Monday, October 31, 2005

I love you—What’s your name?

Yeah, I’m having another epiphanic moment about a band adore: Sonic Youth. Listening to Dirty right now, the first CD of the Deluxe 2-disc edition, wishing I’d brought the second disc for the rehearsal recording of "Wish Fulfillment". The irony.

A while back, I warbled on about the ecstatic degree to which all sounds Kristin Hersh affect me from the inside through to the outside. Sonic Youth is different. The twine is less emotional and seems to access a part of me I'm tuned more distantly to. Dirty was the first album I bought. Then I pedaled backward to buy the earlies and then forward to march in time to new releases as they came.

A high school boyfriend, the bad-boy skater that my whole family took grim issue with (so he was socially awkward, deviant and loved Nazi décor…) introduced me to Sonic Youth, and his older brother borrowed my tape so he could hear them before seeing them in Champaign, IL. I’m not sure why I didn’t go to that show too, since I provided the tunes. Perhaps I was broke or working hard at the salt mines that night.

Which reminds me of seeing a show with this older brother when I was dating a different skater—antithetically, a true and congenial person—who happened to be his friend. They drove down to where I was going to college—he, the congenial skater boyfriend and a small crew of people I knew on the outskirts of some loose-knit high school dress. Turned out he’d been very sick the week before, and that very day had gone to the doctor to get himself checked out. When the doctor said, we need to do a spinal tap, he told the doctor he had plans that night and then drove, high with fever.

When he and the gang picked me up, one of my favorite albums of all time was playing in the car: Kristin Hersh’s Hips and Makers. We were going to see Tori Amos. For the record, I like her second and third albums ok; after that, ehh, and I’m not one of those people who only likes early stuff. As a person, she just annoys the piss out of me—we had a falling out and will no longer be doing each other’s laundry or sharing Chapstick—which trickles thickly, and her later music simply does not appeal to me. Perhaps it was I who changed.

So, Sonic Youth. This band doesn’t affect me from the inside out on a personal level like Kristin Hersh does, but there’s something in their noises that reverberates keenly with something in my brain. Even when it’s purely dissonance. Plus, Kim Gordon’s voice is sexy even when she’s hollering. Which apparently is conducive to pounding a paper out of my head. And the lyrics, even when I think I haven’t discerned them (my hearing is quirky), stick to my brain.

I haven’t put much effort into connecting myself to Sonic Youth, not as with Kristin Hersh—play her music daily, have put one of her songs on about every mix I’ve ever made, go to as many of her shows as possible. While I’ve bought a fair number of Sonic Youth albums—Evol, Sister, Daydream Nation, Goo, Dirty I know the best (I'm missing a couple of early earlies) but even the newer ones which I haven’t listened to as much stick, I’ve only seen them once and only listen to them here and there. Each time I hear any of it, though, it casts a spell: I seep into a zone and truck on, bound in stellar vigorous focus.

Sonic Youth, my own neurofeedback machine.

While I wrote papers during college, I listened to Sonic Youth albums on repeat. It didn’t matter which one. Sometimes I filled my 5-disc changer and let them all play through. The music somehow geared my brain perfectly for the sort of intellectual mapping and creative upheaval it took for me to construct a paper. Memories of pages of drafts fanning across my bedroom, behind my computer chair (old-ass kitchen chair), hang strong with a soundtrack in the attic.

(Seven) I hear this in my sleep. One little word uttered between songs.

I love you I love you I love you What’s your name? I bet this happens a lot to people who lose focus on the heart of things displaced by a shiny surface.

3 Comments:

Blogger {illyria} said...

i got like that with jann arden once. until my brother dumped candy on my head to stop me.

8:36 AM  
Blogger Sara said...

hi transience--Michael Jackson is gone from this flashy picture. it made me laugh that your brother dumped candy on your head to stop the madness. i hope it wasn't gigantic jawbreakers. then i would retract my laughter and pray.

finnegan--do tell.

2:44 PM  
Blogger cupcake said...

A report from Last Days - Kim Gordon is in it. Other than that I say "no" to the film. Will discuss in greater detail at a later time.

Dirty was also my first. I fell in love.

10:09 PM  

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