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Thurston Moore Isn’t Singing About Crack Cocaine in That Sonic Youth Song

(Photo: Daniel Maurer)

Steve Shelley and Thurston Moore. (Photo: Daniel Maurer)

When we dipped into Thurston Moore’s new book of lyrics and poems yesterday, we noted that Stereo Sanctity, just released by Thurston’s own Ecstatic Peace Library, finally lays down the real lyrics to Sonic Youth songs vs. the ones we’ve misheard a hundred times. (In “100%”, for instance, it isn’t “Piss off, the chick is mine,” it’s “the zoftig chick is mine.”)
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Thurston Moore Cracks Open Stereo Sanctity: Lyrics & Poems Tonight

photo-90Hot on the heels of Kim Gordon’s Girl in a Band, Thurston Moore has released a book of his own, and he’ll be at Rough Trade in Williamsburg tonight to talk about it. Stereo Sanctity isn’t a memoir, but it’s a personal publication nonetheless, gathering the Sonic Youth frontman’s lyrics and poems from 1981 to present. His own Ecstastic Peace Library has released the 303-page, handbound tome in a limited edition of 700.
If you were among the few who saw Thurston Moore interview Anne Waldman last year, you heard him admire the “incredible rock ‘n’ roll energy” of William S. Burroughs. It’s clear Thurston, a onetime fixture at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church who has published Waldman and others of that scene in his own Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal, believes there’s a crossover between lyrics and literature. As he puts it in the intro to Stereo Sanctity, rock ‘n’ roll is “poetry on fire.”
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Lauryn Hill Killing Us Softly With Her Ticket Prices; Can’t Fight Veruca Salt

Time again for Good Shows, our weekly roundup of what’s good in live music.


Take a trip back to the ’90s with grunge-rock babes Veruca Salt. The band has reunited to tour for the first time since 1995, but just because they’ve been off the map doesn’t mean they’re out of energy. They’re still wrecking eardrums left and right. Music Hall of Williamsburg, Friday, July 25 at 9 p.m., tickets $25
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Earwax’s Owner Says Rough Trade Is Welcome to Ride His Coattails

When Rough Trade opened in Williamsburg last month, we wondered how the neighborhood’s smaller record shops felt about the British invasion. Earwax Records, for one, describes itself as “the oldest standing record shop in Williamsburg — Since 1991! and still the most selective and quality oriented.” You can believe owner Fabio Roberti had some thoughts about the British behemoth opening up just a few blocks over from him on North 9th. Watch our video to hear what he had to say.

Video by Tamerra Griffin, Sara Afzal and Mel Bailey