[Pax Americana]

Originally Posted by whorefrost

"...the decision to drop Lee’s “Genetic” from “Dirty” resulted in a tense inter-band showdown, the biggest internal crisis of their career (according to Thurston)."

I remember hearing about this before, actually. In fact, there was some speculation that a clause was introduced limiting the amount of Lee songs that could be contributed to a Sonic Youth LP. Probably exaggeration, but will be interested to read more about this.

I haven't heard about any such clause about how many songs Lee can contribute. But I know Lee had a big problem with them not including Genetic on Dirty. If I remember correctly, in the Confusion Is Next book, it's stated that Lee almost left the band over this. I guess they got in a huge argument about it, and it almost destoyed the group. Crazy.

[Chris Lawrence]

Well, if anything it makes one fucking hell of a b-side, but yeah, "Genetic" is definitely album-worthy. I still wanna know why they cut the intro off on the reissue. Is that in the book?

[uhler]

i just preordered the new sy book using my target card.

[✌➬]

I will wait so I can go with my BF, and he will say ugh I hate SY.

[Moshe]

Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth
By David Browne
In a doting introduction to his subject, biographer David Browne—a music critic for Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times—says he's never felt less hip than he did when he first met the members of Sonic Youth 15 years ago. The band's ability to avoid the usual music-industry clichés of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll is what Brown claims inspired him to write this book.
Da Capo, 416 pp., $25 (June)

http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/...440761,15.html

[Moshe]

£8.99
Paperback Original

5 June 2008

The Empty Page

Fiction Inspired by

Sonic Youth

Edited byPeter Wild

Introduction by Lee Ranaldo

Contemporary writers inspired by cult musicians

Why Sonic Youth? J Robert Lennon says it's cos Sonic Youth rip it apart. Katherine Dunn says it's because they operate in the foggy world between the real and the surreal. Steven Sherrill reckons that they've just got it figured out, man. You know? Mary Gaitskill says that Sonic Youth caught her, years ago, when she was falling. Catherine O'Flynn just wanted to catch some of the nihilistic, elemental, caustic, isolated flavour of their music. Emily Maguire was once in love with chaos. For Tom McCarthy it's gunpowder and dreams of a black panther.

‘Somehow the spirit of Sonic Youth has been inspiring to these scribes.

Empty pages? or full of… what?!?! Let’s turn a leaf and see what they’ve come up with…’ Lee Ranaldo

Contributors: Hiag Akmakjian, Christopher Coake, Katherine Dunn, Mary Gaitskill, Rebecca Godfrey, Laird Hunt, Shelley Jackson, Samuel Ligon, Emily Maguire, Tom McCarthy, Scott Mebus, Eileen Myles, Catherine O’Flynn, Emily Carter Roiphe, Kevin Sampsell, Steve Sherrill, Matt Thorne, Rachel Trezise, Jess Walter, Peter Wild.

Peter Wild is the co-author of Before the Rain (Flax Books) and the editor of The Flash (an anthology of flash fiction published by Social Disease). His journalism and fiction have appeared in The Guardian, The Big Issue, Nude, City Life, 3AM magazine and Litro. He lives in Manchester.

The first collection in this series, Perverted by Language: Fiction inspired by The Fall was published in 2007 and an anthology based on the songs of The Smiths will follow next year.

[jennthebenn]

 

I got the mail today, oh boy...

[o'connor]

damn, that looks huge!

[jennthebenn]

422 pages, my good man.

[Moshe]

McNally Robinson is a bookstore on Prince St in NYC. Check out who they have visiting July....

Friday, July 11, 7:00 PM
David Browne, author of Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth
Thurston Moore, author of No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980
Music biographer David Browne (author of Dream Brother) and legendary indie rocker Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth read and discuss their new books about music, history, and New York culture.

[Moshe]

http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/...i?news07108m01

David Browne, Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth (Da Capo): The former Entertainment Weekly music editor’s Dream Brother: The Lives & Music of Jeff & Tim Buckley, published in 2002, was a superb rock bio that juxtaposed the ironic connections between father and son while managing to bring the music of both to life. He’s done a similarly excellent job in his latest effort, a wonderful evocation of the ’80s no wave, downtown standard-bearers and their uneasy alliance with the major label system. That post-punk period in New York has been chronicled in several recent tomes, most notably Mark Masters’ No Wave, Alec Foege’s Confusion is Next: The Sonic Youth Story, Simon Reynolds’ Rip It Up and Start It Again, David Nobakht’s Suicide: No Compromise and the upcoming look back at the era by Byron Coley with SY’s own Thurston Moore. Browne’s book brings out how the avant-garde group’s hip credibility intersected for a brief moment with the commercial explosion of grunge, leading to some Spinal Tap moments at their label, Geffen, and the ongoing frustration of sympathetic execs like Mark Kates, Ray Farrell, Robin Sloane and John Rosenfelder against the backdrop of a rapidly changing music biz. One inside highlight: how attorney Richard Grabel managed to renegotiate the band’s deal significantly upwards for helping attract Nirvana to the label, despite never having released an album that sold more than 300k. In the end, Sonic Youth stubbornly managed to carve out a place for itself, even if never reaching the heights of success of the fellow artists who were drawn to them like moths to a flame over the years, including cult directors Spike Jonze, Todd Haynes, Phil Morrison, Sofia Coppola and Harmony Korine, performers Chloe Sevigny, Keanu Reeves and Richard Edson, not to mention their early support of both Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. It’s an effective remembrance of times past that seem to have taken place a lot longer than just 17 years ago, when The Year Punk Broke promised a wholesale revolution in the rock world that never quite came to pass. It does offer an interesting lesson to would-be bands on how to infiltrate the industry establishment without compromising your artistic ideals if you want any kind of credibility, though it’s admittedly no formula for superstardom. But in a world where celebrity is becoming almost as devalued as music, it remains an invaluable message.

[RanaldoNecro]

I am reading it now. There is alot of interetesting anecdotes about the band...


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Spoiler Alert








I found the follwoing things interesting. How the band dealt with early supporters & the independent labels. How much their condo cost.
How they seemed to downplay their role with Nirvana after their demise.
That there was firecrackers on some albums. How some of the early dummers felt and left. Its not all pretty but at least it is not a glossed over read. The whole thing is very open into early personal lives families and such. So, fans will not dissapoint.

Thinking about it today it is difficult to produce such a body of work such as Panasonic Youth. There seems to be for the tough decisions made all around to remain focused on that goal....

[atsonicpark]

I'm really curious about genetic.

[RanaldoNecro]

Genetic is the best B side of all time. I espcially like the saw...

[greenlight]

any othere link then amazon, where to order it online?

[Moshe]

http://www.salon.com/ent/critics_pic...8/05/24/may24/

 

"Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth" by David Browne
During their 27-year career, noise rockers Sonic Youth sculpted post-punk into alternative rock, using tools like feedback, controlled chaos and primal rhythm. Few bands could approximate their imaginative song structure, screwy guitar tunings or earsplitting volume -- perhaps only Royal Trux and Dinosaur Jr. count as direct descendants. But the Youth's art world sensibility set the ultracool, ironic pace for the alternative nation, and leaders Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon lured Nirvana and Beck to the minor major label DGC, securing mainstream success for their protégés, though never quite themselves. If "Goodbye 20th Century," David Browne's rollicking, epic biography of the band, which hits stores Monday, lacks lurid tales of drugged-out rock-star misbehavior, it's not the author's fault. Despite their wild, experimental anti-aesthetic, the group has lived shockingly normal lives. Moore was nicknamed Opie as a kid and married the Warholishly detached Gordon when they were in their early 20s. New York scared Lee Ranaldo so much at first that he ditched his apartment and ran back upstate. Steve Shelley was embarrassed to tell his parents that he played in a band called the Crucifucks. Faced with such straitlaced bourgeois bohemians, Browne cannily opts to tell, in a crisp, novelistic style, the compelling story of the cultural tornado of galleries, rock clubs and unique personalities (Lydia Lunch, Kurt Cobain and Chloë Sevigny, to name a few) Sonic Youth swirled around in, the band's ongoing fight to maintain the purity of their vision, and above all, their shared passion for new ideas and sounds. -- James Hannaham

[Moshe]

UPCOMING OTHER MUSIC IN-STORE EVENTS

THURSTON MOORE & BYRON COLEY: SATURDAY, JUNE 14 @ 6:30PM - 8PM
A reading/signing/release party with Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, celebrating the publication of their great new no wave primer "No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980." Let's call this one the after-party for the Teenage Jesus & the Jerks/Information reunion gigs at the Knitting Factory the night before... quite a weekend!

OTHER MUSIC: 15 East 4th Street NYC
Free admission / Limited capacity

[Moshe]

David Browne will be reading and signing , "Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth," next Thursday, June 5, in Brooklyn.

Where: Book Court
Address: 163 Court St., Brooklyn, 718-875-3677
Time: 7 p.m.

[Moshe]

Sonic Youth Say “Goodbye 20th Century” In New Biography, Plus Photos

5/29/08, 3:05 pm EST

 

• Click here for exclusive archival photos of Sonic Youth, as featured in Goodbye 20th Century

For almost 30 years, Sonic Youth has been one of the most influential and innovative bands in the rock topography. The band’s story is fully being told in the much-deserved biography, Goodbye 20th Century (Da Capo). Author David Browne, who has followed the band since Bad Moon Rising appeared on his desk as a promo in 1985 and interviewed the group on several occasions, said Sonic Youth was open to being the subject of a biography. “They said, ‘Sure, whenever you want to talk to us, let us know,’” recalls Browne. Browne not only talks to all four members of SY at length, but many of the artists, musicians and actors whose careers were fostered by the band as well. “The interesting thing about the Sonic Youth story to me, outside of their music and career, is that they’re probably one of the most influential bands in rock history but not in the normal way you measure influence,” says Browne. “Their influence is in that you can make this weird music and make a career and sustain yourself, but also in the way you see the impact of the people they’ve brought along.” That includes former collaborators like director Spike Jonze, artists Raymond Pettibone and Richard Prince and actress Chloe Sevigny. They also mentored artists like Nirvana and Beck. “Most of these people were not known to anybody until Sonic Youth ushered them into the mainstream. Their footprints are just as much in their music as it is in their legacy in bringing this alternative arts world with them,” Browne says.
As for the Sonic Youth story, Browne starts at the beginning, when the band had two female vocalists and a keyboardist, through the formative Bad Moon Rising/Sister days, the impact of Daydream Nation, the tumultuous Experimental Jet-Set years, the Jim O’Rourke era to the recasting of Moore and Gordon as rocker parents. “Their family life and their music life seem to co-exist in a funny but natural way. In the kitchen, they have Coco’s soccer schedule taped up on the wall next to an Iggy & the Stooges calendar. There’s a constant juxtaposition,” Browne remembers. As for the book’s title, taken from one of the band’s obscure avant-garde EPs, Browne feels the band “were the start of a real paradigm shift in rock in the early Eighties when they said ‘Our building blocks aren’t going to be what everyone says they should be: blues, country, R&B, folk. We’re starting from ground zero. If you want to go on stage and plug a drill into a wah-wah pedal and scream into the microphone for 10 minutes, that’s a song.’ So I feel the title of the book summed up their approach to their art.”
[Photo: Stefano Giovannini]

[Moshe]

http://www.exclaim.ca:80/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=122&csid2=8 44&fid1=31670

Sonic Youth Say Goodbye 20th Century In New Book
5/30/2008 By Brock Thiessen

After nearly 30 years in rock, Sonic Youth are getting some much-deserved biography treatment via Goodbye 20th Century, a book based on the life and times of the influential experimental pioneers.

Author David Browne’s new book, which came out earlier this week on Da Capo, paints a detailed portrait of the iconic N.Y. band through extensive research, interviews with the band and their various collaborators, such as Spike Jonze, Glenn Branca, Lydia Lunch and Sofia Coppola. It also starts from the very beginnings of Sonic Youth’s career to modern day, covering everything from the band’s start with two female vocalists and a keyboard player to impact of Daydream Nation to their years as alterna-rock superstars to the Jim O’Rourke era and becoming rock’n’roll’s elder statesmen.

“The interesting thing about the Sonic Youth story to me, outside of their music and career, is that they’re probably one of the most influential bands in rock history but not in the normal way you measure influence,” Browne recently told Rolling Stone. “Their influence is in that you can make this weird music and make a career and sustain yourself, but also in the way you see the impact of the people they’ve brought along.”

Interestingly enough, Goodbye 20th Century also explores Sonic Youth’s mentoring of other once-obscure artists, mostly notably Nirvana and Beck. “Most of these people were not known to anybody until Sonic Youth ushered them into the mainstream,” Browne says. “Their footprints are just as much in their music as it is in their legacy in bringing this alternative arts world with them.”

For many fans, they will recognise the book’s title, Goodbye 20th Century, as one of the band’s avant-garde session EPs. For Browne, he said he feels Sonic Youth “were the start of a real paradigm shift in rock in the early ’80s when they said ‘Our building blocks aren’t going to be what everyone says they should be: blues, country, R&B, folk. We’re starting from ground zero. If you want to go on stage and plug a drill into a wah-wah pedal and scream into the microphone for 10 minutes, that’s a song.’ So I feel the title of the book summed up their approach to their art.”