If you popped into The Cooler on March 1st, 1997 expecting to see Thurston perform an improv set with Rashied Ali, you may have been pleasantly surprised to discover that another band on the bill, Male Slut, was actually Sonic Youth in disguise. It was a name Thurston had used previously for his Psychic Hearts gigs in '94 (and a 7", but not the album itself!). Fans in attendance on this Saturday night were treated to the first new material the band had played live since early '95, aside from an unconfirmed one-off performance of "Sunday" at their final '96 gig. They'd been breaking in their new studio, working out some instrumental material (and some tunes for the Suburbia soundtrack), and chose three of these pieces to debut unannounced: "Proud Marie" "Wildflower" and "Anagrama".

Although the Suburbia soundtrack was released in February and hinted towards some work they'd been doing in their newly established studio (commonly referred to as Echo Canyon), the first major indication that something different was happening came in May with the inaugural release on Sonic Youth Recordings, aka SYR. Generally identified as SYR1, the red CD/vinyl contained four self-recorded instrumental tracks, all titled in French, with artwork directly borrowed from a classic Perspectives Musicales series released in the 70s. "Anagrama" opened this volume, which also contained a spooky groove called "Tremens" and two aggressive noise constructions ("Improvisation Ajoutee" and "Mieux: De Corrosion"). Initially a mail order release via Steve's Smells Like... Records, it did appear in stores the following month.

They laid low as a live act until June, when they scheduled a handful of appearances including Anchorage '97 at the Brooklyn Bridge, the Tibetan Freedom Concert on Randall's Island, and a filming for the PBS series Sessions at West 54th. By now they were playing a solid set of six works in progress, adding two more instrumentals "Stil" and "Static Overview", as well as a lone vocal piece carried by Thurston: "Hits of Sunshine". Anyone expecting to hear familiar tunes was out of luck, unless they'd scored an early copy of SYR1. Towards the end of June, they played at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, North Carolina for the anniversary of Mudhoney's t-shirt company Tannis Root.

In August, their episode of Sessions at West 54th aired, edited down to three songs and an interview. I was eagerly tuned in, totally oblivious to what they might play (word still travelled slow on the internet back then, although I was glued to the alt.music.sonic-youth newsgroup). When the show opened with "Proud Marie", I was mesmerized. I'd caught them on Letterman, and worshipped the awesome Night Music footage on the Screaming Fields of Sonic Love VHS, but an up-close multi-cam exploration of the band in their element was something I hadn't really seen, and this strange new hypnotic instrumental that seemed to endlessly exploit a single riff until it broke down to an equally repetitive midsection was pretty fucking cool. Next came "Stil", which showcased some of Steve's new percussion devices (a little bell he tinkered away at on his snare drum before dropping a full-on beat that resolved into a gorgeous outro where he tapped a gong on his tom). All while Thurston played a tasty effects-laden melody line over Lee and Kim's droning foundation (and those sweet slide licks from Lee at the end!). Real hot shit. And then came "Static Overview", led by a simple crunchy Kim riff and a pounding Steve beat, where Thurston went positively wild with whammy bar abuse, before a single chord meltdown with Kim switching pick-ups between every strum while the rest of the band filled the room with searing feedback accented by shaking maracas, which was broken by a shattered glass riff from Thurston, transitioning finally into a relentless single-note section punctuated by Thurston's harmonics and a tiny earthquake supplied by his MXR Blue Box pedal, which I immediately knew I wanted to add to my own growing stompbox collection (especially when I found out it was also responsible for the octave-shifting explosions that appear throughout "Anagrama").

So yeah, I was moved. I turned to the SY newsgroup for information on the song titles, and obsessively reviewed the VHS tape I'd made, looking for other clues and noteworthy moments (at one point you can see the GGDAGA tuning on the back of Lee's headstock, with "Sunday" written underneath - a clue!). A couple of weeks after the broadcast, I was fortunate enough to see Sonic Youth for the second time, at a festival in Seattle called Bumbershoot (they also played the previous night in Oregon, the only non-New York dates that year aside from Cat's Cradle). While I was secretly hoping Thurston would hit the stage and say "we're gonna play 'em all tonight!", I had a feeling that they might focus on this newer material, and indeed they did, performing an eight-song set that added "Sunday" and a brand new tune later to be titled "Heather Angel". Only "Sunday" "Hits of Sunshine" and "Heather Angel" featured vocals (the latter also still had Thurston literally hammering his guitar, which I think he stopped doing when the tour started in '98). I recognized "Anagrama" and the three songs from PBS, and I may have heard a RealAudio(!) file of "Hits of Sunshine" from one of the June gigs. I somehow managed to find myself in the front row of this giant football stadium, watching my favorite band play a nearly entirely instrumental hour-long set in the mid-afternoon sun. As always, I was captivated, even if I was probably disappointed not to hear any pre-'97 cuts. I remember my mom (who did not join me in the front row) was unenthused with the lack of vocals, and much preferred Beck's headlining set later that evening.

The next month, the second installment of the SYR series hit the scene, this time in teal blue with Dutch song titles. After a minute or so of harsh, piercing noise, the first track "Slaapkamers Met Slagroom" was revealed to be a very slow, early take of "Proud Marie", that continued for another 10 minutes or so following its proper ending. Kim's part is not entirely set in stone, so it may have been recorded even before the song was premiered in March. The second track was "Stil", pretty faithful to the PBS version although I can hear a number of edits over its 7 and a half minute run time. The final track, "Herinneringen", seems to have been improvised around a Kim guitar riff and layered with three tracks of her vocals - I'd like to explore this one someday if only because I'm sure Thurston and Lee are using D-based tunings, which is contrary to the C or G tunings that comprise most of this era's material.

On October 6th, the band played CBGB as a trio minus Lee, who was touring Europe with William Hooker. They were celebrating the release of Jim Jarmusch's Year Of The Horse film, an excellent documentary about Neil Young & Crazy Horse. They went all-instrumental for this gig, dropping "Sunday" "Hits of Sunshine" and "Heather Angel", and introducing a new piece: "Karen Koltrane". Yes, "Karen" was debuted without its future vocalist! In November, a 2-CD compilation of performances from the Tibetan Freedom Concert was released, featuring "Wildflower" (then without "Soul") from their June appearance. This version was recollected years later on SY's bandcamp-only Rarities 1, and marks the third A Thousand Leaves track to be released prior to that LP.

The band played their final show of 1997 on November 21st, at Avery Fisher Hall in NYC. This was a special 11-song set that introduced two final instrumentals to round out the year's new material, "Woodland Ode" and "French Tickler". To further enhance the evening, they offered programs containing the set list with each member's designated instrument, including notations such as "clay drum" or "chinese bell" for Steve, stamped with the Perspectives Musicales spiral logo of authenticity. ("Stil" was curiously represented by its English title "Hush", though as far as I know the song was always titled "Stil" even prior to SYR2's language of choice.)

January '98 saw the early release of SYR3, the first all-improv entry in the series (and their first collaboration with future member Jim O'Rourke). After that, the SYR discs were paused to focus on the full-length follow-up to Washing Machine, A Thousand Leaves. Vinyl fans had first crack at the album, released in April on another Smells Like... imprint, My So-Called Records (with the inexplicable catalog number SYR #03). DGC/Geffen dropped the CD/cassette on May 12th, though the lyric sheet included with the vinyl remained a bonus for that format only. The album contained most of the songs they'd been playing throughout 1997, minus "Anagrama" which remained exclusive to SYR1. "Proud Marie" was now "The Ineffable Me" (rumored to be the album's opener on some early track lists), "Wildflower" was now "Wildflower Soul", "Static Overview" was now "Female Mechanic Now On Duty", "Woodland Ode" was now "Hoarfrost", and an alternate arrangement of "Stil" was titled "Snare, Girl". All tracks now featured vocals, which were debuted on March 19th in Austin, Texas at a SXSW gig (aside from "Snare, Girl" which was never played live, instead represented by the still-instrumental "Stil"). To open the album, a piece was crafted from an SYR-like improvisation and dubbed "Contre Le Sexisme". For the entirety of 1998, Sonic Youth toured heavily with a focus on the album's nine primary songs, as well as "Anagrama" and "Stil". When the North American tour began on May 6th, they closed the show with a single classic track - "Death Valley '69". Very early they settled into an encore that began with "Stil" and closed with "Death Valley", then on May 22nd in Seattle, they also introduced "Shadow of a Doubt" between the two. While this hinted that they might be open to exploring additional oldies, it became apparent that there was no space in the set for anything else from the past. They did generally save some time after "Death Valley" for a climax of improvised noise.

"The Ineffable Me" was a constant highlight of these very deliberately crafted shows, played at a pace that outran the album version, which already made the SYR2 rendition sound like a half-speed ballad. While most of the new material was long and spacious, "The Ineffable Me" was a relatively punchy dose of aggression, with Kim delivering a vocal to match (the wordy lyrics were penned by Thurston, by the way). Of all 71 shows played in 1998, the only times the song did not appear were July 1st in London due to a malfunction with Thurston's amp (and time allotted to a jam with Spiritualized), and July 14th in Torino, when a major storm cancelled the band's set after only four songs - indeed "The Ineffable Me" was scheduled to be played in the eighth slot both nights.

In February '99, the band did a short European tour that finally merged the old with the new, mixing A Thousand Leaves material with an assortment of classics (including the resurrection of "She Is Not Alone" after 17 years, as discussed in the entry for that song). Still, "The Ineffable Me" remained a staple, played at 14 of the 16 shows. The remaining 1999 shows turned to curious experiments - the April 1st SYR4 preview, the June 13th mostly-instrumental Seaport Atrium gig that saw the premiere of 2 new songs - and then the brief southwest run marred by the infamous gear theft, which prompted an entire set of new material to be written and largely debuted once again at Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival. Even on the ill-fated July '99 dates, the band highlighted "The Ineffable Me" in some of the sets both pre- and post-theft. It was one of the last A Thousand Leaves tracks to cling to the set list, having been the first premiered all the way back in March '97.

In June 2000, the band embarked on its North American tour in support of NYC Ghosts & Flowers, augmented by multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke, who had helped produce and mix the album. Since that record was much shorter than its predecessor, there was a wealth of space in the set lists for dusty classics, only now they had to teach them to Jim. The first show of the tour saw the return of "Teenage Riot" "Kool Thing" "Mote" "Tom Violence" "White Kross" and "Schizophrenia", and the next night they opened with "The Burning Spear". Towards the end of the main set, before traditional closer "NYC Ghosts & Flowers", they launched into "The Ineffable Me", which featured Jim adding a bass part to the three-guitar arrangement. It sounded very cool, but it was only played two more times, in Toronto and on the first of two nights in Washington, DC on June 19th. This would end up being the final performance of the song, which was captured on film from the front row. The sound isn't great, but here it is:

So, that's the story of "The Ineffable Me". Aside from the occasional "Sunday" and a pretty evenly split "dedicated Lee song" appointment of "Hoarfrost" (on nights when "Mote" wasn't played, aside from the extremely rare one-off "Eyefrost"), the A Thousand Leaves material was left behind in '99. If you're looking for a good officially released live version, I suggest you check out the excellent recording of their first of three nights in Los Angeles on May 28th, 1998, available via bandcamp. If you're a fan of A Thousand Leaves but have never heard the material played live, I strongly recommend this gig as a starting point!

The song itself is a pretty simple collection of riffs, with Thurston in the "Pavement" tuning CGDGBB, Lee in the "Sunday" tuning GGDAGA, and Kim in her new CGGDDD tuning, which replaced the BEGDBB tuning she favored for Washing Machine. Like most of that era's material, everyone's part seems to get some phaser treatment, sometimes seemingly at random. I worked the song out based off that old worn out VHS tape of the PBS set back in '97 when I first launched the tab site, and while I did a reasonably good job I've cleaned it up a bit. Please let me know if you have any comments or corrections! (By the way, do you think Thurston's opening riff bears any resemblance to the opening riff of CCR's "Proud Mary", or was the working title referencing something else?)

A SECTION				00:00-01:21

Thurston's verse riff:

B--9-9-8--0--0-0-0-0---
B--9-9-8--0--0-0-0-0---
G--0-0-0--8--8-8-8-8--- x 40  (4 for intro, 36 as verse)
D--0-0-0--8--8-8-8-8---
G---------8--8-8-8-8---
C---------8--8-8-8-8--- 

Lee's verse riff:

A------------------------
G--12-12-12---8--8-8-8---
A---0--0--0---0--0-0-0---
D--(0)-0--0--(0)-0-0-0---  D string is optional but can bleed in
G--12-12-12---8--8-8-8---
G------------------------

Kim alternates between 2 verse riffs:

D---\9-9--9------------------
D---\9-9--9------------------ RIFF A
D---\9-9--9------------------
G---------------9/7-7--7-----
G---------------9/7-7--7-----
C----------------------------

D--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12------------------
D--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12------------------ RIFF B
D--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12------------------
G-----------------------------------------------9/7-7--7-----
G-----------------------------------------------9/7-7--7-----
C------------------------------------------------------------

RIFF A x 4
RIFF B x 2
RIFF A x 4
RIFF B x 2
RIFF A x 2

B SECTION				01:21-02:56

Thurston has two riffs:

B---11--11-11-11-11-11-11-11----3--3-3-3-------  hold the bar and tweak the notes a bit while playing
B---10b-10-10-10-10-10-10-10r---2b-2-2-2r------  
G----------------------------------------------  bend the lower note up a bit as you play too
D----------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------  x 4
C----------------------------------------------

B------13-14-------15-16------ 
B---12-------13-14-------15---   x 4
G-----------------------------
D-----------------------------
G-----------------------------
C-----------------------------

Then play the first riff again twice, with less of a pause between them.

Then play the second riff twice.

Then start pushing the strings directly into the pickup with your fist for fun plinky crunch.
	
Lee plays these chords:

A------------------
G---6------6-6-6---  shake first chord w/ bar
A---0------0-0-0---  
D---0------0-0-0---  x 7
G---6------6-6-6---
G------------------

Then he starts playing a similar note pattern as Thurston, but less precise and with delay:

A--------------------------15-16-17-16-15-16-17-16---
G--15-16-17-16-15-16-17-16---------------------------  etc repeat variation
A----------------------------------------------------
D----------------------------------------------------  add 18/19th frets on A string
G----------------------------------------------------
G----------------------------------------------------

After a bit of that, he turns on his Maestro ring modulator and starts playing heavily
modulated notes w/ delay + phaser until Thurston and Kim start their droning note (C section).

Kim plays:

D---0-0-0-12--12-12-12---
D---0-0-0-12--12-12-12--- x 46
D---0-0-0-12--12-12-12---
G------------------------
G------------------------
C------------------------

C SECTION				02:57-03:38

Thurston starts to steadily play this note:

B--------
B--------
G--------      on the SYR2 version he lets the open B strings bleed in for more of a fuller sound, 
D----9---       but the 9th fret on the D string is the same note
G----0---
C--------
	
After four bars, Lee comes in playing these chords:

A---------------
G--12-------8---
A---0-------0---  w/ increasing intensity
D---0-------0---
G--12-------8---
G---------------

Kim plays the same note as Thurston:

D---9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9---
D---9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9---  etc
D---9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9---
G-------------------------------
G-------------------------------
C-------------------------------

A SECTION				03:39-05:22

Thurston plays his verse riff 24 times before dissolving into noise that continues until the end
(roughly 50 seconds). Often while playing his riff, he will turn on his MXR Phase 90 or his
Jimi Hendrix Octave Fuzz for just a second.

Lee begins with his regular 2-chord progression, but starts piling on effects and just making a racket.

Kim plays her riffs as follows:

RIFF A x 4
RIFF B x 3
RIFF A x 4

Then she starts shaking it up a bit, probably randomly:

D--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12---7-7-7-12-12-14--9-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-12--
D--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12---7-7-7-12-12-14--9-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-12--
D--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12--10\12-12--12---7-7-7-12-12-14--9-14-14-14-14-14-14-14-12--
G------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then just keep playing a sloppy variation of that w/ more effects.

By the end everybody is just making a big mess. Have fun!

text + tab by Chris Lawrence