Sure, you could spend your New Year’s Eve in a confessional, but that would be a sin. Instead, why not head over to The Stone and kiss this miserable year goodbye with some real legends of downtown avant-garde.
thurston moore
Four Shows: Neon Spandex and Hair Metal Redux, Thurston Moore & John Zorn’s Dream Team
(Flyer via Union Pool/ Facebook)
Ereptile Destruction, Growler, Shitkill
Tuesday November 22, 9 pm at Union Pool: $8
Once in a while, it helps to forget everything that’s happened to metal since nu metal hit, and take a trip back to our roots. Growler, a Brooklyn-based act that describes itself simply as “hard and loud” helps get us there, mainly by defying the trend toward increasingly humorless, doomed and/or blackened what-have-you. Lately, it feels like we’re so chin-deep in sludgy muck that it’s easy to forget where we started. Growler’s throwback sound plops us back in the early ’80s, with their high-pitched, falsetto, bordering on operatic vocals that recall Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
See Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and/or Kim Gordon in Williamsburg This Month
November is a good time to be a Sonic Youth fan, since onetime Lower East Side fixtures Kim Gordon (now based in Los Angeles) and Thurston Moore (now based in London) are coming ’round Williamsburg to make some noise.
If you’ve been meaning to check out National Sawdust, Williamsburg’s ambitious new avant-garde venue, this is a fine time to do it: Hot on the heels of her first solo song, Gordon, the artist/writer/musician/icon, is playing there with Body/Head, her moody collaboration with fellow guitarist Bill Nace. Tickets ($20) for the Nov. 12 show are available here.
On Nov. 23, Thurston is also appearing as part of a duo, teaming up with fellow downtown legend John Zorn to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Rough Trade.
Will the New Thurston Moore x Bernie Sanders Single Cause a Teenage Riot?
Safe to say Bernie Sanders now has a better chance of becoming Vampire Weekend’s new frontman than he does of becoming president, but we’re all for everyone’s favorite muppet staying in the race if it means new music from Thurston Moore. Joyful Noise Recordings, the Indianapolis-based label that has released limited editions by the Melvins and Dinosaur, Jr., is now giving away limited edition plexidiscs of the Sonic Youth frontman’s new single, “Feel It In Your Guts,” to those who contribute to Bernie’s campaign. The cover art is by Dave Kloc, one of the artists who participated in that roving art show where real-life Bernie met his muppet counterpart.
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Thurston Moore Isn’t Singing About Crack Cocaine in That Sonic Youth Song
Steve Shelley and Thurston Moore. (Photo: Daniel Maurer)
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Thurston Moore Cracks Open Stereo Sanctity: Lyrics & Poems Tonight
Hot 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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Thurston Moore Wants to Scribble On Your Records
Not only do Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth have shows in town this week, but today Other Music sweetened the deal by announcing that Thurston and his current bandmates Steve Shelley (who, of course, was also Sonic Youth’s drummer), Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine’s bassist), and James Sedwards will be signing “scarce recordings and ephemera and copies of their latest record.” They’ll be in-store Thursday, August 6, at 7 p.m., before they head over to Bowery Ballroom.
Sonic Youth: Where Are They Now?
Remember this?
It’s July 21, 2015: do you know where the members of Sonic Youth are? Alas, there’s still no sign of a “fare thee well” show with a giant SY blimp and fireworks (paging Peter Shapiro), but here’s the next best thing: Thurston, Kim, and Lee have a bunch of local shows coming up, some of them freeeee.
Music: Thurston Moore
Remember when it was impossible to go a week without catching Thurston Moore at somewhere like Tonic or the Cooler? That changed the moment Sonic Youth and Thurstkim (no?) broke up and he moved to London. Now Kim Gordon is the one who’s all over town (with Lee Ranaldo making the occasional appearance, as he did this past weekend at Trans-Pecos) while Thurston is off touring Europe. But good news, The Thurston Moore Band is back in the States this summer.
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Lee Ranaldo Has an Art Show; Kim and Thurston Have Some Show Shows
A sketch by Lee Ranaldo
If you were looking for an excuse to sport your $100 designer Sonic Youth t-shirt, here are a few of them. You may have missed Lee Ranaldo’s show at Union Pool last week, but if you’re up for a short jaunt upstate to Kingston, you can still catch him at an exhibition of his art.
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