Sonic Life
A Memoir
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5.0 • 11 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
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 music: 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sonic Youth cofounder Moore (Lion) documents the birth of the band and the postpunk scene in this fascinating if occasionally lumbering memoir. Born in Coral Gables, Fla., to classical music–loving parents, Moore became enamored by the Kingsmen's raucous 1963 cover of "Louie, Louie" at age five. After the family moved to Connecticut, where Thurston's father taught humanities at Western Connecticut State University, Thurston began stealing away to his older brother's room to pluck at his Fender Stratocaster guitar, frequently breaking the strings. He began studying the instrument in earnest during high school, and in 1978, at age 20, he moved to New York City's East Village to immerse himself in the neighborhood's vibrant music scene during punk's twilight years. It's there, while working odd jobs, that he met future Sonic Youth bandmates Kim Gordon (whom he married in 1984 and divorced in 2013; both events get brief mentions) and Lee Ranaldo. When Moore's in teenage fan mode, he's incendiary, writing with infectious urgency about seeing live acts including Kiss, Blue Öyster Cult, and especially Patti Smith, who embodied "punk rock as art, both beautiful and ugly, a timeless expression of convulsive energy." Gossipy bits about meeting Madonna, Basquiat, and Keith Haring before they became famous are also fascinating, and Moore conjures the grit and atmosphere of 1980s New York with ease, but the pace—particularly in the book's midsection—can drag. Still, there's plenty here to entertain Sonic Youth fans and readers drawn to New York's downtown milieu.
