Sorry if this was posted before:
http://www.imposemagazine.com:80/mag...s-sonic-youth/
Vaults: Sonic Youth
In Issue Six, we talked to Thurston Moore and Jim O’Rourke
What better way to initiate digging into our own archives and bringing you the best of our print than an interview with Sonic Youth? You’re right, there is no better way.
Stroking NY’s Ego
By Evan Dashevsky
From the beginning of time, Sonic Youth has been there. “Beginning of time” being defined here as that pinnacle moment in the history of the universe (universe being defined as the landscape of American rock music) when rockers who considered themselves artists stopped trying to prove and justify the sounds of their genre to the academic establishment and started creating intelligent, artful rock for intelligent rock fans (here being defined as angry fifteen-year-olds and stoned college students).
Stepping into their third decade of existence, Sonic Youth is still writing new and vivid chapters in their story in a world where very few bands are able to remain mold-free beyond their third LP. I was able to sit down for an in-depth conversation with the seminal noisemakers. The following are excerpts from my conversation with founding member, Thurston Moore and newest member, Jim O’Rourke—but Jim didn’t have much to say, so basically, it’s just with Thurston.
What do you think of World War Three so far?
Thurston: So far? I’m completely ignorant of World War Three.
Jim: You mean that British band?
T: Oh, those guys? Yeah, they’re good. They’ve been broken up for quite a while – The Third World War.
J: They had the greatest album title of all time—their second album was called The Third World War II.
What was David Geffen like and did you do any negotiations in his hot tub like he did with Crosby, Stills, and Nash?
T: No. We didn’t get to do any negotiations in the hot tub. We were flown out to LA by the Geffen people who were interested in us. And at the time Geffen was all about Whitesnake and Cher and John Lennon albums and we thought it was kind of ridiculous. But like all the labels at the time, there was this influx of new people with a background in college radio who were finding these gigs doing radio, promotions, and A&R stuff at major labels and they were reaching out to the bands they were working with at college radio previously. It was interesting to hear these executives talk about how they were all into Dinosaur Jr. and we were like ‘How do you even know this?’ At that time especially there was such a division between mainstream culture and what we were doing. Then all of a sudden to hear people coming out of major labels espousing interest in bands that we thought were our territory—we knew that something was changing. When we went to talk to some of the majors, Geffen had the most interesting and reasonable pitch that we got. And at the time Geffen was considered a Unicorn label—it didn’t have any affiliation with any conglomerates or corporations—they were completely self-contained. It was a small label in a little building and it was funky and left over from the sixties. So we met them and I remember David Geffen sort of came in the meeting and sat down and talked to us and gave us his pitch and then asked us what we were doing there and we said, “well, you flew us out” and then he said, “well, then you have to sign to us”—that was his kind of logic. Then he complained about David Crosby’s book and how it misrepresented him and stuff like that, then he split and I never saw him again.
