← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Thurston Moore: 'Flow Critical Lucidity' (Listening Party)
00:23:52
Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth discusses his new album and memoir.
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Thurston Moore
Hey, Lulu here.
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Alison Stewart
Whether we are romping through science, music, politics, technology or feelings, we seek to leave you seeing the world anew. Radiolab Adventures Right on the edge of what we think we know Wherever you get Podcasts.
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Thurston Moore
Listener supported WNYC Studios.
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Thurston Moore has helped launch one of New York City's best loved bands, Sonic Youth, something he chronicled in his memoir from last year titled Sonic Life. The one time New Yorker, Moore moved to London about a decade ago, but started this weekend. He'll be back for a bunch of events throughout the week. First, he'll be in conversation at the 92nd Street Y on December 1st. The next day he'll speak and play at national sawdust. And from December 4th through December 7th, he'll be playing shows at the Stone in the Village with rotating lists, excuse me, rotating lineup of special guests, including his former Sonic bandmate Lee Ronaldo. It all comes on the heels of Moore's ninth album titled Flow Critical Lucidity, released in September. Here's the track titled Sans Lamite.
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Thurston Moore
Shelter My naked soldier Fixed on future.
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Remember.
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The things you told this daylight is yours these risks will define your life this is the daylight of your own times Grow up to the stars Speak to infinity this time is yours Flow Critical Lucidity no weapons for my hearted defender Unfold like a flower Open tender.
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Alison Stewart
There's some more. Joins me now for an all of it listening party. Hey, welcome back.
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Thurston Moore
Great to be here.
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Alison Stewart
I wanted to ask you about playing at the Stone in Greenwich Village, which you founded with John Zorn. You performed there before. What do you like about that space?
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Thurston Moore
Oh, I love, you know, it's such a critical listening room for New York City. And John Zorn has always been, he's always facilitated this, you know, since I was aware of him in like the early 80s. He always had a space for more challenging, more marginal music to sort of find its place and for listeners to enjoy it. I remember being a young guy in the early 80s, like bombing around the city with my friends on the Lower east side. And he had his place called the Saint that was down there for a while. And it would move around different places downtown. And I remember walking in there and he would shush me and my friends as we walked in because everybody was sitting on the floor listening to like this very delicate, plinky, plonky, free improvisation music with like, you know, a couple of gentlemen with beards, you know, in the front. And I was like, what is this, this is terrible. Why would I want to be in here? I want to go see the Dead Boys, you know. But, you know, as I grew up and I matured, I realized like, this music was like more punk rock than any punk rock could ever be. It was really radical and I really embraced it and got engaged with it to such a degree that. So when John asks me to do anything, I jump.
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Alison Stewart
So you're going to be have different guests every night. How did that line happen?
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Thurston Moore
Well, you know, John always asks the different curators for each week or each series to choose whoever they want to play with, do whatever they want to do, you know, in regards of being a musician and apply themselves during their residency, which is, you know, it's the artist's choice. So it's basically the curator playing with different musicians they know or want to play or they feel comfortable with or maybe uncomfortable with. And it's great. I mean, it's sort of like the beauty of free improvisation is such a socialized music that it's like everything is of equal value on the bandstand in such a way. And so you kind of want to be in this place where it's all about communication and this spontaneous vocabulary. And so for me, I immediately thought of playing with Lee, Lee Ronaldo, the guitar player, Sonic Youth, because we always had this relationship together. And I really love playing with him in that respect. So I asked him, I asked Fred Frith, who I never have played with. Fred Frith is a long running experimental musician, guitar player who came out of this legendary British Prague rock for want of a better word group called Henry Cow, and then has had a great career as a teacher, as a music teacher and as well as an improviser who just travels the world constantly playing with different musicians of any age, any gender, any race, everything. It's just like, it's totally this open world of in beauty to me, which is really important right now is just sort of to be expressive as artists where we all connect with the dynamic of our cultures. And so that's what I love about, particularly about this kind of music making that goes on at the Stone that Zorn oversees. So, yeah, I play Fred Frith and then one night I'm playing with the percussionist Willie Winant and the percussionist Tom Sir Gal, who I've done trios with through the years. Willie Winant is a great percussionist coming out of the Bay Area, Mills College, a bit of a legend. And Thomas Argyle is an old school New York percussionist. And I'm playing with this young saxophone player, free jazz saxophone player, named Zo Amba, who came up from Knoxville, Tennessee, and has been sort of in the New York scene for quite a while and had woodshed with some great players, like Peter Brotsman, who's no longer with us. And she's a wonderful saxophone player who I've never played with. And so I wrote to her and I said, would you like to do something? Because I'm very intrigued by what I've been hearing you doing. And she was like, yes, of course, of course. You know, and she knew certainly about Sonic Youth and stuff like that. So that was. That's gonna be kind of an interesting meeting. And Ryan Sawyer, who's a great free percussionist, who, around New York City, is gonna be playing this. Yeah, you know, it's just like. It's like a candy store of, like, you know, of just, like, experimental music at the Stone for, You know, so I. No matter where I am in the world, you know, I live in London, so it's like, you know, it's. For me, it was. And John always asks. Asks his musicians, like, a good two years prior, like, where are you going to be in 2028?
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Alison Stewart
Like, I know, right?
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Thurston Moore
I was like, you want to do a week at the Stone? I was like, yes.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah. Well, it's interesting, though, because if he asked you, do you want to play at the Stone? You know, a year ago you couldn't because you had a health issue. You had to.
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Thurston Moore
Well, yeah, I had to cancel a lot of things last year, right when my book was published, right when my records coming out, all this kind of stuff. That's always the case, isn't it? It's like, you know, when they. You really need to sort of go out there. I just, you know, it's sort of doctor's orders, you know, I have a bit. I have a very typical ablation condition in my heart, which I sort of have to take care of still. But, you know, it's something that it's not. I'm not too freaked out by, because it's. It's a. It's a. It's something that'll be taken care of. You know, I'm not too worried about it, and I don't think anybody else should be.
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Alison Stewart
But.
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Thurston Moore
Yeah, it does. It does sort of make me stay in one place, which is a blessing because I kind of really, at 66 years old, wanted to stay in one place, you know, and get out of the tour bus or the tour van, as it were, you know, and just banging around at all these different, like, beer halls and clubs, which I have complete respect for. But, you know, I kind of really want to stay stationary. You know, I live at home, I'm married, I have two dogs. And I'm really into. I'm really into furthering my life as a writer because I've been writing my entire life along with playing music, and now I find myself just really wanting to sort of engage with that much more. So here you go.
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Alison Stewart
Let's get into some music on the record. Flow Critical Lucidity by Thurston Moore, my guest. First of all, where did the name come from? We heard it in the track earlier.
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Thurston Moore
Flow Critical Lucidity. It sounds like a. Like a. It sounds like a fall bootleg or something. I. My co writer on the record who writes most of my lyrics for the last four records is my partner, Eva Moore, who writes under the pseudonym Radio Radio Radio Radio. And yes, I mean, she wrote these lyrics to this song that were very inspired by the readings and writings of Angela Davis. You know, in this time of where we're going through so much sort of societal upheaval and so this idea of being lucid, this idea of being lucid and being lucid in your dream state, where your dreams sort of have this power and this energy and this kind of messaging that you could, you know, you could sort of artfully be used for this kind of these levels of awareness. And so this idea of letting that quote, unquote magic of that flow of the dream state sort of be this beneficent energy. So, yeah, that's where it comes from.
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Alison Stewart
Before we listen to music, if you look at the album cover, it's a helmet with tuning forks spiked into it. It's a piece of art called Samurai Walkman. Why did you want that to be?
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Thurston Moore
That's a sculpture by an artist named Jamie Neris. And Jamie Neris is somebody I've known for years. In the seventies, he was the. The guitar player. The first guitar player in. The Contortions were infamous no Wave band in downtown New York scene. If you look at the back of no New York, the Brian Eno produced a record that was a compendium of these no Wave bands. Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and Mars in DNA. There's a picture of Jamie Neris who. When he was. When she was he. James Neris. James Neris is now she. Jaime Neris. And Jaime Neris is a wonderful painter, a wonderful artist, and I have done work with Jamie where I played music against one of his Films that's called street, where he got into a van with a camera looking out the window and it went at. And it was shooting at such a high speed and it showed just the banality of daily life on the New York streets. And then as it's Projected for its 60 minute run, it's very slowed down to where the streets of New York are a ballet, you know, and it's a beautiful, beautiful film. And it's called Street. And he had asked me to soundtrack it, which I did. So I've had this relationship with Jamie in that respect and we've played music together and we're just, we're friends. And I played out a retrospective of his, of his work a few years back and I saw that piece, that sculpture of this helmet outfitted with tuning forks, which he was inspired by a show of not necessarily military helmets, but they were just sort of helmets that were these anti carrion helmets that had different implements sticking out of them. And they could be roosters or they could be anything. So he decided that. And a lot of them were sort of warring, emblematic of warring. So there'd be knives or guns or whatever. And he thought tomb tuning forks would be like a way of changing the conversation with this helmet. And he said they actually sound. He said. He actually sent me a recording of him playing the tuning forks atop the helmet. So I thought it was a wonderful image, a beautiful image and this kind of music as the healing force of the universe, as Albert Eiler would say. And it was kind of a manifestation, best image of that. And so, yeah, I don't know, I just chose it. I thought it looked cool. You know, usually when you do record coverage, have a cool record cover, you know, so. And yeah, and you know, I'm really like honored to have somebody like Jamie Neris because he really fits with that history that I really love working with lineage of New York, you know, of artists and writers and other musicians. So it was fitting.
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Alison Stewart
Follow up with the song Shadow, which you describe as a no wave four note tumbler dry. Excuse me, I'll do this again. No wave 4 note tumble dryer rumble. There you go. Let's take a listen.
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Thurston Moore
Still the jangle the moon the same Connecticut, Arkansas, Cali UD Street. It's never happening Our watch remains sanctified Stars bring. You saw it too. I thought I saw your shadow in the hallway. Black hole Parents paradise the sun King Winks Saturn, Alabama, Mother Universe dream It's never happening Our space remains sanctified Stars bring yourself to. I think I Saw your shadow in.
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Alison Stewart
The hallway that shadow from flow Critical Lucidity My guest is Thurston Moore. Did you write all the albums at the same. I mean, all the songs at the same time?
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Thurston Moore
Pretty much, yeah. I was in an artist residency in Switzerland, and I was looking for a place to sort of get away, somewhere I could just lock the door and write. And I had known about this artist's residency, and there's this situation in a few of the countries in Europe where you can actually sort of apply and sort of get accepted into being in these spaces where you can just do creative work, whether it's visual art, any discipline. And so I was able to sort of get a few weeks in this room, and it just so happened to be, like, right near Lake Geneva and the Alps there, which is like, okay, that's nice. And I was really sort of contemplative of the earth when I was there. It sort of fed into a lot of this writing. Not that that particular song, Shad, I had too much to do with that. That's one of the two songs that I actually wrote the lyrics for on the record, other than the music. But I did write all the music in that situation. And I kind of use a really. I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to technology, so I just use any kind of recording device I can, and then I bring it to an actual studio, and I say, can we just transfer this? And then I'll, like, overdub on top of it. Like, I'm very crude in my recording abilities, but luckily I sort of work with people who are not. And so they kind of refine my ideas into sort of, you know, somewhat. Somewhat acceptable music. And so, yeah, that song was, you know, more sort of thinking about just this idea of the communities of people, like, who just devote themselves to, like, their creative impulses as a vocation and, like, what that means. And it usually sort of something that happens so early in your life, and if you stick with it, it's rare, you know, because it's a little hard to survive with that kind of idea. And for those of us who have more or less, I find it to be a really sort of. It's a real blessing, you know. And so for me, I sort of. Look, I've been sort of writing now as I've sort of gotten to the 66 mark in my life, that, you know, thinking about these images that were so important to me, so significant to me. And that song was just sort of talking about my memory of just Sort of faces of, you know, people, the young people entering into this world that offered them something that was truly an alternative to the standards of expectation in society. Whether your parents wanted you to be a banker or whatever, but. Or to be at least somewhat conservative societally, and to enter into a space where all of a sudden you see a band like the Bad Brains just lifting the roof off the place in this moment of just energy and joy and bliss and just like, it just. It's explosive. And I always remember that, and that would always stay with me. And I was trying to sort of put it into a song where it was. In some ways, it was this memory that exists as a ghost, as a spirit in my life. And in some way, that's how I kind of, I mean, approached writing a book. It was just like, I'm going to write a book about my youth, but I'm not going to write it in the voice of my youth, because I am not that voice anymore. I'm the voice of an older person. And so it's like, if I had written a book like that 20 years ago, it would have been quite a different narrative or quite a different energy in a way. So you're writing about this, what you're remembering how your feelings were at that early age that define everything you do afterwards, but in a voice of somebody who's kind of gone in and out of different experiences.
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Alison Stewart
Well, on Sunday, you're going to be speaking at the 92nd Street. Why, about your memoir, and you released it last October. What? Have you noticed that interviewers want to ask you about that book?
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Thurston Moore
You know, it really varies because in some ways, I tend to spiel a lot, you know, and so when somebody asks, I usually sit down with an interviewers and they have, like, four pages of questions. You know, there's a couple of dozen questions, and we get through three of them, you know, because they ask me the first question and I go on and on and on some. You know, I'm not the only one like that. You know, Ian Mackay is really like that. And some fanzine kid once corralled Ian McKay and myself together to do, like, a dual interview. And, my God, I don't think he even got through the first question. And the two. It was like, just like this, like, laid waste to him for, like, three hours. Like, you know, kind of one of those. I'm kind of one of those people. But I. No, it's interesting. Sometimes the questions are varied, just sort of like they just want to have a detail on, like, what was it like touring with the Swans, you know, in 1981, you know, in a windowless van in front of five people, like in, you know, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It's like, okay, I'll tell you that story, you know, and it's going to take about 20 minutes. So, yeah, sometimes it gets heavy into the psychology of what you want to sort of accomplish in writing a memoir. I wrote a memoir because it was a device for writing. I just wanted to write, I love to write. And I wanted to write a long form book that was published by like a high profile publisher. And I've always written, I've did poetry journals and I write poetry and I'm involved with like music criticism here and there and this and that. So I'm always writing, but I always wanted to write a long form book, whether it was fiction or nonfiction. And the book deal.
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Alison Stewart
Excuse me, I'm sorry, but you're working on a fiction book?
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Thurston Moore
Yeah, I am right now. That's the next thing after this, after writing this memoir. Yeah, I decided I wanted. I'm going to really get into that. And of course it takes place in like downtown New York City in the early 80s.
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Alison Stewart
Well, makes sense, right?
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Thurston Moore
You know, hanging out at the cbgb, hardcore matinees and stuff. Yeah, so it's that. But there are talking cats and dogs in it. So, you know, it's not exactly just, you know, typical book. But yeah, I'm finishing up that book right now and we'll see where that goes. But yeah, I mean, writing a memoir for me was just a device to write and it was also the book deal I could get. It's like, well, if you write a memoir about Sonic Youth, we'll publish it. I was like, okay, I'll do that. And basically I wanted to just write a book about the significant documents of why somebody like me at 19 years old would want to move to New York and do what they did. So I wanted to write everything about Patti Smith's seventh heaven book from 1973 or whatever it was, or these first recordings, like television's first recording of Little Johnny Jewel. And what these documents meant to this micro community of young people who were connecting through listening and reading these things. From Melbourne, Australia, to Kentucky to Alaska to Tokyo, and so how we all found each other through these documents. That's what I wanted to write about, which I kind of did. I don't mention Sonic youth until like 200 pages in.
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Alison Stewart
I've been speaking to Thurston Moore about his latest album, Flow Critical lucidity Moore will be at the 92nd Street Y on Sunday, National Sawdust next Monday and the Stone for a series of show later in the week. Hey Thurston, thanks for joining us.
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Thurston Moore
Oh Allison, I really love talking to you. Thank you for having me on and I hope to talk again sometime, but not so much. I'll try to keep it a little short.
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Alison Stewart
This is the latest from the album. This is Hypnogram it.
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Thurston Moore
I'm closing my eyes to lucid dream. Reach out your arms when you.
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This.
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Alison Stewart
Lasagna was so cheesy my plate was filled with saucy slices. Then a flimsy store brand plate.
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Thurston Moore
No, no no no.
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Alison Stewart
Ruined it. Next time get Dixie Ultra plates three times stronger than the leading store brand. 10 inch pa Dixie make it right.
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Thurston Moore
If you know your party's extension, press.
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Alison Stewart
Or say 1 to leave a message.
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Thurston Moore
In our company mailbox.
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Alison Stewart
Press or say 2. Spoiler alert.
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Thurston Moore
It will be full representative. Would you speak to your mother in that tone? Speak to a real human being.
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Alison Stewart
You shouldn't need to shout into the void to get your health insurance questions answered. Pacific Source Health Plans. This is a real person. How can I help you? Human service, not automated phone trees. Pacific Source Health Plans.