Gonna Keep It Underground

One of last month's books was Thurston Moore's memoir Sonic Youth, written during lockdown and published two years ago bit I only got around to it now. Thurston writes directly and economically but at length (Sonic Life is over four hundred pages). His memory is fantastic- he can vividly recall aspects of his life, gigs particularly. His life changed when his older brother exposing a very young Thurston to Louie Louie by The Kingsmen, the addictive joy of distorted guitar chords planting a seed that grew and grew in the pre- teen Thurston. He recounts his teenage years, the growing interest in leftfield and proto- punk bands in the early and mid 1970s. Tragedy strikes the Moore family with the sudden death of his father and the impact that has on himself and the family, Thurston briefly heading down a self destructive road of teenage delinquency. 

He writes of his teenage friendship with his best friend Harold and their trips to New York City in the mid- 70s to see the bands and singers they'd read about in magazines- the New York Dolls, The Ramones and Patti Smith- coupled with his first attempts at playing the guitar (inspired primarily by Ron Asheton's guitar sound on The Stooges and Funhouse). Thurston is above all a fan and his fandom, his love of bands and music and the associated culture- records, cassettes, posters, flyers, magazines, books, gigs- drips off every page. He loves experimental artists and noise, genuinely thrilled by artiness and one- off gigs that many people leave early from. 

His depiction of New York is also vividly drawn. Thurston moves there in 1978, looking to become part of the scene he's been tiptoeing into as an out of town punter. Pre- gentrification it was possible to rent an apartment in Lower Manhattan for less than $100 a month. Thurston notes the changes in the mid- 80s as bands, poets and artists and the various ethnic minority groups who live down there begin to get priced out by the arrival of people with money. For a while Thurston lives in a crime ridden but exciting post- punk playground where you had to watch your step- don't go out to buy cigarettes at 3 am he notes- but also where you could see Patti Smith and Ramones play at CBGBs and The Dead Boys at Max's Kansas City, the bands mere inches away from the crowd, where the fledgling New York noise of James Chance and Liquid Liquid rubbed shoulders with really obscure art- funk and punk rock. 

The early 80s scene which he gradually becomes a part of, first via his role as guitarist in The Coachmen and then by the beginnings of Sonic Youth (and playing as part of Glenn Branca's guitar orchestra), is filled with a vibrancy and energy and partly populated by people who become legendary in years to come- Madonna, Keith Haring, Jean- Michel Basquiat and The Beastie Boys are all doing their things in early 80s/ mid 80s Manhattan and in this creative maelstrom Thurston gives birth to Sonic Youth, meeting Kim Gordon and enrolling Lee Ranaldo. They go through several drummers before Steve Shelley takes up the drum seat permanently. 

Thurston's recall of these years, the details of gigs and recording studios, trips out of New York to play gigs elsewhere, several people crammed into vans with all their gear and no money, the connections made with similar bands doing similar things in other cities- Minutemen, Bad Brains, Black Flag- is incredible. He outlines Sonic Youth's artistic growth Sonic Youth as they hone their sound, the alternate tunings, with drumsticks and screwdrivers jammed into guitar necks, writing songs and lyrics, untutored and expressive, each album a step on from the previous one-  1986's Evol and 1987's Sister being breakthrough records and then the mighty Daydream Nation in 1988, putting the band on a level with the groups he moved to NY to see play. Sonic Youth's move to a major label and the 1991 tour with Nirvana brings the group to European festivals and big crowds and his friendship with Nirvana, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love is central to several chapters. Kurt's death too. 

There's warts and all as well as the rush of being in a band on the rise- his own (sometimes bratty) behaviour and the tensions between bandmates and crew jammed together in confined quarters is alluded to if not detailed. There's also the whole Kim Gordon situation- Thurston and Kim split in 2013 after a 27 marriage and even longer time as bandmates. In 2013 Kim published her own book, Girl In A Band, a book that opens with Thurston and his betrayal and makes their relationship central to her view of things. Thurston's book deals with the split, his relationship with Eva Prinz that led to it, and the end of the band, right at the end of the book- literally a few paragraphs in the last chapter. It's too personal to speak about in public is his defence. The end of the marriage ended the band and it ends the book too. 

I enjoyed Sonic Life- Thurston writes well and he really brings 80s New York art rock scene, the downtown hip hop/ art- world crossover and Sonic Youth's career to life, and (sign of a good book) it sent me scurrying back to their records and his endless enthusiasm for music, bands and records is genuine and palpable. But one of the things that struck me about Sonic Life is that it's really not a book about the people in Thurston's life. Kim gets a part and their daughter Coco does towards the end, his teenage friendship with Harold too, but I don't feel like I came away knowing anything about what Lee Ranaldo or Steve Shelley were actually like as people despite Thurston spending decades playing with them. Really, Sonic Life is about music and its attendant culture and its transformative effect on Thurston- other people's music, via gigs and records and shared stages, and Sonic Youth's music, music made by a fan of music. 

Kotton Krown is from 1987's Sister, the album where they married their experimental art- noise to tunes and really nailed how to write affecting leftfield, post- punk, where they transcend their influences. The lyrics on Sister are personal but oblique, sung by Thurson and Kim intuitively. Someone called it 'the last great album of the Reagan era' which rings true. Distorted guitars as a response to trickle down economics. 

Kotton Krown

A year later Daydream Nation distilled the Sonic Youth sound and songwriting into one of the best albums of the 1980s. It's an exhilarating blast of energy and electricity, it led them to a major label and Goo and Dirty and giant festival stages but remains at heart an album made by kids with scruffy pumps and ripped jeans. 

Hey Joni

Monday's Long Song

Back in the late 90s and early 00s there was a lot of Americana/ singer- songwriter music going on and I did my fair share of it- Howe Gelb, Giant Sand, Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico, Smog, Ryan Adams (now disgraced and to be fair I got out early with him), Iron And Wine... I'm sure there are more I've forgotten about. As a result I don't often feel like I need to dip my toes back into the sandy desert of Americana/ Alt- Country but occasionally a song or an album comes along that catches my ear. 

Recently it was Bill Callahan, formerly recording as Smog, who a few weeks ago released a new album- My Days Of 58. Bill is approaching 60 and the songs on this album were all written during the year he was 58. I'm 56 in a couple of weeks so can relate to the feeling of turning 60 being a big deal. Bill Callahan is wry, deadpan, at times bleakly funny and honest in his lyrics. This song came to me via the algorithm and I clicked play without expecting to be surprised too much...

Why Do Men Sing is very familiar- Bill's voice is especially familiar, homely and warm- and the acoustic guitars are close up and woody. The song unfolds over seven minutes, growing into something sprawling and veering on uncontrolled with high pitched backing vocals bleeding in, an electric guitar and piano adding to the sound, and Bill asking questions, meditating on middle age and masculinity and why men sing. Why do men sing? What is this place that you took me too? 

Horns join in and Bill impersonates Lou Reed as a response to his question- 'let it ride let it ride'. I don't know if we find a definitive answer to the question but it becomes less of a problem as the song plays, the singing of the song instead becoming an answer in itself. 

Back in April 2000- and doesn't that seem a long time ago?- Bill was still recording as Smog and he released Dongs Of Sevotion, an album title that still takes some beating. The second song on it was this...

Dress Sexy At My Funeral

Bill was twenty six years younger then (weren't we all), in his early thirties with decades ahead of him. His electric guitar has a similar Lou Reed tone and his voice is recognisably the same, a little softer perhaps, less worn. He tells his wife/ future widow to dress sexy at his funeral, to wear her blouse 'undone to here' and skirt cut 'up to here', to wink at the minister and to regale the mourners at the wake with tales of their sexual exploits- doing it on the beach and on the railroad tracks. A younger man's meditation on life and death and memory. In 2013 Bill was interviewed about the subject of death in his songs and he replied that he tried to avoid it but that it was ultimately 'the big joke at the end of existence'. Maybe that's why men (and women) sing. 

Fifty Minutes Of John Martyn

 I was putting together this mix of John Martyn songs earlier this week, something I'd decided would start with Small Hours and finish with the Talvin Singh mix of Something's Better, when I saw a news article reporting that Beverley Martyn had died aged 79. Beverley was surrounded by music and musicans from a young age, was tuaght guitar by Bert Jansch, played in bands, wrote songs with Nick Drake, Levon Helm, Loudon Wainwright III and Wilco Johnson, went out with a young Paul Simon, released a solo album in 2014 and in the 70s married John Martyn. They had two children and performed together but she acknowledged it put an end to her career at the time. John's vices- drink and drugs- led to Beverley getting out of the marriage eventually, with accusations of John's domestic abuse part of the reason for the break up. 

This song, John The Baptist, was on Beverley and John's 1970 album Stormbringer! RIP Beverley Martyn

John The Baptist (Unreleased Version)

John Martyn's music has crept up on me in recent years. Drew from Across The Kitchen Table, a long gone and much missed blog, was a big fan and his posting of John's songs over a period of several years in the 2010s got me interested and I've subsequently picked up albums as I've found them- Solid Air and One World were my starting points and just last week at a record stall I found a copy of Grace And Danger, the 1980 album made during the period John and Beverley were getting divorced. John had to pressure Island records boss Chris Blackwell into releasing it- Blackwell said it was too depressing but Martyn insisted, calling it catharsis as well as the most directly autobiographical record he'd made. 

John's music began steeped in blues and folk and then took in a variety of influences- jazz, blues, reggae, and his sound and use of alternate tunings, echo and delay pedals pushed some of his songs into the ambient and Balearic worlds. Vini Reilly has said Martyn's guitar playing was a big influence. In the 90s John's music took in trip hop among other sounds. He died in 2009, his death caused by life long abuse of drink and drugs.  

John Martyn was by all accounts a difficult man, trouble with a big T. Drink, drugs, unpleasant behaviour, accusations of domestic abuse. It's difficult sometimes to separate the artist and the music. Drew (mentioned above) has stories of as a younger man being a barman in a pub that became Martyn's local for a period and having to kick him out on the landlord's orders, a man whose music he loved conflicting with the person presenting in front of him. 

A folk and blues background, pioneering and experimental guitar playing, 80s sheen and ambient production, (One World was famously recorded outdoors and a flock of geese made it onto the album's final song, Small Hours, found sounds stitched into the music)- it's all here in the mix below, fifty minutes that only really gives a small glimpse into the man's music. 

Fifty Minutes Of John Martyn

• Small Hours
• All For The Love Of You
• Anna
• May You Never
• Solid Air
• Johnny Too Bad (Alternate Take 2)
• Over The Rainbow
• Sunshine's Better (Talvin Singh Mix)

Small Hours is the last song on 1977's One World, eight and a half minutes of ambient- folk, Martyn's Echoplex guitar, the subtle Moog playing of Stevie Winwood, some percussion and the audible sound of geese on a lake in the early hours of the morning. Ralph McTell called it a 'nighttime hymn'. If nothing else of his back catalogue survived, this song on its own would be enough. 

All For The Love Of You is a One World outtake, recorded at home in November 1976 but not released until a 2008 box set. Acoustic guitar and voice, beautifully played and sung, and ending with the sound of snoring. 

Anna is from 1978, a song recorded for an Australian film called In Search Of Anna and played live around that late 70s and early 80s, but only released (I think) as an Australian single. It's got a fuller, band sound, drums and electric guitars, a heady brew. 

May You Never and Solid Air are both from his much loved, best known album Solid Air, released in 1973. The title track was written for Nick Drake, a friend to both John and Beverley, who died the year after the album's release. Danny Thompson's bass playing is a treat, rich and woody and John's guitar playing and singing are superb, a real late night record. May You Never is his best known song, written in his early 20s but sounding like the work of someone much older and experienced, making use of the dropped D tuning. 

Johnny Too Bad is from Grace And Danger, a cover of a 1971 reggae song by The Slickers that made its way onto the soundtrack of The Harder They Come. This take came out on the deluxe CD edition of the album. John's guitar playing is choppy, reggae distorted by guitar FX pedals. 

Over The Rainbow was 1984 single and on that year's Sapphire album, recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas with some help from Robert Palmer and an Anton Corbijn sleeve photograph. It's a cover of the famous Wizard Of Oz song, written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg- I can never decide if I like it or not, the 80s synths, drums and keys sometimes too syrupy, too smooth but I included it here because occasionally it hits the spot for me. Sapphire's considered to be something of a lost classic after a couple of more mainstream ones. 

The Talvin Singh remixes of Sunshine's Better came out in 1996, a thirteen minute excursion into downtempo/ ambient/ Balearica and officially released on the Cafe Del Mar series (Volume IV). It's a perfect example of the art of the remix, testament to Talvin Singh's talent (and tabla playing), and one of Jose Padilla's sunset records. A blissed out, after hours psychedelic ambient classic. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Short circuit (if eating peas improves virility, shovel them into your pants). 

I responded to this fairly instantly and without much lateral thinking going on- Fred Wesley and The JBs and their 1973 single More Peas, and Secret Circuit's Jungle Bones from 2012, two dance tracks forty years apart. There was more going on in the comments box. Lizarus suggested musical nonsense and the 'wilful horny chaos' of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Keith offered The Spitting  Song, Ernie went for Groin Strain and Keith Hudson,  Rol opted for Goober And The Peas and Chris went with Natural Life's Natural Life. All of which led me back to I, Ludicrous and their Preposterous Tales. 

This week's card says this- Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do.

It made me think of a famous John F. Kennedy speech from 1961, ''We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." 

Maybe it was the recent Artemis space mission, maybe it's because I've recently taught a lesson on the space race and The Cold War, maybe its just an oblique connection. What Kennedy was saying is the opposite of Eno and Schmidt's advice but I guess the point of the Oblique Strategies is you go where you with it, you follow the suggestion. In this case it took me here- Steinski and Mass Media in 1986. 

The Motorcade Sped On

More details just arrived... Mrs Kennedy jumped up, she called 'oh no'... The world is very different now... The energy, the faith, the devotion... Oswald has been shot!... The motorcade sped on...

From there it was a short hop to The Wedding Present in 1989...

Kennedy

Have you lost your love of life? Too much apple pie. 

From that to this, a Lou Reed song from his 1982 album The Blue Mask. I'm not sure this counts among Lou's best work. Last year I did an irregular series where I worked my way through his solo back catalogue and found a lot to enjoy in the 1970s but the 80s was slim pickings until New York in 1989. This isn't the best song on The Blue Mask but it's not the worst either. 

The Day John Kennedy Died

Feel free to make your own suggestions and responses in the comment box. Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do...

Japanese Boredom

The Bagging Area- 27 Leggies game of Japanese psyche blog tennis has had a pause since Ernie posted Kikagaku Moyo two weeks ago (here) but fear not, I'm knocking the ball back over the net and into Ernie's half of the court today with The Boredoms.

Boredoms are psyche- they're also experimental punk, jazz, noise (Japanoise if you please), space rock, ambient and probably stray into other areas too. From Osaka, Boredoms formed in 1986, and are named after the legendary Buzzcocks single that was one of UK punk's origin stories. Over the years sixteen members, maybe more, have passed through the ranks of Boredoms with Yamantaka Eye at the core. 

Their status and renown outside Japan was boosted by Eye's friendship with Thurston Moore, forged when Sonic Youth toured Japan in 1989, and then further in 1994 when were invited to play at Lollapalooza. The band had just released Chocolate Synthesiser in the USA and they reached thousands of young Americans who were not necessarily well acquainted with experimental Japanese noise psyche rock. Recent incarnations of Boredoms in the 2010s saw them play gigs with eleven drummers and a hundred cymbal players and, as at All Tomorrow's Parties, fourteen guitarists and six drummers and motion sensor activated ambient soundscapes. More power to Boredoms.

Free is a cover of a song by Phish, the American prog/ psyche/ jazz fusion band- wait come back- from a double CD compilation from 2001 called Sharin' In The Groove which had covers by The Wailers, Tom Tom Club, Preston School Of Industry and Arlo Guthrie among the line up. On Free Boredoms are in ambient/ psychedelic/ spaced out mode with distant, far out vocals. Think The Flaming Lips on a blissed out trip from Osaka. 

Free (End Of Session Version)

Arpeggiator

I saw this clip recently on social media and was transfixed- three and half minutes of life affirming punk rock from August 1993, the mighty Washington DC band Fugazi. They were performing at The Concert For Justice on the thirtieth anniversary of Martin Luther King's March On Washington in the summer of 1963, an event attended by a racially mixed crowd of quarter of a million that showed the strength of feeling about civil rights and the desire for change. The march added to the pressure on President John F. Kennedy to enact civil rights legislation to improve the lives of the USA's African- American people. Three decades later Fugazi were part of a celebration of this, marking it in their own way with a style of music pretty much unheard of in 1963. 

Fugazi were a post- hardcore band, twin guitars, bass and drums, led by Ian MacKaye (who recently celebrated his 66th birthday, which probably why the clip was shared). Fugazi had a seething contempt for the music industry, were righteously independent and DIY and, as this clip shows, a fucking amazing live band... if you can't get some joy from watching this song, the band slamming their way through Brendan #1, then maybe there's no hope. The thumping drums, the tight rumbling bass and the interplay between MacKaye and Guy Piciotto's guitars, everyone utterly locked in and giving it their all in broad daylight and ending together on a perfectly precision timed stop- it's all thrilling. 

They followed that with Turnover, more and more of the crowd getting drawn in, the front rows bouncing up and down.

And then this one, Facet Squared, where they are in full flow. There's a girl in a purple vest top on the opposite side of the stage to the camera lost in her own world, dancing to Fugazi's fearsome racket. 

There are further songs and further clips from the gig on YouTube, well worth watching even if you don't think you're a fan of US hardcore. In 1998 I saw Fugazi at Manchester University, touring to promote their album End Hits. They were sensational and were playing Arpeggiator as we arrived, slightly late. Arpeggiator sounds like Neu! playing punk rock- life affirming, electrifying rock 'n' roll. 

Grown Up Fun

Matt Gunn has featured here before, his various solo works taking in chuggy cosmische, dubbed out shoegaze, psyche rock and psychedelia. Always interesting, always groovy, always tuneful. Matt has got a new EP out under the name Freedom For Adults, the result of him catching up with an old friend from a band they were both in three decades ago, meeting at the end of 2025 and recording some new material. His friend, Ram Orion, was on temporary respite from his adopted country. They met in Todmorden, a place where the stars align and the channels cross, and then again in the Malvern Hills and then went back to Windsor where they wrote and recorded four songs- Freedom For An Adult, Thanks For The Offer, Zonkey Or Zorse and Your Tomorrow.

The first of those, Freedom For An Adult, is a slippery funky number with echoes of Talking Heads (the big, post- Eno Talking Heads), chanted vocals and synth bass with sinuous guitar lines. Thanks For The Offer comes in with cowbell and then buzzsaw guitars over dance beats, sounding like an indie- dance band crossing over on an early 90s Top Of The Pops, wide eyed and baggy trousered. Zonkey Or Zorse is slower with a cowboy bounce, woodblock and a loping gait, and vocals that sound like they've been beamed in from one of the 80s/ early 90s Creation band. Your Tomorrow is psychedelic indie- pop, infused with the spirit of possibility that the acid house revolution offered and the guitar band/ sampling sound pioneered by B.A.D. among others. The EP, Freedom For Adults OK! finishes with an Airsine remix of Thanks For The Offer that goes all 2020s ALFOS mirrorball chug. 

You can find Freedom For Adults OK! at Electric Wardrobe Records Bandcamp. There's loads of more Matt Gunn recordings, EPs singles, remixes and albums at Bandcamp. 

Three years ago Matt released an album called Mostly Fiction which included Learning Thru Loops, a stunning piece of electronic music that sets sail for the cosmos, and via the magic of bleeps and synths, piano and arpeggios and drum machines, arrives far away but bang on time.