Saturday, April 27, 2013

Kim Gordon Wisdom


Elle Magazine had an awesome interview recently with (former?) Sonic Youth bassist and vocalist Kim Gordon, where she mentions what turns her on artistically these days, her current projects, and how she's handling the dating life now that she is divorced from co-founding SY member, co-vocalist and guitarist Thurston Moore.

It seems Gordon blames book editor Eva Prinz for the couple's break up (well, that and Moore himself):
''We seemed to have a normal relationship inside of a crazy world,'' Gordon says of her marriage.'' And in fact, it ended in a kind of normal way—midlife crisis, starstruck woman.''
 Other people have other views but, really, the only people who should worry about that shit are those directly involved: the guy cheating on his wife, the woman he's been seeing since, and the woman scorned who moved on with her life. The one thing everyone else on the planet should be allowed to ask is: is that shit bad enough to put an end to one of indie rock's best success stories of all time, of a band who did things their way from Day 1, who own all rights to all their works, who kept it real and experimental the whole time, and eventually got support from a major label (Geffen), but only after proving they could do it on their own, and still held their rights, their freedom, their autonomy - and were allowed to release stuff independently at the same time (Geffen has a similar deal with Beck, so they're cool like that).

Should it mean the end of Sonic Youth, then we should all get our hands on pitchforks (the tool, not the website, who likely still support everything Moore does - he is to them what Jack White is to me!) and walk over to Thurston Moore's house and seek revenge/retribution/justice/his head on a stick. Anything else just isn't our business.

In any event, Kim Gordon remains a ground breaker, a trend setter, a smart, poised, strong, articulate person who rocks harder than a lot of them. I saw SY many times between 1996 and 2002 - I stopped going when the shows got more expensive and shorter at the same time - and I met the band twice - once after a show at Métropolis, and another time after one at Le Medley. Both times they were affable, took the time to sign my ticket stubs and talk a bit, and really seemed to care about all the fans who waited outside for them. ''Good, simple humans'' I thought. Still do.

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