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WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
Sonic Youth: Sensational Fix
Edited by Roland Groenenboom. Text by Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Vikki Alexander, Jutta Koether, Mike Kelley, John Miller, Richard Hell, et al.
The iconic postpunk band Sonic Youth is famed for blurring musical genres, veering from thundering rock to dismantled experimentalism, and expanding the possibilities of the electric guitar. "What we're doing is always inventing itself. I have no terminology for it," guitarist Thurston Moore observes. Moore and his bandmates Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley have also, over the course of 27 years since they first started playing together, more quietly engaged in multidisciplinary solo efforts and collaborations with visual artists, filmmakers, designers and other musicians. Numerous artists, from Richard Prince and Raymond Pettibon to Gerhard Richter have contributed artwork for Sonic Youth album covers, and Moore, Ranaldo and Gordon in particular have collaborated with visual artists; but the group has also produced a large amount of great ephemera over the decades. This comprehensive 784-page volume--which includes two 7-inch records with unpublished songs by each member, album covers, band portraits and documentary photos, many of which have never been published before--is a must for fans and anyone wanting to connect the dots between New York's various scenes. It features writings by band members and contributions by a host of other luminaries, including Richard Hell, Mike Kelley, Jutta Koether, Alan Licht, Lydia Lunch and John Miller.
"Before she split she actually touched my arm (!) and said, 'See you later.' She moved into a raw railway apartment on Eldridge Street below Grand Street. The artist Dan Graham lived upstairs and had acquired the place for her. She invited me over one evening and I played this beat up guitar she had. I knew the guitar because it belonged to an associate of the Coachmen gang who left it at Jenny Holzer's loft where Kim had stayed and somehow it was passed on to her. All she had was the guitar and a foam rubber cushion for sleeping. That night was the first time we kissed."
Thurston Moore, excerpted from On the Loose. Featured image from Sonic Youth: Sensational Fix.
"As children of a day and age that dreamed of being at peace and reconciled in an ideal world where the virtues of Peace and Love would overcome, as if by magic, in the alienation produced by the exponential accumulation of capital and profit, on a worldwide scale, Sonic Youth belongs to that artistic generation which has preferred not to turn a blind eye to the mutilating brutality of conflicts that have fissured any such dream from top to bottom, because they represented the unthinkable flipside."
FORMAT: Hbk, 7.25 x 7.25 in. / 720 pgs / 700 color / two 7 in. vinyl records. LIST PRICE: U.S. $85.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $100 ISBN: 9783865605399 PUBLISHER: Walther König, Köln AVAILABLE: 4/30/2010 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AFR
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Roland Groenenboom. Text by Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Vikki Alexander, Jutta Koether, Mike Kelley, John Miller, Richard Hell, et al.
The iconic postpunk band Sonic Youth is famed for blurring musical genres, veering from thundering rock to dismantled experimentalism, and expanding the possibilities of the electric guitar. "What we're doing is always inventing itself. I have no terminology for it," guitarist Thurston Moore observes. Moore and his bandmates Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley have also, over the course of 27 years since they first started playing together, more quietly engaged in multidisciplinary solo efforts and collaborations with visual artists, filmmakers, designers and other musicians. Numerous artists, from Richard Prince and Raymond Pettibon to Gerhard Richter have contributed artwork for Sonic Youth album covers, and Moore, Ranaldo and Gordon in particular have collaborated with visual artists; but the group has also produced a large amount of great ephemera over the decades. This comprehensive 784-page volume--which includes two 7-inch records with unpublished songs by each member, album covers, band portraits and documentary photos, many of which have never been published before--is a must for fans and anyone wanting to connect the dots between New York's various scenes. It features writings by band members and contributions by a host of other luminaries, including Richard Hell, Mike Kelley, Jutta Koether, Alan Licht, Lydia Lunch and John Miller.
