Sonic Youth, Rarities 2

 

 

 

A lifetime ago when I was in grad school pursuing a degree in German studies, I had a conversation with an older friend (I was in my late 20s and he was pushing 40…this was the late 90s) and we started talking about Sonic Youth. He responded by saying “I’m too old to listen to them” (he was a big Zappa fan and had his musical tastes shaped by the 1970s). I pointed out that the members of Sonic Youth were older than he was by this point, to which he responded “well, you know what I mean.” And, indeed, I did. For a good part of their existence, Sonic Youth was a band that seemed to both shape and embody a version of whatever was the avant-garde in American indie rock. The out sound of the already peripheral sound.

While by indie rock I do mean “rock” music released on independent labels, by independent labels, however, I don’t just mean the catch-all phrase for whatever is not a “major” label (whatever that means today). Rather, I mean a certain aesthetic born in 1980s America, heavily influenced by the Do It Yourself independent label aesthetic of 1970s British punk. Also, given SY’s connection to the American art scene, there’s also the influence of the guerrilla art tactics of the downtown avant-garde: photocopied sleeves with manifestos, poorly pressed 7” sourced from crowd tapes, songs recorded directly to cassette tape and mailed out directly to buyers. There’s a legitimate question to what extent the independent record scene of the 1980s was supposed to offer permanence: often it seemed as if these independent records would eventually end up lost artifacts to rediscover, just as independent reissue labels were rediscovering lost garage rock and soul singles in the 1980s.

Which made the major label sweep of the Indies in the late 80s and early 90s so odd and yet so predictable. Sonic Youth hold an important place in this move: they signed with David Geffen’s DGC label in 1990 and immediately had an “alternative” hit with “Kool Thing.” From there they would be able to chart whatever course they wished on the label, while also enjoying the money behind the big label’s promotion. They made some of their best records this way, and this is by no means a criticism of the band they became once they signed to DGC. They also plugged a lot of that label money back into small independent labels that released their more experimental music as well as the important music of others.

And they did retain some of the independent aesthetic developed throughout the 1980s: the artwork on their DGC albums often mimicked the cut, paste and photocopy aesthetic of their earlier releases. But the one promise of major label backing that Sonic Youth couldn’t distance themselves from was permanence. DGC not only released new music but eventually reissued all of their older records that had been released on various independent, poorly distributed labels. In the early 2000s, DGC did one better by released Deluxe editions of Daydream Nation, Goo and Dirty. No guarantee that these editions will always be with us, but if you purchased them on vinyl you understand how much space and expense they consume.

Which makes the appearance of Rarities 2 such a delight. With the exception of two tracks released in the 2000s on CD compilations, all of the tracks come from 7” singles from 1983-1989. This is Sonic Youth as I remember them in high school when I accidentally tuned into a performance/documentary on PBS late one night. This is the Sonic Youth I remember showing up on random split 7”s found at Newbury Comics in Boston. This is the Sonic Youth of the compilation cassette my friend Dave made me in 11th grade. As big as they were to me then, they also seemed like a band that might just disappear one day. My love of them is definitely connected in my mind to my love of R.E.M., but even then I knew that R.E.M. would be around. Sonic Youth, Evol,  Sister, Daydream Nation (which was poorly distributed, originally, thus making the then continued existence of this record in doubt)…I wasn’t certain people would remember them.

It’s nice to be reminded of this period in the band’s history. I love the version of “Kill Yr. Idols” on here, now titled “I Killed Christgau With My Big Fucking Dick” from a 1985 Forced-Exposure 7”. I strongly dislike Christgau, so this petulant little dig at him (while also recalling Lou Reed’s spat with Christgau on Take No Prisoners) made me smile. It’s backed by an intense, raw version of “Digging the Nature Scene” where Kim Gordon’s vocals come out of the speakers to throttle the living shit out of you. The version of “Starpower” recorded in Louisiana and taken from a German bootleg 7” demonstrates their long-standing commitment to playing with jazz musicians, and features an uncredited Mike Watt on bass.

The whole thing continues in this way with poorly to ok recorded live performances that demonstrate how, even through the grime of cassette recordings, you can hear why they were one of the best live bands of their time. The live version of “Teenage Riot” on the German bootleg is especially evidence of this. And, honestly, I kind of bought this on a whim during one of the Bandcamp Fridays and I’ve been surprised that it’s one of the things from those Fridays I listen to the most. There’s something about the power, vibrancy and invitation to violence (though different than a similar band from the time, Swans) of these live recordings that seem at odds (or maybe perfectly representative of) the moment we’re in. As I sit trapped in my house due to COVID and smoke, I feel the rev of a silver rocket to take me out of here that I can’t stop. And there’s something about the way a man and a woman played together in this band together, regardless of whatever happened to the musicians after, that still sounds potentially revolutionary in a moment when we can rethink so many power dynamics.

Finally, these tracks also don’t sound like a band that was scoring the promise of permanence from a major label. They sound like a band that was happy offering up these howling missives on 7” for the world to discover. They have tried to carry this aesthetic on to the present day—just look at all the small label stuff all of them still release on various formats—but there is something about the availability and occasional ubiquity of the music they released on DGC that will always undermine that aesthetic. But it is exciting to see this stuff compiled as a bunch of files on Bandcamp, decontextualized with minimal liner notes. It’s not available on other streaming services so, if Bandcamp doesn’t work out, and the band doesn’t make it available on other formats, then its guarantee of permanence seems as precarious as the original 7” themselves. And the dark murk with flashes of rough, diamond brilliance will once again sink into the sea of Sonic Youth history.