Best of 2008 according to Thurston
 

Thurston Moore, the sonik-youth
1. Eight Miles High (Das Wilde Leben) - German movie about Uschi Obermaier, super 60s Rolling Stones groupie who was a commune radical in Berlin.

2. Let the Right One in (Låt den rätte komma in) - Norwegian movie about a 12 yr old boy who is bullied and meets a friend - a 12 yr old vampire girl. Sweet and sticky.

3. The Savage Detectives - Robert Bolano - fiction book. 18 year old Mexico City poet dude falls in with weirdo literary gang who call themselves the Visceral Realists. Funny, strange, sexy - kickass book - looking forward to his next one (Bolano’s dead) - just came out, titled: 2666

4. Noise Nomads - solo noise dude runs the Bonescraper cassette label and is killer artist. His performances are surreal disconnections of true noise physicality. A lot of heart.

5. Uneven Universe - duo from Michigan using saxophones and junk sound. Dan “Dude” Dlugosielski and Hellfire Holly. Dan runs the ExciteBike (EXBX) label. Both are also in Cardboard Sax with Wolf Eyes’ John Olson.

6. Budweiser Sprite - Portland, OR’s Daniel Rizer solo jzoint. Slathering
noise projections with genuine organik flow vibe. Daniel runs the Together Tapes label where every release features his art which is excellent. Dude used to be in Ohio and released that Nohio tape series -legendary. Real deal.

7. MV Carbon - The Dislodged Parahelion CD - MV is more known as one half of Metalux who have some records out, most notably on Load. This CD is a solo thing she sold on some gigs — beautiful and gracefully off balance, mesmerizing and edged. She’s been duo-ing with Tony Conrad recently.

8. Malkuth - black metal trio from NYC with members from No Neck Blues Band, which maybe shouldn’t work but DOES. A very real grasp of the defiled-music tenets of BM.

9. Live at the Masque-Nightmare in Punk Alley - photo book edited by Brendan Mullen who ran the infamous 70s punk basement club in Hollywood. Impressive publishing effort by Gingko Press of how to present a rock n roll substratain all it’s maniacal glory. Loaded with ephemera, memorials and pix of not only the big namers like The Germs, X etc but all the secondary, tertiary bands who played (some who had yet to really make the transition from 1975to punk yet.) Lovely.

10. The Evolution of A Cro-Magnon - memoir by John Joseph, singer of the Cro-Mags. Kinda like the Ringolevio of the early 80s NYC hardcore scene. And written in a super-1st person narrative where he will, while talking about someone, call that person out (”Hey Vinnie, if yr reading this, get in touchman, gotta work some shit out”) - not a direct quote but like that. Harrowing pre-teen urban nightmare life saved by an epiphany at a Faith/Untouchables/Bad Brains gig in Virginia. A gripper.

elitist.

This is not a norwegian movie, but a swedish one.

I don't know this artists.

Not one album by Mesh Gear Fox :(

MV Carbon used to be in bride of no no. Good stuff.

jeez, this Thurston guy knows more obscure bands than stu666.

Also nice to see Dan D. from Excitebiketapes getting a shoutout. He's the fucking man!

he he

So do people just send him their stuff?
Otherwise I have no idea how one would go about finding out about such things XD... I hate the suburbs..

No one sends me anything, and I know about stuff Thurston probably doesn't know about. He probably searches things out like the rest of us do.. and yeah people probably send him stuff too.

i wonder if he REALLY listens to it

Do you wonder if he really listens to the stuff on his list? I don't. It's interesting that when he writes or talks about Sonic Youth he is so incredibly full of shit and lies pathologically, yet when he talks about the stuff by other people he gets into he is as sincere as he is emphatic.

If you mean you wonder if he really listens to everything people send him, I'm sure he wouldn't have enough hours in the day to do so. Most of the music stuff on his list are side projects of people he knows and/or has played with or at least on labels connected to that.

Dude is 100% right about UNEVEN UNIVERSE. Probably my favorite new band of 2008. Do yourselves a favor and check out their stuff.. I heard a one sider just came out on AMERICAN TAPES.

Yeah, they rule. Anything Dan is involved in is awesome. Highly reccomended!!

I don't know this artists.

Thats also the point...

perhaps Thurston sleep nights awake! yeah but i agree with you most of the music he listen it's from people he knows or has played with, and at the same time it's a good way to promote them...imagine your name in the Mr Thurston Rock n' Noisy List...!

Yes, it's Swedish.
Apparently the vampire girl is not really a girl either, or at least not in the book. I hadn't noticed that while watching the movie and from what I can remember it hardly gets mentioned in the story either, if at all. Highly enjoyable movie, kind of romantic horror with a Pippi Longstockings vibe. I can definitely recommend it.

need to read these!!

ps: american tapes sucks.

I have no idea what other music/film stuff thurston is talking about but this book is really awesome. it's impossible to put down and his description of 1970's-1980's NYC is pretty amazing

I love Thurston's best of lists! I eagerly await them every year, and never have I heard of any of the bands on them : )

Thanks Moshe...very interesting post..
...by the way,I heard very great reviews of Bolaño's "Savage Detectives"...some of that reviews tell that book is the best hispanic novel since Julio Cortazar's "Rayuela"...from 1963 !!! (I think that is very exagerate)...

I never heard before about Metalux and MV Carbon...I'm playing "Waiting For Armadillo"...and sounds funny...

heard he is doing solo as 'snow covered deer corpse' these days..

the savage detectives is great. you should read it!

I hear you bro.
Not one album by RECS OF THE FLESH either.

I feel kinda proud.

...duh.

Thurston's top gigs from the ep poll:


Name thurston moore | northampton wools
1)Noise Nomads - Bar, New Haven CT + with Bill Nace at Elevens, Northampton, MA
2) Malkuth - Lit Lounge, NYC
3) Colour Out Of Sound fest w/ fave sets by Aaron Dilloway, Byron Coley, Rat Bastard, Charlie Draheim - Brighton, UK
4) Laurence Cook Disaster Unit - Middle East, Boston, MA
5) Black Helicopter / Beatings - knit fac downstairs NYC
6) Okkyung Lee/Carlos Giffoni duo + Oa (Meg Clixby duo) + Nancy Garcia/Biba Bell duo - Glasslands, Bklyn
7) Uneven Universe / The Jasons / Graveyards - KS Art, NYC
8) No Fun fest with killer sets by Halflings, Failing Lights,
Ahlzagailzehguh, Nevari Butchers, Cleanse + Hair Police - knit fac, NYC
9) Social Junk - Mystery Train, Amherst MA
10) Adam Nodelman memorial with Mascis/Dredd Foole Stooges romp, Noise
Nomads, Fat Worm of Error - Florence MA

Let the Right One In is an insanely good film.

It should be raking in the bucks instead of that Twilight bull.

I just started reading 2666.. not sure what to make of it so far... seems a tad dull? too early to comment really..

2666
 

I read it this spring. Parts of it are really amazing, but as a whole, I can't say that I thought it was worth my time. (Part of the issue is that Bolano died before he really, truly finished it.) That said, the Part About the Critics definitely picks up about halfway through. And Parts 3 and 4 are simply phenomenal; The Part About the Crimes is one of the most terrifying -- and terrifyingly good -- things I've ever read.