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THURSTON'S SONIC UPDATE
THE PAST FEW MONTHS IN SYNOPSIS

*National Public Radio did a piece on poet d.a. levy - the somewhat"subject" of "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" (song on NYC Ghosts + Flowers) last Saturday on the Weekend Morning show featuring an interview w/ Thurston Moore (that's my name but I'm trying to be a 3rd person correspondent) + some snippets of the song itself as well as interviews w/ Allen Ginsberg and Ed Sanders -- It can be heard w/ RealPlayer if you hit this Url Or just go to the NPR page yrself.

*Both Lee and Thurston were invited to read poems by the late, great beat/lyric madman poet Gregory Corso April 26th at the Poetry Center at St. Mark's Church on-the-Bowery in NYC. Corso had made one last wish to be buried next to classic bard Percy Shelley in a Rome graveyard which was very exclusive and almost impossible to even consider. With much deliberation the authorities of said cemetary have allowed Corso to be next to his beloved Shelley. A few antiquated cobblestones had to be razed but it is done. And it cost a lot of money as well -- and this reading was a benefit. Patti Smith, Jim Carroll, Ira Cohen and a host of other poets and friends read and reminisced -- it was 4 hours of knee-slapping death-stomping mania.

*Thurston put Male Slut (the band that recorded Psychic Hearts) back together (steve on drums and Tim Foljahn on 2nd gtr) along w/ Jim Orourke on bass and they played the Cooler in NYC on April 7th. They played only the hardest of the heavy rockers from the Male Slut repertoire. Don Fleming joined 'em on hot ass-blasting leads for a cover of the Weirdos immortal "Solitary Confinement". Also on the bill was Providence bizarro-bangbang hum-drone metal punk artcor outfit Lightning Bolt. And a group with a name that can't be repeated in such nice company consisting of Thurston's brother Gene, loren mazzacane Connors, jim orourke and Tim Barnes (on sit down pots n pans percussion) = all ill all the time.

*Thurston played in duo w/ loren mazzacane Connors and the 2 of them in trio w/ British improv guitar genius Derek bailey at Tonic in NYC April 12th. In attendance was Ron Asheton - guitarist, song-master of the early Stooges. Both Asheton and Bailey, from one extreme to the other, are the two most important models of NOW guitar playing on the planet and the fact that they don't know each other and were in the same room was tooooo much and photos were taken. I got them here because the photographer (Stefano Giovaninni) left his film at my pad and I developed them! So.. Anyone at the Wire want these photos -- they are WEIRD and completely otherworldly historical--- you'll have to trade heavy for 'em.

*Lee & Thurston were featured spewing nuggets re: Punk Rock on the interminably lame VH1 and its 1 hour Punk Rock history special. Despite the cavalcade of fast edit film footage of classic MC5 and CBGB 70s action and Lee proclaiming that "Green Day aren't punk!" (fightin' words) this show was for underdeveloped trolls and green-gilled panty-sniffers.

*Sonic Youth did two weekend jaunts: April 21-23 and May 4-6. The first was a hit at Philadelphia's Trocadero club unleashing a fuselage of sonik rock snort w/ future Ecstatic Peace (Thurston's record label) recording artist(s) Fursaxa opening w/ an unusual set of breath and pipe clang and Smells Like (Steve's label) recording artiste Chris Lee blowing through a set of Memphis by way of Mars tune-out turnarounds. We didn't sign autographs at one end of the back alley afterwards and some kids started calling us horrible horrible sell out scum somewhere in some sy newsgroup. We screwed up big time. Next night was Syracuse University where the sound was typically University wrong. It was really wrong for Yo La Tengo who were also playing - they almost had to leave they couldn't recognize their own sound it was so confounded!-- we ripped as much as we could considering the jerry-rigged auditorium non-acoustical wasteland but.... Grrrrr - annoying and then we bounced into Boston and torched the freakin' Roxy hardcore. Future Ecstaic Yod (mine and B. Coley's label) rec'g artist(s) Paul Flaherty/Chris Corsano Duo whipped out a fine set of drums/sax scree and super-honk and Chris Lee reprised his Philly set and everyone melted in slo-mo pogo. The next gigs were in Dallas w/ Meat Puppet Curt Kirkwood playing his first ever solo - acoustic live show and it sounded sweet as the desert rain on a porcupine's ass. Next night in Austin at Stubb's too - same thing -- hot n' nasty. Next night was Memphis at the Beale St. festival overlooking the Mississippi River and hitting the stage right after some right-on testifyin' by mavis staples. A stage 1 mile to the left ha the Black Crowes wailing like southern fried kittens and a mile to the right was Bob Dylan taking one more step on his path to planet question-mark.

*On May 18th Thurston flew up to Victoriaville Canada for the Victo Festival and played in duo w/ Haino Keiji - Japanes noise guitar legend and it kinda rocked kinda rolled but was always completely insane. Kim flew up there Sunday may 20th and played w/ the group on the SYR 5 record (Ikue Mori, DJ Olive, Jim Orourke) and it not only flipped a sonic rod at the beard stroking dingleberry smoker elite but exquisitely beautified this stenched formula vibe of "mmm..classic improv". Hurrah!

Coming up:
*June 7th - 18th - SY go to Europe to present music from the SYR 4 "Goodbye 20th Century" record with William Winant in attendance and other special guests (to be announced). Some shows will be full on Sonic Rock shows but mostly a mixed bag of sit down scored composition core and flashing smashing amp guitar DAMAGE!!!! can you dig this?!

*October 19-21 - SY curate all the bands and musicians and movies and poetry and.. Everything at the 1st All Tomorrows parties festival in the USA. This will be held on the UCLA campus in Los Angles (duh) As far as the Euro dates go --- someone else will list 'em - I'm burnt

thurston