Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped

At a show Supermassive played at Cogan's, before I left for Cameroon and before Cogan's turned into pizza joint, I made a remark that "the future of rock and roll is in the hands of a bunch of guys in their thirties". Four people cheered. And I certainly wasn't referring to the band that was playing at the moment, which, incidentally, was mine, even though we were in our thirties. I was referring, playfully, to God and Famous, which was chockful of middle-aged guys chasing teenage dreams, and achieving it, albeit at a small, Cogan-esque level.

When I was a freshman at Virginia Tech, I remember, quite vividly, sitting in my friend's dorm room, on a belly full of beer, marijuana and LSD, listening to the Butthole Surfer's "Locust Abortion Technician", Flipper's "Generic Album" and Sonic Youth's "EVOL". The lights were off and I was staring at the door, which was changing shapes drastically. While the changing shapes were probably due to the dose of LSD I had put on my tongue earlier, I contributed it mostly to Thurston and Lee's meandering, squealing, shrill, intense guitar work. "EVOL" instantly became my favorite album and it proved to be the soundtrack to my life for a couple of years. I was head over heels in love with Sonic Youth.

Thurston Moore is now 47 years old. He has a kid with his wife Kim Gordon and they live in a plush house in Connecticutt. They appeared on an episode of the "Gilmore Girls". And they have just released their 200th studio album. And the great thing about it, is that it rocks, which just blows my mind. And while it is mind-blowing, it isn't surprising. In a show a I saw a couple of years ago in Norfolk, Thurston was literally scaling the walls after passing his shrieking, feed-back laden guitar to a fan over-hanging the balcony. He crawled up, grabbed his guitar, ran around the balcony to the other side, crawled back down and ended the song with a Sonic Youth flourish. Even after 25 years (!) of noise, Sonic Youth still has it. And "Rather Ripped" just confirms that. The album is a solid slab from start to finish, and, in a way, it is almost their best. The guitar work is splendid, stringy and melodic and noisy in the way that is only possible when you've been playing together for, well, 25 years. I hate to say it, but it's almost Dead-like in it's noodly-ness. And that's actually a good thing.

I used to skip my architecture labs when I was 18 because they were overwhelming and depressing and I had the self-confidence of a elderly cat with a bladder problem. I would go up to the library in Cowgill hall and read "ArtForum" magazine. In one issue, Sonic Youth was profiled. Sonic Youth! I was floored. So rock and roll can be considered legitimate art, I thought. This, of course, led to me changing my major to Wildlife Management, eating copious amounts of psychedelic drugs, and, eventually, dropping out. Which made me an artist, obviously.

But I have to hand it to Sonic Youth. I am thirty-eight years old now and I'm still listening to these guys. And when Thurston sings "Do you believe in rapture, babe?", I almost think I do. I really, really do.

Downloading Bob Dylan

At one time, when Dylan still lived in Hibbings, Minnesota, he went to a friend's house- a big folk connoisseur with a large collection of hard-to-find folk albums- and, essentially, stole 30 albums. The friend hunted him down and had a minor tete-a-tete, which involved the brandishing of a bowling pin. When I received "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" in the mail the other day, my next door neighbor informed me that he had just downloaded, from Limewire, ALL the Bob Dylan albums, which, in my estimate, must be close to 500 or so. While I didn't chase him down with a bowling pin- after all, I don't monitor the Internet, or bowl, for that matter- it did make me think about our relationship with music, especially after seeing this fascinating documentary about one of America's quintessential cultural icons. I should really care less that someone can get on line and, in the amount of time it takes to do a couple of loads of laundry, end up with the entire catalogue of G.G. Allin recordings, but it does creep me out a little. And not just because my computer is incapable of supporting a program as aggressive as Limewire, resulting in my seething jealousy of my neighbor. It creeps me out a little because having 20 albums of ANYBODY used to mean something. It meant you were a bit of a freak. It took work to get that many albums, it took time, and, most of all, it took money. Its a wonder Dylan's friend didn't chase him down with an entire gaggle of bowling pins. It really is.

With that being said, it was fascinating seeing Dylan's early exposure to music being expressed through his playing and writing. This was the 1950s. His family had just moved into an old house. In the living room there was one of those old turntables, the kind where you slide back the top to get inside, and on the record player was a 78 of a country song. Dylan played the song over and over, learned it, developed a relationship with it. He talks about this in one of the current interviews featured on the disc, so the record, of course, had a huge impact on his development as a singer and song-writer. I mean, what a great story. My first exposure to music was the radio. I bought a 45 of "King Tut" by Steve Martin at King's Department store, where they had all the Top 40 45s lined up in enticing rows. "King Tut" was probably like #22. Now THAT's commitment. Not to sound like a curmudgeonly old man, even though I am, in fact, a curmudgeonly old man, but will saying "I first heard it on a ringtone" have the same impact as saying "I dusted off the old 78 and put it on the turntable, which we had to turn with our own hands..."? Our relationship with music has changed dramatically. And it not only changes what we listen to, but it changes the very nature of the music that is being exposed.

Bob Dylan was a result of post-war America, the Midwest, living in a town with a main street, dependent on the surrounding mines that supported its economy. He searched out Woody Guthrie, literally, and it took him, ultimately, to Greenwich Village. That's just something that could never happen today. It's interesting to look at the ebb and flow of popular music in this country, the passing of the torch from one generation to the next, to see where it will go. I just wonder, with the availability of music now, and the relative ease it takes to make good sounding recordings, if we'll ever find another artist like Dylan. It's an interesting thing to await, for sure. Until then, I'll be at my neighbor's house, perusing the Limewire catalogue, waiting for my clothes to dry, trying to download the entire catalogue of Pete Seeger recordings. Sigh. Where's King's Department store when you need it?