TALES FROM DEATH VALLEY
New York’s misfit rockers SONIC YOUTH tell Peter L. Noble, ‘We’re an American band!’ (Peter took the photos too)
Just like truckloads upon thousands of independent American bands (with great names like Jody Foster’s Army, Rat At Rat R, Salem ’66, Scratch Acid and Tar Babies to name a few), Sonic Youth, who’ve been slugging it out for nearly four years now, don’t exactly fit into the well-oiled machinery of big-time industry rock. Though they’ve been carelessly ignored by New York’s Village Voice rock critic guru Robert Christgau, the Sonics have almost impossibly won over an entirely new audience throughout North America and Europe due to the feverish support from fanzines and the alternative rock/arts press.
With their fourth 12-inch vinyl endeavour, "Bad Moon Rising", and a subsequent single with Lydia Lunch," Death Valley 69", released on the Blast First label (via the Cartel), this modest and very funny four piece premiered songs from the new LP when they headlined the ICA Rock Week.
Female bassist Kim Gordon admits, "I don’t think anyone in Sonic Youth would want to be in this business purely to become rich and famous." With the Sonics, influences aren’t flaunted nor are they snidely ignored. The tail-end of "Society Is A Hole", a song from the "Moon Rising" LP, features an excerpt from Iggy and The Stooges’ "Not Right", probably rock’s first archetype of garbage metal mayhem at its most crucial.
"It’s music we love to listen to and loved listening to when we were growing up," admits tall, lanky blonde guitarist Thurston Moore. "We’re also influenced by some of our contemporaries, like Sacahrine Trust. It’s not just the Velvet Underground. Time is not the limiting factor."
And yet, the general consensus in the Sonics’ camp is the prevailing lack of pride in New York’s music scene. Are Sonic Youth a threat to the numbing video monstrosity known as MTV or to what they refer to as "the politics of playing the trendy clubs like the Danceteria and the Peppermint Lounge"? Could they, in fact, be the bastard in Christgau’s own backyard?
"We never attempted to make a connection with the Voice," explains Kim. "Basically, part of the problem is that Christgau had difficulty with the No Wave thing several years ago. He was beaten up by James Chance at one of the gigs. As a result, he refuses to review anything slightly associated with No Wave, like Glenn Branca or Lydia Lunch."
Guitarist Lee Renaldo used to play with Glenn Branca. He explains: "We’re interested in the possibilities for sound-making output from the guitar, bass and drums in ways that haven’t been fully explored as we’d like to feel they’ve been. We’re interested in textural sounds and the blendings of instruments in ways that don’t fit into the standard lead and rhythm guitars and rhythm section backing it up."
"The music’s got the emotion, the sentiment and the lyrical thinking of rock music. We’re a rock band and we’re proud of it. We’re not an art, noise or an extreme band. We just do what we do."
Many of the songs are built around the relationship between the players, the instruments and the equipment, particularly the amplifier. The guitars are cheap, rundown and ratty. Sometimes the amplifier is effectively manipulated as an integral part of the song structure. Feedback never sounded so inviting.
"Our idea is that the instrument is not the guitar, as much as it’s the chain," says Lee. "It’s the guitar, the chord and the amp with the electricity pummelling through. The instrument doesn’t end where the guitar meets the wire. It starts where the sound comes out of the speaker. We like to imagine that we play our amplifiers. It’s not uncommon in rock. Hendrix was one of the only guitarists aware of it."
Serious and straight-faced, the Sonics will stare you in the eye and insist they’re just as typically American as Springsteen or even Prince.
"As far as the cultural thing goes," offers Lee, "we’re Americans and it’s almost as if we’ve just discovered it. From touring Europe over the last few years, we’ve found out how even more American we are just by noticing the cultural differences. It’s not that we’re into being nationalistic flagwavers."
A new song on the B-side of "Death Valley", entitled "Satan Is Boring", is indicative of the Sonics coming to grips with the freaked-out side of mid-America’s teenage devil worship set.
Thurston: "It’s about these teenagers who listen to Ozzie Osbourne and AC/DC. These groups adhere to this comic book, heavy metal, Satanism kind of thing. There were these kids in Long Island doing Satanic rituals under the influence of these trash American drugs. They actually sacrificed and killed a bunch of their friends.
"Eventually they were caught. You see these kids on the six o’clock news and some of ‘em look like your kid brother being led into the police station in this suburban town wearing Ozzie tee-shirts, smiling."
"Death Valley 69", originally conceived as a song title, with lyrics eventually written by Lydia Lunch, was a direct result of the group passing around copies of "Helter Skelter", "The Family" and Roman Polanksi’s autobiography. Kim, born and raised in the heart of LA, still recalls the waves of fear during the height of the Manson outrages.
"My brother had a girlfriend who was killed by the Manson family. Today there are a lot of people running around who look like him and even have Christ complexes. We became pre-occupied with that period in history. It was the end of this Utopian ideal. Meanwhile, the Utopian idea of suburbia lives on. ‘Death Valley’ is our re-interpretation of history as opposed to the media’s projection of it."
Thurston and Kim sported Madonna and Prince tee-shirts during their ICA performance. Apparently, when questioned about the threads, the foursome raised their arms in unison, each revealing official Madonna merchandising bracelets, multi-coloured and very plastic.
"We really dig Madonna, Prince, Cyndi Lauper and Bruce," confides Thurston. "We equate it as heavy as Husker Du. It’s all the same to us. It’s all a cartoon."
"We were bitching to someone the other day that we liked the idea of seeing this picture of Psychic TV wearing this Manson tee-shirt. Why not? I mean, life’s one big joke and we’re the punchline."
Reproduced from Melody Maker 11th May 1985.