Medialoper

Certain Songs #2346: Sonic Youth – “Tuff Gnarl”

April 16, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sister
Year: 1987

. . .

Of course when I say that Sister is the beginning of Sonic Youth’s great four-album run, it wasn’t anything I thought about in 1987, as I was still on the fence about Sonic Youth at that time. So much so that while I know Cindy & I drove down to see them and Firehose at the Scream in Los Angeles in September 1987, I didn’t even mention it in my journal, maybe because I thought I would remember all about it for the rest of my life? (Once again future Jim is hampered by past Jim’s weird method — or lack of method, really — of chronicling things). Though I did mention that we saw the Miss Alans that weekend, so priorities, I guess?

Certain Songs #2345: Sonic Youth – “(I Got a) Catholic Block”

April 15, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sister
Year: 1987

. . .

If “Schizophrenia” started Sister off on a relatively calm note, then the mood was totally broken by the next song, Thurston Moore’s “(I Got a) Catholic Block,” which roars out of the gate at a punky speed and has not just what is recognizable as a catchy riff, it’s a riff that matches the melody of the the song, making it for all of us lapsed Catholics to sing along.

Certain Songs #2344: Sonic Youth – “Schizophrenia”

April 14, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sister
Year: 1987

. . .

OK, here we go. One of the tests of all-time great artists is the “four albums in a row” test, which is exactly what it sounds like: did that artist release four albums in a row that are amazing. Yes, I know it’s all kind of wrong, but it’s also all all kinds of fun.

And in retrospect, I think that Sonic Youth begins their four-album run right here and now with 1987’s Sister, an album where they were consciously trying to write more structured songs.

Certain Songs #2343: Sonic Youth – “Expressway to Yr. Skull”

April 13, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: EVOL
Year: 1986

. . .

The final song on EVOL had three different titles. This kinda went along with fuckery where they listed the the songs on the back cover in a totally different order than they were actually on the record. And so, on that back cover, this song was listed as “Madonna, Sean and Me” and on the lyric sheet as “The Crucifixion of Sean Penn.”

A quick aside here: the Madonna/Sean Penn marriage clearly freaked up a lot of people — and not even the ones who paid their own money to sit thorough Shanghai Surprise — because beyond these references was also Lloyd Cole’s “Sean Penn Blues.”

Certain Songs #2342: Sonic Youth – “Starpower”

April 12, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: EVOL
Year: 1986

. . .

I’d been either ignoring or disliking Sonic Youth for four years when they came out with 1986’s EVOL, which confused the shit out of me because it suddenly had some songs that were, well, kinda sorta songs, I guess.

Prior to that, when I dropped the needle at KFSR looking for something to play from their 1982 self-titled debut, 1983’s Confusion is Sex or 1985’s Bad Moon Rising, it just all sounded like self-indulgent noise. Though I will admit Bad Moon Rising did have one of the greatest album covers ever. It just all reminded me of all of those other bands with fantastic names — I still think that. Blind Idiot God is the single greatest band name ever — and unlistenable music.

Certain Songs #2341: Son Volt – “Living in the U.S.A.”

April 11, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Electro Melodier
Year: 2021

. . .

And so it went: Son Volt would release an album every few years — The Search in 2007; American Central Dust in 2009; Honky Tonk in 2013; Notes of Blue in 2017; Union in 2019 — to an ever-dwindling audience. How dwindling, you might ask? And I can only respond with the fact that, as of this writing, nobody has even made a wikipedia page for their most recent record, 2021’s Electro Melodier, which follows in the footsteps of 2019’s Union by describing and decrying the state of the U.S. during Trump.

Certain Songs #2340: Son Volt – “Afterglow 61”

April 10, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Okemah and The Melody of Riot
Year: 2005

. . .

And so, after Wide Swing Tremelo, Jay Farrar broke up the initial version of Son Volt and embarked on a solo career, producing two studio albums — 2001’s Sebastopol and 2003’s Terroir Blues, plus a film soundtrack, two live albums, and two compilation albums: one for Son Volt and one for Uncle Tupelo. The only one I truly enjoyed was 2003’s Uncle Tupelo compilation, and I didn’t even enjoy that as much as I enjoyed the Uncle Tupelo reissues that also came alongside it.

That said, I wonder if it was the act of compiling the Son Volt record that got Jay Farrar to reunite them. Well, not so much reunite, but reconfigure, as nobody from the original crew came back. The most cynical take was that “Son Volt” had more brand juice behind it, but it’s possible that Farrar just liked leading a band. And in the subsequent 17 years, the line-up has changed, but some of the same names keep joining him. Okemah and the Melody of Riot was probably Farrar’s best album since Trace, and it set up a pattern that has held ever since: Son Volt would release a record that sounded basically like the other ones, and I’d (sometimes eventually) would listen to it, and every few albums, he’d put out a song that totally killed me.

Certain Songs #2339: Son Volt – “Blind Hope”

April 9, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wide Swing Tremelo
Year: 1998

. . .

In 1997 Son Volt followed up their stellar debut, Trace, with the very-much-nonstellar Straightaways. A quarter-century later, I don’t remember why I didn’t like it, I just know that I didn’t.

I might not have been the only one, because Son Volt instantly followed it up in 1998 with the much much better Wide Swing Tremelo, where they rocked things up a bit. So ironically, my favorite song on the record was a slower one, the atmospheric near-ballad “Blind Hope.”

Certain Songs #2338: Son Volt – “Route”

April 8, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Trace
Year: 1995

. . .

The first time I saw Son Volt was when Rox & I saw them at the Fillmore in March of 1996, and they — and the opening band, Blue Mountain — were really good, and the set list was pretty much all of Trace, and a wide sprinkling of Uncle Tupelo songs to boot. Which was kinda cool, since I never got to see Uncle Tupelo.

That said, we were still doing to comparisons to Wilco at the time, and the Wilco show that Rox and I saw a few months prior at Slim’s is still one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen (as was the second time, at the Great American Music Hall). Obviously, I’ll discuss all of this when we get to Wilco in, let’s say, 2024, but it was clear that Jay Farrar really had no other interest outside of playing his songs for you. Honorable, of course, but maybe less fun in concert, too.

Certain Songs #2337: Son Volt – “Windfall”

April 7, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Trace
Year: 1995

. . .

There was never any doubt in my mind about who was going to win the Uncle Tupelo break-up. After all, Jay Farrar had that great guitar sound and the aching voice that made Future Certain Songs like “Factory Belt,” “Whiskey Bottle” and “Anodyne” utter staples in my life after I’d discovered them a couple years prior.

And sure, Jeff Tweedy, the bass player with the rasp, had inherited the remnants of the final version of Tupelo and made A.M., an album I well and truly loved, but Grant Hart beat Bob Mould to the punch with the immortal “2541,” and we all know how that eventually turned out, don’t we?