Sonic Youth come to Sydney in June, I've not really enjoyed the stuff since washingmachine, so has anyone seen them recently & are they worth the effort?

also, their website has a fantastic feature; you can download t-shirt prints. Shurely shome graphik arteest out there could offer this service to fall fans...

I'm waiting for the T-shirt of the forthcoming "Best Of" compilation. :applaud:

me to, I fancy one in Oranj.
I reckon they can sell 50,000 shirts.

I don't know their recent studio albums, but I like the SYR series they did, especially "Goodbye C20th" - I don;t imagine they'll be playing this stuff though :o

Well I saw them last year at a festival and didn't really expect much. I pretty much don't like anything they did in the last ten years or so. But I really enjoyed the concert, they played a lot of old stuff. So yeah I would recommend to go.

sonic youth now have the amazing jim o'rourke with them. his records 'insignificance' and 'eureka' are must haves. saw them 2yrs ago. were great. you should go.

I am still pissed off that I didn't go to see Joe Strummer as a few weeks later he died. So probably best to go and see them as that Kim Gordon's knocking on a bit :whistle:

I have seen them on each of the last couple tours and they have always be uniformly excellent. the sets tend to heavily favor newer material w/ a handful of trips into the back catalog. jim o'rouke has really given them a kick in the ass and I think they play w/ more energy now then the times I saw them w/o jim in the late ninties

Well I didn't get tix, I held off & am glad, got the new offering "sonic nurse" (which is wot i am!) but too much Kim Gordon, or as the kids would say "like way too much Kim man". Imagine Brix singing over half "COTC" (ahem!). Which is a pity, cos the sound is full & some nice geetar work & production.
I've nothing much against her, I'm just not fond of her voice/style.

Murray Street was a shit album. They have become completely irrelevant. Id only go if they did a greatest "hits" tour. Speaking of which the PIXIES are supposedly writing new material for an album. I am horrified. It can surely only tarnish the legacy?

That's all speculation about teh Pixies, they wrote a few "new songs" that are available on the internet, but they're all jokes. One of them involves an accordian and Frank black on the telephone. Apparently there is one new song, but it's a 'secret' and whenever the band mentions it in interviews they laugh. It is of course possible.

I saw the pixies when they were in mpls last month, there were no new songs, only old ones.

Yeah I have a bunch of bootlegs from the new Pixies tour, pretty great.

I saw Sonic Youth two weeks ago, I'd recommend going. Musically they're one of the most interesting bands I know of, and that's what comes across live. They're ability to come up with interesting vocal bits has wanned a bit. I know MES hates/pretends to hate them, but I think if they collaborated on a song it could come out quite well. for those of you who've heard Murray Street, think of "Plastic Sun", kind of a crappy song--now picture it with MES vocals--genius! I was listening to it the otehr day, and barring Kim Gordan's vocals, it sounds like the type of musical backing MES would love to rant over.

Starting with "Goo" (or maybe "Daydream Nation" already) SY were becoming more and more artsy-fartsy, tons of cleverness instead of just MUSIC. When O'Rourke joined the band, I feared this would even increase, because he was heavily involved in arts/theory stuff, but I was totally wrong. "How about playing songs, guys?" he might have asked and they simply did. And so surprisingly "Murray St." was pretty good.

Except for the annoying Kim Gordon songs. In early times she just whispered (as on "Flower", "Shadow of a Doubt") which suited her well. But then she wanted to become Kat Bjelland and ruined what little voice she had. Strangely enough, Lee Ranaldo, the only band member with a really good voice sings very few songs.

I hope there will be some re-releases from their huge back catalogue, like the "Four Tuna Brix". I only have the three track 7"-Single which is great but the sound has been crackling like camp fire since I bought it. A fine remastered CD edition would be great.

Murray Street was not bad but somewhat overrated in my estimation. It was a big improvement on NYC Ghosts & Flowers, but apart from a little keyboard use here and there, it didn't seem like they were doing much they hadn't done before. I actually am very fond of Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves, which are hardly bereft of memorable songs.

Goo and Dirty are probably SY's most poppy albums; in fact, I'd say Dirty is probably the least "artsy-fartsy" of all SY releases, quite in-your-face, overtly political and with relatively tight songs. The artsiness of SY seemed like a kind of V-curve which reached its nadir in '92 and then started climbing again. (Now it seems the band just makes some projects "art" and others "pop" — they're "making it easy" for us.)

Yuck. I'll admit Kim Gordon can be grating, but saying all she should do is whisper is just not in the spirit of the enterprise. She is one of the most distinctive and aggressive female voices out there. Her politics are dubious, but there's something very courageous about being as out-and-out weird as she is. SY would be somewhat blander, a bit more nice & indie, without her presence... though that wouldn't have been true back in the days of the glorious Confusion is Sex.

Has anyone else seen the 'Teenage Riot' video by Sonic Youth? It's the one with the clips of their different idols - Henry Rollins etc.

There's a two second shot of someone who is, as far as I can see, clearly MES. He kinda turns his head around to the camera, smiling, and in big letters underneath it says -

'THANK YOU.'

Anyone else noticed this/thinks it's cool?

Yeah, it's from the "New Puritan" video.
Harvey Pekar makes a similar cameo.

What New Puritan video?

My thoughts exactly!

Please let it be camcorder footage of the recording of the Totale's version :o

I think Tintin means the New Puritan clip that MES and Brix did with Michael Clark in 1984. No music, it's just them speaking a lot of crazy shit, and you can get it here: http://www.thefall.da.ru/ I dunno, because I can't remember much of the Teengae Riot vid.

Acquired this exceptional DVD today

Tracks

Dirty Boots, Tunic, Mary Christ, Kool Thing, Mote, My Friend Goo, Disappearer, Mildred Pearce, Cinderellas Big Score, Scooter & Jinx, Titanium Expose, 100%, Sugar Kane, Youth against facism, Bull in the Heather, Superstar, Little Trouble Girl, The Diamond Sea, Sunday, Hoarfrost, Nevermind, The Empty Page, Disconnection Notice

A combination of straight rock vids with quirky experimental stuff - this puts the whole Dirty/Goo era stuff in context and sees the band playing with their image/content and with their audience.

The version of Superstar with Thurston as Night Club singer and the band in tuxedos is kitsch but works

The two tracks from Murray Street are perhaps the most complete statement of a band that has grown into a potent musical force - balancing the aural assault of guitar abuse with angst ridden melody, and the young band arguing over Disc Notice is a hoot.

Bonus material

- Hilarious Video of Drunken Butterfly with SY as the Muppets on Acid
- Swimsuit Issue - obtuse perspective - bare chested men smoking!
- Disappearer (Directors Cut)
- Ono Soul
- Interview with Spike Jonze (sic) band photographer
- Sonic Spiel - various interviews inc Mike Watt on experiences with the band
- Fan Film Documentary - very strange!

Well worth the £10.99 and perhaps something we could hope The Fall might eventually get together in terms of quality and production values......

I too have this beauty.

Massive fan, go buy it.

Great stuff indeed, also can't wait for the "presellout" video anthology they've promised to put out, in the small print on the back. Couldn't quite believe someone would put a full size drawing of an album cover on their bedroom wall, like the girl did with Goo, but hey, whatever makes you happy.

The video of half naked men smoking is a genius piece of filmmaking.

As is Harmony Korine's video for Sunday.

HOwever--look at the video for Disconnection Notice...egad..christ what a piece of shit. For those curious, it's not really a musical video, but a low budget video made about a disagreement in a tour van with some pretty lame actors, though the director is mostly at fault.

for some reason i really like the video for mote. the visuals just go ever so well with the track.

I have this but have only managed to watch it 3 or 4 times so far and not looked at the extras yet

It's a fantastic lesson in how these things should be done. The commentaries are very good too, imformative not just on the facts but on SYs opinions of their own work.

Before I go on I want to put on record that I'm a huge SY fan. In the mould of all great artists they've been responsible for creating a sound that was capitalised on and commercialised by much lesser groups. I think we owe them a debt of gratitude for the good times.

Of late (i.e. since Washing Machine) I've been totally underwhelmed by the quality of their output. I resisted even buying 'Sonic Nurse' until this week. I was prompted mainly by the fact that many on this board OK'd it (I have the utmost respect for the opinion of a Fall fan) and the fact that I had a spare $15.

I've listened to it three times today and, with regret, it just confirmed what I'd been thinking for a while now - they should pack it in.

Since 'Washing Machine' (itself a little patchy) they've basically released the same album 4 times in a row. If you loaded onto an IPOD all the songs from 'Nurse', '1000 Leaves', 'Ghosts' and 'Murray Street', and hit the 'random play' button you'd be hard pressed to even imagine that the songs are from 4 different albums. In fact, there's a good chance you'd get 2-3 consecutive songs where you'd have a job knowing when one ended and the next started.

The really annoying thing is that none of the songs are downright bad, but none are that good either. All the passion and personality has just evaporated. They've hit a creative rut in the studio and I can't see the escape route.

I still respect them as an awesome live band - the last time I saw them, 2-3 years ago, was the best they'd ever been and that's saying something. Though you need to note it was pretty much a 'greatest hits' set.

Overall, they are getting dangerously close now to having released as much blandness as they have greatness. Their memory of being a great band is being diluted rapidly.

It pains me say this, but, give it up - while you're still ahead (just).

It saddens me to agree with this, but boy do I ever agree with this. They actually lost me at Dirty. I love the saucy rascals and admire them and acknowledge their influence on so much music, but I can't even try to pretend to try to find anything I wanna hear again in their last several albums.

I wish if they had to continue recording they'd switch to detuned/prepared Turkish folk instruments or go all analog synth and babble-chanting or something.

The "alternate" tunings always got me. A few half decent tunes packaged inside a lot of nonsense. Maybe the emporor wasn't completely naked......but sometimes you wonder.

Oh, he had a codpiece at least.

A Thousand Leaves and NYC Ghosts & Flowers are brilliant, overlooked albums, but Sonic Nurse is worthless. Most of the songs sound alike and have no character. Instantly forgettable.

I love Jim O'Rourke, but adding him to the band hasn't led to any improvement or change of direction. One has to wonder why he was asked to join if his talents aren't going to be fully exploited. He's subsumed his style of play to that of the other members, thus leaving the ensemble to sound roughly as it did before. Time he's spending with SY is time not being spent recording his own lovely, unique material.

Well I think Washing Machine is among their top best.

Have to disagree that the past 4 sound alike--I find 1K leaves and Ghosts patchy, but can admit they don't sound similiar.

Thousand Leaves--low key repetetive songs that go on forever, plus the occasional Kim Gordan shrieker.

Ghosts--very different sounding sonic youth. the only sonic youth album that seems to feature keyboard blips, though they are most likely made with guitars. Sounds very "computerized", plus many of the songs are spoken word (kinda bad poetry) which they haven't really done before/since (except for Lee).

Murray Street--the first Sonic Youth album in a long time that actually appears to have basslines, thanks to Jim O'rourke. Gives it a very unique and fresh sound, though basically no new ground is broken.

Nurse--now this is a Sonic Youth album where all the songs sound pretty much the same. I like the album, but can give you that. Definitely their most uniform sounding release. It's a bit like a subdued less adventurous Murray St. This to me is Sonic Youth's version of Shiftwork/Code Selfish. Probably the only Sonic Youth album you could play to 'non-fans" and have them not be offended. I turned a friend on to sonic youth with this one, and am realizing that this very well could be the only Sonic Youth album he'd like. So that means it can't sound like hte previous 3 too much.

But yeah...well, sonic youth have committed to never really using any instruments other than a guitar, bass, and drums. For that--it was only a matter of time before they run out of new sounds to make, as they've limited themselves quite a bit. Mind you, I wouldn't want a Sonic Youth album that had keyboards or techno in it, after all this time it would come as a copout.

anyhow--I think Murray Street is a fantastic record, Nurse is an enjoyable one, but Thousand Leaves and NYC Ghosts were a bit hit and miss.

I completely agree with this summation. I put Nurse in my picks of 2004 because, even if it was a little unadventurous, it was still a bloody good album compared to a lot of pretty unimpressive records released this year (in my opinion, obviously).

I think their non-rock leanings are far more exciting nowadays: all the improv stuff they're into now, & Goodbye C20th, that was highly enjoyable

To be honest, I found all that stuff to be hard work. I still like songs that you can hum along to! :lol:

Papal visit, then? :P

I read the first post in this thread aghast with horror......

I believe they have actually hit a creative streak with Murray Street and Sonic Nurse whereas they had gone on off the boil with 1,000 leaves

I believe Rain on Tin to be one of the most complete pieces of guitar writing ever!

Murray Street is one of their most consistent albums

Sonic Nurse does not measure up to Murray Street but still has exceedingly good bits

Three guitars make the band hum and provide a wall of sound hitherto unknown....

B)

Their best - full stop. I think Daydream Nation, which I loved at the time, is patchy and too arch compared to this. And Goo and Dirty were mediocre overall. I think they really found their groove with Washing Machine - the Forum gig on that tour is one of the most powerful, psychedelic gigs I've been to, reminiscent of Barret's Floyd at points..

I thought the Leaving The 2oth Century and Washing Machine albums were fine albums, along with Sister and EVOL, their best. And Murray Street is stunning - very impressionistic and emotional - it's got 9/11 all over it.. They don't sound a whole lot different with O'Rourke.. which is fine by me! I do feel they come and go as a band. NYC Ghosts and Thousand Leaves are both very patchy.. But I haven't heard Sonic Nurse..