After the loud bang of "She's In a Bad Mood," Confusion Is Sex gets cooled down a bit a with a dark and somber tune called "Protect Me You."
Confusion Is Sex walked many lines in 1983. "Protect Me You sounds like a song that a little girl would and make up to herself alone in her room. Kim Gordon plays this role often with her vocals often giving off a very dark impression. Like the previous track, "Protect Me You" stay within the realm of New York avant garde art rock. As we will see, the rest of the record begins to branch out from the confines of "Protect Me You."
Thurston thumps his guitar with drumstick wedged in the fret board. This is the only track Lee plays bass on any record. Mostly because he wrote the bass line. One of my favorite Kim vocal performances, dark, somber, and sexy.
Written in 1982 and performed on the Savage Blunder Tour in November '82. No live recording exists of this song and its believed to have never been played live after its recording in March '83.
Sonic Youth's first full length LP is titled "Confusion Is Sex." The first song is called "She's In A Bad Mood."
At the end of 1981, Sonic Youth replaced drummer Richard Edsen with drummer Bob Bert and at the beginning of 19982 embarked on a three week tour with fellow Neutral label mates The Swans. It was during this switch the real change in the bands sound began to take shape. Many new songs were added to the live set, one of them being "She's In A Bad Mood."
The song builds and builds and then a final crash of noise brings the song to an end and into silence. This format had been used before with several of the earlier pieces but is best represented in this song. Lee uses more lead pipes to create the metallic crashes of noise and Thurston scrapes, strums, and drones on a fractured E chord. The vocals are lazy and melodic with a catchy refrain "she's in a bad mood but I won't fall for it!"Perfect start for the record?
"She's In A Bad Mood" isn't exactly the "first" song on the Confusion Is Sex. The record made to start with either side but the LP lists the as the start of side 2 but the 1994 Geffen reissue places it at the start of the record.
This song has not been performed since November 1983 and very few live recordings exist of this song.
The last song on Sonic Youth's self titled EP is called "The Good and The Bad."
Instrumental ending is always the way to go. The Sonics have been known to end records with a flighty noise jam and this is the first.
The song features a thumping bass riff a lot like "The Burning Spear." It is no secret that no wave and New York City noise had inklings of dance and jazz music. The ascending and descending guitr lines come into a breakdown and back into the groove. Over and Over again distinguishing the both sides of the song, the good and the bad.
Neutral Records released Sonic Youth at the beginning of 1982 and was recorded for $1000 at Radio City Music Hall. The studio was a 24 track facility making it the "cleanest" sounding Sonic Youth record until 1990's Goo. By the time the record came out, the band had clearly shifted paths into a new world of sonic noise music. Richard Edsen left shortly after and the new era and sound of Sonic Youth was ushered in by new drummer Bob Bert and sound engineer Wharton Tiers.
The Fourth song on Sonic Youth's self titled EP is called "I Don't Want To Push It."
Another simple tune from this EP. The band wails into a free form jam while Thurston sings right above a whisper making his vocals almost inaudible. Thurston states in the Confusion is Next book that his vocals had to be redone a few days later and he had developed a cold, making them very "stuffy."
This song was originally titled "Hard Work" and can be found on the 2006 re-issue in a 9 minute form. Another performance of the song appears on the Sonic Death cassette. This was a staple jam in the set and is a great representation of the New York No Wave style. Art rock at its best. This song was last played on 11-04-1983. It has not be resurrected in any form since.
The third song on Sonic Youth's self titled EP is called "She Is Not Alone."
In late 1981 Sonic Youth decided to stop rehearsing and begin using their performances as practice. Most of the live set was improvised and the band was tired of paying to rent a space to practice. This caused Richard Edsen to question whether he wanted to continue with the band. "She Is Not Alone" was a song that started off in a free form improvised state.
The earliest known performance of this song was in July 1981. The "Confusion is Next" book and the liner notes to the Sonic Youth EP indicate that this song was debuted without drums in a very noisy state. Drums were added and the earliest known recording was the 9-18-81 performance.
The recording features some simple bass lines with Thurston repeating the line "She is not alone....today!" He starts off soft and then his voices raises but never above the soft whisper. For the record Lee put down his drill (often used on stage for the song) and made some interesting "clinking" sounds by dropping lead pipes onto the floor is various parts of the song. The song is 4:05 long. It has been known to go on for 15 minutes.
The song was brought back into the live set in 1999 after an 16 year absence. It was often used as the encore during the A Thousand Leaves tour. The song took on a different form and would be an all out jam ending in a noise jam. The song came back in 2002-03 and played frequently during the Sonic Nurse tour in 2004.
The second song on Sonic Youth's first EP is called "I Dreamed I Dream."
This song dates back to 1981 and was originally titled "Where The Red Fern Grows."
This song features vocals by both Kim Gordon and Lee Renaldo. After the crashing end of Burning Spear, "I Dreamed I Dream" starts off with a slow bass drone in the form of a G chord, slowly switch to F# and E. Small guitar picking accompany a steady one chord guitar strum. With Lee singing the reverberated vocals in the background, Kim repeats several lines "all the money is gone" working you, fucking you, working you fucking you". The abstract lyrics and the one chord drone/strum give a small hint as to wear the band will be heading in the future. Most of the lyrics were written by drummer Richard Edsen.
I have always been surprised on how "quiet" this song comes off. Early live recordings indicate a much fuller range of noises carrying the song. This song was included on the "Screaming Fields of Sonic Love" cd and an episode of the Sopranos in 2007. This track best represents the band in that era and gives a unique perspective on the no-wave scene and where it was headed. Several compilations from the No Wave era include this song. Sonic Youth was obviously trying to branch out from improve noise and try to orchestrate their jams into actual songs or pieces from a larger performance.
A demo of this song surfaced on the 2006 re-issue which was recorded a few months prior the EP recording. The performance isn't as tight and does not contain any lyrics. This song has not been performed since 9-18-81. I could be wrong though.
It's very fitting that the first post on this blog would be the first song the band ever wrote in 1981, The Burning Spear.
Thurston Moore said in 2006 that "it was my intention that the first chord of our first record be and E chord." In 1981, Sonic Youth had yet to become the multi-tuning masters they are today. In fact, all of the first EP, Sonic Youth, was in standard tuning.
Underground reggae was popular during the early 80's. New York was becoming a mecca of avant garde music and art and Sonic Youth was smack in the middle. An early hip-hop-reggae infused music called Go-Go was quite popular at the start of 1980. Thurston says that "Kim used to play along to funk records to learn bass. In our Eldridge St. apartment she would play the first Black Uhuru record and play along." Drummer Richard Edsen was in several Go-Go based bands and liked playing fast noisy disco beats. This is how the basis of the first few Sonic Youth songs were formed.
"Its just a song about living on 13th Street" says Thurston. "It was known for its heroin trade, I would only go out during the day time and rarely at night." The two minute drum splash rings in some guitar noise from Lee Renaldo and kicks in with a fast beat back by Kim's bass. Thurston and Lee bang on their guitars with drums sticks and screw drivers (or anything that sounded cool). The builds like a volcano only to explode in a final avant garde noise finish.
"Burning Spear" first known performance was in july 1981 at the infamous Noisefest and has been in rotation in the live set for the last 25 years. It was rarely played from '87-'94 but managed to make several long lived comebacks, especially during the 2000 NYC Ghosts and Flowers tour, often being announced as "this is the first song we ever wrote!"
This video is from 11-08-1985. pretty cool stuff!!
