Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

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I've been listening to Sonic Youth since Evol. Their live sound got better as they aged, which doesn't happen for a lot of bands. This show from Austin City Limits in 2011, months before they broke up, captures it pretty well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O8VLwh1Na0

An underappreciated aspect of Sonic Youth is the drumming of Steve Shelley. He kept many of the discordant songs together and provided a driving beat (when needed) with some very creative fills and accents. I worked at a college radio station when Kool Thing came out and we got an alt mix or B side take on a 45 that was incredible thanks to his drumming.

For further reading on the early history of the band, I recommend Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-azerrad/our...

Like Thurston said in the NYT interview, everyone is asking for Sonic Youth to reform for performances but I can't see Kim going along with it. OTOH Talking Heads got back together for the documentary release after David Byrne burned the proverbial bridges, so who knows?

> This show from Austin City Limits... captures it pretty well

Wow, that show is nothing less than epic!

Thanks for sharing +1

Really good to hear that since I only saw them once and it was near the end, despite driving a car with a sonic youth bumper sticker for fifteen years. Thanks for the link!

Same, but I didn't get to see them live until Daydream Nation. Those shows were a lot of fun, but yeah, I was only catching the end of that, but earlier shows were... noisy. It took them a while to get art-rock inaccessibility-as-cred out of their system. Or maybe Moore is just really self-indulgent. Or both.

You never know what will happen, but after reading _Girl in a Band_, I don't think Deal is interested.

I have a Dutch import of a live Sonic Youth club show from Amsterdam in the mid 80s. It's practically unlistenable. I get that their crucible was art/punk/experimental/psychedelic but it would be some years before they put away the power drills and lava lamps and got down to being a solid live rock band.

Their studio efforts from the early era were better IMHO.

> Their studio efforts from the early era were better IMHO.

Oh, absolutely. I still listen to Evol and Sister fairly regularly. The noise shows were a lot of fun to be at when I was a kid, but I wouldn't want to listen to them again.

I think you’re getting your 90s rock goddess Kims confused, though it would be cool to hear a Breeders/SY combination!

Appearing together, and actually performing together are two very different things

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