The effect of a communitarian event

An interview with Thurston Moore, Dias de Los Muertos, the Twentynine Palms Book Festival, Eight Very Bad Nights at Skylight Books

Well, this sucks.

Today I have a fantastic interview with Thurston Moore, formerly of Sonic Youth, about his must-read memoir Sonic Life, which was released last month in paperback, but first a question for the group: How are we feeling?

Personally, I feel betrayed by the Democratic Party, the American people, and the human race.

But not you. You’re cool.

I also feel embarrassed. I was so confident, so full of hope. There was so much money aligned with the forces of reason against that bigoted, small-minded, hate-filled fascist that I was hopeful we were going to step on his neck and cut the head off the snake that is the MAGA cult once and for all.

The reality? We’re at the beginning of something truly monstrous.

Last weekend Nuvia and I went to Baja for a long weekend in Valle de Guadalupe. First, we visited the cemetery in Tecate where Nuvia’s paternal grandfather was laid to rest. We cleaned his grave and decorated it with marigolds while sunlight streamed through the leaves of a pepper tree and a gray cat wandered around the headstones.

We did the same thing the following day at the cemetery in Valle de Guadalupe where Nuvia’s maternal grandfather is buried. There were hundreds of people in the cemetery paying respects to their loved ones. At least two groups of musicians went from grave to grave, offering their services. People sang, drank, and at the end of the day our fingers were stained orange from scattering marigold petals.

At night we stayed at the rancho where I fell in love with Nuvia nearly nineteen years ago. We sat around the kitchen table and ate and drank with her mother, aunts, and cousins. After a while I’d slip away to sit by the fire to read or watch highlights of the Dodgers parade in downtown LA.

If I had to summarize in one word the way I’ve felt these last few weeks visiting my daughter, spending time with friends, listening to baseball, and going to Mexico it would be this: tranquilo. Peaceful, relaxed, at ease.

When I was newly sober, a recovering alcoholic told me “Worrying is praying for what you don’t want” and it’s never felt more true. I believe it’s more important to hold on to hope than to succumb to fear and I’m carrying those vibes forward. I have to think it’s what the people who came before me and came to this country with nothing but hope would have wanted.

But make no mistake. We are in for a fight (and probably more great Bad Religion records.) Despite our blunders, our naiveté, our misplaced hope, I want to say to you today that we are ready for this fight. Every one of our ancestors faced discrimination when they came to this country. That hate didn’t go away. It was simply directed at someone else.

Well I got news for you. La lucha sigue. The fight continues.

I’ll end with some words from

Lawrence Weschler

:

Of course this too shall pass, history swallowing this whole terrible interlude back up on the far side and in the fullness of time, that’s how history works—though not without our own somehow picking ourselves up and hurling ourselves into the urgent labor of making it so.

Write your poems, tend your gardens, and spray paint the walls.

We’re going to need every one of us.

The urgent labor starts now.

An interview with Thurston Moore

Dia de Los Muertos conjures up all kinds of nostalgia, but have you ever yearned for a past you never experienced?

Apparently there’s a word for that: anemoia.

The first time I experienced anemoia, I was watching Barton Fink. I immediately wanted to move into a dilapidated Art Deco hotel and bash out a screenplay. This fantasy probably had something to do with all the noir novels I was devouring at the time.

I challenge any music lover to crack open Thurston Moore’s memoir and read about driving to New York’s Lower East Side as a teenager to see the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, New York Dolls, Suicide, and Blondie—the godfathers and godmothers of American punk—at CBGB, Max’s Kansas City, and scores of other spaces without experiencing deep pangs of anemoia.

In Sonic Life, Moore painstakingly and lovingly reconstructs what those early days of his orientation, indoctrination, and initiation into the cult of extreme sonic expression were like. We’ve all read Please Kill Me, Just Kids and other books about the early New York punk scene, but Sonic Life brings those rooms to life in ways that will feel familiar to anyone who has been transported by a live music experience and longs to do say again.

I would put Sonic Life up there with the excellent Some New Kind of Kick by Kid Congo Powers as a prime example of a fan-first music memoir. Sonic Life was released in paperback last month, and Moore generously took time out of his busy touring schedule prior to the election to answer these questions via email.

Jim Ruland: Sonic Life is my favorite kind of punk memoir because it really commits to the years when you were a fan. My question is: what took you so long? I needed this book 25 years ago!

Thurston Moore: 25 years ago I would not have had the retrospective consideration I don't think. I would have been too much in the maelstrom of Sonic Youth's day-to-day. And I’m sure my writing would have been a bit less assured. I always knew that I'd someday like to write about the 1970s and ’80s NYC world I experienced—not just the Punk and No Wave and Art scenes but the nature of the city itself. I figured with the right impetus of a good book agent and publishing house I could really commit myself to writing such a lengthy tract knowing that it would have some modicum of a high profile in the book and music industry. If I was to self-publish or work with a more independent publishing concern I would imagine the book being relegated to a deserved obscurity. Not that I have too much problem with that but it would have been more "open-ended" more "gonzo" more "experimental" (read: more "limited" in audience accessibility), less conscientiously edited with an editor who had a learned and keen eye. That is what I needed to actually accomplish this.

I grew up in the Virginia suburbs outside of DC but I missed the whole hardcore scene because I lacked the knowledge, vision and courage to get myself on the other side of the Potomac. Were there times when you were exploring NYC that you were terrifically scared?

I certainly wish I had seen and heard a lot of the experimental music happening in downtown NYC in the ’70s/’80s. It was all happening within a quarter mile in any direction. But I wasn't so tuned into it as I would be in later years and realizing that the music I had become more progressively enamored by—be it Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Improvisation, most of the No Wave bands, a lot of the first hardcore bands—had come and gone. Sure, I crossed paths with a lot of excellent purveyors of all kinds of outsider music but I really wish I had seen more of what No Wave was—all those Teenage Jesus & the Jerks gigs and I didn't see one! And Lydia Lunch lived around the corner from me then! But I didn't know her yet. I knew OF her and yeah she kinda scared me. A lot of the music was part of a certain clique.

Everyone seemed to know each other. I was kind of a loner so didn't exactly galavant with all these lo-fi celebs (Lydia, James Chance, Basquiat, Arto Lindsay, you name it—even Richard Hell or Patti Smith—no way—but I would see them skulking around outside my 13th Street tenement window). I figured someday, somehow I would soon enough have my own band and hopefully attract their attention. Which, in a lot of ways, happened and it brought extreme happiness to my heart.

I tried to buy one of your Killer zines that went up on auction lately but it wasn’t meant to be. You’re a musician and a collector first so I’m curious what making a zine taught you?

I thought punk and hardcore zines were as cool and significant as the records. I considered the ephemera of the culture (books, mags, records, tapes, fliers, posters etc.) to be of equal value to the artists themselves. I wanted to make a zine as much as I wanted to make a record which was all predicated on having a band—but realized one could exist without the other. I wanted to do it all because I was thrilled by it all. I suppose if I was more enraptured by film I'd pursue filmmaking, or if I was more into painting as a vocation I'd lose myself in being a painter. Making a fanzine taught me about the effect of a communitarian event—that of including a bunch of people you either know or would like to know—between the pages where they collude creating a scene—the power in that activity was very exciting.

The early years of rock and roll memoirs are more satisfying than the latter years because they're all about the struggle, but you really linger on those lean, lean years in your studio apartment. Can you talk about that time and its importance to you?

The early years are far less structured than later years. Once your band becomes somewhat established and the band falls into routines of recording and touring then it all becomes a bit redundant. That redundancy can be interesting—certainly there's a lot of stories in those more organized years—but the unscripted life of a young person dreaming—I find that more interesting to write about and share. it has more of a personal perspective as well as the first person narrative (in this case, myself) is of someone left to their own devices.

I get the sense that you’d rather go see a hardcore show by a bunch of kids than go to a reunion show. What do you think of the resurgence of hardcore today?

I'm not too interested in contemporary hardcore though I think it's fun, fun, fun—but I'm too old. I like old man music—jazz, folk, classical, as well as insanely unlistenable music—pure unbridled harsh noise walls, black metal, recordings of bird sound.

This isn’t a question, but Psychic Hearts forever!

Ahh yeh! Now there's a reunion waiting to happen!

Order Sonic Life from Bookshop.org

Twentynine Palms Book Festival

If you’re feeling like you’d like to run away to the desert this weekend, perhaps forever, why don’t you join me at Twentynine Palms Book Festival in, wait for it, Twentynine Palms. Here are some events to put on your calendar:

Friday November 8 at 7pm: I’ll be taking part in Noir at the Boneyard presented by the Starlite Pulp crew at an indoor space at the Twentynine Palms Public Cemetery along with a slew of great readers, including friends and readers of MFTU Nolan Knight, Craig Clevenger, and J.D. O’Brien.

Saturday November 9 at 12:30pm: I’ll be signing books at the Twentynine Palms Community Center. I’ll be there for an hour to sign copies of Make It Stop and Corporate Rock Sucks, but please note that signings will take place at this location all weekend long.

Saturday November 9 at 4pm: Lastly, come check out this music-writing panel called Books and Beats moderated by Cary Baker with an introduction by Nalini “Ash” Maharaja featuring Peter Jesperson, Laurie Kaye, Jaan Uhelszki, and yours truly. Again, there are panels happening all day long on both days.

If you’re going to be in the high desert this weekend, drop me a line!

Eight Very Bad Nights at Skylight Books

I’ll be joining Tod Goldberg editor of Eight Very Bad Nights at Skylight books on Tuesday Nov. 12 at 7pm. Other readers include Lee Goldberg, David Ulin, James DF Hannah, Stefanie Leder, and Ivy Pochoda.

My story “The Demo,” which imagines a murder at a once powerful and now fading indie label *ahem* and includes a brief sojourn into the Mojave Desert.

If you liked this newsletter you might also like my latest novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. I have more books and zines for sale here. I hope you’ll consider ordering my latest collaboration The Witch’s Door and the anthology Eight Very Bad Nights.

Message from the Underworld comes out every Wednesday and is always available for free, but paid subscribers also get my deepest gratitude and Orca Alert! on most Sundays. It’s a weekly round-up of links about art, culture, crime, and killer whales.