Released a month ahead of the album in June 1992, "100%" was the lead single from Dirty. It came out in a variety of formats, including a 7" backed with album closer "Creme Brulee", as well as a CD5 and 10" with two additional non-LP tracks: "Genetic" and "Hendrix Necro". The orange vinyl was a curious novelty, featuring a concentric groove that meant you'd hear a different song depending on where the needle fell (rather than both songs playing one after the other). There was also a 1-track promo CD featuring a "99.4% pure edit" that clocked in at 2:17 compared to the regular 2:28 version (I suspect the noisy intro was removed, though I haven't heard it). The song was lyrically inspired by the death of band friend Joe Cole, who was murdered on December 19th, 1991. It was later chosen by Mike D for inclusion on the 2008 Hits Are For Squares compilation, whose liners partly state: "The song was directly informed by the untimely killing of Sonic Youth friend Joe Cole in Venice Beach, California, by neighborhood gangsters. Joe was a beautiful and creative soul who roadied with Black Flag and starred in various underground films by L.A. filmmaker David Markey, including the video for "My Friend Goo"."

Sonic Youth started working on the Dirty material when they returned from the Neil Young tour in April 1991. Early versions of a few songs made an appearance on the August tour immortalized in 1991: The Year Punk Broke ("Chapel Hill" "Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit" and "Sugar Kane") and then "Purr" popped up at their last full gig of the year on October 26 in NYC. The 2003 Dirty deluxe edition demonstrates that the band was working tirelessly on demoing new material in their Hoboken rehearsal space, most of it being heard for the first time on that reissue. No demos of the previously mentioned four live songs were included, possibly because they'd already been playing them and had their own concert recordings to refer to. Otherwise, the only tunes not released in some kind of demo form were "Theresa's Sound-World", "On The Strip", the b-sides "Genetic" and "Hendrix Necro", and "100%".

After recording the album in February and March at Magic Shop in NYC, Sonic Youth did a brief east coast warm-up tour leading up to a July 4th Central Park gig. The tour began in Trenton, New Jersey, and most of the Dirty material was debuted there, including "100%", which may have just been starting to appear on the radio and MTV. The video, primarily directed by Tamra Davis, features the band performing at a house party, interspersed with skateboard stunt footage provided by co-director Spike Jonze. Professional skateboarder turned actor Jason Lee stars in the video, taking the role of the Joe Cole figure who is found shot, leaving behind a grieving friend. The video is available on the excellent Corporate Ghost DVD, and features no fewer than four commentaries: the band, Tamra Davis, Mike Watt (who has a very brief cameo in the video), and Jason Lee. Unlike the promo single, the video actually has the noise intro restart, extending it slightly.

The song became a set list fixture for the duration of the Pretty Fucking Dirty tour, often paired with "Kool Thing" towards the beginning of the show (if not opening, though that honor was generally given to perfect pace setter "Shoot"). Prior to that tour, they had made their first appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, which followed The Tonight Show on NBC. At this point, it was still customary for music director Paul Shaffer and "The World's Most Dangerous Band" to sit in with the musical guest, so for Sonic Youth's first late night performance since "Silver Rocket" on Night Music in '89, they were joined by bassist Will Lee, guitarist Sid McGinnis, drummer Anton Fig, and Paul Shaffer himself on keyboards, for one of the craziest takes on "100%" ever done. The song was always a venue for guitar torture, but this time Lee took it to another level, eschewing his traditional drumstick for a baseball bat during the climax! It's still one of my favorite SY television appearances, check it out if you've never seen it (or even if you have!). (Sorry, I wanted to embed but none of the uploads on youtube allowed it! This one only has audio in the right speaker, but it has Dave and Paul's pre-song chatter, which is fun...click around if you want to find one for both ears.)

They also performed the song on Hangin' With MTV in July, along with fellow F# rocker "Kool Thing". Further Dirty TV appearances would feature future singles "Youth Against Fascism" "Sugar Kane" and "Drunken Butterfly", as well as Kim's ode to Joe Cole, "JC". However, Letterman would not be the final televised take on "100%"...

The song was demoted to "occasional performance" for the July '93 "Not Yet Jet Set" tour, but came back swingin' on Lollapalooza '95 and subsequent Washing Machine runs, a short punch of energy amongst the dreamier, jammy material they were supporting with that record. Like almost everything else written before 1997, it stayed buried for the A Thousand Leaves tours, but when it came time to start teaching Jim old material for the NYC Ghosts tour in June 2000, "100%" was the perfect candidate.

Now, I know what you might be thinking...Why would Chris pick a song that's like 3 notes and a bunch of guitar noise for a "feature" transcription? How hard could it possibly be to play "100%"? Well...in June of 2000, when I was an over-eager 17-year-old who thought his life depended on hearing Sonic Youth play their old material (and impatiently reacting to the lack of west coast dates being announced, though they would come in July), I made the very naive decision to take a Greyhound bus from my southwest corner of Canada aaalll the way across the United States to Providence, Rhode Island. I believe I spent four straight days on the bus, only exiting for layovers and bus transfers which I didn't actually anticipate, not having a full understanding of how the Greyhound system worked. I survived, but it was an experience, and I'll never forget finally getting off the bus on a hot June afternoon in Providence, and suddenly realizing I was totally out of my element, being turned away from several hotels due to being underage. I figured I could at least find the venue and work from there, dragging my backpack (which broke the moment I got off the bus!) and duffel bag full of CDs and other heavy space-consuming crap, anchored by excess.

I found the venue (Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel - unfortunately not an actual hotel!) and tried to call home from a payphone out front, which turned out to be broken. D'oh! I went to ask the guy using the other phone if his worked, only to discover it was Lee Ranaldo! I'd had some communication with Lee over the past couple of years, pestering him with all sorts of questions while I was building my sonic web empire, so I took a shot and introduced myself, explaining my situation and asking for advice. He was kind enough to invite me into the venue, out of the heat, and let me watch the band's soundcheck while I figured out what the hell I was going to do. Well, the misery of the previous few days melted away within moments of witnessing my favorite band on stage in a tiny venue, with nobody else around, running through songs that they might be playing later that evening. They began with "Small Flowers Crack Concrete", joking that it didn't quite match the pool table vibe of the room (and indeed it was not played that night). "Fucked up in Cleveland" - I remembered being stuck in Cleveland a day or two earlier, multiple bus queues merging to catch a transfer that was overbooked and very late to depart. But at this point, I didn't care. I was already experiencing something that made me realize the trip was going to be worth it.

After "Small Flowers", Thurston asked the band if anyone knew "100%". I froze with anticipation - I'd been checking for tour updates anytime there was a lengthy enough layover where I could find an internet cafe (yes, this was what life was like back then! No smart phones, no immediate access to e-mail, no tiny device loaded with as many songs as you could imagine...) So, I knew that they hadn't played "100%" on this tour yet, and suddenly they were talking it out right in front of me. They'd last played it just four years earlier at the final show of the Washing Machine tour, but to a 17-year-old kid that may as well have been a decade ago. Having said that, it genuinely seemed like the band themselves hadn't played it in a decade - I watched in awe as they stumbled through the basic progression of notes, trying to figure out what happened after the drum/bass break, whether there were any guitar chords or if drumsticks came into play at all - it was a very entertaining experience, and fortunately I had the foresight to plop my recordable walkman on a table so you can relive it with me...

Yes, just six years later and it would seem the band had completely forgotten how to play "100%" again! Except...they'd been playing it all year? Sure, with Mark Ibold now on board, they were once more undergoing the process of teaching a new member old songs, but he'd been playing "100%" since June and most recently on September 1st in Syracuse! I don't know if they were just joking around or if there really is something deceptive about the structure of the song that keeps them confused - perhaps using F# tunings for a song rooted in G? I don't know! Regardless, I love seeing behind the scenes footage of the band rehearsing material, and wish more was available.

After they picked it up again in 2000, it became a pretty popular set piece, often saved for a quick encore. It was played 10 times each in 2002, 2003, and 2004, before the small resurgence in 2006 and 2007, making only occasional appearances in the remaining years (including their antepenultimate performance in Peru). I will say...the song never quite had the same "dirty" bite it had when they first introduced it, and I found they played it a bit slower and "cleaner" once it was reintroduced in 2000. I'll never forget pressing play on Dirty for the first time and blowing my ears out with that glorious burst of noise, and how ferocious and disgusting the guitars sounded, filling the space with ugly harmonic slide noise everytime the bass paused. While the 2000s versions generally began with an exaggerated Thurston noise intro, slowly sliding back to begin the song, the space previously occupied by delicious abrasion was replaced with the occasional squawk or squeal, but nothing compared to the delightful discord of the 90s.

Their sole TV appearance to promote Murray Street (aside from the excellent PBS Soundstage set discussed in the "Rain on Tin" piece) was on Last Call with Carson Daly, which actually came on after Late Night (now hosted by Conan O'Brien, who took over from Letterman when he switched to CBS in '93). While SY closed the show with sorta-single "The Empty Page", they were given the opportunity to open the program and rather than spitting out a short contemporary racket like "Plastic Sun", they dug a decade back and kicked things off with "100%" instead:

If you compare that with either of the '92 TV performances, you might see what I mean by it being a "clean" version. Speaking of clean...around this time, there was a debate going on at either the alt.music.sonic-youth newsgroup or the early version of the sonicyouth.com "gossip forum", regarding the lyrics to "100%", and one line in particular...while online lyric sites generally listed the lyric as "I've been waiting for you just to say he's off to check his mind", I shocked the community when I launched the Song Database in 2002 revealing (via official lyrics printed in the Sonic Life book) the actual line as "The zoftig chick is mine". Some people had a hard time accepting this, so I decided to doublecheck things by asking the band themselves for a proper lyric sheet. I was not prepared for what I received, and began second guessing everything...

Anyway, let's not forget that at the heart of the song is the death of a very dear friend of the band, a man loved by many. I won't pretend to be able to accurately capture the way Joe Cole's murder resonated with the people who knew him, so I'd like to leave you with a story told by his best friend, Henry Rollins.

INTRO					00:00-00:10

A SECTION (VERSE)			00:10-00:43

Kim uses her Jimi Hendrix Octave Fuzz for "ultra-distortion".

Kim's verse riff:

G----------------
D----------------
A----------------
E---3-3-3--6-8---

Both guitarists play the G chord at the 1st fret, then make a racket. Thurston uses a slide,
Lee just strikes harmonics and other random bursts of noise. If you want to follow the same
notes as Kim, play:

B------------------
E------------------
F#--1-1-1-1--4-6---
F#--1-1-1-1--4-6---
F#--1-1-1-1--4-6---
F#--1-1-1-1--4-6---

Thurston:

B----------
E----------
F#--1-1-1-- MAKE RANDOM NOISE UP FRETBOARD / STRUM BEHIND BRIDGE
F#--1-1-1--  THURSTON USES A SLIDE...  PICK SCRAPES...
F#--1-1-1--   DO WHATEVER YOU WANT.....
F#--1-1-1--

Lee:

B--------------
E--------------
F#--1-1-1-(0)-- MAKE NOISE UP FRETBOARD
F#--1-1-1-(0)--  HARMONIX + RANDOM SHAPES
F#--1-1-1-(0)--   DO WHATEVER YOU WANT.....
F#--1-1-1-(0)--


B SECTION (CHORUS)			00:43-00:59

Kim plays:

G------------------------------------------------------------------------
D------------------------------------------------------------------------
A------------------------------------------------------------------------
E---8-----------3-----------8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-10\(slide up while picking)--

Thurston plays:

B-----------------------------------
E-----------------------------------
F#--6-----------1-----------6-------
F#--6-----------1-----------6------- start strumming behind bridge while sliding up the neck
F#--6-----------1-----------6-------   for the D note
F#--6-----------1-----------6-------
	
Lee plays:

B-------------------------------------------
E-------------------------------------------
F#--6-----------1-----------6-----------8--- pick while sliding that shape up the neck over the D note
F#--6-----------1-----------6-----------8---
F#--6-----------1-----------6-----------8---
F#--6-----------1-----------6-----------8---

A SECTION				00:59-01:31

B SECTION				01:32-01:48

DRUM BREAK				01:49-01:52

C SECTION				01:52-02:29

Kim plays:

G---------------------------------------------------------------------
D--------------------------------------------------------------------- x 4
A---3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-----------------------------------
E-----------------------------------3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3---

Thurston and Lee are silent for the first rep of Kim's bass riff, then comes in attacking the strings
with a drumstick or slide. After that, they play random skronky chords until the end, bending them 
to the rhythm. 

Shapes like this:

B------20------15----
E------19------14----
F#-----18------13----
F#-----17------12----
F#-------------------
F#-------------------

Everyone just kinda slides off at the end, Thurston hits the 1st fret and scrapes away.

text + tab by Chris Lawrence