Search Results for:

GOOFIN'

Sonic Youth

Walls Have Ears - 2024 Reissue

    Culled from three 1985 gigs in the UK during a transitional and transcendent time in the band’s story, Sonic Youth’s The Walls Have Ears appeared / disappeared as a 2LP set in 1986, not just a live album but an artful tapestry full of live experimentation with songs, between-song tape segues, darkness, humor and audio verité. It’s now issued for the first time officially under the band’s auspices.

    The ’85 shows were the second time the band appeared on UK soil, Brits now getting juiced to the mythos of the emerging guitar-slinging American independent underground; an art / punk band from NYC sporting casual attitudes and tees sporting Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and Prince made some good press copy on top of their bludgeoning stage appearance. Paul Smith of the newly-founded Blast First label acted as an overseas diplomatic envoy for Sonic Youth through their SST years as well as issuing their classic 1988 Daydream Nation outside the USA. However the Smith-produced ‘bootleg’ of their ’85 UK gigs surfaced much to everyone’s surprise, just before EVOL was to be released. It turned out to be a marker of the group’s dissatisfaction that ultimately led to the release’s deletion, and the band and Smith parting ways after Daydream.

    In this 2LP set brimming with primitive classics like ‘The Burning Spear,’ ‘Death Valley 69,’ and ‘I’m Insane’ (uncredited on sleeve), segues and live guitar changes ooze together threaded by Madonna tapes and vocal loops off the board (somewhat a necessity for distraction until the band had a full fledged stage crew to prepare guitars). The first two sides of Walls are massive, cavernous, with newly-drafted drummer Steve Shelley. SY tear it up especially on one trash-fi excerpt of ‘Blood On Brighton Beach’ (actually ‘Making The Nature Scene’) from a legendary outdoor gig November 8th where [Thurston] Moore, [Kim] Gordon and [Lee] Ranaldo’s guitars treble-blast dissonant shockwaves over the black-stoned beach of Quadrophenia fame.

    The record’s second slab spotlights an April 1985 at London’s Hammersmith Palais and was one of the final appearances live of Bob Bert on drums, again featuring some molten takes on ‘Brother James,’ ‘Flower’ (listed as ‘The Word (E.V.O.L.)’), and others. This document remains an essential representation of some lean and mean years of the quartet’s throttling march out into the world.” 

    TRACK LISTING

    1. C.B.
    2. Green Love
    3. Brother James
    4. Kill Yr. Idols
    5. “Mad” Groove
    6. I Love Her (All The Time)
    7. Expressway To Yr. Skull
    8. Spahn Ranch Dance
    9. “Blood On Brighton Beach”
    10. Burning Spear
    11. Death Valley ’69
    12. Speed JAMC
    13. Ghost Bitch
    14. World Looks Red
    15. The Word (E.V.O.L)
    16. Brother Jam-Z
    17. Killed And Kicked Off

    Sonic Youth

    The Destroyed Room - 2022 Repress

      Choice collection of B-sides, rarities, alternate takes and previously unreleased tracks dating back to 1993.

      New York’s most influential avant-garde rock band, Sonic Youth, follow up their critically acclaimed 2006 release, Rather Ripped, with a special set sure to please fans and completists. The Destroyed Room: B-Sides And Rarities, a collection of near-hidden Sonic Youth gems hand-picked by the band, brings together songs from throughout the band’s tenure at Geffen Records. Focusing on tracks previously available only on limited-edition compilations, vinyl-only releases, or as B-Sides or international singles, The Destroyed Room also features material that has never before been released.

      This deluxe, double-vinyl LP edition is being released on the band’s own Goofin Records imprint with a CD version available via Geffen

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Fire Engine Dream - (2003) Outtake From Sonic Nurse
      2. Fauxhemians - (2001) From Noho Furniture Sessions; Originally Released On All TomorrowÕs Parties 1.1
      3. Is It My Body? - (1993) B-Side From The Sugar Kane Single
      4. Razor Blade - (1994) B-Side From The Self-Obsessed And Sexxee Single
      5. Blink - (1999) From The Pola X Soundtrack
      6. Campfire - (2000) From The At Home With The Groovebox Compilation
      7. Loop Cat - (2003) From The You Can Never Go Fast Enough Compilation
      8. KimÕs Chords - (2003) Japanese Bonus Track From Sonic Nurse
      9. Beautiful Plateau - (2003) Japanese Bonus Track From Sonic Nurse
      10. 3 Sectional Love Seat - (2001) From Noho Furniture Sessions
      11. Queen Anne Chair - (2001) From Noho Furniture Sessions
      12. The Diamond Sea (1995) LP Version, Alternate Ending. 

      Sonic Youth

      Confusion Is Sex - 2022 Repress

        Originally slated to be a 7” to follow up their self-titled debut, Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex blossomed into the band’s first album: a brain-bludgeoning, completely fried endeavor of dissonance and disarray, a perfect soundtrack for running from a chain-wielding gang near the SIN Club. This was the sound of 1983 New York City, nothing like the jangly roots of college radio rock starting to formulate in Athens, Georgia. It sounded like no one else on Earth, for that matter. The raw, Wharton Tiers 8-track production is dark, the Kim Gordon- scrawled cover figure art of Thurston Moore is dark, Lee Ranaldo’s back cover photo-collage and Catherine Ceresole’s crumpled-xeroxed images that adorned the inside are dark.

        It’s an album that moves Sonic Youth forward from their first EP almost by devolving backwards into true ugly, lo-fi primitivity. The bareboned arsenal of junkpile guitars and implementation of alternate tunings was growing, and so were the songs that matched the individual attributes of each instrument: certain ones groan and growl a specific way that the band started to realize itself could become the compositional germ of a song. Herein is the threshold of a new explosion of the band’s creativity, replacing the comparatively cleaner buzz of the Sonic Youth EP with guitars that spew fractured, uglier chunks of sound everywhere, held down by menacing minimalist basslines (actually played by Thurston on half of this LP, and for the only time ever on “Protect Me You,” Lee) and the brutal-yet-controlled metronomic drumming of Jim Sclavunos, augmented with replacement drummer Bob Bert’s notable bashing on “Making the Nature Scene” and grotty no-fi live rendition of “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Hearing the crashedwindow intro of “Inhuman” and subway-brake screech of “The World Looks Red,” you can attest that while Sonic Youth’s guitars are not quite yet being utilized in the totally controlled, lyrical fashion seen later on albums like Evol, Daydream Nation et al., they were well aware of the colors and tonalities that were unfolding and the possibilities presented. Also, they were getting a grasp on adding colors to the chaos with tempered, simmering moments like Gordon’s “Shaking Hell” and Renaldo’s chimy, home-taped “Lee is Free.” “Making the Nature Scene” and “The World Looks Red” even toss in glints of hip-hop vocal approach way ahead of its time, albeit through a blender. While its confrontationalism might have put off some critics, time has rewarded Confusion with a truly distinctive air and atmosphere in the Sonic discography, enough to have Moore declare it his fave along with the band’s swan-song The Eternal

        TRACK LISTING

        1 (She’s In A) Bad Mood
        2 Protect Me You
        3 Freezer Burn / I Wanna Be Your Dog
        4 Shaking Hell
        5 Inhuman
        6 The World Looks Red
        7 Confusion Is Next
        8 Making The Nature Scene
        9. Lee Is Free


        Latest Pre-Sales

        162 NEW ITEMS

        E-newsletter —
        Sign up
        Back to top