There isn't any need for any Sonic Youth/Glen Branca etc copycats anymore
 

Go home.Leave the formula to rot but also leave it to improve in its own self-doubt.You honestly don't need to sound like them or anybody else for that matter.It's wrong ,you won't take it anywhere and it has been done in a better way that you will ever be willing to match unless the need to add something that needs adding and make it stand corrected.You want to be creative,well,create.Do it for more joyous and serious reasons than making yourself looking and sounding important and create something this world could be proud of in your own world.

That's what I thought back in '91 when I first started playing guitar, hence I didn't borrow heavily from either, even though I do enjoy their music and sounds, and even though I have a knack for playing that way if and when I want to do so.

But, as I can see now, that was a foolhardy decision, because, as it turns out, there's this whole genre of noise music now and plenty of imitators who borrow stylistically from Sonic Youth and Glenn Branca. Add to this that alternate tunings are now pretty much the norm. But the real kicker is, most of them suck balls, and the people in the bands in question aren't even very attractive or interesting to boot. Their lyrics, if they have any, are feeble.
So there's my sour grapes for the day.
Have a nice one.

Sour grapes are allright but Sonic Youth is/waSSSSSSS just a tiny band making music in the world.And not particularly good at that anymore either.

how dare you impugn the name of the almighty sonic GOD??????
How dare YOU???????????

here we go.

i dont agree with you, simply because the essence of creation and art is copycating. everyone has heard music before, so when they go to pick up a guitar, bass, drums, laptop, they are going to sound like someone. the key is not to be innovative, its to make something your own. and the minute it is your own, and true (ie personal, with thought, emotional...) then it doesnt matter if it has never been heard before. look at all of the old bluesmen or folk singers. or even sonic youth, at the begginning sounded excactly like their contemporaries. or the velvet underground who might be the greatest band of all time IMO sounded like bob dylan mixed with blues and a guitarist trying to sound like ornette coleman. but they made some of the most groundbreaking music off all time.
i took a music course at BU this summer, and the teacher said to us, "never borrow music, because if you borrow it then it still sounds like someone elses.. you have to steal it, thuis making it yours"
and i dont think you can find many innovative bands in the realm of rock music, that didnt sound like their predocecors in some way or another.
as stravinsky said, "to make music you have to take the old, and make it new"
maybe i'm just saying all of this because my band is very heavily influenced from branca and SY, but i dont see anything wrong with that (plus we have been changing direction a bit recently....)
i hpe i made sense...

yes yes yes yes and more yes and more yes and correct and you are right yes

i'm not sure if you are serious or not....:o :cool:

You make a point by starting this thread, but I think that Sonic Youth are still one of the most innovative bands around. As for the copycats trying to follow in their footsteps... wake up and smell the coffee.

music is developed through what one hears.

I LOVE bands that remind me of sonic youth, that take off from where sonic youth left ofrf (unwound, polvo, Parts & Labor even archers of loaf in their skronk) and that is what I look for in new acts. I WANT to hear some sort of good influence. There is nooone out there whose influcences cannot be dicscerned, and I woud much rather prefer to have them explore the groundwork laid by sonic youth and branca and chatham and such than to have them mine the extremely well-trod sound world of the R&B world, or the blues world, etc.

I think that is a beautiful thing.

Sonic Youth influences are okay when there's an attempt to take them to a different level and not just blindly copy and paste. As Rob said, Polvo are a good example, they took SY-like alternate guitar tunings and used to create a wholly unique and original twisted trademark sound. There's nothing wrong with this approach.

Generally, I guess, bands that listen to Sonic Youth and use them as an influence, aren't usually the dumbest ones and try to come up with something new.

Like, can you think of one band that got inspired by their sound and totally fucked it up?

The first two Trail of Dead albums were great and their liv show at that time was INCENDIARY!!!!!

their new stuff, meh

Trail of Dead are shite.

Every time i hear someone use the word Incendiary,i think about the movie 'Almost Famous'.I've lost interest in this thread but the responses were interesting(especially _slavo_'s) even though i don't agree with everything.