Anda di halaman 1dari 3
GRIT Youngand adrift in New York in the late seventies, KIM GORDON found music, Thurston Moore, and her future with Sonic Youth. [ee about New York is hard. Not because memories intersect and overlap, because of course they do, Not because I didn’t fallin love with New York, because even though I was lonely and poor, no place had ever made me fee! more at home. It is because knowing what I know now, its hard to write about a love story with a broken heart drove east with my friend the artist Mike Kel When we arrived, we stayed at Cindy Sherman’ place down on Fulton Street. It was the first time Td ever seen Cindy's work—those early eight-by ten photos of herself in character on her wall. Mike flew back home to L.A...and I was officially on my own. I had no ‘money to speak of, which meant I couldn't even begin looking fora long-term place, so forthe fist few months I stayed with assorted friends and loose acquaintances. New York was in crumbling shape in late 1979 and 1980. During the day, Wall Street bustled with secretaries and other business types, but at night it turned into a postapocalyptic hell, with rats, wrappers, and cans interspersed every few feet with piles of trash, thanks to what felt like a continuous rarbage strike, Mysterious graffiti had taken over the doors and buildings of SoHTo, with asingle word, S40, in big block Ieiters everywhere you looked, It turned out later that SAMO was the pseudonym of two graffiti artists, Jean-Michel Bas- guiat and his friend Al Diaz. Jean-Michel was working at the time for the Unique Clothing Warehouse at 718 Broadway. ‘When he and Diaz had a falling-out inthe late seventies, he left last entry, sawo 1s DEAD, scrawled here and there across the city landscape. It was all incredibly stimulating. Tn contrast to always-new L.A., where everything had its place, New York was a jumble, all colors, shapes, angles alti- tudes. The city seemed to care less about money, at least the showing-it-off side, than L.A., where the symbols of wealth surrounded you:a BMW to your right, a Porschehanging a et tal driveway gate,a shrubbery concealing someone’ estate, 102 Rreatad pe a Pues Every couple of months I find a different short-term living situation. January, Pd be staying in some Chinatown ‘wall-up with fragmenting plaster walls February, I'd drag my stuff uptown to apartment-sit fora friend ofa friend who we traveling, Later I sublet from the painter Peter Nadin, who lived on Chambers Street ina combination gallery and living area. At the time Peter was going out with the Conceptual artist Jenny Holzer, who later sublet me a comner of her lo. Tt was at Jenny's that Imet Mary Lemley, a party girl \who owned a guitar that her boyfriend had given her. When Mary and her boyfriend broke up, Mary inexplicably passed that guitar on to me. It was nothing much—a funky, beat- up instrument with the brand name DRIFTER on the neck, Sill, wherever I went from that point on, the Drifter came with me. When Thurston visited my apartment on Eldridge Street forthe first time, he aught sight of the Drifter leaning against the wall. “I know that guita,” he said. {At the time we barely knew cach other. Thurston had been living in New York for four years, since 1976. He'd ‘moved there from the suburbs of Connecticut when he was ‘and was in a band made up of guysfrom the Rhode chool of Design. “How can you possibly know that Isaid, guitar T know it, and I’ve also played it,” Thurston said. It tumed out that he too had crossed paths with Lives>104 lives Kool Thing ‘Mary Lemley. Later, he would jam drumsticks inside the Daifier during the Sonie Youth song “Erie's Trip It wasa weird, instantaneous connection between us, not that we needed another. 1n New York at that time there were no Starbucks, no Pret A Mangers, no Duane Reades on every comer, but every few blocks you'd run into a Chock Fullo” Nuts, a chain of countertop diners that sold doughnuts, ‘muiflins bagels, and coffee that tasted like hot black water but kept you awake and alert. One of the few things T could afford to eat was Chock Full Nuts corn muffins, arilled and buttered. They didn’t have corn muffins on the ‘West Coast, and the concept of a “regular” coffee, meaning ‘one with milk, was alien to me. With no money, I had to find some way to makea living My first job was in a bookstore, the Marlboro, on West Fifty-seventh Street, near the old Hom & Hardart Automat, I would walk the 50 blocks uptown and back to eat, since I didn’t want to spend what little money I had on subway tokens. I also worked as.a busgitl at Elephant & Castle, a Greenwich Village restaurant, as well a the graveyard shift at an all-night restaurant at Twenty-third and Tenth in Chelsea. 1 got my first job in the art world asan assistant ina gallery Larry Gagosian ran with Annina Nose, inside loft on West Broadway in SoHo. Needless to say I couldn't type, or for that matter, do much of anything, except Larry knew I was n- terested in art. Iwas probably the east qualified person ever to hold down a part-time reception job, but Annina herself wasa Portratof inconsistency as to when, and until what time, she and Larry needed me tobe there. Iwasa disorganized person pretending to be an organized one. I couldn't take dictation or file. Td deliberately never learned in order to elimin: the awful possibilty of ever toiling nine to five as some guy's secretary or gal Friday I could barely gett together enough toanswer the phone. Twas going out alot at night. Id been a 1960s teenager, too young to be a hippie but brushed by whatever rebellion ‘and amped-up freedom there was inthe air. Art had always ‘given me direction, a way forward, even when I sometimes felt was floating. But when I saw and heard No Wave bands, some equation in my head and body picced together instantly. A phantom thing had been missing from my lfe—and here it was, finaly, unconventional, personal but atthe same time not, and confrontational, One of the biggest appeals was how purposefully abandoned and abstract the music sounded. In contrast, punk rock felt tongue-in-cheek, in air quotes screaming, “We're playing at destroying corporate rock.” No ‘Wave musie was, and is, more like “No, we're reaily destroy- ing rock.” Ii sheer freedom and blazingness made me think, Tean do that Growing up I'd never sung, much less sung long to music, ‘but my friend Dan Graham asked if Iwas interested in put- ‘ing together an all-girl band to restage one of hisbest-known performance pieces, “Performer/ AudiencelMirror.” which examines the relationship between a performer and a crowd ‘When [tentatively agreed, Dan introduced me to the bass player Miranda Stanton and to Christine Hahn from the ‘r0up the Siatic. The three of us began rehearsing, We decided 104 voove FeeRuaRy 2015 ‘weld all our band Introjection, with Christine on drums me on guitar and Miranda on bass. Introjction performed atthe Massachusets College of Art and Design in Boston, withthe visual artist and composer Christian Marclay curating. It was, an intense evening. Al three of uswere nervous. At the same time felt asif something new waslodgingin my bran. Mixed inwith thenerves was another sensation, asf I werea kid ona high-altitude ride Td never hada ticket to goon before. Tntiojection didn't last long. Christine departed to join the ultrcoo! German al gi group Malaria Miranda pulled ina few guys or usto rehearse with, but nothing gelled. There was one benefit of Introjection, though. Before Miranda took lave of my life, she wanted to introduce me to Thurston Moore “He playin a band called the Coachmen,” Miranda sai. “In fact, they'e playing tonight; it’ thei ast gi” conto say she thought there was something speci Thurston, Later that night, Miranda and I showed up ata venue downtown. The rhythm guitarist was special. He was very tall and skinny, six fet six, he told me later charismatic and confident-seeming, with pillowy lips Afterward, Miranda Seeing No Wave bands equa ny head and body piece together instantly. A phantom t had been missing and here it was, made the introduction. I was surprised by how exited Tas to meet this guy, About our first meeting, Thurston would later tell people that he was very taken by my dark flip-up glasses. (A few years earlier, in conjunction with getting my river’ license, Pd also gotten my frst pair of glasses. and to ‘make them look ess conventional and dreary, Thought a pair of flip-upsunglass lenses. Myopia could at least look good.) All my life up to then Tid been involved with older guys, and I remember thinking, Oh, Thurston s five years younger than Iam. I decided to be open to this He hada glow about hhim I liked, and he also seemed extremely sure about what hhe wanted and how to gett too, though it was more a quiet selF-eonfidence than anything brash ‘A couple of weeks later, Thurston and I met up at Dance- teria, but ourfist “formal” date wasat A Space, a smal alter- native-art venue that featured performances and shows, and afterward Thurston came back tomy apartment. [remember feeling so excited he was there, rounded by my few belong. ings. We were taking about this and that when he laid eyes on the Drifter tited against the wall. It sealed the deal, ina way. There wassomething wild, but not too wild, about Thur: ston. His guitar-playing may have heen free and untamed. bbut we came from similar middle-class academic back- grounds. One night not longaafter he and [started going out, Thurston filled in for the Hungarian actress Ester Balint by DJingat the Squat Theatre—Eszter would later g0 onto appear in Jim Jarmusch’s film Siranger than Paradise. Nico played that night, as did the Heartbreakers, a band led by Johnny Thunders. It was a depressing evening. Nico cried, and though they meant a lot to Thurston, Lives~108 mee lives Thunders's band was only interesting for its heritage, On- stage they werea bunch of rock-''-roll burnouts. ‘We were slowly getting to know each other. | remember the two of us walking down Eighth Street together early in ur relationship, holding hands, on our way toa movie—it could have been The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That ‘night I flt so happy, and so close to him, asif in this ditty scrappy, adopted place he and I were the only two people who existed within a perfect moment. Soon after that, T started playing music with him, r here were $0 many moments of formation for Sonic Youth; its hard to pinpoint one. In the beginning, the band was just Thurston, Lee Ranaldo, and me, with other people entering and exiting like pedestrians stopping to stare briefly at a shop window. We had many different names before deciding on Sonic Youth: Male Bonding, Red Milk, and the Arcadians, We were a baby band and, as such, had no idea what we were doing. Thurston got Sonic Youth a slot at CBGBas the first of four bands on a bill. There is no ‘worse positioning, But we approached what we were doingas a series of stepping-stones, one of which included recording our first album, an EP with five songs total, in 1981 ‘What do bands do after making a record? They go on tour. It seemed like the right thing to do, and somehow we landed ourselves a gig at the Walker Art Center, a progres- sive museum in Minneapolis. We also got to tour in England for the first time. For the kind of music we were making, it vas frankly easier to find an audience in Europe. Bands are treated better over there, which I chalk up to the socialist governments and the way clubs double as cultural centers that governments partially fund. ‘Our first London show was a semidisaster, with one of my bass strings breaking midway through. Thurston ended up hurling his guitar around, and then the metal grille that sepa~ rated visiting bands from the audience slowly lowered and the show ended, Some people thought Sonic Youth was the best thing on the bil, while others thought we were pretentious and arty It wasn'ta perfect introduction to England, Talso felt imited as a singer. When the band first started, I went fora vocal approach that was rhythmic and spoken, but sometimes unleashed, because of all the different guitar tunings we used. When you listen to old R & B records, the \ornen on them sang in a fierce, kick-ass way. In general, though, women aren't relly allowed to be kick-ass. Female singers who push too much, and too hard, don't tend to last very long. They're jags, bolts, comets: Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday. But being that woman who pushes the boundaries means you also bring in less desirable aspects of yourself. At the end of theday, women are expected to hold up the world, not annihilate it. ve never thought of myself asa singer with a good voice, or even a musician, I'm able to put myself out there by feeling as though I'm jumping off a cliff. Neil Young ‘once said that it’s more about having an authentic voice than a good one (though of course Neil has a great voice). From growing up listening to jazz, I picked up another, ‘cooler aspect of the female vocalist—the idea of space, and 108 vocu" FEBRUARY 20 New york stones {erry WANALDO, CORDON STEVE SHELLEY. AND. THURSTON MOORE, 1992, ind the impor- tance of phrasing. When I first began perform: pretty self-conscious I ‘vas just eying to hold my own with the bass guitar, hoping the strings wouldn't snap, that the audience would have a good experience, I wasn't conscious of being a woman, and over the years Ican honestly say I almost never think of “girfiness” unless 'm wearing high heels, Later T grew to re- ally enjoy playing bass it wasa physical thing that connected tomy love of dance. When I'm at my most focused onstage, I eel a sense of space with edges around it a glow of selF confident, joyful sexiness. It feels bodiless, too all weightless grace with no effort required. The need fo be a woman out infront never entered my mind at all in the beginning, [was just trying to makeit through, ‘When Sonic Youth started, I really made an effort to punk myself out, to lose any and all associations with my midle- class West L.A. appearance and femininity. When I first arrived in New York, the composer Rhys Chatham would always say to me, “You know, Kim, you'e always going t0 Jook middle class" To be more punk, he wasimplying, you had to be somehow uglier, asif there was an authenticity to be found in looking like an underdog. What Rhys meant, think, was that Iwas wo Twas. ‘There was a popular look atthe time—the vintage dress, the makeup—that just wasn'tme, nor was thatthe way people

Anda mungkin juga menyukai