| 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.
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)
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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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