![]() ![]() History Formation and early history: 1977–1981 The members have since asserted that the band is finished and would not reunite. The band disbanded in 2011 following the separation and subsequent divorce of Gordon and Moore with their final live shows taking place in Brazil. The band was a pivotal influence on the alternative and indie rock movements.Īfter gaining a large underground following and critical praise through releases with SST Records in the late 1980s, the band experienced mainstream success throughout the 1990s and 2000s after signing to major label DGC in 1990 and headlining the 1995 Lollapalooza festival. Sonic Youth have been praised for having "redefined what rock guitar could do" using a wide variety of unorthodox guitar tunings while preparing guitars with objects like drum sticks and screwdrivers to alter the instruments' timbre. Sonic Youth emerged from the experimental no wave art and music scene in New York before evolving into a more conventional rock band and becoming a prominent member of the American noise rock scene. Jim O'Rourke (bass, keyboards, guitar) was also a member of the band from 1999 to 2005, and Mark Ibold (bass, guitar) was a member from 2006 to 2011. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the band, while Steve Shelley (drums) followed a series of short-term drummers in 1985, rounding out the core line-up. I consider this an extremely powerful song about domestic violence, simply because it treats it so personally, so much in the abstract, and with such a sense of horror.Īlso, call me crazy, but the guitar chords seem (to me at least) to simulate the "as above, so below" theme-at the end, the fast strumming of three higher notes, followed by three lower notes, in succession.Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City and formed in 1981. "The dream coming out of the girl," is "the thing beating up under my flesh," the uncontrollable, inherited tendency towards violence. "I'm sleeping nights awake"-living and acting out one's dreams, so to speak. "Find it in the father, find it in a girl," "I left home for experience," etc. The repeated lyrical references to the father/girl dichotomy reinforce this. A "skinny arm," a "sinking head nodding out to rising bliss" (which, in this context, sounds more like a drunken, passed-out parent than a heroin addict). It's also several obscure physical symbols, which also sound like bits and pieces of memories. ![]() ![]() It's a dream, first of all, and then a "real dream"-later, a "thing in my memory holding on for dear life." Anyone who has been abused at an early age knows that it's often hard to remember whether it was real or just a "dream," as in memory everything gets a little hazy. The song starts out with what sounds like a justification for violence with reference to several parallel metaphors. A child of violence, if you will-one of the "violence" family, someone whose connection to their parents is "violence." The name "Tom Violence" could be anyone, but the fact that "Violence" is apparently a last name links it to family inheritance. In particular, intergenerational domestic violence. I've been listening to this song repeatedly for the last little while, really getting into it, and I think that, more than anything, it's about domestic violence. I think it's a bit more simple than that, actually. I don't think it's about heroin or television. ![]()
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