Re: Old Wankers [Sonic Youth]

[alfke@csvax.caltech.edu (J. Peter Alfke)]

>

Greg Earle <earle@jplopto.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> sez:
>Wank wank wank ...
>
>How to Spot a BOF, Lesson #3:
>	When they start telling you how the music of today is `not anything
>new'.  How `its all been done before'.

Well, yeah, I agree with you, but let's continue the, uh, discourse here.
(Gosh, am I postmodern yet?)  What is it that leads this guy to say "it's
been done before"?  There were definitely psychedelic-era people doing
vaguely similar things on occasion; I count these (most notably Jimi,
Syd's Pink Floyd (viz. "Interstellar Overdrive"), and bits of Doors esp.
"The End") as influences.  Fine, everyone's gotta have influences.  But
then it stops.  Is this simply because the whole scene disappears under
a huge mutha wave of post-hippie amphetamine-casualty major-label sold-out
BOFism?  Or is there an intermediate line of succession?
I personally could see some post-hippies grooving on Jimi and Syd and taking
the sound further afield, becoming a sort of proto-Sonic Youth without the
immeasurable punk influence ... and I'd love to hear some of this stuff
if it exists.

Anyhow, I think our friend's major fallacy is in not seeing past the sound
itself into what SY do with it.  Yeah, anyone can put just a hit 'tween
their cheek and gum and churn out muthafuckin' noise.  What really
impresses me about Sonic Youth is the textures they build out of this
noise, and how they construct it into real music, not just nonharmonic-
not-traditionally-musical-noise for its own sake, which is what I see most
industrial bands as doing.  (Not that I deny the worth of the later.  I
dug the Flaming Creatures show but I wouldn't call it musically valid.
Great noise though.)

genre genre subvert subvert discourse discourse . . .
-- 
							pEtEr AlfkE
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