I’m going to keep it 100 with you people. Growing up, I wasn’t a huge Sonic Youth fan. I felt the same ambivalence towards them as I did towards the other Monsters of Indie Rock. I had a burned copy of Slanted and Enchanted, but it never really stuck. I saw Guided by Voices live in 2001, but that shit just flew right over my head. The only time I caught a Sonic Youth show was in 2004 at the Milwaukee rock club The Rave, but I was mostly there for the openers, Wolf Eyes and Hair Police. I was in the pit for the support, but I watched Sonic Youth from the balcony; even though they did a 20-minute drone closer, their set didn’t penetrate my brain like the Midwestern noise goons that preceded them on stage.
But I now love all of the above, and especially Sonic Youth, who were not just a great New York band but a Great American Rock and Roll Band, one that was in conversation with both The Dead Boys and The Grateful Dead; Glenn Branca and Bad Brains—one who reshaped guitar music for multiple generations. They were the rare band that never made a bad record. They built their own musical language, kept iterating upon it, and, until they collapsed, provided a model for aging gracefully within subculture. Sonic Youth were both entrenched in and a layer removed from the underground, a balancing act that isn’t easy to pull off. Christgau once noted their ability to keep “a distance from the insanity they find so sexy.” And they were a great live band—maybe one of the best.
“The Diamond Sea (Live on Rockpalast 4/7/96)”
Let’s start in the middle of the band’s career with a live version of a tune that I can safely say is Sonic Youth’s “Dark Star.” Here, they electrify a German crowd with a 20-minute version of the standout cut from their 1995 record Washing Machine. Thurston Moore shouts out Stockhausen, after which the band revs up and eventually skids into craggy boulders of noise. (Music writing: You gotta love it.) The song comes and goes again, dissipating into five minutes of chiming drone. In a different world, this is what Phish would sound like. “The Diamond Sea” would go off at The Sphere!
Live at the Gila Monster Jamboree, Mojave Desert, 1/5/85
Now we must move back a decade and check out a decidedly psychedelic Sonic Youth set in a decidedly psychedelic setting: the damn desert. The Gila Monster Jamboree was the band’s first So-Cal gig, and they shared it with Meat Puppets, Redd Kross, and Psi-Com, a band that featured a younger Perry Farrell. The film Desolation Center documents the show and other similar events organized by the artist Stuart Swezey. Survival Research Laboratories in the desert; The Minutemen on a boat. It was an era of underground rock that felt American in its refusal to adhere to a singular musical identity. Every band was its own cartoon. In Thurston Moore’s recent memoir, he mentions that most people in attendance at Gila Monster were on LSD.
Live at Brighton Beach, Brighton, UK, 11/8/85
I think we have to stay in ‘85 for a minute, because it feels like a somewhat crucial year for the band. Bad Moon Rising was Sonic Youth’s first real swing at combining the tropes of bad-trip boomer rock with the languages of punk and no wave. This video shows the band going all the way on the boardwalk in Brighton, a city where, strangely, I have played multiple shows. Let’s just say it’s not the most glamorous beach town in the world, especially in the chilly late fall. So, it’s an ideal setting for a mid-’80s Sonic Youth freakout. For whatever it is worth, Billie’s is the best Full English I’ve ever had.
“100% (Live on Letterman 9/4/92)”
One of the ultimate late-night performances, Sonic Youth on Letterman is in the same league as Tyler on Fallon and Fear on SNL. It's quite possibly the closest America has gotten to a full-on noise moment on national television—Lee Ranaldo and Moore end up on the floor. Sonic Youth was forced to rock alongside The World's Most Dangerous Band, Letterman’s house crew, which is part of the appeal: there’s nothing like watching a group of high-level session musicians play no wave. Dave holding up a Mike Kelley-designed LP cover feels like a not-insignificant example of both Sonic Youth’s connection to the larger contemporary art world (thank you, Kim Gordon) and, maybe more importantly, their power to push culture into new places.
Live at All Tomorrow Parties, East Sussex, UK, 4/8/2000
Quite possibly the most famous thing about Sonic Youth’s 2000 record NYC Ghosts & Flowers is Brent DiCrescenzo's Pitchfork review of the album, which gave it a whopping 0.0. Which is insane: within their discography, NYC Ghosts & Flowers is the band’s purest art LP since Bad Moon Rising. DiCrescenzo later retracted his evaluation. During the pandemic, Sonic Youth started lacing their Bandcamp account with live treasures; this recording is of a set at All Tomorrow's Parties, a now-bankrupt festival brand that for a period of time essentially served as an indie rock summer camp. The show starts with a noisy, stirring 23-minute opener, then the band runs through most of NYC Ghosts & Flowers. The gig inspired an NME headline for the ages: “Goodbye 20th Century, Goodbye Talent!” Things were weird for SY in 2K.
Live at Eurockéenes Festival, Belfort, France, 7/3/2005
Jumping forward five years, Sonic Youth is on cruise control in France, playing a set of mostly new material that I think many people took for granted at the time but now sounds pretty great to my ears. There’s the usual dissonance tricks, plus the addition of saucemaster Jim O’ Rourke, who started playing with SY sometime around NYC Ghosts & Flowers. The band is relaxed and in control, playing music with nothing to prove. To end, they hit the modest mosh pit, one that had been simmering all night, with a “Teenage Riot” closer and an extended distorto-exploration outro.
Ramones Cover Set, Live at Headliner’s, Madison, WI 10/13/87
When it comes to my personal favorite Sonic Youth record, I always waffle, but I think Sister wins out in the end. Courtney Love called it “more bad acid trips I never took, plus physics or psychics, Philip K. Dick, astronomy.” Alright! While touring on the record, the band made it a habit to encore with Ramones covers, a move that was right in line with the coming wave of pop punk revivalism. What I’m about to say has nothing to do with Sonic Youth, but the Facebook page for “my old band” got hijacked recently. In a confusing move, the hackers replaced all of the content with a single painting of Jesus Christ.
“I Wanna Be Your Dog (Live on on Michelob Presents Night Music 1989)”
A confusing cast of characters (David Sanborn, Daniel Lanois, The Indigo Girls, and Don Fleming) join Sonic Youth for a Stooges cover on a forgotten late-night television show. The program was produced by Lorne Michaels and sponsored by Michelob, which is not a beer you hear so much about anymore. Commandeering Iggy’s lyrics while wearing silver shorts and a vintage Kiss tee, Gordon is in peak form. It’s a performance that rivals the original, made better by the bonus musicians. It’s pretty remarkable to watch David Sanborn play free jazz sax. A few years later, the band would tour with Neil Young.
Live at Williamsburg Waterfront, Brooklyn 8/2/11
I don’t need to get into any Sonic Youth breakup lore. If you want more context about this concert, which would prove to be the band’s final American show and, for all intents and purposes, the last “real” Sonic Youth show, I recommend checking out this NPR oral history from last year. The band went out in fine form, playing a more varied set than some of their other later concerts, which, as far as I can tell, tended to focus on whatever new material they were touring behind. 30 years is not nothing.
“Making the Nature Scene (Live in Poitiers, France 6/23/83)”
From the end to the beginning, we conclude yet another episode of John’s Concert Collection (Presented by John’s Music Blog) with a Sonic Youth video from their first European tour. Renaldo describes the setting here as a “communist festival,” which is maybe not the worst location for Gordon to throw down “Making the Nature Scene,” her seminal piece of ‘80s cultural anthropology. With that said, Renaldo also notes that “the Europeans weren't quite ready for our sound back then.”
Michelob is a beer you don’t hear about anymore? You aren’t hanging out with boys tryna get shredded for the summer drinking that low carb Michelob Ultra.
I remember that Sonic Youth show at The Rave. Can't remember who I was with, but I remember during Hair Police you and Alex Kmet took off your shirts and were twirling them above your heads. It was so wild to see Hair Police on the big stage when they'd played Darling Hall not long before then.