz had to say about the set: “That SY Kyiv show was life changing for all musicians that were there… we were already attuned to Nick Cave, Einsturzende Neubauten, S Pistols and Discharge but these were the new vitamins we needed. I made a decision to experience NY right there. Plu...
Every Sonic Youth Album, Ranked
Guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo and bassist Kim Gordon founded Sonic Youth in New York City in 1981, bringing Michigan-born drummer Steve Shelley on board to fill out the classic lineup in 1985. And for the next three decades, Sonic Youth ruled as one of alternative rock’s most influential bands, bringing alternate guitar tunings and feedback-drenched avant-garde noise to the major label world, headlining Lollapalooza, and even turning up on The Simpsons. Sonic Youth played its final show in 2011, with the band going on permanent hiatus after Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon’s divorce. But the band has continued to regularly release archival recordings, including several live albums issued directly to Bandcamp. And on March 18, Three Lobed Recordings will release In/Out/In, an excel...
Sonic Youth Share ‘In & Out,’ Announce New Collection In/Out/In
Sonic Youth have a mountain of unreleased material that they’ve been sifting through for years. Their latest archival release is In/Out/In, a collection that focuses on the band’s post-2000 material. The five-track album features “Basement Contender” and “Machine” from The Eternal sessions, “Social Static” from the 2000 Chris Habib/Spencer Tunick short film of the same name, and “In & Out” and “Out & In,” which both were originally exclusively available on a Three Lobed box set of various artists from 2011 called Not the Spaces You Know, But Between Them. “When you’re in the middle of a tour and all of the musical cylinders (musicians, crew + equipment) are warmed up and firing on 10, and if the room/theater/venue and its acoustics allow, you can sometimes catch magi...
Kim Gordon Releases ‘Grass Jeans’ to Benefit Texas Abortion Rights Group
Today, in her first new music since her 2019 solo debut, Kim Gordon shared “Grass Jeans,” furthering her support against Texas’ recent passing of the most restrictive abortion law in the country. The Sonic Youth founder, vocalist, and bassist recorded the new track with her touring band members Sterling Laws, Sarah Register, and Camilla Charlesworth. All proceeds from the month of December for “Grass Jeans” will benefit Fund Texas Choice (formerly Fund Texas Women), a non-profit that pays for Texans’ travel to abortion clinics. Gordon and Sonic Youth recently unearthed two live records to further support Texas abortion rights groups, Live In Austin 1995 and Live In Dallas 2006. Gordon has long been outspoken about progressive causes, including her support for Bernie Sa...
The Beat of a Different Drummer: 10 Albums Where a New Drummer Put a Spring in the Band’s Step
The drummer is the job in a rock band with the highest turnover rate — a cliché lampooned memorably in This is Spinal Tap. And if it takes a few albums for a group’s definitive lineup to click into place, the drummer is often the final piece of the puzzle to arrive. But it’s often that change behind the drum set that makes a good band great, thanks to the addition of faster, louder, or more complex rhythms. Sometimes a versatile percussionist can even expand the band’s sonic palette and contribute to the songwriting. Here are 10 albums where the arrival of a new drummer marked an important transitional moment in an artist’s catalog. Nirvana – Nevermind (Dave Grohl) [embedded content][embedded content] Nirvana let go of early drummer Chad Channing in 1990 before they had a permanent replace...
Sonic Youth Unearth Two Live Albums to Raise Funds for Texas Abortion Rights Groups
In response to Texas’ recent law restricting abortion rights, Sonic Youth have unearthed two live records from their archives that will benefit abortion rights groups in the state. Both shows were recorded in Texas, and in a statement announcing the releases, the group said “abortion is embraced as health care and a human right.” Sales from both live records will benefit Fund Texas Choice and the Abortion Support Network, and the previously unreleased shows are available to stream today via Bandcamp. The first album is from their November 15, 1995 performance at the Austin Music Hall, from Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine tour. The second captures their June 24, 2006 show at the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas, a part of their Rather Ripped tour. They also have revealed three vintage Texas conc...
Thurston Moore to Release Memoir Sonic Life
Thurston Moore announced that he is will be releasing a memoir that is due out in 2023 via Doubleday. Titled Sonic Life, the book will explore the “wild music and endless wonder” of the rockers’ career and personal life according to The Bookseller. It has been rumored that he will cover detailed matters such as the affair that ended his marriage with his Sonic Youth co-founder and wife, Kim Gordon, subsequently ending the band. The book’s synopsis reads as follows: “From his infatuation and engagement with the 1970s punk and ‘no wave’ scenes in New York City, to the 1981 formation of his legendary rock group, to 30 years of relentless recording, touring, and musical experimentation, birthing the Nirvana-era of alternative rock, and beyond, it is all told via the personal prism of the autho...
Silence Is Golden
In 1959, University of Detroit staffers slipped three silent 45s into the student union jukebox, designed to allow the purchase of peace and quiet during Bobby Darin and Paul Anka barrages. The blanks soon became so popular that needle-burn replaced their hush with the sound of bacon cooking, leading Student Council President Mike McCann to promise undergrads “replacement 45s of ‘stereophonic silence,’ which are twice as silent as monaural disks.” Months later, to protest Elvis’ powers of teen arousal, Pennsylvania’s conservative Reading Eagle News announced the world’s first Silent Record Week, “a tribute to silent jukeboxes” that squares across the world still celebrate every January. Upon catching wind of the Eagle’s nothing-fest, McCann publicly committed his university’s 65-strong cho...
Thurston Moore Releases Surprise New Instrumental Album, Screen Time
A day after his daughter Coco Gordon-Moore debuted in his ex-wife Kim Gordon’s video for “Hungry Baby” video, Sonic Youth singer-guitarist Thurston Moore dropped a surprise new 10-track instrumental album titled Screen Time. The Sonic Youth guitarist/singer shared the new music on Bandcamp in time for Bandcamp Fridays. He hasn’t been slacking during the pandemic. SPIN did a wide-ranging interview with Moore last year surrounding the release of his By The Fire album. Ahead of that album, Moore put out a 12-minute track called “Siren,” with an accompanying video-film that portrays a mermaid fantasy. Also last year, Moore appeared on a cover of The Stooges song “Fun House,” which had been recorded in 1997 with members of Mudhoney. It was originally slated to appear in...
Thurston Moore on New LP, 2020 Election, Meeting Our Publication’s Founder
Calling from England a few days before the release of his new LP, By the Fire, Thurston Moore admits the dire situation of the U.S. homeland occupies his mind over anything else. And this is before Trump caught COVID-19. “For me, it’s not so much Biden versus Trump — it’s us versus Trump,” the guitarist tells SPIN. “Right now, this is the main conversation on the table because it’s a serious, serious time. You have leaders putting their heads in the sand while the Earth is fucking being burned up. The health of the planet is the primary situation on hand, and they’re in denial of it. That to me is the most major issue.” If you’ve been listening to Moore and his old band Sonic Youth these last 40 years, politics has always been at the forefront for the New York noise-rock greats. It’s...
The Cribs Enlist Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo for ‘I Don’t Know Who I Am’
The Cribs and Lee Ranaldo are back together again, 13 years later. The indie rockers enlisted the Sonic Youth guitarist for their Monday-released track, “I Don’t Know Who I Am.” The song is the first time they’ve linked up with Ranaldo since his feature on their 2007 track “Be Safe.” “Working with Lee on ‘Be Safe’ was without question one of the highlights of our career as a band, and we think that ‘I Don’t Know Who I Am’ is a worthy follow up collaboration,” The band said in a statement. “We are very proud of how it turned out. Lyrically, the song addresses the disconnect that Ryan and myself have always had with our biological paternal lineage – and how that may have shaped our views on masculinity, gender roles, and the men we ultimately grew up to be.” “I ...
Thurston Moore Shares New 12-Minute Song ‘Siren’
Sonic Youth found Thurston Moore shared his new 12-minute single, “Siren,” along with a short film of a mermaid fantasy as its accompanying visual. The song hails from Moore’s upcoming seventh solo album, By The Fire, which is out on Sept. 25. View a teaser clip of “Siren” below. [embedded content] By The Fire, completed in a London studio in late March of this year, features musicians Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine) on bass and backing vocals; Jon Leidecker aka ‘Wobbly’ (of Negativland) on electronics; James Sedwards on guitar; and Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, as well as Jem Doulton, alternating on drums. In addition to “Siren,” which you can listen to here, there are other long tunes among the set, including a 14-minute instrumental, “Venus,” and t...
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