Results tagged “sonicyouth”

STILL TRUCKIN': Sonic Youth's new album going to try the Block Party again, so this is about as good as it gets for people like us. Three Imaginary Girls co-hosts the event with Hannah Levin, Gainsbourg's co-owner.

--If Shawn Kemp pitched a reality show, SupersonicSoul thinks it would go a little something like this.

For once, it was actually nice weather at the Gorge for Sasquatch. Last year was all sturm und drang and the year previous was approximately the temperature of the sun, but the gods smiled down on all gathered in George, Washington yesterday afternoon, as it was a pleasant 80 degrees under partly cloudy skies.

There are a lot of reasons to like The Ponys (and consequently, to attend tonight's show at Neumos). You could go because you've got Chicago roots, as does the band. You could go because you like your rock to be on the garage end of the spectrum (but without being labelled formulaic). You could go because Pitchfork likes the new record despite spending much of their review likening the band to Sonic Youth minus the "unpredictable noise jams." For us, we'll be going because The Ponys use one of the most beautiful guitars ever made. View the video below to see what we mean. We've seen it before at Pilot Speed and again at SXSW as used by Toronto band Uncut, and we smile to think of seeing it again. An odd reaction? Perhaps, but we'll be front and center taking in the show all the same.

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week.

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to...

Masters of atmospheric drone/psych/whatchamacallit rock Kinski and Oneida put on a powerful show at Neumo's last Saturday, sharing the stage for a final jam session following their individual sets. There's enough stylistic overlap between the two bands that its surprising when people you've never heard of who write about music more often compare Oneida to the more abstract noise efforts of Sonic Youth than with the more obviously similar Kinski. The predominantly instrumental and intense, hypnotic rock sound is perhaps better described by the geniuses at Pitchfork in this less than glowing review of the 2004 release Secret Wars "....Songs are built atop the constant cycling of hyper-minimal progressions, fairly bludgeoning the listener into a state of docility with as minimal an approach as possible." Word.

When Starbucks announced they were getting into the CD selling business, we were quite pleased with the idea that the local chain could eventually de-throne 'no explicit content' Walmart as the nation's leading seller of music. We decided that we don't really care anymore after Starbucks decided not to sell Bruce Springsteen's latest 'Devils & Dust' since it contains lyrics describing a night with a hooker in the the song 'Reno.' While we are not encouraging (or even discouraging) spending a night with a Nevada prostitute, we do think the song is not especially offensive and that the CD is clearly labeled as having material inappropriate for minors. We think the company is well within its rights to refuse to sell material it finds offensive (perhaps why our human beat-box album never really got distribution there), we think it does further cement Starbucks' reputation as being not especially cool.

If there are two bands whose names you want to drop in conversation to bolster your indie cred, you can do a lot worse than My Bloody Valentine or Sonic Youth. After checking our hipster conversion chart, we see that My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Sonic Youth's Dirty are easily worth their weight in artfully worn vintage t's.