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Lee, Kim, Bob and Thurston back in 1984
Sonic Youth:
Thurston Moore (vocals, guitar)
Kim Gordon (vocals, bass, guitar)
Lee Ranaldo (vocals, guitar)
Steve Shelley (drums, 1986 -)
Ann Demarinis (keyboards, 1981)
Richard Edson (drums, 1981-1982)
Jim Sclavunos (drums, 1983)
Bob Bert (drums, 1983-1985)
Sonic Youth began in 1981 in downtown New York
City with Thurston Moore on guitar and vocals; Kim
Gordon on bass, guitar and vocals; Lee Ranaldo
on guitar and vocals; and Ann Demarinis on
keyboards (she played for a very short bit). The
first drummer was Richard Edson. This is the band
that made the eponymously titled mini-LP released
in 1982 by Neutral Records, a label founded by
NYC guitarist/composer Glenn Branca.
Lee and Thurston were witness to the original
1976-77 NYC CBGB/Max's scene of Television,
Patti Smith, Suicide, the Ramones, etc. Kim was in
Los Angeles at the time studying as a visual artist.
She came to NYC, met up with Thurston, and they
started playing together during the era (1978-79)
of what is termed No Wave - harsh, challenging
and abrasive music informed by rock, noise, jazz
and modern composition/experimentation. Through
the mutual acquaintance of Branca - then known as
a remarkable iconoclast of the new radical rock
composer scene - they joined forces with Lee, who
was playing with Branca's ensemble. With cheap
guitars tuned to various hot-rodded tunings, they
wrote songs like no one else. The vibe was fresh
and, though mirroring the nihilism of No Wave, had
notions of forward positivity.
Richard Edson left to be replaced by Bob Bert, and
for an interim, Jim Sclavunos. These drummers
helped record the 1983 LP Confusion Is Sex, again
on Neutral.
Young post-punk hardcore bands like Black Flag,
the Minutemen, the Meat Puppets and the Butthole
Surfers became contemporaries, and Sonic Youth
bought a van and crashed around the U.S.A. all
through the 1980s, playing in front of initially small-
and completely freaked-out - audiences.
Bert toured with the band as ft travailed through
Europe throughout early 1983. They released an
EP of their most outward and wild music to that
point called Kill Yr Idols, which was available only
in Germany (Zensor Records). The European tour
produced a self-released cassette titled Sonic
Death (Ecstatic Peace, Thurston's own label, which
he still maintains).
In 1984, after sending tapes to specific
independent record labels - remember, at this time
there weren't many dealing with underground music
as such, and most of them seemed to reside in the
U.K. -they got a call from Blast First, a new label in
London that had been dealing with Lydia Lunch
(whom Thurston had been playing with in a band
called In Limbo that also featured Edson on drums
and Sclavunos on sax). They recorded the Bad
Moon LP and Blast First released it. Gerard
Cosloy started work at a label in the U.S. called
Homestead and arranged for the release of the
album stateside. Homestead also released a 12-
inch entitled "Flower"/"Halloween." By then Sonic
Youth's sound had developed into a more mature
pop/noise hybrid, with a genuine experimental flair
for structure.
The band then went to London and destroyed all
who heard and watched. At that point, the U.K. ene
was touting the death of the electric guitar. In a
New York minute, Sonic Youth wiped that concept
out. They encouraged Blast First to bring over Big
Black and the Butthole Surfers to further the
explosion of recognition for the new U.S.
underground. Things have not been the same
since.
Upon returning to the U.S. from 1984's touring,
Bert up and left (later to join post-SY noise
freaksters Pussy Galore). Steve Shelley, from
Michigan, was asked to join after he sent cassettes
of his bands the Crucifucks and Spastic Rhythm
Tarts to Thurston. Lee and Thurston saw Steve
play a hard core matinee at CBGB with the
Crucifucks and knew he was the choice. Steve's
formidable drum skills upped the band's musicality
a level and everyone yelled "Hup!"
Black Flag had a label called SST in L.A., and in
the mid-'80s this was considered the vanguard of
underground, independent music being made in the
U.S.A. Sonic Youth signed to SST in 1986, thus
severing their ties with Homestead (sorry Gerard);
the band stayed with Blast First for the U.K. and
Europe. Sonic Youth then recorded E.V.O.L.,
expanding on their dusted, Mesa Boogie
explorations of the American landscape and all its
mysteries.
In 1987 they recorded Sister, which would inspire
legions of gig-goers a half generation younger than
SY (Pavement, Sebadoh, etc.). This LP touched on
themes of hyper-irreality and disloctaion.
After touring non-stop, they stopped and decided
to leave SST for a record deal with Enigma (now
defunct). They recorded The Whitey Album under
the aegis of Ciccone Youth, an idea born of
Madonna, who at one point was making out with a
friend of theirs but who later became a superstar,
appearing on the cover of Time magazine. The
album was an effort to create music that was
completely studio based and skullfucked. Mike
Watt, while sitting in on the Bad Moon Rising
sessions, helped formulate the idea of recording a
cover version of Madonna's "Burning Up," while
Ciccone Youth recorded "Into the Groove," as "Into
the Groove(y)." That was where the Madonna
flirtation ended (save for the cover art), and the
rest of the session was complete out/machine
groove/psyche.
Sonic Youth then recorded Daydream Nation, a
double LP that brought them to the attention of the
critical elfte and won the band year-end best-of
awards up the butthola. This LP encapsulated all
that had been brewing musically and lyrically with
the band through the 1980s.
At decade's end, SY parted company with Blast
First and Enigma and signed to a major label,
DGC. This was considered insane by many on
watch as there was really no history of
independent bands (besides maybe R. E.M.)
succeeding within the realm of the corporate music
industry Sonic Youth had helped build an alternative
to.
SY released the LP Goo in 1990 and then Dirty in
1992. Both were chock-block-full of heady, heavy
swirl and strum. Sonic Youth noticed a new
generation of music lovers digging them and their
contemporaries on a massive scale. And then
Nirvana sold a zillion records and the industry was
a new deal - sort of.
SY toured and toured and in 1994 they released
the odd and rather zapped LP Experimental Jet
Set, Trash and No Star. In 1995 they headlined the
mythological Lollapalooza tour and toured with
R.E.M. The following year they released Washing
Machine, a Dixie-fried noise-rock lightning storm.
In 1997 SY built a studio, played the Tibetan
Freedom festival for the 2 nd year running, and
recorded a series of EPs on their own homegrown
label, SYR. This music was extrapolated, mostly
instrumental forays into wild improvisational
meditations and sub/conscious structural creations.
This work helped develop the 1998 LP A Thousand
Leaves.
