Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Monday, August 03, 2009
Re-Appraisal Live: Does Kim Gordon Really Ruin Everything?

After our last effort in "re-appraising" Pearl Jam's No Code, Jay and I thought it would be fun to head towards a record of old that we might still want to listen to today. After running through a few choices, we settled on Sonic Youth's classic 1992 album Dirty, their second release for Geffen and the first where they finally had begun receiving some mainstream attention... hence Jay and I both listening to it before we had any real taste.

Let the re-appraising commence. Note that this post is deprariously long. Sometimes you just gotta let it run free:

JeffreyBeaumont: ok, you ready?
jaychampionvinyl: I'm so ready you can call me Helen
JeffreyBeaumont: GREAT. 1, 2, 3, GO

JeffreyBeaumont: oh man this fucking intro. I LOVE IT.
jaychampionvinyl: this .... doesn't sound old.
JeffreyBeaumont: i forgot that 100% is my favorite Sonic Youth song
jaychampionvinyl: it sounds like amazing.
jaychampionvinyl: this is not going to be an elevated critical discussion...it's mostly going to be "OMG!"

JeffreyBeaumont: dude, this is the first sonic youth song i ever heard

JeffreyBeaumont: i had heard so much nirvana-related buzz about this band, over and over
jaychampionvinyl: same!
JeffreyBeaumont: i ordered this record in 94 from Columbia House
JeffreyBeaumont: or maybe it was BMG
jaychampionvinyl: trivia question: do you remember what other records arrived with it?
(something tells me maybe you do)
JeffreyBeaumont: no
JeffreyBeaumont: that was 93
JeffreyBeaumont: but
JeffreyBeaumont: i remember hearing 100% and thinking, "WHOA WOW WTF AWESOME LOUDNESS"
JeffreyBeaumont: but then "Swimsuit Issue" came on
JeffreyBeaumont: and i'm like, "Who the FUCK is singing? Is that a woman?"
jaychampionvinyl: hahahahahahaha, yeah
JeffreyBeaumont: it's so atonal
jaychampionvinyl: it sounds like it could either be a woman or a really pinched sounding bratty annoying 20 year old
man
JeffreyBeaumont: yes
jaychampionvinyl: "I ain't givin you head in a Sunset bungalow!"
jaychampionvinyl: fair enough, Kim
JeffreyBeaumont: despite reading over and over that SY was "experimental"
JeffreyBeaumont: i still was expecting super melodious riffage ala Nirvana
jaychampionvinyl: I actually DIDN'T like 100% at all when I first heard it
jaychampionvinyl: too "atonal"
jaychampionvinyl: the guy "couldn't sing"

JeffreyBeaumont: yeah i think i'm overemphasizing the awesome
JeffreyBeaumont: i think on very first listen i probably didn't like it
JeffreyBeaumont: but i think i came around quickly

jaychampionvinyl: I saw the video on 120 Minutes
and was like "this song would be awesome if he sang it right"
JeffreyBeaumont: i remember learning years later how to play it on guitar
jaychampionvinyl: hahahah
"DETUNE GUITAR, HIT WITH FACE"
JeffreyBeaumont: in order to do so, you need to detune the low FOUR strings to F#
JeffreyBeaumont: so it's like F# F# F# F# E B

JeffreyBeaumont: that was probably 96 or 97 when i tried that

JeffreyBeaumont: and suddenly i remember understanding why it all sounded so sludgy
JeffreyBeaumont: i also remember being tremendously annoyed that i then was unable to play ANY other songs on my guitar until i tuned it back

JeffreyBeaumont: but to go back to Swimsuit Issue
JeffreyBeaumont: the hilarious thing about that is that despite the fact that I hated the song
JeffreyBeaumont: i had just gotten my first subscription to Sports Illustrated the previous year
and i remmeber my mouth actually dropping as I began recognizing every name that Kim mouthed
JeffreyBeaumont: "Those are the models in the magazine!"
JeffreyBeaumont: Including one she mentions named Vendela, who was the cover girl in '93
jaychampionvinyl: hahahahaha
JeffreyBeaumont: i'm googling it right now
JeffreyBeaumont: but without even looking i remember she was wearing a silver strangely shaped suit
either on the cover or on one of the pages inside
JeffreyBeaumont: BOOM! http://swimsuit-issue.com/1993.html
JeffreyBeaumont: god i loved that shit
JeffreyBeaumont: i probably looked at it 500 times
JeffreyBeaumont: anyway....
jaychampionvinyl: wow
jaychampionvinyl: her boobs don't even look like boods
jaychampionvinyl: they look like shoulders
jaychampionvinyl: on her chest
JeffreyBeaumont: yeah Vendela was never exciting to me
JeffreyBeaumont: but look to the left
JeffreyBeaumont: i LOVED the redhead girl
JeffreyBeaumont: and Ashley Richardson below her
jaychampionvinyl: hahaha, I love that this discussion has turned, three tracks in, to a discussion of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models
JeffreyBeaumont: yes. two tracks actually.
JeffreyBeaumont: but that's the thing
JeffreyBeaumont: i didn't know anything about music in 93
JeffreyBeaumont: and really only understood pop music

JeffreyBeaumont: but getting back to things tho...
JeffreyBeaumont: Theresa's
JeffreyBeaumont: i was like, "Whoa, 'dark'", with that spindly guitar
jaychampionvinyl: this is the first noise smear on this recorfd
jaychampionvinyl: sounds sickly
jaychampionvinyl: funny how there is still the pentatonic riffing to hold onto tho

JeffreyBeaumont: really creepy
JeffreyBeaumont: because the noise is built up
jaychampionvinyl: it's never TOO far
JeffreyBeaumont: it's actually pretty digestible dark early 90s grunge/indie
JeffreyBeaumont: and as i grew up i came to LOVE the noise breakdown
JeffreyBeaumont: but then as soon as that ends...

JeffreyBeaumont: "Drunken Butterfly"
JeffreyBeaumont: SCREEEEECH
JeffreyBeaumont: I remmeber thinking by track 4, "What is this shit? Why do people compare these guys to Nirvana?!?"
jaychampionvinyl: yeah, its funny how little this record makes me think of the time period iduring which it was released
jaychampionvinyl: Sonic Youth, as a band, were a college experience for me
jaychampionvinyl: I owned this and played it dutifully
jaychampionvinyl: but it got about 1/100000th of the burn that, like, Ritual De Lo Habitual, Live THrough This, and Mellon Collie did
jaychampionvinyl: to me, this feels very much like "now" music
JeffreyBeaumont: i hear you
JeffreyBeaumont: it's diffeernt for me, at least with this record (and to a lesser extent Daydream Nation)
JeffreyBeaumont: because i sort of forced myself to listen and appreciate. not any others, but this one.

JeffreyBeaumont: "Shoot" brings it back down though

JeffreyBeaumont: I just love love this track and always did

JeffreyBeaumont: ok... so i'm on "Wish Fulfillment" now
JeffreyBeaumont: THIS song makes me think of the early 90s
JeffreyBeaumont: way more than Thurston, lee renaldo's voice to me says "90S INDIE ROCK"
Jayson: makes me think of, like, "Heart Shaped Box" meets Metallica's "One"
Jayson: and agreed on the voice.
Jayson: this is a way of singing that only existed during the George Herbert Walker Bush administration and the first Clinton term.
JeffreyBeaumont: haha yes.

JeffreyBeaumont: i always rememebr thinking that i liked his voice better than thurston's even though i knew it was worse
JeffreyBeaumont: on a final supermodel-related note
http://www.bellazon.com/main/index.php?s=a2cf16654290c50afcd7b7dff636f224&act=attach&type=post&id=261432
JeffreyBeaumont: this photo blew me away
JeffreyBeaumont: from either 93 or 95 SI swimsuit issue
JeffreyBeaumont: oh Ashley
JeffreyBeaumont: basically listening to this record makes me think of sitting in my room late at night in 6th and 7th grade and flipping through my saved (never discarded) issues of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, as I pondered notions of adolescence and my burgeoning sexuality
jaychampionvinyl: hahahahah
jaychampionvinyl: BASICALLY THIS WAS MY WANKING RECORD
JeffreyBeaumont: yes
JeffreyBeaumont: so

JeffreyBeaumont: "Sugar Kane"
you there
jaychampionvinyl: sorry, yes...I just restarted Sugar Kane
jaychampionvinyl: I'm back on track
JeffreyBeaumont: this was the first song I remmeber really clicking when i began listening as an adult
jaychampionvinyl: Sugar Kane?
JeffreyBeaumont: like, at some point at age 17 or so i put it on and suddenly it blew me away
JeffreyBeaumont: and it was like, at that exact moment i finally "got" sonic youth
jaychampionvinyl: god this record is so so so good
JeffreyBeaumont: yes, and this song in particular
jaychampionvinyl: whoa, this outro is such an unexpected sunray
JeffreyBeaumont: yes
JeffreyBeaumont: and i definitely liked this track in the early days.... but i didn't get it
JeffreyBeaumont: like most of this record
JeffreyBeaumont: but in some way it feels like this track more than anything else from the 91-95 period... which explains why Sonic Youth were associated with grunge
Jayson: I think it also has a lot to do with Thurston's vocal inflections
JeffreyBeaumont: it does
JeffreyBeaumont: but i think it also has to do with the intersection between melodious guitars and off-the-path experimentation
JeffreyBeaumont: like, the next track "Orange Rolls" doesn't sound THAT crazy compared to a lot of real indie stuff from the time
JeffreyBeaumont: but compared to mainstream indie/grunge it sounds like atonal craziness
JeffreyBeaumont: "Sugar Kane" seems like some real meeting point between the worlds

JeffreyBeaumont: "Orange Rolls"
jaychampionvinyl: Orange Rolls
JeffreyBeaumont: this was one more track i hated
JeffreyBeaumont: i just could not understand these trashy kim songs
jaychampionvinyl: her voice is an acquired taste
jaychampionvinyl: kiinnda sounds like Jimbo from the Simpsons retching
JeffreyBeaumont: there was a huge dichotomy of warm thurston and uncle lee and creepy skeezthrash momma Kim
jaychampionvinyl: hahaha
jaychampionvinyl: great fucking breakdown/jamout section in this one, tho
JeffreyBeaumont: yes, that is something as an adult i can appreciate and actually love
jaychampionvinyl: it's so uncanny how loosely tight they are
jaychampionvinyl I realize sounds aggressively meaningless
jaychampionvinyl: but it's such a weird trick
JeffreyBeaumont: hahah

JeffreyBeaumont: it is
jaychampionvinyl: to sound together, but JUST BARELY
jaychampionvinyl: to be able to cohere

JeffreyBeaumont: i think that's the detuning thing
JeffreyBeaumont: making them sound atonal/amateurish
JeffreyBeaumont: but in fact tremendously in sync with one another
jaychampionvinyl: yes, but I've seen them jam live and it really is an esxperience of watching four musicians tear everything down

JeffreyBeaumont: oh man
JeffreyBeaumont: so we are now at what for me in 1993/4 was THE BEST moment
jaychampionvinyl: YOUTH
AGAINST
jaychampionvinyl: FASCISM
JeffreyBeaumont: yes
JeffreyBeaumont: the first 10 times i played this record this was the ONLY song i understood
JeffreyBeaumont: it was also the a) the only song i easily learned how to play on guitar and b) the only one not requiring me to retune my guitar$$$$
jaychampionvinyl: hahaha yes
jaychampionvinyl: I can see a young Beaumont in my mind
jaychampionvinyl: gingerly finding the chords

jaychampionvinyl: and then strumming hard on them
JeffreyBeaumont: think they were like E / G / A / D / D
JeffreyBeaumont: No-- G / D / C / A / A [after checking]
jaychampionvinyl: haha

JeffreyBeaumont: in hindsight this seems to be the least interesting song on the record

JeffreyBeaumont: i rememebr reading the liner notes on seeing that it was the only song with a guest musician
JeffreyBeaumont: "Xtra guitar: Ian MacKaye"
JeffreyBeaumont: i remember thinking, "Whoever this dude is, he's obviously more of a rocker than these guys"

JeffreyBeaumont: Yeah.

jaychampionvinyl: the back half of this is starting to lose me in its jam waters
JeffreyBeaumont: yeah
JeffreyBeaumont: nic fit = weird nothing

JeffreyBeaumont: On the Strip though
jaychampionvinyl: yes, I typed that RIGHT before Kim's vox started in
JeffreyBeaumont: it gets unjammy again
jaychampionvinyl: this is like the clearest moment on the entire CD
jaychampionvinyl: the fog parts
jaychampionvinyl: and then there's creepy Kim
jaychampionvinyl: whispering at you
jaychampionvinyl: and it's way scarier than when she screams
jaychampionvinyl: because now she's actually a Woman
jaychampionvinyl: and they're pretty scary

JeffreyBeaumont: she was probably the creepiest musician i'd yet encountered

JeffreyBeaumont: oh man and then Chapel Hill is a brilliant rainbow
jaychampionvinyl: yeah Thurston comes back and is like, "it's cool bro, she's gone. wanna go through 7 inches with me?"
jaychampionvinyl: "it was all a bad dream"
JeffreyBeaumont: "WANT TO FEEL SAFE TONIGHT"
JeffreyBeaumont: "DON'T WANT TO SLEEP WITH THE VULTURE LADY!"
jaychampionvinyl: hahaha YES YES

JeffreyBeaumont: 2:49
JeffreyBeaumont: !!!!!!!!!
jaychampionvinyl: this was a guitar freakout I could get down with
JeffreyBeaumont: man, this record has some fucking GREAT breakdowns/bridges/codas/outros
jaychampionvinyl: places to get lost
jaychampionvinyl: so many good ones
JeffreyBeaumont: none of which feature eddie vedder moaning, "COME TO ME / COME TO GOD"
jaychampionvinyl: hahaha
jaychampionvinyl: gives me that BTS feeling, circa Perfect From Now On, so much glorious friendly noise to lie down in
JeffreyBeaumont: with really beautiful tight spindly but jammy guitar lines and riffs

JeffreyBeaumont: another Kim song

JeffreyBeaumont: which now sounds reasonable
JeffreyBeaumont: but even this track was just weird for me
jaychampionvinyl: did I miss Kim? I stood up to watch a video of babies being dropped from balconies onto blankets in India

JeffreyBeaumont: yeah, but then Purr!
JeffreyBeaumont: it's like they play good cop bad cop on this record
jaychampionvinyl: I was just gonna say the same
JeffreyBeaumont: thurston gets the fun major scale sunsmiles
jaychampionvinyl: yes!
JeffreyBeaumont: and kim gets the dour "scare their children" creepscapes
jaychampionvinyl: it's like Kim's the camp counselor who tells the creepy ghost story and Thurston's the guy counselor who jokes with you afterward and convinces you it wasn't real
jaychampionvinyl: while Kim just stares at you stonfaced, nodding, mouthing "It IS real. YOu're going to die."
JeffreyBeaumont: and then wakes up at night by rapping on your window and peering through it at you with a candle next to her face
jaychampionvinyl: haaa you get it exactly

JeffreyBeaumont: and then, finally, the fuckstick of "Creme Brulee"
JeffreyBeaumont: a track which is about as unlike the dessert as any music i could imagine
jaychampionvinyl: this is when she sneaks into your cabin at 3am and fucks you in the ass with a stick while whispering this into your ear
jaychampionvinyl: and on THAT NOTE
jaychampionvinyl: little known fact: creme brulee is slang for a horribly invasive sex act
JeffreyBeaumont: really?
jaychampionvinyl: no
JeffreyBeaumont: "i'm so happy we're just friends"
jaychampionvinyl: right, as she withdraws stick and leaves
jaychampionvinyl: that's her parting line
jaychampionvinyl: door slams
jaychampionvinyl: "Don't tell Bobby about our fun"
JeffreyBeaumont: if kim deal spied me through my bedroom window late one night
JeffreyBeaumont: she could do whatever she wanted to me if she broke in to my apartment and came in my room
jaychampionvinyl: or even Kim Gordon

JeffreyBeaumont: hahaha, ideally, both of them, at once
JeffreyBeaumont: today, in 2009
jaychampionvinyl: right
jaychampionvinyl: hahahahahaha
jaychampionvinyl: good lord
jaychampionvinyl: a spectral art hag and a weird, dumpy trucker lesbian
JeffreyBeaumont: when i first heard the song "Little Trouble Girl" (from Washing Machine) in college i actually creamed my pants
JeffreyBeaumont: like, "Oh hey Shrimp Cracker, i need to go home. My pants are creamed"
jaychampionvinyl: hahahahahaha
JeffreyBeaumont: why couldn't have kim deal just made an entire record with sonic youth? on the topic of things that should have happened but never even sort of did
jaychampionvinyl: Umm. yeah, I gotta go.

LISTEN:

Sonic Youth - "100%" from Dirty

Sonic Youth - "Sugar Kane" from Dirty

Sonic Youth - "Swimsuit Issue" from Dirty

NOTES:

$$$$ -- Actually, according to this fan-made page of SY album tunings, even "Youth Against Facism" uses special tunings; in fact, out of their entire discography after the first EP, only the track "Mildred Pierce" uses a standard EADGBE guitar tuning (excepting the Stooges and Crime covers "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "Hot Wire My Heart"). Seriously, wow. Amazing, yes. But Willful Obscurantists, I'd call them, also.

Labels: crushes, IMs, memories, mp3, music, old flames, re-appraisals

posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 8/03/2009 04:05:00 PM 0 comments

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