Sonic Youth on Austin City Limits

ACL is taping Sonic Youth tonight for an episode that airs in January. I've never seen them play before. I'm assuming I should be excited. What's been y'all experience with SY live?

I never really fell in love with their albums, but the live experience I've always enjoyed. The Ranaldo (fellow Binghamton alum!)/Moore interplay is really interesting--and I'm a big "noise" fan, so I enjoy the distortion/feedback meltdowns (though I don't know if that would happen in that setting). I've never been a huge fan, but have never balked at an opportunity to seem them live--they never disappoint, in my mind. The last time I saw them Mark Ibold from Pavement was on bass and Kim was playing guitar.



Post Edited (10-07-10 10:57)

I've seen them twice. Once on the Thousand Leaves tour and once just a couple months ago. I thought both times they were very good without reaching the transcendent level I was hoping for. They are not highly dynamic on stage anymore. However, they execute their repertoire pretty damn well live and refuse to do a greatest-hits kind of show. (On the 1998 tour, they played almost nothing I recognized) You'll have a good time Toland.

Seen them twice. Once waaaaay back some time in the early 90's in St. Louis, and the other about as waaaaay back, when they opened for Neil Young. Both times, my entire body needed two days to recover from all the jumping and dancing. The last time, I was the only person in the entire venue who was doing so and did not give two shits. Damn, they were fun. Watching Renaldo play his guitar with a screwdriver as a slide still sticks in the memory. Damned beautiful noise, it was.

We already discussed this before but it bears repeating. Kim Gordon is almost 60. Yikes!

I saw 'em in '86 or '87. Anyone go back further then that? 'Twas fun. They encored with a bunch of Ramones stuff, which is a no-brainer move now, but that was around the time Duh Brudders were starting to get taken for granted, like they were kinda passe, so that was a nice gesture.

Then late '90s - total noise mayhem. Man, wish I had a recording of that show.

I've seen then 3 or 4 times, though not since the mid-90s, I think, so my perspective is probably not all that relevant. But they damn sure used to put on an amazing show. The first time I saw them - on the Sister tour in 1987 - Thurston and Lee had a maybe 4'x4' box on the stage and when they were ready for a change of guitars, they just threw one into the box and grabbed another one out of it. No fancy guitar stands for them! Tuners? What's that?

The thing that amazed me everytime I saw them was that they might be involved in some incredible noise jam that seemed completely freeform and you kinda thought they were just making noise and anything that resembled a song was totally lost. And then without any sort of visual cues - or musical ones that I heard - they would just launch on a dime right out of the noise and back into the song. No count-offs, no Thurston looking back at Steve and nodding his head, no foot stomping, nothing. They were just that tight and they knew exactly what they were doing, even if none of the rest of us did. I hope they still have some of that magic 'cuz it was kinda mind-blowing.

I missed Sonic Youth in Denver last Monday; I was assigned to swing shift, and simply could not catch the gig. But I've seen the group twice — on the Neil Young tour that Blasmo mentioned, and on Lollapalooza '95. At that first show, the band's noisy yet intricate interplay got kinda lost in the arena acoustics. From third row at the second show, however, they were spellbinding.

And for me, of course, one of the major aspects of any rock show (especially an all-day show in the summer) is girl-watching. In that sold-out amphitheatre, Kim Gordon had the nicest-looking legs I'd seen all day.

Just got a peek at the set list...looks like most of The Eternal with a few Daydream Nation nuggets mixed in.

Final setlist included 9 songs from The Eternal, "Hey Joni," "The Sprawl" and "Cross the Breeze" from Daydream Nation and "Stereo Sanctity" and opener "Schizophrenia" from Sister. And it was a damned great show.



Post Edited (10-08-10 14:27)

Better yet, here's a photo of the setlist, complete with notations on which guitars to be used and who's singing it:

Sonic Youth ACL setlist

Saw them once back in the very early 90s (Nirvana was opening for them, but my friend wanted to chill in the lobby) where they were kick-arse, and then again during their "doing-the-Daydream-Nation-album" bit a couple of years ago (okay, but probably about 15-20 years too late).
If I could get in free/cheap I'd go, but I'm not sure if I'd pay $$$+Ticketmaster-charges for the SY live experience nowadays.

different now than they were
more of a professional act now, as you would assume, given that their albums are no longer groundbreaking; but also more of a live act in some ways than before

saw them a couple times in the 80s, a few in the 90s and a couple times more recently

not disappointed ever

artistes

When Spiritualized opened for them (Daydream nation, Goo?) it was something fucking else

they're an original and one of the only bands that does what they do

100 times better in a smaller venue

they came from a live/jam background so they have strengths in that area

as with jam things, an on night is better than an off night; you take risks in that genre and the mood of the night and venue have a lot to do with it

they're a different unit with Ibold than with O'Rourke

attend in a mood to sit back and absorb loud sonic frequency palettes and prepared instruments

bout time ACL did a band I like. (My local pBS only plays Dave MAtthews and Kings of leon for some reason - never anything cool?)

We've had folks a lot cooler than DMB and the Kings of Leon...you need to speak to your local station's programmer. Unfortunately some stations cherrypick instead of playing the whole season.

Sonic Youth fucking ROCKED, by the way. I hope I have half that much energy when I get to their age. The crowd went nuts for 'em, too. It was a nice reminder that, no matter how arty and experimental they are, they're still at heart a rock & roll band. It was great.

anyone see this?
[pitchfork.com]

Wow, that's complicated. What do you suppose a "Mascis" guitar is? Think J. is looking around going "Where's my guitar?!"

> Wow, that's complicated. What do you suppose a "Mascis" guitar
> is? Think J. is looking around going "Where's my guitar?!"

The "Mascis" guitar is probably a [url= [url]http://www.amazon.com/Fender%C2%AE-Mascis-Jazzmaster%C2%AE-Signature-Electric/dp/B001R2K12M[/url]]Fender J Mascis Jazzmaster Guitar[/url].

[img]http://i46.tinypic.com/2002d.jpg[/img]

Jazzmaster also has a Ranaldo and Thurston model. . .

erikalbany wrote:

> Jazzmaster also has a Ranaldo and Thurston model. . .

Yeah. The three models (J Mascis, Ranaldo, and Thurston Moore models) are pretty similar, with small differences mostly in the bridge and pickup configuration. These differences have an effect on tone, on how the guitar can be "prepared," and can facilitate the use of the Jazzmaster's tailed bridge configuration for the so-called "3rd bridge" playing technique.

But my guess is the major reason for the guitar changes during the set is to accommodate the different tunings used for many of their songs. Sonic Youth relies heavily on alternative tunings and it is standard practice for live performers to keep individual guitars pre-tuned to a particular tuning for quick changes between songs. Also, each signature guitar model has a distinctive color, making it easier to identify the correct instrument for preparation and use for a given song.

Saw them around 1990 in Picksburgh. My friends and I had found some porno mags of incredibly obese women that day. We got Kim and Thurston to sign them after the show in an alley behind the club. They were really cool to us kids (we were 15-16 yrs old.)

The first time I saw Sonic Youth was back in 1990, on the night that Twin Peaks revealed who killed Laura Palmer. They brought a little portable tv out on stage and tried in vain all night to get a decent picture with the rabbit ears but never managed to and gave up after a while. Which was fine with me, as I was taping it at home and didn't especially want Sonic Youth yelling out a spoiler from the stage.

The Sonic Youth epics related by totaji and breno have brought me more joy this weekend than anything that happened elsewhere in life.

As far as the autographs go, it is clear that such an exploit could only be the work of teenagers. It's a great story, but where does one keep that sort of ... memorabilia? On the coffee table? Yikes!

"Gramma, the minute Kim Gordon set her Sharpie to this...
... it ceased to be merely a porno mag!"

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"Erom! Erom! Erom! Erom emos yub nac uoy! Erots eht ot nwod no emoc!"

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And I love the Twin Peaks story even more. Sadly, I cannot remember who killed Laura Palmer. That all seems like eons ago.

But I still listen to The Wedding Present's cover of that Julie Cruise song all the time. They shred it to pieces. One of the very best offerings from that Hit Parade project. The Bow Wow Wow cover and the Bowie thing were setirovaf lanosrep osla.

Back in the day, before SY had guitar techs and road quivers, they used to retune onstage. To make up for the lull, they did it one at a time and the other members would vamp/improvise/play with noise toys and prepared tape. I'm unaware of how many of the downtown sonic-noise-bands also did this but it did become intrinsic to SY's arrangement techniques and live segue presentations (even post quiver).

There are various online tabs for SY tunings and I've tried out several of the tracks. You can get pretty close if you have a multi-effects processor (and some are quite fun to play) but what's weird is that some of the tunings give you one sagging string and one so tight that it pings away in minutes (some are too dangerous for your valuable axes, explainig why Lee buys those trashed cheapos).