[evolontko]

I'm sitting at home now after listening to confusion is sex and nyc ghosts & flowers and i've discovered that for me it shuold be one double cd album ? It's sound like crazy but do u feel this conection to...

[atsonicpark]

No, they don't sound a thing alike.

[✌➬]

I don't hear the similarities. I think NYC is more close to Murray Street.

[deflinus]

all of their albums live in a world of their own. its sonic youth for gods sake

[evolontko]

ok mayby i'm crazy

[✌➬]

Originally Posted by deflinus

all of their albums live in a world of their own. its sonic youth for gods sake

Well there are some that go hand in hand. For example, Goo and Dirty. They go together. There is no way goo could have been released after Dirty, and vice-versa.

[evolontko]

Originally Posted by ✌➬

Well there are some that go hand in hand. For example, Goo and Dirty. They go together. There is no way goo could have been released after Dirty, and vice-versa.

ok so any other connection that u hear, see, feel or whatever

[Chris Lawrence]

If you hear my recording from Bumbershoot '99, where they debuted the entire album instrumentally to a giant football stadium full of people, you'll hear exactly why I agree with this dude. Well, I would, if the finished album sounded ANYTHING like my awesome tape from the front row, but unfortunately they took it in an entirely different direction in the studio. Well, I shouldn't say "unfortunately", but it took a long time to accept that album compared to the expectations I had off of that tape...

I stopped listening to early live versions of new songs after that.

[Dead-Air]

Originally Posted by Chris Lawrence

If you hear my recording from Bumbershoot '99, where they debuted the entire album instrumentally to a giant football stadium full of people, you'll hear exactly why I agree with this dude. Well, I would, if the finished album sounded ANYTHING like my awesome tape from the front row, but unfortunately they took it in an entirely different direction in the studio. Well, I shouldn't say "unfortunately", but it took a long time to accept that album compared to the expectations I had off of that tape...

I stopped listening to early live versions of new songs after that.

I was at that Bumbershoot show and it didn't sound much like Confusion is Sex in the crowd. It sounded like one big "Anagrama" forever, which was awesome. I wonder if your tape added some dark echoey atmosphere that make it more reminiscent of the 8 track noise drone of Confusion. Being there it was more sublime. Not like what the songs turned into on NYC G&F at all, agreed, but more like the SYRs than early SY by far.

That said, I think the connection between Confusion and NYC G&F does sort of exist. Both records have a bit stronger of a Lee vibe to them than lots of others and both feature the band really buckling down to the core of being Sonic Youth. Doing so just meant different things in 1982-3 in the cheapest of rented studios amidst the birth of noise rock than in 1999-2000 in Echo Canyon with O' Rourke twisting the dials as elder statesmen looking back on the train wreck of an alternative nation they'd accidnetally birthed. They did actually play a fair smattering of Confusion tracks on the NYC G&F tour if I remember right.

[koolthing78]

Anything's possible evolontko--I've never heard the connection, but I've never listened to those albums even remotely close to one another. And even if I did and I *still* didn't hear a connection, there's not to say there isn't one somewhere, if you happen to be experiencing the right thoughts, or focusing on the right parts.

Were they still focusing on Anagrama in '99? Cause they were "heavy on that shit" [I have *no* idea why that's the first way to phrase that that popped into my head] at Penn State's "Movin' On" in '98.

Either way: Chris Lawrence, [Break I took, where I preheated the oven, put the healthy Kashi frozen dinner away, and said "sorry, dude--you're getting benched for some tator tots"] that was a brilliantly and poignantly-placed last line.

[Chris Lawrence]

Thanks. It was a lie, I stopped listening to pre-album live stuff after "Murray Street", but that seemed difficult to shoehorn in without steering off the topic of Ghosts & Flowers.

I just thought the batch of songs were really primitive, "lost our gear and gonna scrape some shit together" kinda things.. Thurston had drumsticks or metal files or bike horns under his strings on some tunes, which was reminiscent of that era (and the only old song they played was "She is Not Alone"). And there are moments in the "Renegade Princess" noise that (yes, likely enhanced by the cassette recorder) sound just as haunting as "Protect Me You" or the end of "She's in a Bad Mood". There were some other things that I remember sincerely linking to Confusion, but I don't know, I haven't heard that tape in a while...

[therealglenstyler]

Interesting, never thought about it before but the idea chimes.
something in the ambience and outlook.

[atari 2600]

Yes, there is a connection in the way the some of the songs are musically composed. And it's been discussed here before, and I believe I was the one on that previous occasion (before CL even posted in the particular bygone thread) to bring up his Bumbershoot '99 recording of the instrumental versions. I'm fairly certain it's even been remarked on in band interviews in at least an abbreviated "rock is dead" way. And Dead-Air, Anagrama the song too sounds like a sort of proggier, spacier, more laid-back Confusion in many ways.

For lack of a lengthy explantation, it's easiest just to remark that the guitars once again showed a tendency to be played, in some respects, more like a percussion instrument of sorts.

Although bear in mind please that CIS is much more primally-charged and primitively expressed. And of course it was "immediately" recorded whereas NYCG&F was more deliberately thought out and conceptualized.

Then there's quite simply the passage of time between each to consider which obviously influenced both the overall "felt tone" of the songs and the lyrical content of the songs written for NYCG&F.

So even though it may not be all that readily apparent, there are some interesting similarities.

By contrast, examine, for instance, Goo. It's mainly written in the F#F#F#F#EB tuning. Therefore, to make a (well, sort of) barre chord, one just lays their pointing finger over the one fret to play a modified "dirty" major chord form, much like as is the case with a "proper" open tuning. The heavy gauges and the unison strings (many other albums deal mainly with unison pairs) give the guitar the Sonic Youth tone that makes it sound markedly different from a major chord played in standard. The songs are written with rock chord progressions, only they are largely rock progressions done up with Sonic Youth's somewhat unique "jamming the note" aesthetic par excellence.

This isn't the same case with the guitars on CIS or Sonic Death. To a lesser extent, one could also include the first one in the assessment, and even though much of it is in standard. Go ahead and count Bad Moon Rising as well. And lastly add NYCG&F to the list. On these mentioned in particular, there are, in a sense, the most arguably creative shapes (oddballs that have less to do with musical necessity) that figuratively have very little to do with rock progressions. Sure, there are ostinato motifs, but the abundant repetitive elements tend to be more noise and less rock.

[mil_pl]

no connection, confusion is sex - sucks. as early sonic youth sucks. they started to play great music since evol -> to present times.

nyc g+f has long songs, expanded - than cis (which is simple, vox where t and kim falsify, and the sound really sucked, its very low quality)

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by mil_pl

no connection, confusion is sex - sucks. as early sonic youth sucks. they started to play great music since evol -> to present times.

Wow, that's just...brilliant.
whatev
I'm reading your "no connection" lead-off as a dismissal of what I just wrote. There's obviously some relative connection, Einstein; they are both albums by Sonic Youth with mostly the same band members.
And your statement that CIS "sucks" makes you come off as a real (excuse me) jackass, in my opinion. Sonic Youth probably still get asked why they don't sound more like Confusion anymore. Why do you even want to be part of the Sonic Youth Fan Forum, mil_pl? You're going around categorically stating that Confusion Is Sex sucks?!? There are certainly more articulate and less abrasive ways to share your particular opinion. In turn, let me share my abrasive opinion:
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Evol is obviously known to fans as the album that Steve came in and their initial full-on foray into more standardized songwriting in a definable sense. "Cyberpunk" is the term that started to be especially thrown about in interviews from that general era. As in, "with Steve, we now have a cyberpunk drummer."

Originally Posted by mil_pl

nyc g+f has long songs, expanded - than cis (which is simple, vox where t and kim falsify, and the sound really sucked, its very low quality)

As far as NYCG&F, I'm making no special case for it simply because I love it the best. On the contrary, I've always consistently ranked it near the bottom on a favorites list.

[whorefrost]

Atari I thought yr post was pretty excellent.
And remember when NYC G + F came out, I was speaking to some dude who said it reminded of Bad Moon Rising.
RE: the Bumbershoot tapes, I downloaded those just before I got the album. As Chris noted, there is definitely a CIS feel to the Renegade Princess outro, I thought that at the time. And I guess there is more of a dark, ominous feel to the sound compared to A Thousand Leaves. Something slightly more concise and sinister which could definitely be linked to CIS as the closest point of comparison. Though the finished LP ended up sounding pretty different for better or worse.

[Cantankerous]

maybe
except CIS is 109 times better than NYCGF

[mil_pl]

atari 2600: its just my opinion man. i dont think that every album its great by sonic youth. so i dont praise every album. i think that confusion is sex sucks and i'll be thinking that. nothing will change my mind man. they recorded so many greater albums than cis, and you now it. cis has many failings unfortunetly.

[_slavo_]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Wow, that's just...brilliant.
whatev
I'm reading your "no connection" lead-off as a dismissal of what I just wrote. There's obviously some relative connection, Einstein; they are both albums by Sonic Youth with mostly the same band members.
And your statement that CIS "sucks" makes you come off as a real (excuse me) jackass, in my opinion. Sonic Youth probably still get asked why they don't sound more like Confusion anymore. Why do you even want to be part of the Sonic Youth Fan Forum, mil_pl? You're going around categorically stating that Confusion Is Sex sucks?!? There are certainly more articulate and less abrasive ways to share your particular opinion. In turn, let me share my abrasive opinion:
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

That's a bit harsh, ain't it Atari? Boy can have his own opinion. If he says that Confusion "sucks", it may in the end sound abrasive but may as well be just a result of verbal inability to express his thoughts in a more structured way - let us not forget mil_pl is not a native speaker and we all have our language limits (i know this feeling very well myself).
Nevertheless, the bottom line is that writing him off with a simple "fuck you" because he does not accept the general exclusive status of Confusion Is Sex was not appropriate.

[ZEROpumpkins]

Maybe the song Lightin