Sonic Youth - "I Love Her All the Time"

 

Happy Birthday Danette!

This year, I'm back to doing a song that makes me think of her, and not necessarily a song that she necessarily likes. "I Love Her All the Time" is an excellent song from Sonic Youth's often overlooked 1985 sophomore LP, "Bad Moon Rising".  It's a tour-de-force of the loud-soft-loud formula, with long periods of discordant chaos, followed by slow progression into tender movements, and then back again.  And although "manic pixie dream girl" has slightly negative connotations, the song captures the essence of Danette's (partial & positive) MPDG role, as in "wonder" and "awe", relative to me. 

As much as Kim Gordon is the epitome of cool, I actually enjoy Thurston Moore on lead vocals slightly more.   His conventional, almost soothing but still detached, vocal approach is a pleasing contrast to the guitar cacophony that he accompanies. 

She comes into my mind

Twisting through my nerves

I don't understand

A word she says

She's on my side

I love her all the time

I love her all the time

I love her all the time

I love her all the time

"I Love Her All the Time": studio version, from "Live in Brooklyn 2011" 

2025-10-27 update: I just learned about 1985's "Gila Monster Jamboree"; direct link to "I Love Her All the Time" and the full concert.  

Previous birthday songs:

2024: Devo - "Uncontrollable Urge"

2023: Brandi Carlile - "The Story" 
2022: Plastic Bertrand - "Ça plane pour moi" 
2021: Adam and the Ants - "Christian D'or" 
2020: Walk Off The Earth - "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"
2019: Nicki Minaj - "Monster"
2018: Bear Hands - "Giants" 
2017: Alvvays - "Archie, Marry Me" 
2016: Molly Hatchet - "Flirtin' With Disaster" 
2015: Avett Brothers - "Kick Drum Heart"
2014: Ani DiFranco - "32 Flavors" 
2013: The Green Pajamas - "Kim the Waitress"
2012: The Cure - "High"
2011: Blink 182 - "Josie"
2010:  Dead Milkmen - "Punk Rock Girl"  

Sonic Youth - "Kool Thing" (forgotten song)

I realized recently that so far my discussion of Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth here were mostly in the context of the Kim / Thurston split ("Diamond Sea", "Girl in a Band").  Women's History Month is a good excuse to fix that and to remind everyone why Kim is the Lemmy of alt/college rock.

I certainly knew about Sonic Youth prior to "Goo", their 1990 major label release, but just through coincidence of timing this was the first LP of theirs that I bought and really embraced.  "Kool Thing" was the first single off the LP and is certainly more accessible than their previous work.  At the time I enjoyed it as a great song, but it wasn't until much later that I learned the back story that it is about a 1989 article in Spin Magazine where Kim interviewed LL Cool J and the resulting cultural chasm between them, part of which is attributable to not finding space for feminism in the machismo of LL's style of hip-hop (e.g., "The guy has to have control over his woman").

Of course, the video and song are filled with many clever LL "Kool" J references (e.g., "walking like a panther", "I don't think so", "let me play with your radio"), and even briefly features Chuck D  (I always felt he was significantly underutilized in this song, but to be fair the story goes theirs was an unplanned, serendipitous collaboration resulting from Public Enemy being in a nearby studio).

Enough about the back story -- there's a good "official" video and many live versions available, but this 1993 live version is a good reminder of when and why Kim (and Thurston) were the queen (and king) of the scene...

"Fear of a female planet"
Sonic Youth - "Kool Thing": live 1993, official video

LL Cool J - "Going Back to Cali" (from which the official "Kool Thing" video borrows)

Silversun Pickups - "Lazy Eye" (spotlight)

Driving last night I heard "Lazy Eye" on the radio, and that reminded me that I've been meaning to do this: I hereby declare The Smashing Pumpkins redundant, and in the future we need only the Silversun Pickups.

When I first head "Lazy Eye" some 11 (!) years ago I (and everyone else) thought Brian Aubert's voice was similar to Billy Corgan's, and that their overall sound mines the same territory as The Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, and MBV.  So why are TSPs now redundant?

First, although I was never a huge fan of TSPs, their early work (e.g., from 1993's "Siamese Dream") nicely captures the sound of the early 90s / post-college and all the associated nostalgia.  I enjoyed the singles from each successive LP less and less, but did not let their decreasing relevancy diminish my enjoyment of "Disarm", "Today", etc.

Then when Danette and I got together she made it clear in no uncertain terms that she did not like Billy Corgan.  On the other hand, Danette's a hater and dislikes a lot of good music, so I remained unconvinced and having never seen Corgan in an interview, I had a protective veil of ignorance.  Recently, in the autobiography "Girl in a Band",  I discovered that Kim Gordon's assessment of Billy Corgan matches Danette's.  This is when I started to think maybe Danette was right... 

The final straw is when I recently saw a screen grab of Billy Corgan on Info Wars, talking about chemtrails or something.  That convinced me that 1) he actually was batshit crazy, and 2) Danette was definitely right.

Can you reject creepy Corgan and still enjoy "Today"?  I'm not sure, but in the mean time we can enjoy the Silversun Pickups, who still "sound like college" to me.  They've had a steady stream of moderately successful singles, but "Lazy Eye" from their 2006 debut LP "Carnavas" is probably still their biggest hit.  And we can probably just retire Billy et al.

Silversun Pickups - "Lazy Eye", live from Sun Liquor (from which their name derives), live on Fearless Music (2010-06)

Bonus Sonic Youth reference:  From the official video, Nikki Monninger (top) looks like a brunette Kim Gordon (bottom).  

2018-02-15 edit: I came across this today...

Just a little reminder, in case you’re tempted to support Billy Corgan during this “Smashing Pumpkins reunion” tour. pic.twitter.com/NN7R0g9p9P

— AustinBloggy (₌ㅇᆽㅇ₌) (@AustinBloggy) February 15, 2018

Sonic Youth - Paulínia, Brazil 2011-11-14 (concert)

I recently read Kim Gordon's excellent 2015 autobiography "Girl in a Band", which chronicles the rise and fall of Sonic Youth and Kim's relationship with SY co-founder, Thurston Moore.   I previously blogged about the Gordon / Moore split, and as much as I'm a Thurston Moore fan he does not come off as a sympathetic character in Kim's version of the story.

I can't help but compare this to Chrissie Hynde's biography, which I read immediately prior to "Girl in a Band".  While both are good, there are several reasons why I enjoyed Kim's book more.  First, under Kim's aloof, arms-length persona is a poignant and vulnerable storyteller, and under Chrissie's armored exterior, there's just another layer of armor.   At the end of both books, you know Kim far more than you know Chrissie.  Second, Sonic Youth's music means more to me personally, and Kim arranged a good portion of the book to temporally aligned with major releases in SY's extensive discography.  In addition to the broader SY story, I learned interesting trivia such as Kim's father was a professor at UCLA, her teenage boyfriend was Danny Elfman, her life briefly intersected with Bruce Berry, and her dislike of Billy Corgan is rivaled only by Danette's. 

The book began with a description of SY's last concert in Brazil (soon after the announcement of their split), esp. the scene captured above of Thurston's mock surprise when the tech hands him his guitar.  Kim stated that she had not been able to watch this concert because of the emotional entanglement it represents.  Of course, this only increased the voyeuristic appeal of my seeing SY's last concert, and  Kim definitely seems detached from the rest of the band.  Since I would assess the probability of a SY reunion at roughly 0.0, this last show from 2011 is all we're likely to have.



See the reviews of "Girl in a Band" from the NY Times, Slate, The Guardian, and Stereogum. 

Sonic Youth - "Diamond Sea" (forgotten song)

"Time takes its crazy toll
And how does your mirror grow
You better watch yourself when you jump into it
Cause the mirror's gonna steal your soul"

I'm not sure how I've managed to blog this long and not really mention Sonic Youth.  I've been reading "Our Band Could Be Your Life", and this has caused me to go back and rip all the various SY cds that I somehow had failed to in the past.  I have a significant portion of their considerable discography, and while I'd love to tell you that my favorite song is "Teen Age Riot", "Kill Yr. Idols", "Death Valley '69", or something like that, the truth is my favorite SY song is actually "Diamond Sea", the first single from their 1995 LP "Washing Machine". 

I was surprisingly disappointed when in late 2011 it was announced that after 27 years of marriage SY founders Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon were splitting up, effectively ending the 30 year career of Sonic Youth in the process.  Individually, Thurston & Kim are the epitome of cool and their long-standing rock-n-roll marriage was even cooler.  Less than a month ago, Kim revealed in an interview that the marriage ended because of Thurston's mid-life crisis.  Shortly thereafter the identity of the "other woman" was revealed, and then the inevitable back-lash for "shaming" the woman while more or less giving Thurston a pass.  I guess marriages break up every day, but most don't claim the careers of seminal bands like Sonic Youth.

"Time takes its crazy toll
Mirror fallin' off the wall
You better look out for the looking glass girl
Cause she's gonna take you for a fall"

"Diamond Sea": 5:45 radio edit, 19:36 LP version, 20 min live version (1996), 1995 live (on "The State")


Although I'm ashamed to admit it, I frequently prefer the radio edit to the freak-out LP version.