Thurston Moore - SONIC LIFE memoir - thoughts
 

I was delighted to find a local shop had it out a few days early - unfortunately have not had the time to do more than peruse the pictures, but it looks to be very dense with plenty of SY details popping out at me after an initial skim. Can't wait to dig in!!

I've still been skimming it with my focus being primarily on the "EARLY SONIC" period (some really interesting details to add to that article soon), but wow - I think fans of Sonic Youth will find this quite an enjoyable read. It seems like he dedicated a lot of time to getting the stories relatively straight, and allows each "era" its own room for discussion. As noted elsewhere, it basically ends with The Eternal, so the focus is on Sonic Life indeed. Go get it! Read it!


Also, happy birthday to Jenn B - you out there?

Thanks, Chris! Still here (and there) and thinking of writing my own li’l “Sonic Life” review once I get a copy.

From Under The Radar:

Thurston Moore on His New Book “Sonic Life: A Memoir”
A Whirlwind of Thrashing

To celebrate the publishing of Sonic Life, the Rock's Backpages site is making a Hot Press 2002 interview with Thurston and Kim free to read for a week:

Radical Adults: Sonic Youth

You'll need to sign in (accounts are free; subscriptions are bloody expensive).

You can read the whole thing here
https://www.hotpress.com/music/happy...youth-22813731

So has nobody read it? I was surprised to see Thurston mixes up Evol & Sister. I.e. implying Tom Violence was on Sister and that they recorded Evol at Sear Sound. That being said, I mostly enjoyed the book. But definitely have some criticisms beyond the easily fact checkable.

I haven't. Too damn broke. Hopefully this year, though.


Looking forward to your comments.

how come after all these years in the making - I'm awaiting my copy, should arrive this week

Just finished it! Obviously, wish it was longer and there are several errors mentioned above that had me scratching my head. There are some very touching moments, and I appreciated Thurston's honest voice regarding his behavior at times. I would have loved to read more about recording processes, the birth of song ideas, his projects outside of Sonic Youth (I'm thinking 90s onward). The times he had pre-Sonic Youth are thrilling and the first half of the book is a rock-nerd's dream. Highly recommend!!

Still waiting for my copy to arrive too…

From The Washington Post:

Thurston Moore disappears into the cool noise of his memoir
The era-defining Sonic Youth frontman recalls a life in rock-and-roll

I have finally published my review of SONIC LIFE.

Loved it.

https://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2024/...became-my.html

hello all. long time no hear. decided to lurk around after quite some time. just received my copy. haven´t start reading it yet though.

i see a greeeereeeeeeeen liiiiiiiight

Finished it today. Been chipping away at it for months, sometimes reading it for prolonged periods, then setting it aside for weeks.

I thoroughly enjoyed it overall. I found it to plod a bit at the beginning, and race up to a hasty conclusion towards the end, but overall I thought it was excellent, peppered with interesting insights and anecdotes conveyed with literary wit.

I started listening to Sonic Youth in 1998. That period from A Thousand Leaves onwards holds a significant personal fascination for yours truly. Especially the mid 00s noise scene which I was indoctrinated into through bands which had an association with Thurston such as My Cat is an Alien, Mouthus, Wolf Eyes, Black Dice, Double Leopards, Magik Markers etc etc.

A handful of these bands garner a cursory namecheck in this book. That whole era really gets a kind of a paragraph. Thurston mentions bringing outsider bands on tour with them in 1994 at which point he names Sunburned, NNCK, Wolf Eyes, 16 Bitch Pile Up, and a few others. Only Sunburned and NNCK existed in the mid 90s to my knowledge, the rest only came into fruition late 90s/early 00s. Is this poetic license for sake of brevity, or has Thurston truly forgotten what was going on. Was that whole noise era actually him "slumming it" as he claimed not to be doing in an interview I remember from that time, was he actually just enjoying being the big fish in the noise swamp, resting on his laurels as the king of noise? Or was he strong armed into editing it all down into a paragraph or two by editors conscious of the fact that the average reader would rather more pages be devoted to touring with Mudhoney and Nirvana as opposed to the whole weirdo freak folk noise scene. At one point Thurston even says he was conscious during this period of the shadow that touring with Nirvana cast over this latter period, how it just wasn't as exciting.

In the afterword he thanks his editor and quotes the aforementioned as quipping "have you read Ulysses? You've written two Ulysses" which leads me to suspect there may exist a manuscript of Sonic Life which takes a deeper dive into the latter era of Sonic Youth as well as Thurston's solo improv career.

These are just my initial inebriated ramblings, composed at 3am. Hopefully I will be able to field some sober replies tomorrow and we can try and figure it out collectively. Keep on keep on keep on

I heard an interview w/Thurston where he talked about halving the length of the book, and i was wondering why not put out the whole thing as a special edition treat for the ultra-dorks

Enjoyed your review, Rob.