How Important was Jim O Rourke to SY when he was in it?
 

How big of a part did Jim play in the albums that helped SY out on ? Would Murray Street and Sonic Nurse be radically different if he hadn't contributed or would they have basically been the same? Would the albums have been worse if Jim hadn't been involved ?

Murray Street and Sonic Nurse were SY's most praised records in years. Before Jim their album NYC G&F got bad reviews and most fans agree after jim left and they did Rather Ripped that it wasn't as good an album as they'd been doing lately.

he brought a lot of studio savvy to the albums...and without him we would
have been denied the bass line in "plastic sun". did he galvanize the
Youth? they certainly gave the impression they loved having him around.

when he was into it he was like a mini-thurston with his onstage energy.
when he wasn't into it, he gave the impression of a fifth wheel waiting
to fall off. contrast this with ibold, who treats every performance like
a dinner at the florida avenue grill.

"Would Murray Street and Sonic Nurse be radically different if he hadn't contributed or would they have basically been the same? Would the albums have been worse if Jim hadn't been involved ?"

unequivocally they would have been different, but radically? i think jim definitely brought a
focus and skill to the process that no other band member could. i don't think it's a stretch to
say he has a superior "ear". even if he did produce the worst us maple album ever. sorry jim.

that man can do no bad in my eyes. and i loved it when he was in SY, i loved seeing him live w/ them. i wish he would have stayed a member.

i miss that dude, when He was in sonic youth, his bass skills took jamming to a new level, and that is completely lacking in the new. The synthesis between improv and planning is gone, its all planning again.... alas, the psychedelic/jam band/jazz fusion theme is gone and the noise/rocknroll theme is back in action....

not important at all.

OK, Jenn... You have to tell us more about the florida avenue grill! :)

VERY important-- he ruined it!

ha ha ha no. i believe there'd be no rain on tin without him. but there'd be no NYCGF either. hm....

i dont know. im sleepy.

he was a member while they did nyc ghost and flowers.
not an official one of course, just an engineer/producer but you can really hear him on some of the songs (on side 2 side for example)

he wasnt important in a creative way, maybe allowed a bit more fredom like rain on tin but he was important in an extra pair of hands way. he didnt enjoy it, he left to pursue his own thing but i never believed it would be permanent anyway.

I take it people here either never have seen, or are completely ignoring Jim's contributions to live Sonic Youth. If you had it would be crazy to say "he didn't enjoy it" and that "he wasn't imporant in a creative way" well that is just absurd! poor jim getting no credit for the five or six years he worked with a group... that must suck!

he came up with the bassline on PATTERN RECOGNITION I guess which is IMPORTANT to me.

i didnt really like how he was a member at first. this was before i listened to his solo stuff. but now i have and i'm a big fan of it. it's funny how his music and sy's music differ. when he was in the band, he didn't add his 'musical flare' to it, he just magnified and matured sy's sound. which ended up sounding completely awesome. you can definitely tell the difference now in sy's latest music. but i dont think it sounds bad at all.

and yeah, jim is a really awesome bass player. too bad he's not making music anymore.

[quote=!@#$%!]
i believe there'd be no rain on tin without him.
quote]

Very wrong. Check the track "Choir Boy Church Basement" from Thurston's HURRICANE FLOYD disc... it's essentially a solo acoustic rendition of "Rain On Tin" that seems to show that "Rain" started as a solo Thurston track, and its form was pretty much done.

In fact, if I remember correctly (from the SILVER ROCKETS/KOOL THINGS documentary, much of MURRAY ST started as songs that Thurston was going to record for a proposed solo album back then, but they ended up being used by SY.

BUT check out HURRICANE FLOYD, one of my favorite Thurston improv albums.

...yeah. so, he wasn't important at all, like i said.

I think he was important, but only in the way he was important to Wilco: studio style.

I mean, "Disconnection Notice" would sound the same, but wouldn't have the quasi-electronic fade-in happening throughout, y'know? Maybe "Sympathy For The Strawberry" would lack the keyboard. He seems very interested in subtle touches that fill out a production, not so interested in skeletal songwriting.

Just my guess. I wasn't there when they wrote/recorded, but...

The worst U.S. Maple album is still a fuckuvalot better than most other shit, man!

Nurse is one of my favourite SY records, and I think the both of them would be pretty different without him... I don't really know exactly all the stuff he does, but I know it's a lot of studio stuff, and writing a couple bits... regardless... guy rules.

Long Hair in 3 Stages is my favorites, besides Talker. Hmph.

I really like Jim, a lot of his solo work (especially the more electronic stuff) is wonderful, and his work with Gastr Del Sol is godlike. I just don't think he really contributed too much to SY... though the production on NYC Ghosts and Flowers is AMAZING...

I wouldn't underestimate his contribution to SY. He's a good musician/producer and added a lot to Murray Street and Sonic Nurse. Love the way he improvised and freaked with his pedals on the Nurse tour.

As far as solo, I love I'M HAPPY AND I'M SINGING AND A 1,2,3,4

thank you, somebody gets it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...file&id=792185

one of the great eating spots of the nation's capital...at the first show in DC on June 15 last year, thurston spent some time telling the crowd about their wonderful breakfast there ("the grits were...historical"), and thurston shouted it again during his solo show here this year.

Jim was hugely important to Sonic Youth when he was involved, and massively creatively so. I don't understand how anyone could think differently. If you don't like the stuff he's involved in, that's one thing, but to underscore his role in producing, playing, and co-writing it is just totally wrong.

Take NYC G&F for instance, he obviously got the band to try things they had never really did before (like getting Kim and Thurston to harmonize vocals instead of just always trade them off.) Then on Nurse, he was crucial in getting that incredible layered mix. Not too mention the dimension he added to the band live, by freeing the original members up to try new instruments (or in Kim's case often go without) and making it possible for them to have three or more guitars live (on the Nurse tour at times he played guitar instead of bass so that there were four!)

He also made SYR 3 and SYR 4 the most boundary stretching of that series. I'm not saying the rest of the band didn't as well, but he was hardly extra baggage! He recorded and mixed most of it as well as playing on it. When you used to go to the Echo Canyon Cam he was constantly in that studio. And to watch him playing live, I'm certain he was having a blast rocking out - he's just a multi-faceted guy who eventually had to move on to other things.

While I don't like Rather Ripped nearly as much as Nurse, I have a lot of faith in the four originals (and yeah, I know Steve is a few years short of being an "original", but I still had him sign my copy of Kill Your Idols when I had the rest do so in '91) to get fully back on track. I'm not one of these people who claim Jim made the group, but I am forever impressed with his ability to measure up to such a brilliant band and meld with them perfectly for as long as he did.

Sure, and we don't have any disagreement there either. Though I suspect that the stolen equipment probably forced them to try things different in the tuning realms, while a new producer/band-member probably had more influence on the arrangements of the songs.

thats bit harsh there. he didnt enjoy the touring part of the youth. he wasnt a major songwriter in the youth. i have seen jim live with the youth and i am not ignoring his part... his part is obvious on murray st and on parts of nurse but thats it. he wasnt the be all and end all of sonic youth. he left, the youth are still going so there is the proof! as too say he gets no credit... thats absurd... please read posts before replying to them!

its hard to get your point accross when misinterpretation is all part of the game!

He's all over Nurse, and just as much NYC G&F! And lets not forget the very best of the SYR records 3, 4, and 6! When I saw him playing live with them (four times if I remember right!) he had a huge smile on his face and looked like he was having a blast.

I'm sure he wanted to move on when he left, because he did, but to say he didn't enjoy it makes no sense. Why would he have given up half a decade of his life if he didn't enjoy it? It's not like he was getting rich from them or couldn't have found another gig. He still plays with Thurston pretty frequently. Sure, for Jim O' Rourke long term membership to a group is probably not ever going to happen, but h totally went at it full bore in Sonic Youth.

Do you guys have nothing better to do than worrying about these bollocks?

The only thing worse is that you apparently have nothing better to do than to worry about whether the rest of us have anything better to do!;)

my dog just took a shit.

i don't know, dude. experimental jet set would argue the opposite.

if you're wondering how great a difference jim made in sy, listen to everything pre-nyc g&f and then listen to what came from then on.

not necessarily better or worse, but definitely different.

"Better to do" is a pretty silly thing to worry about. Of course there is always something "better to do"! Rather than posting on a message board we could all join the Peace Corps, or go prevent some neighborhood stray cats from breeding!

It shouldn't be too surprising that a message board on the Sonic Youth website would attract people who like expounding exhaustively about Sonic Youth. Where else can we find other Sonic geeks willing to take it so far?

I'm concerned enough about keeping what few real life friends I have, that I wouldn't go on like this about the worth of Jim 'O Rourke in Sonic Youth with them. But here, I should be able to count on even bigger geeks, who'll still be talking about it after I've gotten bored and gone back to watching Doctor Who with my wife!

considering the fact that all of their albums during his time in the band are good or fair at worst, and that rather ripped, their first album without him, is their worst album to date, i'm thinking they need to give him a call.

looks like they could use his tech-savviness ah ha!



kiddin.

He was very important, from a thousand leaves to nurse, this guy brought a noticeable change in direction to the music, but without sacrificing the quality and vision of the original members.

Jim o'Rourke to me is an enigmatic figure in music. His solo projects are usually great,straight ahead pop records, while most albums he produces, or plays on are complete opposite.

Jim O'Rourke was important, but not indispensable. Good man who did what he had to do. Sonic Nurse (and probably both albums which came after that) would be different without the influence of Jim.

I agree.

I agree!
He added a lot of nuances, like the "mixing board solo" in Karen Revisited or the piano in Dripping Dream at 6:27. It sounds like he made them work a bit harder, I really liked that.

he made the tea.

I think when he played guitar it brought an added dimension to their music.

Wish he'd rejoin. Maybe we could have four guitars and Ibold on bass.