The Severed Cortex

I was going to write about both shows I saw recently, Sonic Youth and Gogol Bordello,  in the same post.  Gogol Bordello deserves its own post and I'll be working on that.  Meanwhile, I give you Sonic Youth.

I never got to see Sonic Youth.  By the time I got around to listening to them they were already on a major label which under normal circumstances would violate my 'more than ten people like the band so I can't' rule.  Sonic Youth does not apply to that rule and it's not like I would have ruled them out solely on that.  You'd think I would have listened to Sonic Youth since SST bands were a major influence on me, but I was drawn to them because of their CD cover art work by Raymond Pettibon.  I guess that really is via SST when you get right down to it.

I like Sonic Youth a lot, but they are definitely an acquired taste.  Sonic Youth rose up with the punk rock movement without really being punk rock.  I speak of the term punk rock in the way most people are told what punk rock music is supposed to be.  In the truest sense of what punk rock really meant at the time, they were the very definition of it.  They came from the art world and approached music from a completely different angle.  Number one, they didn't actually know how to play instruments.  Instead they jammed drumsticks and various other assorted things behind the strings in order to make them sound in tune.  Or at least in dissonance.   This explains why no one can figure out how to play any Sonic Youth songs and you never see a Sonic Youth cover band.  They didn't follow the rules and it was that dissonance that became their calling card.  They also realized that persona was as important as the music and these two things together have spawned noise pop bands from Art Brut to Radiohead.

And they also did Kool Thing with Chuck D from Public Enemy.  That's at least how I pitched it to Robert as we drove along the Berm Highway toward the Saint Louis Riverfront.  This conversation occurred:

D: You ever hear of a rapper named Chuck D?
R: No.
D: You ever hear of the band Public Enemy?
R: No.
D: I know you know who Flavor Flav is, right?
R: Yeah, I know him.
D: Well he was in Public Enemy with Chuck D and Terminator X long before all that crazy TV stuff he's doing now.
R: Really?
D: Yes.  And just so you know, Flavor Flav is the court jester.  Chuck D is the King.

I also told him all the stuff about not knowing how to play instruments and making dischordant sounds, which he found hard to believe I think.  I also told him that the idea of putting a hardcore rap group together with an art band like Sonic Youth was just unheard of at the time.  The moral, I told him, was that in music and art, you can make up your own rules which includes the rule to have no rules.  That seemed to be a pretty good idea to him.

We parked in the arch parking garage which surprisingly was mostly empty.  Ten minutes later we are standing just inside the arch grounds waiting for my friend Nancy.  We didn't have to wait long.  She apparently pulled in the garage just after us.  Despite the light garage use, the steps were pretty crowded.  Like about 2000 people crowded.  Many of whom were clearly not devotees of Sonic Youth.  The night was nice and cool and a lot of people came out just to be in the fresh air and watch some fireworks.  They didn't care if they had to listen to a band they had probably never heard of.

Robert and I went down the steps to the riverfront, grabbed some food and beers (he prefers Bud Light) and we headed back up to the top of the steps to listen to the show.  I joke about the beers with Robert.  He insists he does not drink beer or smoke cigarettes.  Sonic Youth came on stage and played a rocking set for well over an hour.  They played an encore for about 15 minutes, then came back out again probably because it wasn't quite dark enough for the fireworks to start.  They played a wall of noise and fuzz and sound that pretty much sounded the same the whole time.  Thurston Moore plays some pretty cool stuff on those old beat up guitars.  There were probably 30 guitars sitting just off stage but he only played two or three.  Kim Gordon is just too cool and between her and Thurston the persona of Sonic Youth oozes.  Kim doesn't play bass all the time and the majority of that duty has now been passed off to Mark Ibold of Pavement fame.  Lee Renaldo has his moments of noise ecstasy but it is Steve Shelley that is the real musician.  He made me forget I hate drummers for the entire show.  Then I promptly went back to hating drummers.  Seriously though, Shelley is amazing.  It's no accident that Sonic Youth really took off when he joined them.  All in all a solid show from a band I've always wanted to see but I'm sure nowhere near the same Sonic Youth from the late 80's.

The fireworks were fantastic.  Probably the best I've seen and they lasted quite awhile.  It wasn't worth what we went through in the parking garage though.  We got stuck for an hour trying to get out.  Finally someone from the park service directed traffic out and we were on our way home.

They didn't play Kool Thing at the show but here is a live version for you.