Sonic Life

A Sunday Times, Times, Irish Times and Mojo Book of the Year

Rough Trade #1 Book of the Year
Resident Music #1 Book of the Year


'Were you there? Well this is as close as it gets! Thurston Moore's compelling and spirited account of the streets, the songs, the clothes, the clubs and the contenders! A sensitive and authentic testimony to Moore's life lived through art and music. Beats with the heart of a true artist and mutineer.' Viv Albertine


'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


A music-obsessed retrospective, beginning with his childhood epiphany of rock 'n' roll in the early 1960s into an infatuation with the subversive world of 1970s punk and no wave blasting forth from New York City - where he eventually runs off to join a band in 1978. By 1981 Moore would form the legendary and notorious experimental rock group Sonic Youth, who proceeded to record and tour relentlessly for almost 30 years, always progressing, always exploring.


Along the way we meet a constellation of artists and musicians who colluded and collided with Sonic Youth including Velvet Underground, Stooges, Patti Smith, Television, Sex Pistols, Clash, Nirvana, Hole, Beastie Boys, Neil Young and a cavalcade of other musical visionaries, as well as figures from the art world - Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Gerhard Richter.


Simply put, Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth changed the sound of modern alternative rock music and opened the minds of a generation of artists to new possibilities within the form. This is essential reading.


'I thoroughly enjoyed Thurston Moore's trip down the gauntlet of memory lane, dodging beer bottles and pools of blood as he balances the demands of art and survival. Plus I'm a sucker for anyone who name-checks Saccharine Trust. A raw, rollicking document.' Nell Zink