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Sonic Youth
 When one thinks of archetypal New York bands, few shine as brightly as Sonic Youth. From the Velvet Underground and the loft scene, through to The Ramones and CBGBs, to the birth of no wave and later indie rock, New York has been a centre for punk expression.
That magical group - Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Kim Gordon, and since 1985, Steve Shelley - has remained one of the most influential, the most exciting, and downright greatest bands ever. The band has travelled so many different paths, some of which it even trailblazed, and to this day after some 15 studio albums and countless side projects and collaborations, the legend that is Sonic Youth lives on. The burst of ecstasy one gets when he or she hears, sees, reads, feels Sonic Youth for the first time, or for the one-thousandth time, is reflected in the very band itself. After almost 30 years, its members - down-to-earth heroes, involuntary shapers of style and scene - are still having the time of their lives.
Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the band's breakthrough album, 'Daydream Nation'. The All Tomorrow's Parties Festival and its subsidiary series of concerts titled 'Don't Look Back' will present a series of Australian and New Zealand shows where Sonic Youth will perform 'Daydream Nation' in its entirety, front-to-back.
For some people, this is the very idea of heaven. While Sonic Youth has crafted a stack of seminal records, each of them definitive in their own way, it could only be 'Daydream Nation' that got the go-ahead as the one to be given the 'Don't Look Back' treatment. Lee Ranaldo made time to speak about it from his home in New York, the city in full swing with Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations and the effervescent guitarist/singer/producer was, as always, looking forward to returning to Australia.
"I think in the grand scheme of everything, that's really the record that for so many people put us on the map in such a major way. In a way it's very appropriate that it's that record. I mean, it's the first record we came to Australia on. It's the first record we came to many places outside of the US and Europe on. Through the records that came before that - 'Bad Moon (Rising)' (1985), and 'Evol' (1986), and 'Sister' (1987) - we were kind of growing and growing. 'Daydream' is really the one that ended up on everybody's year-end lists, and all that stuff."
Sonic Youth will share the stage with legendary Australian band The Scientists, who will themselves perform their 'Blood Red River' album from 1983. "I remember getting into those guys when we first started coming to Australia, and maybe right before that," Ranaldo recounts. "It was a pleasure to meet all these bands and people down there that we'd heard about or been listening to before we were actually able to come to Australia, like Hoodoo Gurus, and all that kind of stuff. We've made a lot of good friends down under over the years - people we've worked with and just hung out with. It'll definitely be fun to do the shows with them."
At first the band was reticent to attempt to play the album in its entirety, but by now all the members are totally comfortable with the concept and its processes. "Those songs were all built to be stretched out in different ways and I think for us the key was getting back inside them enough that we were comfortable enough to just stretch them out and not just be trying to reproduce them. I think the first few gigs we did, really the objective for us was just to get through the gig and play these songs. You know, reproduce them. And that felt a little odd I have to say. I think we all felt like our own cover band or something like that...the first few gigs were a little bit more like performance art or something like that. We were going out and playing this record from 20 years ago. And then after four or five or six gigs I think it became a little bit more innate again; we were figuring out how to live inside those songs again."
Some fans might see the 'Don't Look Back' series as an opportunity to see a note, tone and picture-perfect version of a classic record from one of their favourite bands. Ranaldo sees a certain amount of jeopardy in that particular mode of thinking; the last thing Sonic Youth wants to do is end up its own simulacrum. "I think we've been able to tap into what is exciting about it," he says. It's Lee Ranaldo talking; we can trust him. "I don't think of us as very nostalgic in general as a band. The idea was a little foreign to us at first. Even though to us as fans, we could understand the thrill of like, 'alright, The Stooges are gonna play 'Fun House', or Dinosaur [Jr.]'s gonna play 'You're Living All Over Me' or whatever it was. I mean we were totally up for seeing that stuff but when it came time to talk about us doing it, I dunno, I think we maybe just thought we would rather be doing other things. But we've definitely all gotten inside of it at this point".
Now it's our turn to get inside of it. I for one can't wait.
Lenin Simos
Sonic Youth will play at Fowler's Live Courtyard as part of the 'Don't Look Back' Series on Fri Feb 22.
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