V/A
feat. PUSSY GALORE
- GOODBYE 20th CENTURY: A BIOGRAPHY OF SONIC YOUTH (BOOK, UK/US) |
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DATE: SEPT.2007/MAY.2008 |
LABEL: Da Capo Press Inc |
CAT NO.: ISBN-10: 030681515X |
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01. Book |
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NOTES: |
First edition hard cover book (422 pages) on Sonic Youth by David Browne which includes several references to Pussy Galore and Bob Bert. Issued in both the US and UK
with the same ISBN numbers
There is another book by David Browne titled
"Sonic Youth and the Rise of Alternative Nation" with various editions issued in June 2008 and May/June 2009. Presumably
this is another version of this book but this is not confirmed.
VIEW: Pussy Galore releases
VIEW: Miscellaneous items
REVIEWS FROM AMAZON.COM:
"From Publishers Weekly
Anchored by the married couple of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, and propelled
by democratically distributed experiments from all four group members, underground
music icons Sonic Youth, as chronicled by Browne in his compulsively readable new
biography, are a model for how to sustain a career in the burnout-friendly world
of rock music. Browne traces each phase of the band's career with the easy, anecdotal
grace of an accomplished journalist: he sketches each band member's youth and initiation
into the New York music scene, provides accounts of the years of day jobs and thrifty
recording sessions, and gives a play-by-play account of the band's courting by labels
following the independent success of the album Daydream Nation. The book
is most engaging in its middle third, an in-depth account of the band's initial
struggles and successes at Geffen, their major label home for the past two decades
of their career. While Browne succeeds at capturing the personalities and debates
that shape the band's character, at times the author's engagement with the band's
actual music is not as incisive or comprehensive as it could be. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.
Review
Alt-rock noise icons of the '80s and '90s receive an exhausting bio.Music scribe
Browne (Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley, 2001, etc.)
wrestles at unsatisfying length with the music and career of Sonic Youth. Much of
the early going is devoted to Connecticut-raised guitarist Thurston Moore's apprenticeship
in the '70s New York punk scene and California-bred bassist Kim Gordon's in the
L.A. art world. In the East Village, the couple (who would later wed) hooked up
with guitarist Lee Ranaldo, whose work with avant-noise axeman Rhys Chatham was mirrored by Moore's tenure with the influential racket-monger Glenn Branca. With
first drummer Bob Bert and latter-day skinman Steve Shelley, Sonic Youth created
a flurry of forceful, inspired independent-label albums that melded battering detuned
guitar work, hardcore punk energy and elusive pop-culture references to make them
the darlings of the post-punk indie underground. Following the release of their
two-LP 1988 masterwork Daydream Nation, the band began an uneasy but lucrative two-decade
stint with major label Geffen Records, whose delusional executives believed their
abrasive, experimental music could attain the same immense commercial success as
pop-friendly grunge hitmakers Nirvana. Browne's recounting is awash in factoids
that swamp the narrative. He is so intent on supplying details, no matter how minuscule
or irrelevant, that the forest is swiftly obscured by the multitudinous trees. Judicious
editing could have reduced the book's arduous length by a quarter; it could also
have cut down on the cliched rock-crit adjective slinging with which Browne attempts
to explicate Sonic Youth's complex music. Though the band members and their longtime
associates sat for interviews, only Ranaldo is especially self-revelatory; Shelley
seems merely petulant, while Moore and Gordon, whose career-long personal and professional
relationship is the core of the tale, are extremely guarded.Overwritten yet strangely
dispassionate sound and fury, signifying far less than Sonic Youth's ardent, explosive
music. (Kirkus Reviews)"
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