Superlatives
A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.
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Thats the bright moment, being able to actually execute that.
I miss having that physical closeness.
To have that blocked because of the travel restrictions has been really a bit of a stone bummer.
Thats sort of what it stems from.
Its like, Go to bed at eight oclock?
But I do miss New Yorks specific energy.
Let me see here I have it in my files.
The lyrics were collaborative.
We never really did that before.
It was based on reading about Mariah Carey having a bit of trouble with her record label that day.
That was [in] the news.
He just thought it was a nice gesture.
It was something to write about, so we jammed them together and wrote this song.
Theres also Helen Lundeberg.
Its a 7-inch we put out ourselves about this amazing painter I was reading about that day.
They only exist on the Japanese version of theRather RippedLP, so theyre pretty buried.
I would say theyre my two favorite songs we ever wrote, but nobody knows about them.
As far as Sonic Youth,Daydream Nationcertainly gave us more of a pronounced profile, critically.
The precedent was seeing the Minutemen and Husker Du do it on SST records.
We thought,Lets do that, too.
Lets be the New York City version of that.That was the big inspiration.
It was an amazing time.
Jean-Michel Basquiat was always doing music there, playing electronic noise stuff with his Test Pattern lineup.
Its where I first met Richard Edson, who became the first drummer in Sonic Youth.
It was a great night.
I was like, Yeah, its really hard to get gigs.
And he said, Thats because you have to make a record.
If you make a record, it will validate what youre doing to everybody.
Thats all he said: Youve got to make a record, man!
We wrote one called Screaming Skull, its a bit of a jokey song.
It wasnt because of animosity it just had everything to do with being kind of silly.
In the context of the songs of Sonic Youth, I felt like silly songs were the weakest entries.
I feel totally responsible for that.
I say that not having heard them for some time.
Now, maybe if I go back to them, I can have a reappraisal.
But I dont think so.
We had met him just the day before, because we were rehearsing in the same studio complex.
That was exciting enough.
We took a break, standing around, and then here comes Iggy walking towards us.
He has all these chains around his trousers I can hear him clanking down the hallway.
He goes, Hey, are you guys Sonic Youth?
and I was like, Yeah, we guess we are.
He goes, I really like your version of I Wanna Be Your Dog.
I said, Well, were gonna play it tomorrow night.
You should come by.
He goes, Okay, put me on the list, and I didnt expect him to come.
But after our set, were walking off the stage and hes standing there.
I said, Were gonna do I Wanna Be Your Dog.
Do you want to come out?
Hes like, Yep, sure.
That was the ultimate payoff for me being in a band, to actually collaborate with somebody like that.
Ive gotten to know that guy through the years.
Strangest place youve heard your music
The band was on a ferry going from England to Holland.
I remember Lee [Ranaldo] grabbing my arm and going, Check it out.
He turned around like, Who the hell is tapping me on the shoulder?
and then he looked at the four of us sitting there.
I thought that was so sweet.
Nobody had ever heard of us, let aloneheardus.
We were really out of our element.
People just watched us in curiosity and wonder.
There was hardly any response.
We were doing like drumsticks under the guitars,Confusion of Sexmaterial.
It was pretty crazy.
One of the gigs just got released recently, aLive in Moscowalbum.
It was just confusion by these Russian families sitting there.
The food was inedible.
We actually went down and played in Georgia, which was a little hipper.
There were actual punk rockers.
But I did meet somebody who actually saw one of those shows.
If theres anything great about going to Russia besides these funny, weird memories, its that.
