Punk, like funk, is an attitude.

Because they've been going for 30 years and aren't AC/DC or the Stones, you can't really call them a specific genre. Sister is a psych rock record to me: driving rock songs, weird pretty bits, scary bits (COME ON GET IN THE CAR!), spacy bits, some straight-up catchy bits (though I probably only think that because the whole fucking thing is indelibly printed onto my mind) - psych rock.

The term 'alternative rock' or 'alternative music' was in use here in Canada by 1986. The Pursuit Of Happiness, The Lucy Show, The Plasterscene Replicas, Sons Of Freedom, etc were all considered 'alternative'.

what about NoMeansNo! best canadian band ever!!!!

I would say that Sister is underground (80's)rock/psych-rock. To me that era of SY seemed to be an underground scene, which sometimes found outlet as "college rock" in the states, played on college radio but not so much thru ClearChannel popular radio or most mainstream media outlets.

I tend to equate that period of their music with other similar acts like the Flaming Lips, Butthole Surfers, etc. I don't usually call them college rock due to bands like the Replacements. They seemed very college/clean/indie whereas the more psych bands had a wild, untameable side to them.

I prefer the noise-rock term though. Heh. Just seemed to me at THAT time psych-rock. Mainly just because to the songwriting approach and the interesting SY style guitar arrangements/songwriting.

I cannot stand the "alternative" label though. "Alternative to what?" It seems a very "scene-ish" thing to say, like "indie" has become. I opt to just say underground, where the music had appeal outside of conventional media, etc.

I like the term 'pigfuck'.

you don't catch the difference between "revolution" and the previous songs of the beatles? if yes you understand what is "alternative". all wikipedia's articles contain the word "recent" for "alternative".

and for "sister" only "rockabilly" is available to describe it. "psych rock" is far from this.

I label all Sonic Youth as skronk

SKRONK people!!!!!

I once read an article that was trying to create a sub genre called "arsequake" that consisted of Sonic Youth and the other bands signed to Blast First and The Pixies

"noise-fuck-piece"

Alternative rock is an originally American term used to describe bands that broke into a sizable cult level of notoriety for a certain type of rock music that was created outside conventional mainstream ways of development for bands in general, and refers to bands like The Smiths, REM, Smashing Pumpkins and even Sonic Youth at a certain phase of their career. Nirvana fit into it straight away because musically they have never been weird or anything, just a good rock band with elements of the noisey, sludgey underground that produced them.

Out Of Tune Rock

being Sister was the very first cassette i ever heard of SY, i was totally blown away with sitting down trying to figure out how to play along on the guitar, and it just seemed impossible. there was no way in hell this stuff was in tune, so that's what i ended up calling it. it was at that time, not really underground anymore, as i think Goo was already out at the time. but to me it still remained an alternative to the alternative. no one plays more fucked up and out of tune then Sonic Youth. at least, not that i heard of. as for college rock? nope, because thats the last thing i would think of them as. most college kids wont listen to it, just because it's far to advanced for them, unless they are studying to become a mathmatics professor or something.

they will still remain OUT OF TUNE to me

Oh, definitely NoMeansNo!

Sometime when I get the chance, I'm going to re-read all the old magazine articles I have on bands like Sonic Youth in the mid to late '80s and see what they were being labelled as at the time. Besides 'alternative', I recall the term 'white noise' often being applied to bands like SY, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, etc. The first Canadian band that I remember being labelled 'low-fi' was Eric's Trip in the very early '90s. Sloan were being placed in the same sound category as SY at the time of their first two major releases, Peppermint and Smeared (both 1992--Christ! Has it actually been two decades?!!). I can also remember when Sons Of Freedom released their first album in '88, and Graffiti magazine compared them to Live Skull and Band Of Susans. That was fairly accurate.

thats so weird because to me that is 3 so different styles
Sloan dosen't sound anything like Sonic Youth
and Eric's Trip lo-fi-ness makes the worse SY sound like gold
i'm totally not dissing any of those bands, but whoever compared SY to Sloan dont know a damn thing about Sonic Youth then.
ive always wished that Eric's Trip actually covered that song whenever i saw them live.

Well, rumour has it that Sloan got signed to Geffen for Smeared on the grounds that they were Canada's answer to Sonic Youth. The first two records sound a lot like SY to me--without the 'alternative' tunings, mind you. Some people were accusing them of being a SY rip-off band at the time, right down to Chris Murphy's physical similarities to Thurston Moore. That's probably the reason they were starting to change by the time of their second Geffen record, Twice Removed (1994), bringing in influences ranging from The Beatles to The Velvets to The Ramones. Of course, they sound nothing like Sonic Youth today, all those albums later.

so why does Eric's Trip have a song called Sloan? named after the band?

You must spread some Replacements around before playing them for Genteel Death again. :cool:

it's an east coast thing
even if most of those bands aren't from the same province
there is some strange interconnected thing happening with some of those bands.
i'm going to guess it's because there is fuck all out here
and bands got to stick together.