The line on Harcourt Street in Dublin is what you’d expect for a midweek rock show. Serious looking young men mostly, almost everyone in their late twenties and early thirties, black wool overcoats and messenger bags and a distinct sense that everyone has come straight from work. Three guys in front of me share a joint, and the short feature interview with Thurston in that morning’s Metro newspaper is briefly discussed, and then dismissed for speculation about the content of tonight’s show. Some have heard it will be mostly acoustic, some have heard that the classic Sonic Youth sound will out. Time will tell. In a couple of hours I will run into the same group, on the same street, idly speculating which bar Thurston said he was going to and wondering aloud exactly what planet the superfoxy but deeply bizarre support act was from.Tripod, where tonight’s show is on, is a relative new-born in Dublin’s rock scene, although the building itself isn’t. At various points in its life it has been a train station, a wine wholesaler and, in recent years, various manifestations of the city’s most notorious clubs and venues. It still feels shiny and new – the vinyl seats in the balcony area have yet to be picked at, the wood is still relatively splinter free, and the deliberately exposed stone and shiny chrome accents make it look for all the world like the Hollywood ideal of a rock club; all sharp angles and lines and so clean looking as to feel a little removed from real-life. Yet right now, before drinks have been spilled or most of them even poured it smells, well, like a dirty mop. Sigh. Sometimes I think an exception on the indoor smoking ban should have been made for places like this, as the rock and roll atmosphere seems to have suffered most. Still – the speaker stacks to the sides of the stage look like sculptures and the sound is mind blowing (in a good way). There are a few nods to the venue’s multi-purpose present and night-club past – the bar behind me is very obviously a VIP area in its spare time and bar the sink bottoms there are no horizontal surfaces in the bathrooms – a non-too-subtle backlash against a previous incarnation’s alleged lax policies on substance abuse. Thurston Moore walks on stage quietly at a little after nine, followed closely by his band. The piped in jazz music is still playing, so a few people don’t look up from their beers, or their conversations, or their text messages until the crowd nearest the stage let loose with the requisite “Wooo!!!” that heralds the arrival of every performer, on every stage, at every show. He raises a hand, leans into microphone and says “Hi. How are you guys?” and it sounds like he actually wants to know. “I’m a little tired,” he says. “We just flew in this morning and I haven’t had time to shower or anything. I feel like toast. I feel… grungy. But I haven’t figured out, are you supposed to look that way for rock and roll, or are you supposed to look your best? I’m 49 years old, so maybe I shouldn’t give a fuck anymore.”For a tired guy, Thurston seems incredibly at peace with working tonight – he has on jeans with white sneakers, a royal blue t-shirt with the legend ‘Ecstatic Peace!’ (the name of his record label) over a dress shirt and his trademark floppy hairdo. His voice is authoritative and clear; he is confident in himself if not necessarily in his words. For someone who is such a giant, both figuratively and literally (he looks every inch of his 6’6” stature), he is remarkably eager to please.Thurston introduces the band: Chris Brokaw on guitar, Matt Heyner (who is announced as ‘God’s Maniac’) on bass, Samara Lubelski on violin and Sonic Youth cohort Steve Shelley on drums before starting the first song, ‘Frozen Gtr’. Only a handful of chords in, however, and he has to stop to resolve the problems with an amplifier, prompting whispered tales of Sonic Youth’s London debut in 1984, when Moore and Kim Gordon became so frustrated with malfunctioning equipment that they destroyed it on the stage. The band plays a holding pattern while Thurston helps to fix the amp, pausing occasionally to joke with and apologise to the crowd. Five minutes later we’re good to go, but Thurston breaks again to fine tune the equipment. “Sounds like I’m playing through a glass grinder” he quips. “You guys like that? It’ll grow tired after a while, trust me.”For all that we’re sure what Thurston and Sonic Youth are supposed to sound like, though, they’ve been notoriously hard to categorise. Emerging from the New York hardcore scene and into New Wave and even No Wave, the band have defied convention and shunned anything that might lead to pigeonholing. Fans from the early days recoil at any suggestion of a ‘grunge’ label, though I would say that a good fifty per cent of the audience tonight is young enough to know them, or at least to have known them initially for their influences on the genre – not least of all because of Kim Gordon’s storied influence in Nirvana’s signing with Geffen Records. Thurston himself has been an influential patron of art-rock, and of rock as an art form, championing acts such as tonight’s opener Heather Leigh Murray and editing a book on the art behind mix-tapes and cassette culture, and the band cast aside and suggestions of being ‘too serious’ aside when they appeared on that one-time pinnacle of pop-culture, ‘The Simpsons.’ More recently the band has courted controversy and an ever growing and angry chorus of “Sell-Outs!” for agreeing to release an album through the Starbucks HearMusic label. Thurston has argued that if the CD racks are going to be at the coffee counters now, then why shouldn’t they be in a place where more people can hear their songs?I mention their apparent lack of definition to Sean, a conservative-looking chap in his mid-thirties in the seat next to me, who confesses to feeling “a bit old” for all this. “I’ve been a fan since college, and I’ve never, ever known what to expect” he tells me. “You can try and categorise Thurston, and Sonic Youth in whatever way you see fit, say they’re independent or they’re not because they’re on Geffen or whatever; but in the end they’re going to do what any good band should.”“Which is what?” I ask.“They play what they want. That’s independence.”The rest of the show is hitch-free – Thurston and friends play a relatively acoustic set of songs from his latest solo album ‘Trees Outside the Academy’. ‘Frozen Gtr’ is followed by ‘Silver>Blue’ and ‘The Shape Is In A Trance’. ‘Fri/End’ is dedicated to “a girl from back home called Kim” and is preceded by a disarmingly sweet story about how his wife (Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon) has enriched his life intellectually. The first half of the show is, like the album, acoustically driven – the down-tuned harsh guitar sound so much a trademark in Sonic Youth songs is the frame rather than the paint on this canvas. After a short break, however, the show takes a turn for the electric, incorporating such songs as ‘Queen Bee and Her Pals’ (which was, according to Thurston inspired by his time working at a bar in Dublin), ‘Psychic Hearts’ and ‘Patti Smith Math Scratch’, underscored by a roaring guitar and Thurston’s trademark voice. By the time it’s over, I can’t figure out who’s had more fun – the audience or the band.PS: Once again I must thank the Powers That Be at MOG, and Ecstatic Peace for the assistance with this. After the photo is a performance of my favourite song from the new album, ‘Fri/End, ’ from ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on November 1st.
brittanybf says
sounds like a damn good show! i can't believe he's 49. i knew he was up there, but wow. i'm surprised that sonic youth is putting out a cd through starbucks....?!! they've made it this far, so why now? i always eye the albums and starbucks with a bit of disdain. is that just me?
John Madden says
Hi Brittany, thanks for the comment.
It's not just you. There are plenty of people - music fans and not, coffee fans and not - who regard Starbucks as the root of all commercial evil. I don't think that this counts as Sonic Youth 'selling out', and I don't think that it matters on which label their songs are released so long as a) they keep the quality up and b) they release the album that they, and not the coffee peddlers, want.
The line on Harcourt Street in Dublin is what you’d expect for a midweek rock show. Serious looking young men mostly, almost everyone in their late twenties and early thirties, black wool overcoats and messenger bags and a distinct sense that everyone has come straight from work. Three guys in front of me share a joint, and the short feature interview with Thurston in that morning’s Metro newspaper is briefly discussed, and then dismissed for speculation about the content of tonight’s show. Some have heard it will be mostly acoustic, some have heard that the classic Sonic Youth sound will out. Time will tell. In a couple of hours I will run into the same group, on the same street, idly speculating which bar Thurston said he was going to and wondering aloud exactly what planet the superfoxy but deeply bizarre support act was from.Tripod, where tonight’s show is on, is a relative new-born in Dublin’s rock scene, although the building itself isn’t. At various points in its life it has been a train station, a wine wholesaler and, in recent years, various manifestations of the city’s most notorious clubs and venues. It still feels shiny and new – the vinyl seats in the balcony area have yet to be picked at, the wood is still relatively splinter free, and the deliberately exposed stone and shiny chrome accents make it look for all the world like the Hollywood ideal of a rock club; all sharp angles and lines and so clean looking as to feel a little removed from real-life. Yet right now, before drinks have been spilled or most of them even poured it smells, well, like a dirty mop. Sigh. Sometimes I think an exception on the indoor smoking ban should have been made for places like this, as the rock and roll atmosphere seems to have suffered most. Still – the speaker stacks to the sides of the stage look like sculptures and the sound is mind blowing (in a good way). There are a few nods to the venue’s multi-purpose present and night-club past – the bar behind me is very obviously a VIP area in its spare time and bar the sink bottoms there are no horizontal surfaces in the bathrooms – a non-too-subtle backlash against a previous incarnation’s alleged lax policies on substance abuse. Thurston Moore walks on stage quietly at a little after nine, followed closely by his band. The piped in jazz music is still playing, so a few people don’t look up from their beers, or their conversations, or their text messages until the crowd nearest the stage let loose with the requisite “Wooo!!!” that heralds the arrival of every performer, on every stage, at every show. He raises a hand, leans into microphone and says “Hi. How are you guys?” and it sounds like he actually wants to know. “I’m a little tired,” he says. “We just flew in this morning and I haven’t had time to shower or anything. I feel like toast. I feel… grungy. But I haven’t figured out, are you supposed to look that way for rock and roll, or are you supposed to look your best? I’m 49 years old, so maybe I shouldn’t give a fuck anymore.”For a tired guy, Thurston seems incredibly at peace with working tonight – he has on jeans with white sneakers, a royal blue t-shirt with the legend ‘Ecstatic Peace!’ (the name of his record label) over a dress shirt and his trademark floppy hairdo. His voice is authoritative and clear; he is confident in himself if not necessarily in his words. For someone who is such a giant, both figuratively and literally (he looks every inch of his 6’6” stature), he is remarkably eager to please.Thurston introduces the band: Chris Brokaw on guitar, Matt Heyner (who is announced as ‘God’s Maniac’) on bass, Samara Lubelski on violin and Sonic Youth cohort Steve Shelley on drums before starting the first song, ‘Frozen Gtr’. Only a handful of chords in, however, and he has to stop to resolve the problems with an amplifier, prompting whispered tales of Sonic Youth’s London debut in 1984, when Moore and Kim Gordon became so frustrated with malfunctioning equipment that they destroyed it on the stage. The band plays a holding pattern while Thurston helps to fix the amp, pausing occasionally to joke with and apologise to the crowd. Five minutes later we’re good to go, but Thurston breaks again to fine tune the equipment. “Sounds like I’m playing through a glass grinder” he quips. “You guys like that? It’ll grow tired after a while, trust me.”For all that we’re sure what Thurston and Sonic Youth are supposed to sound like, though, they’ve been notoriously hard to categorise. Emerging from the New York hardcore scene and into New Wave and even No Wave, the band have defied convention and shunned anything that might lead to pigeonholing. Fans from the early days recoil at any suggestion of a ‘grunge’ label, though I would say that a good fifty per cent of the audience tonight is young enough to know them, or at least to have known them initially for their influences on the genre – not least of all because of Kim Gordon’s storied influence in Nirvana’s signing with Geffen Records. Thurston himself has been an influential patron of art-rock, and of rock as an art form, championing acts such as tonight’s opener Heather Leigh Murray and editing a book on the art behind mix-tapes and cassette culture, and the band cast aside and suggestions of being ‘too serious’ aside when they appeared on that one-time pinnacle of pop-culture, ‘The Simpsons.’ More recently the band has courted controversy and an ever growing and angry chorus of “Sell-Outs!” for agreeing to release an album through the Starbucks HearMusic label. Thurston has argued that if the CD racks are going to be at the coffee counters now, then why shouldn’t they be in a place where more people can hear their songs?I mention their apparent lack of definition to Sean, a conservative-looking chap in his mid-thirties in the seat next to me, who confesses to feeling “a bit old” for all this. “I’ve been a fan since college, and I’ve never, ever known what to expect” he tells me. “You can try and categorise Thurston, and Sonic Youth in whatever way you see fit, say they’re independent or they’re not because they’re on Geffen or whatever; but in the end they’re going to do what any good band should.”“Which is what?” I ask.“They play what they want. That’s independence.”The rest of the show is hitch-free – Thurston and friends play a relatively acoustic set of songs from his latest solo album ‘Trees Outside the Academy’. ‘Frozen Gtr’ is followed by ‘Silver>Blue’ and ‘The Shape Is In A Trance’. ‘Fri/End’ is dedicated to “a girl from back home called Kim” and is preceded by a disarmingly sweet story about how his wife (Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon) has enriched his life intellectually. The first half of the show is, like the album, acoustically driven – the down-tuned harsh guitar sound so much a trademark in Sonic Youth songs is the frame rather than the paint on this canvas. After a short break, however, the show takes a turn for the electric, incorporating such songs as ‘Queen Bee and Her Pals’ (which was, according to Thurston inspired by his time working at a bar in Dublin), ‘Psychic Hearts’ and ‘Patti Smith Math Scratch’, underscored by a roaring guitar and Thurston’s trademark voice. By the time it’s over, I can’t figure out who’s had more fun – the audience or the band.PS: Once again I must thank the Powers That Be at MOG, and Ecstatic Peace for the assistance with this. After the photo is a performance of my favourite song from the new album, ‘Fri/End, ’ from ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on November 1st.
Comments (2)