Radiohead, Beck, Flaming Lips, Mike Watt, Mike D, Flea join list of curators
The disc collects 14 Sonic Youth famous-people-favorites, plus one brand new and exclusive SY jam called "Slow Revolution". Among the celebrity curators: previously mentioned cats like Eddie Vedder, Dave Eggers, David Cross, and Chloë Sevigny, plus newly-announced SY-philes such as Radiohead, Beck, the Flaming Lips, Mike Watt, Flea, Mike D, Gus Van Sant, and, sigh, Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody. Jeff Tweedy and Marc Jacobs apparently didn't make the cut. Peruse everyone's selections in the tracklist printed below.
Thurston Moore initially dropped the Starbucks bomb on Pitchfork back in June 2007, joking, "Starbucks is the new record store, right?" Kim Gordon later remarked that Starbucks is "less evil than" Universal, parent to Sonic Youth's label, Geffen.
And hey, speaking of squares, check out dude on the cover up there!
And speaking of people picking things out, Thurston recently donned his curatorial cap to select the pieces presently on display at NYC's KS Art gallery. The exhibit, titled "NOISE/ART", features creations from folks who moonlight as noise musicans and runs though June 10. Among the artists: members of Wolf Eyes, Hair Police, Nautical Almanac, Double Leopards, and Religious Knives, Leslie Keffer, Thurston's Northampton Wools partner in crime Bill Nace, and Kim Gordon (nepotism alert!). Mr. Moore will also help assemble a NOISE/ART exhibition book, due in 2009 from PictureBox. Thanks to reader Paul Fugazzotto II for the tip.
And speaking of art exhibits, the career-spanning SY one we mentioned a while back, "Sonic Youth Etc.: Sensational Fix", opens at LiFE in Saint-Nazaire, France on June 17. It will visit several more art spots this year and the next.
And speaking of books, Sonic Youth have inspired quite a few of them just this month alone. Stevie Chick's Psychic Confusion: The Sonic Youth Story is available now via Omnibus Press, while David Browne's Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth, put together in cahoots with the band, hits shops May 26 via Da Capo Press. A third tome, The Empty Page: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth, arrives May 29 in the UK via Serpent's Tail and features, well, just that.
And speaking of music (we did mention music somewhere up there, no?), Sonic Youth will play some of that live at a number of places this summer. Oh yeah, and Thurston's doing Psychic Hearts at the behest of My Bloody Valentine! And the new Free Kitten disc is out now. Whew! [MORE...]
