Is there anyone who has been with SY from the beginning?
 

It seems many here have heard first EJSTANS or ATL and then become SY fans. So Sy was then over ten years old band. Is there anyone, who heard their first mini-lp right when it was released? I just has been wondering, has all who found SY in eighties become something else, I mean that they don´t listen SY anymore? But you all, tell in this thread when you jumped into "Sonic-train"! My first album was Goo maybe half year after it was released.

my affair with sy started around 91/92

http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/sho...5&postcount=29

errrr 2004......

My first SY was Confusion Is Sex probably about a year or so after it was released. I won't pretend it shook my world. In fact I didn't think it was all that great.

It wasn't until I bought Bad Moon Rising which I got as soon as it was released in the UK and I saw them live in 1986 supporting Jesus and Mary Chain that I became a "fan".

The setlist for the gig:
1. Inhuman
2. Shaking Hell
3. Tom Violence
4. White Kross
5. Secret Girl
6. Marilyn Moore
7. World Looks Red
8. Expressway

1991 for me also..

I'm a youngster (compared to SY). I was just a baby when BMR came out, and probably not even a sperm cell when the first EP came out.

I'm a Jet-Setter... started paying attention to them in about '96, and became a real fan in about 99.

92-93

'89

Looking back on SY's career it seems that they didn't really promote our get the early EPs out there. Its not their fault, it was about three times as hard then as it is now. They seemed pre-occupied with the ART and not the promotion. So it would have been difficult for anyone to hear this music if you didn't live inside NYC.

My first exposure probably would have been 90 or 91.

...

i didn't get into them until 2004

which is pretty cool because Sonic Nurse is a top contender for best album

Wow! So it seems now you´re the only one here who have been with Sy so early. That don´t suprise me at all you don´t like CIS at first. I think if it had been the first lp to me also, I wouldn´t have been very excited about it. I bought it after jet-set and I thought then it had it moments, but I thought it was very far away for example EVOL, DN, Sister, Goo and Dirty. Of course I now think it´s very great, but I still prefer a little more time after BMR.

Now I understand a little, why Lee is answering "not at all" when some interviewer ask him in "Master-DIK" are they like Jesus and Mary Chain...I think you have seen very great gig!

99 or so for me

I know there are people on here who were into SY before me. They're just being shy.

It was a good gig to have gone to, seeing SY in their prime.

I have a little detail question about original CIS (if you still have it). Is it Neutral or Zensor -version? Is there Inhuman on the last song in the a-side or the first in the b-side? That´s not of course very important, I am just curious. I have Blast first-re-release where it is the last song on the a-side, but in some magizines it is put the first on the b-side.

Yeah, I think Neutral didn´t make any promotion of those records. And before Blast first they have problems with the european releases. And I have understood that there was also some problems with Homestead. When you also listen their very first live that´s in the first mini-lp re-release, it would have been possible that they never become that what they are now.

And yeah, in the eighties specially in the first years the music style was totally different as SY had. So they´re also one of the pioneer bands.

The college radio stations I djred at had these as promos, what would you expect them to do back then? I don't think there was really any large music mags to advertise in. There was nothing. It was nearly impossible to get out of town gigs.

Friend lent me a copy of DDN around the time it came out.

2005 for me (i think)

I didn´t expect them to do anything, I just said they didn´t do anything and if nobody promotes an record it´s quite impossible to anyone to hear it. Specially that time when there wasn´t even internet. We were just talking about that fact it´s impossible to many persons who have listened SY at the beginning.

Well, I don´t believe there hadn´t been music magazines at that time. At least there had to be many underground magazines because it´s not so long time from punk scene. So if there had been some active in Neutral, he would have tried to ask an interviews from the zines.

I think the real reason is that Glenn Branca is also an artist and there was only Josh Baer with him. As far as I know artists don´t want to make that kind of work like promotion and are not even good to it. It´s very great that mini-lp was released also in europe, but I don´t know had Neutral something to do with it. And of course, if there had been inrerviews in many magazines, the result would have been the same because the people wasn´t just ready for the SY at that time.

1991 or 1992.

from dirty...until i'm turn to dust.

I entered the school when they formed the band in ’81, and first heard songs from Goo in the radio more than 20 years ago.

I've been a fan since shortly after Evol was released. Thank God my friend introduced me to that record at that time. I've had the pleasure of seeing them live many times. Such an incredible ride, their career.

I saw them at this one in Baltimore way back: http://www.sonicyouth.com/history/con-set.html

I remember walking to the show (it was like in this restaurant/bar at this shopping mall, very weird) and passing Thurston and Lee at the Inner Harbor talking to some of the guys from Fugazi. Man, wish there were iPhones back then!

It was maybe '94 or '95 when I first time heard Sonic Youth and album was Experimental Jet Set Trash And No Star. I didn't like it (especially noisy parts), but it sounded somehow interesting and fascinating.

It was early summer in '99 when I got scratchy Daydream Nation from local library and it blew my mind. I recorded it to the cassette and listened whole summer almost only that one. In the end of the summer I bought Daydream Nation and Sister CD's.

I got into em first around Washing Machine era, but I really didn't fall head over heals until A Thousand Leaves and then had a revival around Sonic Nurse. But Sonic Youth is older than I am, and more than twice as old as some of my students ;)

93 or 94? Wanted to see 'em on Washing Machine-era tour, no car or drivers licence, so I missed out.

94-ish around EJSTNS. At first i thought they sounded like smashing pumpkins, who i never liked. Go figure. Around the same time i found dirty on a tape i stole from my sisters boyfriend. Theresas sound world really blew me away. Good times.

Around 1989. First contact: Daydream Nation and Ciccone.

i bought an used LP of _Bad Moon Rising_ when i was in college, around '86 or so.

I purchased a copy of Goo in early 1992 on the buzz created by the whole grunge movement and on the strength of the 'Kool Thing' single, which was a college rock radio-station staple at that point. The first SY album I anticipated was Dirty and I picked it up the week it came out.

The first time I saw SY live was October 20th, 1992 at Avalon in Boston. SY played two shows that particular evening. The first [late] show sold out before I could get tickets, but thankfully, they added a second [early] show. If I recall the first show started at 6pm and DGC label-mates, Cell, opened up. SY floored me that evening and I instantly fell in love with Kim Gordon and her black velvet choker. I remember Thurston tearing it up and leaving quite an impression. It was a good thing I saw the first show that night, as SY blew the PA several songs into their second set. The first show was definitely the one to be at.

I've seen SY on EVERY single tour since (sometimes multiple times) and have seen them live 18 to 20 times. I've seen them in Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Atlanta, and Athens, GA.

Same here

I first read a review of sister and then bought SY DDN when it came out

LOL

i was at that show, and must have also been at the 1st set as i don't recall a dead PA.

Right on. I'm dating myself here, but I was a junior at Boston University in October 1992. I have another cool SY-related memory from those days. It was not uncommon for Thurston to play noise/avant garde shows at some of the smaller Boston-area clubs back then...places like TT the Bears and the Middle East. I wasn't fully into those kinds of gigs, but purchased tickets to what I thought would be a noise/avant garde show at the Middle East [late 1993, early 1994]. There was word Thurston was working on a solo record and was kicking around the idea of calling his band Male Slut. Anyway, when I showed up to the Middle East that night, much to my delight, I was treated to an entire set of what would eventually become Psychic Hearts. Of course Steve Shelley was on the kit and I literally bumped into Kim in the crowd before Thurston came on. I remember her being tiny...

The next time I would see SY was August 5th, 1995 at Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta during their Lollapalooza run. Touring for EJST&NS was challenged due to Kim's pregnancy and this was the only time I saw them featuring material from that album. About a month after this particular show SY would release Washing Machine, but they played a number of songs from it that night. They played a particularly charged version of "Silver Rocket" late in their set that night and nearly melted my brain...

UGH. Fuck.

when 100% was aired on mtv in '92.

Double shot of

Screaming Sculls for the pre-DGC vibe and
EJSTNS.

Yeah Into the Groove(y) hooked me too. I was 14 ish, so we'd go "skating" or whatever every weekend night to get out of the house. I remember playing Screaming Skulls literally every Fri & Sat night in my headphones as my parents took me there/picked me up. For a good year or two. It was my favorite memory from that period really.

But what is really weird is later, as I was catching up with where they had gone musically, I picked up A Thousand Leaves, and just didn't quite get it. I think it was too developed for me at the time. I like harsher tones, and more standard punk rock i guess?? It's like it was so good I couldn't even perceive it. I think I even traded it in at one point! Weird how things work like that sometimes. Now it's one of my favorites.