Sunday: A Review of Partial Sonic Youth Albums and Anthems

I have my eyes closed, a makeshift pipe stuck in-between my fingers. Inside my headphones the slow burning Wild Flower Soul churns out melodic passages and it’s like listening to… life.

TV Shit and Silver Session for Jason Knuth, these EPs jolted me back into reality. It wasn’t a rude shock, but the feedback did indeed do its job. Walls of sound of mind numbing magnitude as I slowly close my eyes again and take a long drag on the tinfoil. As the drum machine blares in the background, guitars pummeling the amps and their owners and the ears of listeners, I don’t even notice that the world held its breath and stopped spinning.

I almost forgot to breathe as well.

Pink Steam rises and falls covering our extended jams with clouds and headless heroes, we gather protection. And just like Washing Machine sending us to punk 2.0 oblivion and salvation, Rather Ripped crudely crafted pop records and songs from stone to gems to dust and back to stone. The same road traveled down to a near by Murray Street and not missing a step in Sonic Nurse.

Hits of Sunshine! For Allen Ginsberg!

The all time favorite was always been Daydream Nation, where a generation dreams up their own nation; it has parades of guitar strings and frets wedged with sticks and bones and it ran non-stop through blood, sweat, and knob tweaks. Or slides. Or majesty. But with the risk of blaspheming, The Diamond Sea makes up the bulk of everything, culmination ad infinitum – a daydreaming nation or otherwise. Blasphemer!

Confusion is Sex? Kill Yr Idols? EVOL? Nothing can touch early Orson Welles. And by god, Death to Our Friends. They sound like church bells. Pissed off church bells wielding chainsaws and hand grenades. Kiss mama g’bye and off to war, aren’t we all too lucky eh Johnny? And by the time Goo creeps in, we sign out, maybe protest a little and cry sellout. Doesn’t matter. The amazing looks and sounds better in these parts anyway.

Wow, erratic behavior. Red, red, green, green, red, red, red, green.

A Thousand Leaves is a worthy opponent for the Washing Machine. And a fight to the death would be match of the musical decade. Being more cohesive helps the surgeons sniff out the pinko cancers. But being a crude predecessor does have its perks. And like natural life progressions go, we’ll talk to NYC Ghosts and Flowers for the right pep talk.

Don’t get me started about the genius of a twenty five minute Diamond Sea or Kim vomiting through noisy sins in The Ineffable Me. Don’t fucking push me.

02.24.08