Sonic Youth and the List

I should tell you that although I do like Sonic Youth quite a bit, I'm not one of these SY groupies that has every single piece of music they have ever released and can speak intelligently about Thurston Moore's guitar tunings for every show they played in New York in 1983. That being said, I thought last night's show at the stuffed Gypsy Tea Room (it was the most crowded I've EVER seen the place, although the temp inside was surprisingly cool) was completely captivating, and the band looked and sounded fresh, energetic, and relevant. A couple of friends and I spent a bit of our drunken evening discussing how different the Sonic Youth show felt compared to the Dinosaur Jr. show we saw a couple months back. Both bands were favorites of ours back in the day, and we all still listen to both on a regular basis. And although this might be obvious considering that Dinosaur was simply on a reunion tour playing old hits, it seems that nostalgia was the primary motivation that guided us to the Dinosaur show at Gypsy, while a genuine curiousness and anticipation to hear new material is what primarily motivated us to go see Sonic Youth. None of us had seen them in what seems like a very long time, and although it was nice to hear some old stuff ("Kool Thing," "Eric's Trip," and "Catholic Block" among others), the new material seemed as timely and relevant as anything else Sonic Youth has ever done, and many of the songs off their latest album made it on to our list of favorite songs of the night. I continue to be impressed by how challenging and artistically valid Sonic Youth still is after all these years, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if I went to see them the next time they came through Dallas in support of yet another pretty fantastic record.

And what was close to being the absolute highlight of the night for us, despite all the great music we heard? It would have to be the fact that Pavement's Mark Ibold was touring with them on the bass. How fucking cool is that?


As for today, Theater Fire is playing at the Fort Worth Weekly Music award show at the 8.0 Bar at Sundance Square, and Doublewide is having its anniversary party starting early this evening. The line up:

6:00 - Pinebox Serenade7:00 - The Strange Boys8:00 - Saboteur9:00 - Lions10:00 - Max Cady11:00 - The Golden Falcons12:00 - Skeemin No Goods

In the Courtyard:

6:40 - not confirmed yet7:40 - Travis Hopper8:40 - Laura Palmer9:40 - JC10:40 - Emil Rapstine (The Angelus)

Not that all of these are our favorite acts or anything, but it should be a good time if you just want to relax a bit on a Sunday afternoon. Be sure to check out Emil Rapstine.