Bam! Second encore! Yeah that's right, I'm going to reuse the same tired Simpsons reference two articles in a row. Becuz I'm tired too. And I realized far too late that I could have saved myself a lot of headache back in April if I'd recognized that my spontaneous obsession with covering "YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM" did not need to be immediately gratified, nor did the two unplanned songs in the same tuning. That said, things had already gone off the rails with "J'ACCUSE TED HUGHES", so it probably doesn't matter. (For anyone curious, I added "MARIAH" "KIM'S CHORDS" "TED HUGHES" "THERESA" "HELEN" "REENA" "SECRET GIRL" "NEW HAMPSHIRE" "FASCISM" and "ON THE STRIP" to my original outline for Set #3. "JC" "SKINK" and "MOVE AWAY" got the ax.)

I know, the backstory is so fascinating! Since this set ran an entire year and I did try to map it out ahead of time, I'm delighted to finally be at the end of it. (We're not in Berlin, there will be no third encore!) It just took me too long to realize that I could shoehorn "YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM" into the second encore of "NIC FIT" and "NO PART II", due to the MacKaye connection and "FASCISM" being a common encore tune on the Dirty tour, along with this week's featured songs (if only briefly). My eagerness to cover the song also left me to neglect one of the more interesting factoids about it: the October 2020 t-shirt released to support Vote Save America, with bonus vintage "FACISM" misprint bumper stickers while supplies lasted.

"NIC FIT" was originally an Untouchables tune, appearing on the 1982 hardcore compilation Flex Your Head. Their singer Alec MacKaye is Ian MacKaye's brother - Ian is one of few to make a guest appearance on a Sonic Youth album, cutting a quick guitar track for "YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM", which probably not coincidentally precedes "NIC FIT" in the track list. Sonic Youth recorded their version of "NIC FIT" at their Hoboken rehearsal studio on 8-track, which was later mixed for inclusion on Dirty. Thurston initially objected to his effortless vocal being released, but he was outvoted. It was the last cover to appear on a proper Sonic Youth album (SYR4 was its own thing), joining "I WANNA BE YR DOG" and "HOT WIRE MY HEART" in a prestigious club. They first started playing "NIC FIT" on the fall 1992 Pretty Fuckin' Dirty tour, where it would usually be the final song of the encore, following a noisy "EXPRESSWAY" or "TEENAGE RIOT". It was the occasional forum for a guest guitarist, like Matt Lukin in Castaic Lake, J Mascis in New York City, or Chris Bowen[?] in Chicago (Thurston declares "Savage Beliefs in the house!" but they didn't seem to have a member named Chris?). A month into the tour, they added a guest vocalist and another quick and dirty punk cover to the finale, with a bit of a twist...

Youth Brigade were a hardcore band from Washington DC. They also appeared on the Flex Your Head comp, and released one EP in 1981, which closed with a track called "NO SONG" and a reprise, "NO SONG II". Now, the "reprise" is simply a one second snippet of someone blurting "NO!". A split second, even. So, Sonic Youth applied a little creative embellishment to the idea, using the same classic 1-2-1234 drum intro for "NIC FIT" as a launching pad to minutes of ear-splitting noise while Thurston and guest Yamatsuka Eye (from Japanese noise terrorists Boredoms, who were opening this leg) screamed "NOOOOOOO!!!!!" at the top of their lungs through microphones caked with distortion and delay. It was pretty fuckin' dirty indeed, and a special treat for fans on a very limited run of shows. Fans including my best friend J, who was present at the Buffalo show on October 16th and got to witness this doubleshot of hardcore insanity. He also saw Boredoms open for Nirvana a year later. Asshole!

So, in that context I can only assume it was a mind-crushing way to end an already killer gig. Out of context, it was much harder to process. You see, there once was this thing called TV Shit. It lived in the SONIC YOUTH section of record stores, mysterious and tempting, but housed in completely unhelpful packaging whose artwork offered no indication of the content, unless I'd known who Yamatsuka Eye was at age 12 or whatever. It always seemed to be the same price as a regular album, so I had to ask a store to open a copy that I could play to at least confirm its contents before blowing a chunk of my tiny CD budget. Thankfully, they offered headphones to demo the discs and did not just pump it into the store's sound system, since you're immediately blasted by Thurston's abrupt introduction "THIS SONG WAS WRITTEN BY THE DC YOUTH BRIGADE IN 1981, IT'S CALLED 'NO PART II', IT GOES LIKE THIS!" followed by a drum count and an assault of noise that could reduce any speaker to tears (or tears). Oddly, the track cuts short just past 50 seconds, but the next track isn't much more speaker friendly. (In actuality, these two tracks are the beginning and end of the song's performance on October 24th, 1992 in New York City, which featured J Mascis on guitar and Mark Arm as a third vocalist - oddly, the two are only credited for the first "movement"?)

Tracks 3 and 4 prove to be two more live takes of "NO PART II", the first from October 17th in Binghamton, the other unknown but likely one of the shows not circulating from October 14th-20th. They are longer excerpts and demonstrate more of the blistering noise, including some synth that is probably Lee. The EP runs less than 10 minutes total, and features three versions of the same "song" in different portions. Full disclosure: I never did buy it, until my friend J was selling his 12" (one-sided!) and I couldn't resist. TV Shit was released in 1994 on Thurston's Ecstatic Peace! imprint, but the third track had seen previous publication on a split 7" with Cell given away with issue #12 of the German fanzine What's That Noise. (By the way, TV Shit's inexplicable artwork - heavily cropped on the CD version - is rendered somewhat more clear when you discover it was taken directly from Karlheinz Stockhausen's 1962 offering Gesang Der Jünglinge / Kontakte, whose first side translates to "Song of the Youths". Becuz, I guess, Sonic Youth? Who have been pasted in via a pic from the February '89 Japan tour, posed in front of a giant painting of Thurston's face from the cover of the Starpower single.)

On the European leg of the "Pretty Fuckin' Dirty" tour, the songs were not a permanent fixture in the encores, but they did reappear with new guests. On November 8th in Berlin, Lou Barlow from opening act Sebadoh joined on vocals for both "NIC FIT" and "NO PART II". On November 17th in Copenhagen, Stephen Malkmus stuck around after singing "EXPRESSWAY" to assist with the "NIC FIT"/"NO" madness. A week later in Milan, more of Pavement joined the fun, with Malkmus playing guitar, Gary Young adding drums, and Bob Nastanovich lending his own distinct brand of howl. This was likely the last performance of "NO PART II". "NIC FIT" was no longer played on this tour (in fact this was when "FASCISM" started establishing its role in the encore). Its only known appearance following Milan was February 21st, 1993 in Osaka, Japan. Once again, Yamatsuka Eye joined on the microphone, and it dissolved into a long noisy climax, though no indication of a "NO" reprisal. The next night in Tokyo is not circulating, but they were likely joined by Boredoms members for something, as they were on the 23rd for the only known performance of the X-Ray Spex song "OH BONDAGE, UP YOURS!". "NIC FIT" almost returned in 2002, as it was on a list of tunes in consideration for the Murray Street tour (I also recall "PURR" and "I DON'T WANNA WALK AROUND WITH YOU" among those that didn't make the cut).

An amateur clip for "NIC FIT" was submitted to MTV for a "direct your own Dirty music video" contest, and was indeed the runner up to winner "DRUNKEN BUTTERFLY", which you can see on the essential Corporate Ghost DVD. They wanted to include "NIC FIT" on the collection as well, whose video found the song paired with footage of a TV with the MTV logo getting smashed. Ironically, the runner up that was included - "SWIMSUIT ISSUE" - is nothing but shots of men smoking.

The Dirty version of "NIC FIT" may be the roughest recording on any Sonic Youth album. Though it was essentially an 8-track demo, other songs from these sessions indicate a much more competent drum sound and overall instrument balance, so they must have gone out of their way to reduce the fidelity in the mix. The Untouchables original has better production value! Obviously its rough nature is its charm, though Thurston later expressed regret over not singing the proper lyrics, which he tried to incorporate into the live versions. Both Lee and Thurston play guitar on the album version, and on the first known performance in Dallas (same encore as the one-off "On the Strip"), but eventually Thurston left the guitar duties to Lee and any potential guest, preferring the full-on hardcore posturing of bouncing around the stage holding a microphone. Both guitars are in GGDDD#D# and are played very loosely. Use your trem bar to keep the riff wobbly. FDSwayze tabbed both guitars back in 2007, though he was victim to a clerical error that mistakenly identified Lee's tuning as D#D#C#C#G#G#, due to confusion over two very similar Gibson SG guitars he used on the Dirty tour. Thanks to Raj Paden for helping to clear that up! As for transcribing "NO PART II",

 
 
 
 
 
 
NO!

INTRO					00:00-00:06

A SECTION				00:06-00:12

I'm assuming that Lee and Thurston are mixed in the same channels as the rest of the record.
They each approach the riff slightly differently - Thurston is more of a straight ahead bash
at the riff with the 5th creeping in on the D string, but mostly emphasizing the G strings.
Lee seems to be holding his whammy bar and tweaking every single note he plays, and rather
than playing power chords, he's playing on the G strings but letting the open D and D# strings
ring in at random to make it even more "dirty" sounding.

Thurston:

D#---------------------
D#---------------------
D----------------------
D---5-7-7-7--7-7-7-7--- x 4
G---5-7-7-7--7-7-7-7---
G---5-7-7-7--7-7-7-7---
        
Lee:         

D#----------------(0)--
D#----------------(0)--
D-----------------(0)--
D-----------------(0)--  play loose while tweaking whammy bar / throw in open D and D# strings at random
G---5\7-7-7--7-7-7-7---
G---5\7-7-7--7-7-7-7---

Kim:

G-----------------------------
D-----------------------------
A-----------------------------
E---8-10-10-10--10-10-10-10---

B SECTION				00:12-00:13

Thurston:

D#----------------------------
D#----------------------------
D-----------------------------
D---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10---
G---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10---
G---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10---
                 
Lee:

D#----------------------------
D#----------------------------
D-----------------------------
D-----------------------------
G---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10---  loose w/ bar + open strings at random
G---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10---

Kim:

G-------------------------
D-------------------------
A---10-10-10-10-8-8-8-8---
E-------------------------

A SECTION				00:13-00:22

Play riff x 6

C SECTION				00:22-00:26

Thurston:

D#----------------------------------
D#----------------------------------
D-----------------------------------
D---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10--5--7---
G---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10--5--7---
G---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10--5--7---
                 
Lee:

D#----------------------------------
D#----------------------------------
D-----------------------------------
D-----------------------------------
G---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10--5--7---
G---12-12-12-12-10-10-10-10--5--7---

Kim:

G--------------------------------
D--------------------------------
A---10-10-10-10-8-8-8-8----------
E------------------------8--10---

A SECTION				00:26-00:36

Play riff x 6

Thurston seems to utilize his whammy bar during this section as well, and during live versions
Lee would take off doing high rapid picking over the instrumental (which is the only thing that
makes me wonder if he IS in the right channel on the album).

B SECTION				00:36-00:37

A SECTION				00:37-00:45

Play riff x 6

B SECTION				00:46-00:47

A SECTION				00:47-00:45

Play riff x 3

End on:

D#---------
D#---------
D----------
D---5--7---
G---5--7---
G---5--7---


text + tab by Chris Lawrence

w/ thanx to FDSwayze and Raj Paden!