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Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com element from Nirvana and employing it to their own success. I don’t really care. I’m not bitter about it,” he laughs sensing the heat of his own diatribe, “but it’s not very interesting to me. That’s what they’re calling punk rock, but to me it’s as prevalent and as annoying as disco was in the 70s. There’s this whole underground of lo-fi cassette-label musicians who are really good. So I like that stuff, but those kids think of us as being totally over the hill.” And also, while Offspring rant about “flys” and “white guys”, Sonic Youth are singing free-style lyrics in a stream of consciousness winding well away from the mainstream. Is it true that, when you’re working with an ambiguous message and the masses, you gotta keep ‘em separated? “Not always. Our ‘big hit singles’ gave nothing away, but their popularity probably had more to do with the music, and the fact that they were ‘weird’ sounding by contrast. Every now and again, the ‘alternative culture’, by way of momentum swing, is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be like the mainstream popular music.” “Lyric writing is an interesting process in Sonic Youth. There’s three people writing now, and we’ve all had a lot of interest and involvement with expression through words, or poetry or whatever. I hardly think we’re the only people writing lyrics with that frame of reference or that frame of mind, but our fusion of styles BUY Sonic Youth music online from and in this framework is interesting. “Most people can’t tell now who wrote what, and to make it more confusing, I wrote some lyrics that Kim sings, and vice versa. I like that blurring of identities within the band, because it becomes a unified thing that can’t be related to other forms of historical poetry.” How do you respond to detractors when they criticize your lyrics as “staggeringly pretentious, and meaningless psycho-babble” (NME)? “A lot of the lyrical ideas [that run] through Sonic Youth and my solo record [Psychic Hearts] do have a lot of meaning in a way, although it is somewhat abstracted,” Moore says, unfazed by the quote. “Especially when you’re writing them. They’re written down with just the poetic sense. They have some kind of meaning to you because it’s emotional, so it’s like trying to translate that emotion literally beyond the poetic sense of the words. You don’t want to analyze it so much because I just like the abstract nature of it, that it can take on any shape that you might feel it should take on.” You speak a great deal of poetry and it’s place in music, I’ve often wondered to myself if Sonic Youth’s album title, A Thousand Leaves isn’t a coy play on Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass? “You know, you’re right, and the first person to pick that up. (Spike blushes) I didn’t want to draw attention myself to the reference, but yes, that indi- 488 More Spike email RSS Facebook Twitter A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com visible notion of art and nature is what I was getting at. It makes me happy when the slightest intentions can be picked up. Whitman is so amazing don’t you think? (Spike nods) There’s a lot of his ‘New England Mysticism’ that we aspire to. The way his words seem to breathe, and have colour, and shape, and texture. As a member of Sonic Youth, and as a solo performer I’m also playing with the same type of evocation. The same way he improvises with images and words, we improvise with sounds and notes.” I’ve heard, and seen you spiral upwards, towards these trance like improvisational jams live the last couple of times, is that Whitman inspiration pushing you closer to this almost structure-less musical energy? “What I’m aiming for all the time when we play live is a balance between the high energy of loud music, and a calm meditational energy you sometimes find at its core. Recording tends to restrict too much experimentation, ‘cause when you’re making a record it’s a part of you, for that time it’s your whole fabric. But when we tour the songs, they tend to get more and more expansive, and actually evolve over time until they are BUY Sonic Youth music online from and something quite different. For this reason I never go back and listen to the recorded document. The thrill, instead of listening to our CDs, comes when the balance I was talking about can be attained. Everyone in the room can have a shared, communal rock experience. I’m only too happy to be the conduit of it, after all rock’n’roll saved my soul.” Thurston’s ‘Throbbing’ 13: Funhouse – Stooges White Light / White Heat – Velvet Underground Marquee Moon – Television Blank Generation – Richard Hell & the Voidoids Ramones – Ramones Radio Ethiopia – Patti Smith Damaged – Black Flag Bug – Dinosaur Jr It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back – Public Enemy Impressions – John Coltrane Ege Bamyasi – Can Bleach – Nirvana Killer – Alice Cooper � 489 More Spike email RSS Facebook Twitter A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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