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Sonic Life: A Memoir
From the founding member of Sonic Youth, a passionate memoir tracing the author's life and art—from his teen years as a music obsessive in small-town Connecticut, to the formation of his legendary rock group, to thirty years of creation, experimentation, and wonder
"Downtown scientists rejoice! For Thurston Moore has unearthed the missing links, the sacred texts, the forgotten stories, and the secret maps of the lost golden age. This is history—scuffed, slightly bent, plenty noisy, and indispensable." —Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Underground Railroad and Harlem Shuffle
Thurston Moore moved to Manhattan’s East Village in 1978 with a yearning for music. He wanted to be immersed in downtown New York’s sights and sounds—the feral energy of its nightclubs, the angular roar of its bands, the magnetic personalities within its orbit. But more than anything, he wanted to make music—to create indelible sounds that would move, provoke, and inspire.
His dream came to life in 1981 with the formation of Sonic Youth, a band Moore cofounded with Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo. Sonic Youth became a fixture in New York’s burgeoning No Wave scene—an avant-garde collision of art and sound, poetry and punk. The band would evolve from critical darlings to commercial heavyweights, headlining festivals around the globe while helping introduce listeners to such artists as Nirvana, Hole, and Pavement, and playing alongside such icons as Neil Young and Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible.
In the spirit of Just Kids, Sonic Life offers a window into the trajectory of a celebrated artist and a tribute to an era of explosive creativity. It presents a firsthand account of New York in a defining cultural moment, a history of alternative rock as it was birthed and came to dominate airwaves, and a love letter to music, whatever the form. This is a story for anyone who has ever felt touched by sound—who knows the way the right song at the right moment can change the course of a life.
"Downtown scientists rejoice! For Thurston Moore has unearthed the missing links, the sacred texts, the forgotten stories, and the secret maps of the lost golden age. This is history—scuffed, slightly bent, plenty noisy, and indispensable." —Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Underground Railroad and Harlem Shuffle
Thurston Moore moved to Manhattan’s East Village in 1978 with a yearning for music. He wanted to be immersed in downtown New York’s sights and sounds—the feral energy of its nightclubs, the angular roar of its bands, the magnetic personalities within its orbit. But more than anything, he wanted to make music—to create indelible sounds that would move, provoke, and inspire.
His dream came to life in 1981 with the formation of Sonic Youth, a band Moore cofounded with Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo. Sonic Youth became a fixture in New York’s burgeoning No Wave scene—an avant-garde collision of art and sound, poetry and punk. The band would evolve from critical darlings to commercial heavyweights, headlining festivals around the globe while helping introduce listeners to such artists as Nirvana, Hole, and Pavement, and playing alongside such icons as Neil Young and Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible.
In the spirit of Just Kids, Sonic Life offers a window into the trajectory of a celebrated artist and a tribute to an era of explosive creativity. It presents a firsthand account of New York in a defining cultural moment, a history of alternative rock as it was birthed and came to dominate airwaves, and a love letter to music, whatever the form. This is a story for anyone who has ever felt touched by sound—who knows the way the right song at the right moment can change the course of a life.
471 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 24, 2023
About the author
Thurston Moore
69 books83 followersThurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running a small record label.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 250 reviews
November 11, 2023
2.5
I have a million thoughts about this; apologies if I don't articulate them well.
If anyone is the intended audience for this book, it's me. I grew up adoring Sonic Youth. Yeah, I'm on the younger side for that - came of age during the DGC years. But probably no band has warped the way I listen to music more than Sonic Youth. In the same way the Simpsons influenced my sense of humor (and how I view the world)... well, SY would be the aural equivalent of that.
Aesthetically, so much of what I value was influenced by SY. The idea of finding a nearly zen stillness and peace in a swirling chaos of noise; the inexplicable joy I find in that chaos, in discovering a moment or a thing that cannot be easily defined or categorized, of always looking for and occasionally discovering something new. When Thurston talked about how much better the cover of Goo looked with fingerprints and hair - I get that. I like the cracks and the seams and the scuffs, the tape hiss and the incidental sounds that foreground the act of creation, that allude to how human something is. I think those are things that Sonic Youth taught me to value.
When I was in high school my band opened up for Chrome Cranks. Their drummer, Bob Bert, was previously a member of Sonic Youth. Although I was too shy to tell him how much his work on Bad Moon Rising meant to me (still does), I did buy him a chili dog post-show at the Corner Grill. Not sure which of us was more uncomfortable that night, but it meant a lot to me.
Sonic Youth meant a lot to me.
Thurston talks early on (he talks a lot about early on, but we'll get to that) about how he cut pics of his idols out of magazines and put them on his walls. The only picture I had on my closet door was Thurston, cheekily quoted in 17 magazine, wearing a blue button down shirt and swiping his hair out of his eyes. I bought a shirt I thought looked like his and wore it for well over a decade.
Which brings us to how eager I was to read this book.
When I picked it up I knew it was too long - you can tell just by looking at it. What Kim manages to do in roughly 300 pages, Thurston can't do in 470. And while, yeah, I mean he can't be concise, I also mean that he fails to do what good memoirists do. That means being emotionally vulnerable and honest - I don't think Thurston achieves that.
The proportions of Thurston's narrative are way out of whack. Not that finding out about Moore's first musical epiphanies isn't interesting, but roughly a third of the book is spent talking about 1977. It's too granular - much of the first half of the book is too granular.
Recently, I reread a series of fantasy novels I liked as a kid, and in my review I reflected on how the story just felt like a bunch of cardinal directions and place names instead of narrative. The worst parts of this book feel like that, too. Thurston went to *club name* in *city name* on *this date* to see *these bands* and met *these people.* There's little of emotional or narrative value to these passages. They feel endless and try a reader's patience.
That they're emotionally empty feels like the main issue. I don't get a sense of Thurston as a person in these pages; he seems hesitant to go into the emotional equivalents of his club travelogue. There are emotional components here; an attempt is made when describing his friendship with Harold, and the book feels real when he talks about falling in love with Kim. When Thurston grows distant from these characters, however - when he finds new interests that legitimately (or not) pull him away - he's a lot less forthcoming about it.
Which brings us back to the how story arcs work in this book - you get a lot up front and hardly anything at the end. We spend 150 pages on 1977, and little more than a hundred pages covering Goo to the break up of Sonic Youth. And while part of me respects Thurston's decision to not talk about cheating on his wife and breaking up his marriage (and his band), it's a choice that destroys the end of his book and feels incredibly dishonest. Your memoir is in large part about the life and (presumed) death of your band, right? How can you keep your story honest if you don't talk about how your decisions broke up the band? Or if that's not how it happened, what would be the issue of discussing what factors did lead to the break up of Sonic Youth?
It's clear Thurston loves sound with a passion that no number of adjectives can begin to approach. And there are passages where his love of sound - or of New York, or of touring and discovering the world - rises above the humdrum recitation that makes up a lot of the book. He seems capable of emotional honesty; the passages where he talks about Kurt Cobain's death (seeing the garage from across the lake, that devastating moment with Courtney) seem like the most genuine moments of the book. But the flaws in structure and the many omissions are too much for the book to handle.
Thurston's willing to take credit for a lot - and much of it justifiably so. But the things that he refuses to take credit for or at least discuss with emotional honesty leave this book lacking. It's too long, chooses to deep dive into the wrong details and, ultimately, rings hollow in the truth department.
Things not addressed that I'd like to know:
How did the band react to seeing Richard Edson in Ferris Bueller's Day Off?
Literally anything about Thurston's relationship with Lee or Steve. Anything. Of all the characters that are merely names on a page, those two shouldn't be. It's another omission that boarders on dishonesty or megalomania.
One more thing - this book should be indexed. If it's to be of any historical value at all, it should be indexed.
I have a million thoughts about this; apologies if I don't articulate them well.
If anyone is the intended audience for this book, it's me. I grew up adoring Sonic Youth. Yeah, I'm on the younger side for that - came of age during the DGC years. But probably no band has warped the way I listen to music more than Sonic Youth. In the same way the Simpsons influenced my sense of humor (and how I view the world)... well, SY would be the aural equivalent of that.
Aesthetically, so much of what I value was influenced by SY. The idea of finding a nearly zen stillness and peace in a swirling chaos of noise; the inexplicable joy I find in that chaos, in discovering a moment or a thing that cannot be easily defined or categorized, of always looking for and occasionally discovering something new. When Thurston talked about how much better the cover of Goo looked with fingerprints and hair - I get that. I like the cracks and the seams and the scuffs, the tape hiss and the incidental sounds that foreground the act of creation, that allude to how human something is. I think those are things that Sonic Youth taught me to value.
When I was in high school my band opened up for Chrome Cranks. Their drummer, Bob Bert, was previously a member of Sonic Youth. Although I was too shy to tell him how much his work on Bad Moon Rising meant to me (still does), I did buy him a chili dog post-show at the Corner Grill. Not sure which of us was more uncomfortable that night, but it meant a lot to me.
Sonic Youth meant a lot to me.
Thurston talks early on (he talks a lot about early on, but we'll get to that) about how he cut pics of his idols out of magazines and put them on his walls. The only picture I had on my closet door was Thurston, cheekily quoted in 17 magazine, wearing a blue button down shirt and swiping his hair out of his eyes. I bought a shirt I thought looked like his and wore it for well over a decade.
Which brings us to how eager I was to read this book.
When I picked it up I knew it was too long - you can tell just by looking at it. What Kim manages to do in roughly 300 pages, Thurston can't do in 470. And while, yeah, I mean he can't be concise, I also mean that he fails to do what good memoirists do. That means being emotionally vulnerable and honest - I don't think Thurston achieves that.
The proportions of Thurston's narrative are way out of whack. Not that finding out about Moore's first musical epiphanies isn't interesting, but roughly a third of the book is spent talking about 1977. It's too granular - much of the first half of the book is too granular.
Recently, I reread a series of fantasy novels I liked as a kid, and in my review I reflected on how the story just felt like a bunch of cardinal directions and place names instead of narrative. The worst parts of this book feel like that, too. Thurston went to *club name* in *city name* on *this date* to see *these bands* and met *these people.* There's little of emotional or narrative value to these passages. They feel endless and try a reader's patience.
That they're emotionally empty feels like the main issue. I don't get a sense of Thurston as a person in these pages; he seems hesitant to go into the emotional equivalents of his club travelogue. There are emotional components here; an attempt is made when describing his friendship with Harold, and the book feels real when he talks about falling in love with Kim. When Thurston grows distant from these characters, however - when he finds new interests that legitimately (or not) pull him away - he's a lot less forthcoming about it.
Which brings us back to the how story arcs work in this book - you get a lot up front and hardly anything at the end. We spend 150 pages on 1977, and little more than a hundred pages covering Goo to the break up of Sonic Youth. And while part of me respects Thurston's decision to not talk about cheating on his wife and breaking up his marriage (and his band), it's a choice that destroys the end of his book and feels incredibly dishonest. Your memoir is in large part about the life and (presumed) death of your band, right? How can you keep your story honest if you don't talk about how your decisions broke up the band? Or if that's not how it happened, what would be the issue of discussing what factors did lead to the break up of Sonic Youth?
It's clear Thurston loves sound with a passion that no number of adjectives can begin to approach. And there are passages where his love of sound - or of New York, or of touring and discovering the world - rises above the humdrum recitation that makes up a lot of the book. He seems capable of emotional honesty; the passages where he talks about Kurt Cobain's death (seeing the garage from across the lake, that devastating moment with Courtney) seem like the most genuine moments of the book. But the flaws in structure and the many omissions are too much for the book to handle.
Thurston's willing to take credit for a lot - and much of it justifiably so. But the things that he refuses to take credit for or at least discuss with emotional honesty leave this book lacking. It's too long, chooses to deep dive into the wrong details and, ultimately, rings hollow in the truth department.
Things not addressed that I'd like to know:
How did the band react to seeing Richard Edson in Ferris Bueller's Day Off?
Literally anything about Thurston's relationship with Lee or Steve. Anything. Of all the characters that are merely names on a page, those two shouldn't be. It's another omission that boarders on dishonesty or megalomania.
One more thing - this book should be indexed. If it's to be of any historical value at all, it should be indexed.
October 26, 2023
As a writer Thurston is a great guitar player.
January 16, 2024
In the waning days of 1990, I was mobilized for war.
I was a just-commissioned Army lieutenant. TV pundits were guesstimating ten thousand U.S. casualties in the coming Desert Storm, and my out-processing included submitting my will. Ten days before we left, the CO called me in and said, “You can’t deploy without an Officer Basic Course, so you’ll just meet us over there afterword.” It was a three-month reprieve, of relatively cushy 9-to-5 classroom work at Fort Benjamin Harrison, ten miles north of Indianapolis.
On arrival, I perused a city weekly and couldn’t believe my luck: Neil Young & Crazy Horse were playing downtown’s Market Square Arena in ten days. It would be my fourth time seeing my then-greatest idol, and, I realized grimly, perhaps the last rock concert of my life.
The first opening band that night, Social Distortion, was good, but the next group up was even better. Three high-energy, college hipster-looking dudes, plus a blonde hipster babe on bass, with a twin lead-guitar interplay I could only define as ‘psychedelic,’ though there was nothing sixties or hippie about them. Two songs in, I was hooked. Whoever they were, I needed a CD of this droning, squealy, non-Zep-based hard rock for further study. I was surprised the folks around me didn’t feel the same. No one was booing, but the hall hung with a palpable dislike. Did they not know their outsider rock history? How Crazy Horse was scorned by rock elites as no-talent knuckleheads? That Neil himself changed styles so many times his own record company sued him? If there was a classic rock audience open to Something New, you’d think it would be his.
When the morning paper identified the group as Sonic Youth, it made sense. I knew one of their songs from the 1989 Neil tribute album The Bridge. Most of the indie groups covered his best-known tunes, but Sonic Youth had chosen “Computer Age,” a forgettable track on Neil’s widely-derided synth album Trans …which they revved up into the best cut on the album.
As fate would have it, my Reserve unit returned from the war before my course ended in Indiana, allowing me to enjoy Sonic Youth’s remaining twenty years of albums and concerts.
Like most fans, I’m reading Thurston Moore’s book eight years after Kim Gordon’s, the blonde hipster bandmate who happened to be his wife, and whom Moore eventually cheated on, then ditched after thirty years of apparent monogamy, the alt rock equivalent of Al and Tipper Gore.
Gordon’s tome was hailed, but odd. Evocative memories of her non-sonic youth, a half-hearted summation of the band’s thirty years, and a detailed takedown of her betrayal and loss. Moore is taking heat for his similar lopsided emphasis on his early NYC years, while barely noting his destructive midlife swerve. I’m too old-fashioned to forgive the man for busting up his marriage and his group, but have to admit his obsessive chronicling of obscure punk rock gigs and endless name-dropping of assorted cult figures is right up my alley. I keep running lists of every concert I’ve seen, every album I own, the six hundred classic films I’ve shown my daughter. I adore creatives of every discipline, and after kicking myself for not taping an amazing conversation between two director friends, started formally interviewing people. So I get Thurston Moore being more comfortable going on and on about other people and their work rather than laying his heart bare. Is that a generational thing? A masculine thing? The mark of a healthy upbringing?
Elder stars also intuit their readers can better relate to tales of their hardscrabble origins over their inevitably more settled later lives. It’s why Frank Zappa mostly chronicles the Mothers of Invention, Chrissie Hynde ends on The Pretenders’ first album, and Springsteen’s narrative slackens once he becomes a zillionaire. There’s the nostalgia factor as well. Any detailed account of being young decades ago suffuses readers of a like age in their own memories. The early years of a rock autobiography make you feel like you and your idol grew up together, and in a cultural sense, you probably did.
So, if you’re like the Woody Allen figure in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, only you yearn to stand at the lip of the CGBG’s stage for those earliest Patti Smith, Blondie, Ramones, Talking Heads gigs, this is the punk-through-grunge time machine you’ve been waiting for.
September 9, 2023
The comparison of Sonic Life to Patti Smith's if-not-critically-acclaimed-then-certainly-TikTok-beloved Just Kids is accurate. Like Just Kids, this is a decently well-written, quickly paced memoir by a notoriously cool person, with a lot of name-dropping. A lot a lot of name-dropping. And, like Just Kids, your tolerance for this name-dropping will heavily depend on how interested you personally are in the people being name-dropped by Moore. Given some of my recent reads (The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker, Punk Rock is Cool for the End of the World, Up is Up But So Is Down, my slow chipping away at Our Band Could Be Your Life, to drop some names of my own), it's apparent that I, personally, really enjoy the alt lit and art and music scene going on in New York and LA during the years this memoir covers, so I was fairly delighted by the mention of David Wojnarowicz, Cookie Mueller, Jim Carroll, Television, Michael Gira, Pavement, the fact that Thurston Moore had tickets to see Joy Division for the American tour that never was, etc. I thought the brief Madonna cameos were interesting- I was sort of aware that she had come out of the Downtown scene or was adjacent to that scene- she dated Jean-Michel Basquiat and Michael Gira, after all, and I think at one point collabed with 3 Teens Kill 4 (David Wojnarowicz's former band), but it's still hard for me to reconcile the orginal pop princess with that. Also, I went to the same university Moore's father taught at and he attended briefly, and I currently work in New Haven so it was fun to actually recognize most of the sites he talks about in the early parts of the book.
There are flaws, of course. It gets a bit heavy into the music production aspect, which I wouldn't typically be opposed to, but Moore doesn't make it entertaining the way, say, Peter Hook describes the same process in his own memoirs. And Nirvana takes up a big, big part of this book in a way that interested me at first, but then sort of lost me. Look, I like Nirvana, I think everyone with ears does. And Kurt Cobain is an interesting, tragic figure in his own right. But I'm not a Nirvana superfan and, quite honestly, most grunge outside of Nirvana and some of Hole's discography (I said what I said) does absolutely nothing for me. As far as 90s music goes, I'm more interested in lo-fi and indie like Pavement and GBV so I wished he got more into his involvement with those bands.
It'd be interesting to see what legs this memoir ends up having. I'd recommend it to any fans of Just Kids, but at the same time, Thurston Moore is a bit more of an admittedly obscure figure than Patti Smith, and the bands and names he drops, with some exceptions (the whole bits on grunge, Madonna, Lou Reed, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joy Division) are more obscure. He also doesn't do much explanation as to who any of these people are, meaning that at times the memoir comes across a bit... I don't know how to word this correctly. Sort of like a test to see how much you know based on whether you nod and give an approving "hmm" at the sight of someone's name and then get entry into a cool person club because of it. Like with Mike Kelley- if you didn't know who Mike Kelley is prior to reading this, the most you're going to get is "he was an artist", which, okay, yes he was but he was little more interesting than just that. Cindy Sherman gets the same treatment during her brief mention- she isn't even identified as a photographer, just an artist. It's been a hot minute (years, in fact) since I've read Just Kids, so perhaps Patti Smith did the same thing, but it feels a bit more egarious here because of, again, the relative obscurity of the people name-dropped. Then again, one could also argue that the Venn diagram of people who know who Bob Flanagan is and people who read Thurston Moore memoirs is a single circle, but again, Just Kids reached a larger audience than already established Patti Smith fans, an audience who probably had no idea who Jim Carroll or Robert Mapplethorpe were before reading her memoir, and they got through it okay. I don't know. I'm rambling.
Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for providing me with an arc!
There are flaws, of course. It gets a bit heavy into the music production aspect, which I wouldn't typically be opposed to, but Moore doesn't make it entertaining the way, say, Peter Hook describes the same process in his own memoirs. And Nirvana takes up a big, big part of this book in a way that interested me at first, but then sort of lost me. Look, I like Nirvana, I think everyone with ears does. And Kurt Cobain is an interesting, tragic figure in his own right. But I'm not a Nirvana superfan and, quite honestly, most grunge outside of Nirvana and some of Hole's discography (I said what I said) does absolutely nothing for me. As far as 90s music goes, I'm more interested in lo-fi and indie like Pavement and GBV so I wished he got more into his involvement with those bands.
It'd be interesting to see what legs this memoir ends up having. I'd recommend it to any fans of Just Kids, but at the same time, Thurston Moore is a bit more of an admittedly obscure figure than Patti Smith, and the bands and names he drops, with some exceptions (the whole bits on grunge, Madonna, Lou Reed, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joy Division) are more obscure. He also doesn't do much explanation as to who any of these people are, meaning that at times the memoir comes across a bit... I don't know how to word this correctly. Sort of like a test to see how much you know based on whether you nod and give an approving "hmm" at the sight of someone's name and then get entry into a cool person club because of it. Like with Mike Kelley- if you didn't know who Mike Kelley is prior to reading this, the most you're going to get is "he was an artist", which, okay, yes he was but he was little more interesting than just that. Cindy Sherman gets the same treatment during her brief mention- she isn't even identified as a photographer, just an artist. It's been a hot minute (years, in fact) since I've read Just Kids, so perhaps Patti Smith did the same thing, but it feels a bit more egarious here because of, again, the relative obscurity of the people name-dropped. Then again, one could also argue that the Venn diagram of people who know who Bob Flanagan is and people who read Thurston Moore memoirs is a single circle, but again, Just Kids reached a larger audience than already established Patti Smith fans, an audience who probably had no idea who Jim Carroll or Robert Mapplethorpe were before reading her memoir, and they got through it okay. I don't know. I'm rambling.
Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for providing me with an arc!
November 18, 2023
Shame he dies in the end.
Read
December 3, 2023500 pages of thurston describing every show he's gone to in his life
October 26, 2023
First, my gripes: I would’ve liked an index. Also, it seemed as the book progressed, the transitioning from one thought to another became rushed. For the time period covered, it’s actually too short. Maybe it would’ve been cool for it it to be two books?
Now, for what I really appreciated: he has an exuberance that is really beautiful. If you ever saw Sonic Youth live, you know what I mean. He can write, he can tell stories. I am really appreciative that this book exists.
Now, for what I really appreciated: he has an exuberance that is really beautiful. If you ever saw Sonic Youth live, you know what I mean. He can write, he can tell stories. I am really appreciative that this book exists.
September 29, 2024
TL DR curious? Here’s a summary:
The only other person into punk at Thurston’s high school was gay so Thurston had to be friends with a gay person. That was all fine until Thurston let this guy sleep in his bed and the guy touched him and then they weren’t really friends until Thurston asked him to be his best man when he and Kim got married at his mom’s house because Thurston really didn’t have any other friends. Turns out he made an enemy of this dude, by being so pretentious that the guy gave him back all his Sonic Youth records by leaving them on his car.
His first NYC girlfriend was raped and Thurston didn’t really know what to do so she left him.
He met Kim and must emphasize she is five years older than him. Eventually they had a baby, which he seemed indifferent about.
However, his daughter was a good segue into his personal account of 9/11.
He told Courtney Love to go to Kurt Cobain because Kurt needed her. So now you know.
Later, he was in the vicinity of the house where Kurt committed suicide and boy, was that dramatic, being in the vicinity.
It’s always been about the art but please note that Thurston had a loft in Manhattan, a house within walking distance of Smith College, a Volvo, and a nanny.
He left his older wife for someone younger but doesn’t want to discuss it because, well, he’s the asshole.
That was pretty much it, interspersed with facts - who went to what show, what bands played, who signed with what label, what shirt Thurston was wearing.
And, oh, did he forget to mention he’s 6’6” in the last 20 pages? Well, he will do it again.
It’s hard to realize that someone you really admired is such a tool, but Kim’s memoir wasn’t much better so I guess it’s good they found each other even though she’s five years older than him and he’s 6’6”.
The only other person into punk at Thurston’s high school was gay so Thurston had to be friends with a gay person. That was all fine until Thurston let this guy sleep in his bed and the guy touched him and then they weren’t really friends until Thurston asked him to be his best man when he and Kim got married at his mom’s house because Thurston really didn’t have any other friends. Turns out he made an enemy of this dude, by being so pretentious that the guy gave him back all his Sonic Youth records by leaving them on his car.
His first NYC girlfriend was raped and Thurston didn’t really know what to do so she left him.
He met Kim and must emphasize she is five years older than him. Eventually they had a baby, which he seemed indifferent about.
However, his daughter was a good segue into his personal account of 9/11.
He told Courtney Love to go to Kurt Cobain because Kurt needed her. So now you know.
Later, he was in the vicinity of the house where Kurt committed suicide and boy, was that dramatic, being in the vicinity.
It’s always been about the art but please note that Thurston had a loft in Manhattan, a house within walking distance of Smith College, a Volvo, and a nanny.
He left his older wife for someone younger but doesn’t want to discuss it because, well, he’s the asshole.
That was pretty much it, interspersed with facts - who went to what show, what bands played, who signed with what label, what shirt Thurston was wearing.
And, oh, did he forget to mention he’s 6’6” in the last 20 pages? Well, he will do it again.
It’s hard to realize that someone you really admired is such a tool, but Kim’s memoir wasn’t much better so I guess it’s good they found each other even though she’s five years older than him and he’s 6’6”.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 23, 2024
I read a lot of complaints about this before I cracked the cover, mainly centered around two things - too much a list of different concerts he's seen and glossing over the split with Kim. The first doesn't bother me in the least, Moore's genuine excitement and thrill to being witness to punk, post-punk and no-wave ground zero is fun to read. Nor does the second, I don't want to read gossip and I 100% respect him flat out stating that he doesn't feel right profiting off Kim's private life. If I have a complaint it's that, much like too many music bios, it spends forever on the early years and rushes through the latter - I'm just as interested in a deep dive into say, Rather Ripped, as I was Bad Moon Rising. Still, this is a really great read for Sonic Youth fans.
November 22, 2023
Sonic Youth'u ne kadar seviyorsam bu kitabı da o kadar sevemedim. Lüzumsuz detaylarla dolu, sıkıcı ve önemli şeyleri (grubun üretim süreçleri, grup üyeleriyle olan ilişkiler, Kim Gordon'la ilgili olan kısımlar vs.) pas geçen bu yüzden de eksik olan bir otobiyografi. Üzgünüm çünkü çok umutluydum.
November 13, 2023
Get ready to be transported back to a time before punk rock broke, and a hell of a trip across 30 years at the centre of underground music. As a fan, I never wanted this book to end. It's heavy on the detail: band names, good gigs, bad gigs, record stores, smashed guitars... But I loved that, I would have preferred the long unedited version. I hope we get new volumes in the coming years.
November 19, 2023
In Sonic Life, Thurston Moore's autobiographical odyssey unfurls a vibrant tapestry chronicling his metamorphosis from an ardent aficionado of 1980s post-punk to the coalescing force behind Sonic Youth. The narrative plunges into Moore's nascent days, immersing itself in the crucible of New York City's post-punk milieu, and traces the trajectory of Sonic Youth's ascendancy as a paradigm-shifting musical juggernaut. Beyond a mere chronicle of sonic exploits, the memoir traverses the annals of rock history, spotlighting Moore's imprint that extends far beyond the confines of Sonic Youth, and places him at the epicentre of pivotal moments that shaped the musical landscape. Central to the narrative is an exploration of the ineffable essence of live music experiences, unveiling Moore's unwavering dedication to capturing the unbridled energy pulsating within the underground music scene. The introspective journey delves into the recesses of Moore's psyche, unravelling the tapestry of his rebellious adolescence and culminating with Sonic Youth's denouement in The Eternal, a testament to his unwavering commitment to artistic integrity. In its totality, Sonic Life emerges not just as a memoir but as a profound testament, bearing witness to Moore's enduring ardour and indelible influence in the expansive realm of alternative rock.
November 6, 2023
I was pretty disappoint by this book. There were things I liked about it, mainly the detailed portrait of life and shows in lower Manhattan in the late 70s and 80s. That portion of the book occupies roughly half of the page count, and while interesting, sort of reads like an extended scene report. It doesn’t provide a lot of insight into who Moore is, as a person or an artist.
The rest of the book crams most of Sonic Youth’s long career into a very condensed form. There are some entertaining stories about touring with Nirvana, Mudhoney, etc… but it all starts to feel very rote. Maybe the cycle of tour/write a record/tour/write a record isn’t all that interesting after all?
I guess I’m most disappointed that this book didn’t spend anytime reflecting on the end of his marriage, the end of Sonic Youth, and the major life changes that come from such significant events.
I concluded the book feeling like I learned very little about Moore beyond what I already knew from interviews and other books written about Sonic Youth.
The rest of the book crams most of Sonic Youth’s long career into a very condensed form. There are some entertaining stories about touring with Nirvana, Mudhoney, etc… but it all starts to feel very rote. Maybe the cycle of tour/write a record/tour/write a record isn’t all that interesting after all?
I guess I’m most disappointed that this book didn’t spend anytime reflecting on the end of his marriage, the end of Sonic Youth, and the major life changes that come from such significant events.
I concluded the book feeling like I learned very little about Moore beyond what I already knew from interviews and other books written about Sonic Youth.
January 15, 2024
I've never been quite sure how much I like Thurston Moore, but I really enjoyed this. The first half of the book is a delight, in which he and his best friend go to see approximately 1 billion bands in the late 70s and early 80s and think they're all brilliant, and he moves to skeezy New York and tries to form a band while being very overawed by meeting cool musicians and largely subsisting on peanut butter. As a history of US alternative music, it's top-notch and made me look up countless bands and artists for further investigation. The second half, where his band is very successful and he becomes friends with all the cool people, is inevitably not quite as interesting, but he's a good writer and such a starry-eyed romantic that he even makes Reading Festival sound beautiful and inspiring. He does admit to coming across as a bit of a prick at times, and hastily rushes through his affair and divorce in a few pages with a "Tut, it's true love, you wouldn't understand!" dismissal, but he never says anything mean about Kim Gordon and fair enough, it's not really any of my business.
May 26, 2024
Loved it. Other than some readers here, I really enjoyed the level of granularity in Moore’s description of the early NY scene and all the people and artists he saw and met. I loved hearing all the geeky details about who was in which band, and learning more about people and studios I only knew from the liner notes I read over and over as a kid. It also connected some interesting dots about the art, punk and hiphop scenes Moore was lucky to be in the middle of. Details about the labels SY were on and the tours they did, really painted a good picture of how everything unfolded from playing gigs in galleries until the year punk broke. The description of Thurston’s personal life definitely is a bit unbalanced, but it didn’t bother me too much. A bit more attention for Steve and Lee would certainly have been nice, and I would also like to have read more about the creative process that went into making those early albums.
November 2, 2023
Thurston comes across, in his own words and voice, as not far removed from the stereotypical Sonic Youth fan — intellectual to a fault, disconnected from society and even himself, fearless in matters of aesthetics, but conventional in his personal life. Feminist and progressive in theory, but a whiteboy bro at his core. He has a photographic memory but lacks self-awareness. It’s most awkward when Thurston (who presents as otherwise asexual) rhapsodizes over his peculiarly disembodied love for Kim and her successor, Eva. There’s a scene where Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, backstage at a SY show, asks, “where are all the chicks?” Presented as boorish, Gene’s inquiry may actually be the key to understanding Thurston’s life.
November 15, 2023
Cool history/Shallow memoir
January 27, 2024
Listening to nineteen hours of audio on any topic is not to be undertaken lightly, and I almost rejected this one based on the time commitment alone. But as an owner of many Sonic Youth albums, I couldn’t resist the desire to know more about the life of the guitarist behind some of my favorite songs from the 80s and 90s.
In a low-key style, Moore shares his transformation from dorky teenage outsider to (still dorky) music industry icon over the course of a few decades based largely in NYC. His biographical stories take the listener back to a time when cell phones in one’s pocket did not exist and rent In the big city was affordable even for a struggling musician, though you might come home occasionally to find your few worldly possessions stolen or even a human body bleeding out in the public hallway.
Through Moore’s plentiful anecdotes, the listener catches a glimpse into that not so long ago world when the cool kids freely roamed lower Manhattan to enjoy punk bands of the day in rowdy music clubs now quietly occupied by more mainstream interests. During these formative years, the author befriends his future ex-wife and bandmate who, along with a few other artists, go on to create the many loudly discordant yet oddly melodic and intoxicating songs that still resonate today.
In addition to stuffing my music trivia files with loads of interesting bits about his band, the author’s early stories about passing much time in the city on his own pleasantly unearthed some of my memories from growing up before the internet when being truly alone was much more common yet didn’t necessarily equate with feeling lonely. No smartphone bombarded you with constant FOMO content and you didn’t have a nagging urge to feel “connected” to a variety of online denizens all day and night. Time seemed to pass more slowly as fewer electronic notifications demanded your immediate mental attention. You could quietly dream about life in this world and your desired place in it. (Though on the downside, if you did hear a cool song somewhere you often had a tough time learning the correct name and/or lyrics!)
Wow. I went in to this one simply wanting to know more about a musician I like and did not anticipate that the literary combination of band names, songs, venues and events from the 20th century would unlock an abundance of long forgotten, pre-internet memories lodged deep in my brain, piled under way too many layers of adulthood concerns. Kudos for that unexpected gift! Think I’ll go lie down on the couch now, listen to my 37 year old copy of Sonic Youth’s Evol album and reflect on what life used to feel like years ago. The internet can wait…..
Addendum: Just watched 1991: The Year That Punk Broke. Wow! Saw it back in the day (alone) at a DC theater that’s now a CVS. If you liked Sonic Youth and/or this book, watch the movie and enjoy. What a great time capsule.
In a low-key style, Moore shares his transformation from dorky teenage outsider to (still dorky) music industry icon over the course of a few decades based largely in NYC. His biographical stories take the listener back to a time when cell phones in one’s pocket did not exist and rent In the big city was affordable even for a struggling musician, though you might come home occasionally to find your few worldly possessions stolen or even a human body bleeding out in the public hallway.
Through Moore’s plentiful anecdotes, the listener catches a glimpse into that not so long ago world when the cool kids freely roamed lower Manhattan to enjoy punk bands of the day in rowdy music clubs now quietly occupied by more mainstream interests. During these formative years, the author befriends his future ex-wife and bandmate who, along with a few other artists, go on to create the many loudly discordant yet oddly melodic and intoxicating songs that still resonate today.
In addition to stuffing my music trivia files with loads of interesting bits about his band, the author’s early stories about passing much time in the city on his own pleasantly unearthed some of my memories from growing up before the internet when being truly alone was much more common yet didn’t necessarily equate with feeling lonely. No smartphone bombarded you with constant FOMO content and you didn’t have a nagging urge to feel “connected” to a variety of online denizens all day and night. Time seemed to pass more slowly as fewer electronic notifications demanded your immediate mental attention. You could quietly dream about life in this world and your desired place in it. (Though on the downside, if you did hear a cool song somewhere you often had a tough time learning the correct name and/or lyrics!)
Wow. I went in to this one simply wanting to know more about a musician I like and did not anticipate that the literary combination of band names, songs, venues and events from the 20th century would unlock an abundance of long forgotten, pre-internet memories lodged deep in my brain, piled under way too many layers of adulthood concerns. Kudos for that unexpected gift! Think I’ll go lie down on the couch now, listen to my 37 year old copy of Sonic Youth’s Evol album and reflect on what life used to feel like years ago. The internet can wait…..
Addendum: Just watched 1991: The Year That Punk Broke. Wow! Saw it back in the day (alone) at a DC theater that’s now a CVS. If you liked Sonic Youth and/or this book, watch the movie and enjoy. What a great time capsule.
April 10, 2024
REVIEW OF PAPERBACK EDITION!
2.5 Stars!
I knew I was in trouble with this when it felt like it was about 75 pages too long and I was only 150 pages in. The editors appear to have gone with a hands-off approach on this one. Moore overwrites and no one has reined him in, so we get flooded with all sorts of superfluous information about almost everything which is a shame. Maybe if you have a deeper interest in Moore then this would be a bonus, though my interest must not go that far?...
This becomes more interesting when we get to the Sonic Youth chapters, but that takes until about 170 odd pages in, and even then although it became better, at no point did I find it great or fascinating, it was just OK with some memorable encounters with other musicians and peeps along the way as the band gain more critical and slightly more commercial acclaim. If anything I probably found the talk of the other bands and music more interesting than his journey.
Moore does partly capture the zeitgeist and we occasionally get the contact thrill of entering into a new city at the height of a new scene and all the drama and excitement that can come along with that. He describes his entry into the New York punk scene at the mid to late 70s with all the usual suspects Patti Smith, The Ramones, Blondie, Television et al. Max’s Kansas City and CBGBs. We then get a flavour for the emerging art scene that was developing in that part of the city from the early 80s onwards with the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer and Madonna who would all go onto successful careers.
Like many memoirists who are on no longer with their first, major significant other, and now with someone new, I smiled at the guarded restraint when describing his relationship with Kim Gordon, who was obviously a hugely significant part of Moore’s life for decades. Gordon released her own memoirs around ten years ago, and I can’t help thinking that Moore’s recollections would have been better received if published ten or twenty years ago?...Gordon’s account was also a lot shorter and more entertaining.
The problem is he’s no writer, his style is just too flat to justify such a length for the casual reader or even fan of Sonic Youth. There’s no spark or hook to keep it lively and instead it exudes a real bland, monotonous tone which becomes hard to read for longer spells, this does pick up after a while, but to be honest this is just too long and it should have been at least 100 pages shorter. This was a "The Diamond Sea" when it could have been a "100%".
2.5 Stars!
I knew I was in trouble with this when it felt like it was about 75 pages too long and I was only 150 pages in. The editors appear to have gone with a hands-off approach on this one. Moore overwrites and no one has reined him in, so we get flooded with all sorts of superfluous information about almost everything which is a shame. Maybe if you have a deeper interest in Moore then this would be a bonus, though my interest must not go that far?...
This becomes more interesting when we get to the Sonic Youth chapters, but that takes until about 170 odd pages in, and even then although it became better, at no point did I find it great or fascinating, it was just OK with some memorable encounters with other musicians and peeps along the way as the band gain more critical and slightly more commercial acclaim. If anything I probably found the talk of the other bands and music more interesting than his journey.
Moore does partly capture the zeitgeist and we occasionally get the contact thrill of entering into a new city at the height of a new scene and all the drama and excitement that can come along with that. He describes his entry into the New York punk scene at the mid to late 70s with all the usual suspects Patti Smith, The Ramones, Blondie, Television et al. Max’s Kansas City and CBGBs. We then get a flavour for the emerging art scene that was developing in that part of the city from the early 80s onwards with the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer and Madonna who would all go onto successful careers.
Like many memoirists who are on no longer with their first, major significant other, and now with someone new, I smiled at the guarded restraint when describing his relationship with Kim Gordon, who was obviously a hugely significant part of Moore’s life for decades. Gordon released her own memoirs around ten years ago, and I can’t help thinking that Moore’s recollections would have been better received if published ten or twenty years ago?...Gordon’s account was also a lot shorter and more entertaining.
The problem is he’s no writer, his style is just too flat to justify such a length for the casual reader or even fan of Sonic Youth. There’s no spark or hook to keep it lively and instead it exudes a real bland, monotonous tone which becomes hard to read for longer spells, this does pick up after a while, but to be honest this is just too long and it should have been at least 100 pages shorter. This was a "The Diamond Sea" when it could have been a "100%".
March 22, 2024
Thurston Moore has made it clear that, had this memoir been published in full, as originally written, it would have amounted to well over a thousand pages. In my opinion, that would have been no bad thing, judging by the quality of the writing in the first half of this book.
As well as being an in-depth autobiography of his first 20 years, the first half constitutes an essential survey of life in Manhattan in the late 70s, the burgeoning punk scene and the lure of the city to a teenager eager for entertainments which are just not available in their rural hometown.
Moore describes in depth nights at CBGBs, Max's Kansas City and other renowned venues along with fantastic portraits of bands and musicians which he rubbed shoulders with, from The Ramones to Lydia Lunch. I really enjoyed this section and the amazing thing is that Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo are not even mentioned in the first 200 pages. Once Sonic Youth form, the descriptions of early gigs, recordings and albums are fascinating.
Inevitably, the coverage of the remainder of the band's career - 41 years and 15 albums - seems a little rushed, crammed in as it is into 250 pages. Nevertheless, extended coverage of the bands encountered on tour, from Nirvana to Neil Young, are told with a music fan's enthusiasm which is quite infectious.
The least successful part of the book comes at the end where Moore recounts with extreme brevity the end of his marriage to Kim Gordon though, as he states, this is a painful episode which he is unwilling to describe at length.
Nevertheless, it's a downbeat end to a great book whoce first half in particular can be read as a joyous celebration of the Punk, No Wave and experimental music genres of which Moore and Sonic Youth were such an essential part.
As well as being an in-depth autobiography of his first 20 years, the first half constitutes an essential survey of life in Manhattan in the late 70s, the burgeoning punk scene and the lure of the city to a teenager eager for entertainments which are just not available in their rural hometown.
Moore describes in depth nights at CBGBs, Max's Kansas City and other renowned venues along with fantastic portraits of bands and musicians which he rubbed shoulders with, from The Ramones to Lydia Lunch. I really enjoyed this section and the amazing thing is that Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo are not even mentioned in the first 200 pages. Once Sonic Youth form, the descriptions of early gigs, recordings and albums are fascinating.
Inevitably, the coverage of the remainder of the band's career - 41 years and 15 albums - seems a little rushed, crammed in as it is into 250 pages. Nevertheless, extended coverage of the bands encountered on tour, from Nirvana to Neil Young, are told with a music fan's enthusiasm which is quite infectious.
The least successful part of the book comes at the end where Moore recounts with extreme brevity the end of his marriage to Kim Gordon though, as he states, this is a painful episode which he is unwilling to describe at length.
Nevertheless, it's a downbeat end to a great book whoce first half in particular can be read as a joyous celebration of the Punk, No Wave and experimental music genres of which Moore and Sonic Youth were such an essential part.
January 25, 2024
I loved every second of this book. It filled me with the kind of crazy creative energy i had in high school when I loved this band so much. It made me want to listen to music, create art, write, read, all the things. It reminded me of all of the effort you had to go to to be a fan of music "back in my day," with zines and mail order, record stores, pen pals, just exploring. I don't know if I loved this book so much because I was a super fan or because it is just that good. I actually do think the latter, because I read Kim's book as well and didn't love it the way I love this one. And I actually have had mixed feelings about Thurston as a human since he cheated on Kim and broke up the band, and yet this book still made me like him. So, yeah, this book filled me with nostalgia for so many things.
November 26, 2023
3.5 stars. I had, besides being a longtime Sonic Youth fan, hoped that this book would give Thurston Moore’s “side of the story” about his relationship and breakup with Kim Gordon. He spent a few pages passing along a few facts and then got back to the core of this book: MUSIC. Moore did a deep dive into Sonic Youth’s history and what music he was listening to at different times of his life. The book was full of name after name of different bands he admired and/or played with. I found it a little grueling at times.
But, overall, I enjoyed the book. It was fun, as a fellow music lover, to hear Moore approach music as a fan as well as a musician himself.
But, overall, I enjoyed the book. It was fun, as a fellow music lover, to hear Moore approach music as a fan as well as a musician himself.
May 14, 2026
Un buen libro sobre Sonic Youth y la música que influenció a la banda a lo largo de su historia. Thurston Moore elabora una buena crónica y nos cuenta su juventud como fan irredento de la musica punk, la formación de Sonic Youth y su entrada en la madurez. Aunque este libro explora de manera detallada los aspectos musicales que echaba de menos en el libro de Kim Gordon, cabe decir que al amigo Thurston nadie le ha puesto la tijera y eso hace que en ocasiones se enrolle como una persiana y eso lastra al libro y hace que deambules en ciertos sectores de este.
Si bien ciertos capítulos molan mucho( crónicas de conciertos de punk angelino y neoyorkino, conexiones con Neil Young,Patti Smith, Nirvana, Pearl Jam,las diferentes afinaciones y experimentaciones en sus discos, las giras mundiales) Thurston peca de querer explicar todo demasiado en ciertas partes.
Por otra parte, pese a la constante presencia a lo largo del libro de Kim y como su relación fraguó el principio del grupo junto a Leer Ranaldo al final no aparece en la dedicatoria, y a quien le dedica el libro es a su actual pareja con la que le fue infiel. Con dos cojonazos. Me parece un detalle algo feo y que evidencia que ambos acabaron a la gresca ya que en el libro de Kim si se contaban bastantes detalles del tema. Moore elude el tema con un simple me enamoré y ya.
Pese a todo y contando que nunca se volverán a juntar, se puede decir que Sonic Youth ya dieron todo lo mejor de sí y que la inspiración se había agotado. Algo que parece normal después del ramillete de fantásticos discos que nos han dejado a lo largo de su historia.
Si bien ciertos capítulos molan mucho( crónicas de conciertos de punk angelino y neoyorkino, conexiones con Neil Young,Patti Smith, Nirvana, Pearl Jam,las diferentes afinaciones y experimentaciones en sus discos, las giras mundiales) Thurston peca de querer explicar todo demasiado en ciertas partes.
Por otra parte, pese a la constante presencia a lo largo del libro de Kim y como su relación fraguó el principio del grupo junto a Leer Ranaldo al final no aparece en la dedicatoria, y a quien le dedica el libro es a su actual pareja con la que le fue infiel. Con dos cojonazos. Me parece un detalle algo feo y que evidencia que ambos acabaron a la gresca ya que en el libro de Kim si se contaban bastantes detalles del tema. Moore elude el tema con un simple me enamoré y ya.
Pese a todo y contando que nunca se volverán a juntar, se puede decir que Sonic Youth ya dieron todo lo mejor de sí y que la inspiración se había agotado. Algo que parece normal después del ramillete de fantásticos discos que nos han dejado a lo largo de su historia.
September 18, 2025
This was mostly boring, at least once Sonic Youth actually got going. The early days of Moore traipsing around New York and going to shows and poking around the art scene were interesting enough, but once the band gets started it gets pretty dull, which makes sense when you see him talk about how much research he did on his own life. Like, sure, a guy named Thurston from Connecticut is probably never going to write a joyful and salacious tell-all, but my god, what a dull trip down overwritten memory lane.
Also, crazy to spend like 425 pages talking about Living Your Feminist Principles and then still end up being an aging rockstar who cheats on his wife with a much younger woman. And then to frame it as some ineffable magic of the cosmos or whatever! And to say Of Course He Wouldn't Exploit Their Problems... In a book he is selling... Sure! Didn't make the book worse, perhaps, but it is kind of hilarious.
Anyway, this is actually at it's very best every time Thurston describes a man -- like, my god, I of course think sexuality is a spectrum and no part of it is set in stone, but buddy... Maybe Harold saw something in you, you know? Maybe you just needed to chill out and give it a shot! -- because they're all beautiful and entrancing and just about the only time the book feels lively at all. Also every time he got into some weird homoerotic shit with Henry Rollins, though it's not like that's a Unique life experience.
If anything, you can tell that this was not particularly compelling because I've been reading it since January, fifteen minutes almost every single day. My god what a plod.
Also, crazy to spend like 425 pages talking about Living Your Feminist Principles and then still end up being an aging rockstar who cheats on his wife with a much younger woman. And then to frame it as some ineffable magic of the cosmos or whatever! And to say Of Course He Wouldn't Exploit Their Problems... In a book he is selling... Sure! Didn't make the book worse, perhaps, but it is kind of hilarious.
Anyway, this is actually at it's very best every time Thurston describes a man -- like, my god, I of course think sexuality is a spectrum and no part of it is set in stone, but buddy... Maybe Harold saw something in you, you know? Maybe you just needed to chill out and give it a shot! -- because they're all beautiful and entrancing and just about the only time the book feels lively at all. Also every time he got into some weird homoerotic shit with Henry Rollins, though it's not like that's a Unique life experience.
If anything, you can tell that this was not particularly compelling because I've been reading it since January, fifteen minutes almost every single day. My god what a plod.
June 19, 2025
Defies expectation, I guess you could say. The common complaints are that there is shockingly little Sonic Youth here (especially in terms of interpersonal dynamics) and that Thurston's focus is skewed enormously towards the no-wave period. Both are true to a degree I found really funny tbh. There is more in this book about Byron Coley than there is about Lee Ranaldo or Steve Shelley! I think like 25% of the entire book is just shows Thurston went to in 1977, Sonic Youth doesn't exist until about 40% into the book, and 9/11 happens with maybe 40 minutes left in the 19-hour audiobook version.
Most of the book is recollections of seemingly every show Thurston attended between 1976 and 1992, who was there, what happened, plus which records and fanzines he was collecting at the time. It's very tempting to say that this is more of an extended scene report than a memoir, as it gives relatively little insight into Thurston's personal life. However... I loved this. I am a SY fan, yes, but I am equally a fan of basically every other band, artist, poet, fanzine, record collector, or scene mentioned here. You'll love it too if you are a big fan of Mars, The Contortions, James Chance, Jean-Michel Basquiat, DNA, Lydia Lunch, Police Band, Black Flag, The Minutemen, Suicide, Television, Patti Smith, The Stooges, The Dead Boys, Tony Oursler, Dan Graham, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Mike Kelley, Forced Exposure fanzine, Sun Ra, Swans, UT, The Boredoms, Mudhoney, Nirvana, PiL, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Einsturzende Neubauten, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, John Fahey, etc, etc, etc......
Most of the book is recollections of seemingly every show Thurston attended between 1976 and 1992, who was there, what happened, plus which records and fanzines he was collecting at the time. It's very tempting to say that this is more of an extended scene report than a memoir, as it gives relatively little insight into Thurston's personal life. However... I loved this. I am a SY fan, yes, but I am equally a fan of basically every other band, artist, poet, fanzine, record collector, or scene mentioned here. You'll love it too if you are a big fan of Mars, The Contortions, James Chance, Jean-Michel Basquiat, DNA, Lydia Lunch, Police Band, Black Flag, The Minutemen, Suicide, Television, Patti Smith, The Stooges, The Dead Boys, Tony Oursler, Dan Graham, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Mike Kelley, Forced Exposure fanzine, Sun Ra, Swans, UT, The Boredoms, Mudhoney, Nirvana, PiL, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Einsturzende Neubauten, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, John Fahey, etc, etc, etc......
December 3, 2023
It's depressing to see so many reviews uniformly complaining of Moore devoting too many pages to "music" and not enough to the gossipy corridors of romantic celebrity breakup. Surely it is the music of Sonic Youth that has brought us all here, so I for one feel lucky to be discovering the inspirations behind the group's sound world.
October 29, 2023
Have you ever really admired a musician, and then read their memoir and wished you hadn’t? Yeah.
October 31, 2023
More two and a half stars. It's kind of Forrest Gumpian at times, with Moore at the periphery of amazing events.
November 20, 2023
Long as hell but surprised with how much I enjoyed this.
July 5, 2026
sonic trip down memory lane
Great read and “trip down memory lane”. I enjoyed Moore’s description of his musical growth and life on the road with Sonic Youth. I do admit it seems like a lot of name-dropping although it was probably just recounting his musical voyage and the "scene" at the time. I do confess, I am not sure I would have enjoyed it so much if I had not been a Sonic Youth fan (and a fan of their contemporaries).
Great read and “trip down memory lane”. I enjoyed Moore’s description of his musical growth and life on the road with Sonic Youth. I do admit it seems like a lot of name-dropping although it was probably just recounting his musical voyage and the "scene" at the time. I do confess, I am not sure I would have enjoyed it so much if I had not been a Sonic Youth fan (and a fan of their contemporaries).
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