Genre: Post Punk
Rating: World Treasure (beyond ratings)
Recorded in early eighties. First released on cassette in 84. Released again on CD in 88.
I have this on cassette. I bought the cassette at Raunch Records in Salt Lake City best I can remember sometime from 87-89 (maybe 90 but I doubt it). However, I’m listening to it now from the YouTube posting above and using a song listing from Wikipedia to get my bearings.
It starts with The Good and the Bad from their self titled debut. Then according to Wikipedia it goes into She is Not Alone back into The Good and the Bad. I almost think it’s an irrelevant distinction because he never sings the ghostly She is Not Alone hook. The Good and the Bad is kind of like Overture on Tommy. You can hear hints of all kinds of things. On the studio version I can hear her breaking out into Making the Nature Scene in my head. I don’t know for sure but I think it’s Richard Edson on drums at the get. He only played with Sonic Youth on the debut. I deeply love the rolling percussion and tribal beats on the toms he laid down on that record. It seems to switch to another show quickly however and then I think it’s Jim Sclavunos and the sound goes from a Crash Worship type of primitivism to more of that being in church type of feeling. I think I got that from Forced Exposure but some music writer described seeing Sonic Youth live as like being in church. I can see most people not getting what he means but I could relate to it immediately. It has to do with the spectacle of the sound.
When the vocals finally come in on The World Looks Red they sound like some kind of speed cassette cartoonish weirdness. It’s about five minutes of what sounds like a mechanical tornado. When I listen to this I’m flabbergasted by the lack of love this release has received although as time passes fewer and fewer critics dare. This music is rightly taking its place among the divine that we must not blaspheme. We are in church after all.
After a short lived but ferocious pounding riff that truly represents the Branca vision completely realized it breaks into the best moment on the album. A song that has meant so much to me for decades now: Confusion is Next. It rips holy hell. It’s a manifesto. He maintains that chaos is the future and beyond it is freedom confusion is next and next after that is the truth. Prophetic. We are getting there people.
Well it pretty much has to Bob Bert now. What if Thurston intentionally organized it chronologically by drummer? I guess that would be the same as just chronologically. In my opinion Bert is the best drummer Sonic Youth ever had. Having played on Bad Moon Rising and Dial M for Motherfucker he’s the only musician, besides the jazz greats, to play on two albums that are that great with two different bands. I saw Pussy Galore touring that record in San Francisco and Berkeley and at both shows I didn’t give a fuck about Jon Spencer. My eyes were glued on Bert the entire time. Fucking incredible.
Somebody speaks French while they’re tuning. Very Grateful Deadly.
Kim gives so much on Shaking Hell. It’s brief but so crucially important and historic because of how it expresses the brutal brilliance and alienation of the no wave.
The music pounds on ahead with weird splicing going from one crazy wicked hook and versions of songs from their first three releases. They mention the Swans near the end and the bands had a lot of connections back then. On this release you can hear a Swanic pounding in the grooves that prove them to be more influential on the Sonic Youth sound than the studio albums let on. He mentions the NC club Cat’s Cradle and the album ends with a man with a southern accent hollering out, “We’re appreciative!” And we still are.
Warmth Highest 