Thurston in Another Man magazine
 

Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth talks...

...about his record collection and the appeal of cassettes in the new issue of AnOther Man out today.

| Published 19 March 2009





In the new issue of AnOther Man, Sean O'Hagan travels to the Massachusetts home of Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore to interview him about the past, present and future of the seminal band, who are about to release their 16th album The Eternal. Below is an extract from the text; to read the rest, along with features on Patrick Wolf, Ratatat, Jason Spaceman, and the best art, architecture, fashion and ideas, get AnOther Man issue 8, out today.

Before I depart for New York, Thurston Moore shows me around the basement of his big house. It’s a trip in itself. One section has been turned into a rehearsal space, and is littered with cables and instruments and amps. The other members of the group – Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, Mark Ibold – come up to Northampton for a couple of days’ rehearsal every week. “We write a couple of songs, then go up to NY at the weekend and record them,” says Thurston. “It’s a new way of working for us and one that doesn’t allow for a lot of development. It’s more instant. It has,” he adds mysteriously, “been a challenge to some.”

The basement also contains Thurston’s record collection, wall after wall stacked high with rare and obscure records. It’s easily the biggest archive I have seen since I visited the late John Peel’s house back in the 1980s. The section devoted to Norwegian black metal is bigger than my entire record collection. He pulls out an album at random. The sleeve features a naked nubile covered in blood. “That’s a kind of generic death metal cover,” he deadpans. “She’s probably the drummer’s girlfriend.”

Another basement room houses his collection of cassette mix tapes, personalised compilations that friends and strangers have sent him from across the globe. “When you look at the detail that’s gone into not just the selection of music but the cover illustrations, it’s almost like outsider art,” he says. “These are valuable documents. I think they should be preserved for posterity as a glimpse of popular culture in a time of fragmentation.”

Sixteenth album...geez...I didn't even think about that.

how i'd like to be invited for the week-end there... seriously.

thurston has talked recently about how he was cutting back severely on his record buying and focusing on pamphlets and literature.

I would ,love to hang with him for a weekend, playing records.

I read the full article today.

Did anyone know Thurston has a dog called Merzbow? Cos I certainly didn't.

Yeah, I read about Merzbow the dog before. Brilliant.

too bad its their seventeenth.

I love chris' eternal battle for the Sonic Death album!

There's copies of this magazine on ebay for about sixteen quid. Is that really how much it costs?

what is the usa exchange rate for quid?

1 quid = 1.45 bucks

Merzbow-wow?

anywhere you can read the full interview online?

man that is an expensive copy of a magazine then!

haha! actually, i'm guessing they're excluding 'the whitey album', which i have counted as their 7th. and of course they consider the first EP their first album, which i'm sure nobody but them agrees with.

before i launched the discography in '02 i asked the band to put their heads together and provide me with a list of what they considered to be all their official albums, in order, and i put that information directly into the discography. so at least at that time, they considered the whitey album to be a proper sonic youth record (i'm sure many, perhaps including myself, would argue that point).

The Whitey Album is a Sonic Youth record, to my mind. Enough of this
revisionist history, band!

haha, check this out!

Sonic Youth's nineteenth long player will be released in North America on June 8, 2004 and is entitled "Sonic Nurse".

http://www.sonicyouth.com/nurse/index.html

Sonic Nurse is the nineteenth long player by the New York City supernova, together since 1981.

apparently they're moving backwards!

oh, and:

"Murray Street is Sonic Youth’s 16th album since they came together in 1981. "

apparently they're standing still, too.

I like the comparative difference between The Whitey Album and NYC Ghosts & Flowers. Both really New York albums but in completely different ways.

I count the original EP, with the B side backwards, as a full album of sonic skronk./

I also count ciccone youth as an album.

I also count the album of photos I made of Kim teasing my balls with her tongue an official album...