I LOVE SY!

It's here, the new Sonic Youth album, Sonic Nurse! On the band's website you can listen to a track from the album plus some oldies in a very snazzily designed little media player shaped like a cassette tape and called (oh yes, sweet nostalgia) "Sonic Youth Mix Tape Vol 1". I'm most excited because Sarah and I are going to see them next week at The Forum, which shold be huge. I love Lee Ranaldo's grey hair. Haven't seen them play for quite a few years, and they certainly went through an obscure period for a few albums there (I'm thinking A Thousand Leaves etc) but Murray Street was a great return to form. I visited Murray Street (in downtown NYC) a couple of years back - it's literally a block or two from ground zero. Movin'. It's interesting to see the band revisiting old ground on the new album, with the first track "Pattern Recognition" name-checking William Gibson's latest travel novel, and completing the feedback loop started way back in 88 with Daydream Nation. Sure to get Cultural Studies students everywhere banging on about the holy trinity again: Gibson, Gordon and Bruce Springsteen. "OK, it's not hotrods, it's computers." Discuss.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Before ... and ... after!

Image
I got my haircut just before leaving Australia on July 1 and, until last week, hadn't had it cut since. Okay, so it's only been four months but as you can hopefully see from the image above it was developing nicely into a Steve Winwood style, with a touch of bogan at the back. Normally I keep it pretty short however and the major question was whether I would be able to stop myself from getting it cut before returning to Australia, presumably looking a little more like Tom Hanks in Castaway . I needn't have troubled myself worrying about it. Last Thursday night I got a call from an American friend named Sean, with whom I share quite a few musical tastes, and with whom I had some great conversations that night in the suitably-named Ho Bar in Hongdae, including one where we assigned 1970s bands to colours of the rainbow. Six shots of tequila, five beers and two gin and tonics later, I asked him whether he had a pair of clippers. Answering in the affirmative, he led me ba...
Read more

Tram Recovery Vehicle

Last night I was walking along Queens Parade when along came an old green tram. I think it was of the kind that they refer to nowadays as "W-Class": like the City Circle trams, only green. The tram was going very slowly, heading along Queens Parade towards Westgarth. I began to worry for the tram, due to the huge hill just the other side of the Westgarth shops. I could just picture the tram chugging all the way to the top, only to slide back down again. Then I saw a truck coming along behind the tram. Unlike the tram, the truck was all white. On its side was painted in black letters: "TRAM RECOVERY VEHICLE". My first instinct was to ask why the truck was behind the tram instead of in front, pulling it up the hill. Then I saw the huge bulldozer style front bullbar on the truck and understood: the TRV's job was to push , as well as (presumably) "catch" the tram should it lose its brakes. Kind of like a parent pushing a child on a swing. Well, not rea...
Read more