Do you think of Lee as the lead guitarist and Thurston as more of a rhythm guitarist?
 

I'm using the terms "Rhythm" and "lead" kind of loosely here given their playing styles. Soometime they just don't fit with those terms. But often times I notice Lee is playing the more lead-y parts while Thurston does more rhythmic parts. I should also note that I don't think one style is better than the other (often times people associate the lead guitarist as being the better player). I'm just wondering what you guys think.

I'm also gonna throw the phrase "Lee'd guitarist" in before anyone starts trying to be witty.

yeah i think that's the case. especially in the last decade or so where thurston will often bring in a skeletal structure of song and then everyone adds their parts. lee adding his lee'ds!

mote is an example of lee being the rhythm gtr and thurston being the lead gtr.

eric's trip too! many of the lee's songs are like that.

I don't know if I'd call that a lead part but I see what you mean. I was going to say in my first post that it might be that way since Thurston sings on a lot of the songs, therefore making his parts more rhythm. Although on Pattern Recognition where Kim sings, it's obvious that Lee is Lead and Thurston Rhythm. I'm sure there's more examples than that. Cross the breeze I guess. Lee totally made that song. No Lee no Melody.

sugar kane comes to mind... probably because i listened to it earlier today and thought about how lee is extremely "lee-d" guitarist-y in that song in particular

I dunno, but on nearly every Thurston lead guitar line, he sings the same notes he plays, as Lee joked about on that one chat... heheh.

Yeah, I recently realized that on many songs where if Lee wasn't playing his part the song would be gone. He just "made" so many songs. I guess what i'm trying to say is Lee wrote a lot of the melodies.

i don't blame him! i cant play a lead while singing a totally different melody...that takes ALOT of skill.

It's a cool sound.

er, how do you know who is playing what? This is something I've always wondered about. Even watching them play, I can't tell who is making what sound.

lee is almost always the left speaker channel, thurston's right. kim/bass is middle :)

true

Did U Guys See The Porodory Thred?

that's true. but i think that happens since s.y started ( specially in the thurston's songs )

thanks.

everybody is right.
peaceful thread

Yeah, someone's going to disrupt it any second.

I've noticed that the threads actually about Sonic Youth are usually quite peaceful and calm. Threads about.. oh.. politics.. are usually the most violent ones.............

Buuuttt, how do you figure that out?

On New York, Lou Reed told you who was playing what and where... nice cheat

On the mustang portion of this site, on the album histories, it tells, and on some of the tabs, it tells.

Aha! Thanks

Thurston writes most of the songs, Lee is what makes those songs good....

That's how I think of them.

Or do I?

Yeh, Lee is the lead guitar most of the times.

Yesterday, I was watching the Sao Paulo performance (from last year) and he really fucked-up with the riff thing at the end of 'Jams Runs Free'.. it was like a total turn off.

I also dislike when he sings his songs with radical changes in the vocal melodies.. like Mote.. the original melody is so driving..and he sings the whole thing like shouting... argh

But I still love him.. he does great stuff live, too.

I think Thurston goes into the studios and is just like "Hey guys, check this out cool riff/thrash"

I can't remember where I read it but Thurston has said that Lee is the actual 'musician' out of the pair - the one who grew up listening to the Dead and Dylan and Neil Young and all that. Thurston was a noise no-wave fuckabout or something so saying that Lee writes the melodies and Thurston the skronky weird shit is probably right (for the most part anyhow).

I thought that Thurston can't write a vocal melody to save his life was so well acknowledged as to be a kinda fan in joke... and also agree on the point about Lee shouting - he has a cool singing voice but sometimes overdoes the shouty bits.

They seem to be more of a twin guitar style; or sometimes even triple guitar... Can't really think of them in traditional lead/rhythm roles; almost impossible... In fact the way the music is written for the guitar recalls more symphonic or orchestral work, instead of conventional rock guitar. There sometimes isn't even a typical rhythm track. My two cents.

When I list my influences as a guitarist, I always put Lee instead of Thurston, because his more melodic, deliberate style of playing has influenced me a bit more than Thurston's crazy freakouts...

Although, that's not to say I don't stray away from freakouts or the occassional tasteless bit of pseudo-shred.

But wasn't the ambient noisy background on Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style Lee?

Also, with regards to Lee's singing-I actually love how he can sing well, but then mixes it up with more shouty bits and the occasional burst into spoken word...I've tried it myself, but it always sucked.

Lee's definitely a better guitarist in technical skill (Thurston is better at feedback and what not though, but Lee's good at noise making too though), but generally they trade lead lines for songs (Thurston does all the leads on Incinerate, for example).

I can see why people would see Lee as more of the lead guitarist. I prefer to think of them as left guitar and right guitar, personally....

~Jeremy~

I think that technically neither of them is great guitarist, but their style is really unique and that makes them both excellent guitarists.

There's no lead/rhythm guitars in Sonic Youth, just different guitar parts.

that's right. the chemistry between them is really unique. but that don't mean they are bad technically...well to the eyes of standart system they are.

If we are putting them into Lead and Rhythm, then Thurston ussually provides the "lead" skronk while Lee provides the rhythm/background skronk

I see what you mean. However, I've always thought of SY as a rock band in structure. This might seem weird to some given SY's sound. However, when you look at the way the songs are structured and the rhythms they use, it really is the same as any other, more traditional, rock band. Just instead of using standard tuning and actual musical notes all the time they instead use non-standard tunings and weird noises as well as musical notes. I guess you could say that they do play rhythm and lead parts, just in their own unconventional style.

no, no, i think he's not lead guitar (sorry, my ingles is not good, i'm from the Argentina)

this year sonic youth come to the argentina?

Hmm, I never put too much effort into which one was doing which part. But when I listen to a song, I usually figure the part that's 'the lead' as you would have to put it is Lee's doing. However, whenever the song has a solo, like Purr or whatever, I always figure it's Thurston doing that.

If anything, I think of Thurston as the melody guitarist and Lee as the noise guitarist, where applicable.

I saw Thurston Moore playing an acoust guitar recently, and can testify that I was really let down by how poorly he can play the instrument in a meaner guise. He's obviously talented at getting ideas/songs/melodies out of an electric guitar but the truth hit me in the face that lee ranaldo is the true force of this band guitar-wise.

i think thurston is an accordianist and lee plays the hurdy gurdy parts

but what the fuck do i know