What SY Songs are Better Live?
 

Some of you might say all of them, but I think there are certain songs, such as Drunken Butterfly and Kool Thing, in which the studio production is a big part of the appeal. Some songs, however, have a certain energy or noise element that's even better live. Here are some off the top of my head:

Becuz
Shaking Hell (When hearing this live, Kim's vocals made my blood curdle.)
Silver Rocket
Anagrama
Cotton Crown (maybe)
Pink Steam

Of course, a lot of this depends on which shows you've been to and how a certain song came across that particular evening.

Yes, Brother James is way better live! Maybe that's because I first heard it live, but now it seems too slow on record.

"rain on tin" shook me up pretty good.

Teenage Riot deffinitely...PCH was damn near better but the chorus isn't quite as perfect as on the record. Pattern Recognition too.

agreed on pattern recognition!

Their second through fourth albums were great! And they were posing for nobody back then. No videos, no radio play, no aqua net hair styles. Just balls-out great metal, and the people responded. What happened after that? Shiiiiittt......

I agree with you, but i don't know about becuz (what I've heard from boots). it's sounds so good from record. I'm talking about that noise middle section. maybe it's just me.

side 2 side is much better live. tons of others obviously.

pretty much the whole of rather ripped.

I Love You Golden Blue from the '05 tour and Lightnin'

incinerate and pink steam

Every performance of Teen Age Riot I've seen hasn't been too great.

But of course I've never seen them live so it might be different.

orr

NYC G&F is the best "live" thing I've hever heard in my whole life.

Candle

Yeah, the whole album sounds great!

White Cross.

Although the recording also rocks, this was the very first song I heard them do live--they opened with it at my first SY concert. I just wasn't prepared for the power of their performance, nor for how far the improv and atonality would go before veering back into the pulse of whatever song they were doing (and all this occuring sometimes in the space of a few seconds).

Not to mention how Thurstron struggles to hit the first couple of notes on the vocals (see the "Dirty Boots" b-side recording)...something about that shreds me.

"Becuz" is one of my favorite studio recordings by SY--I sort hope I never hear it live.

haha, whoa...is that a bad pick...I'm wondering if Lee will ever play that one in the tuning it's supposed to be in...I think I only have one recording in which he does...

I agree wholeheartedly with some of these picks, especially Brother James. Yeah, White Kross is always better live too.
Probably half of their songs are better live at times.

For me, Drunken Butterfly is much better live because I'm always goingto skip it on the album.

Cotton Crown (the album sounds like a parody version of the incredible murray street version)
Starfield Road
Pink Steam
When they nail Skip Tracer its the best thing in the world.


How can you tell Lee isn't in the right tuning on patten recognition? I was going to say that was better live too, the noise was awesome

I love the Lille '02 Kotton Krown, I bet that's the one you mean specifically.

You are so right.

Skip Tracer is so much better live (than on record) when Lee is in the groove.

Karen Revisited (Karenology) is always better live as the record's production is not poor, but "off" on that one in my opinion.
Most of Murray Street was done great live. I can't say the same for Sonic Nurse. They stretched-out in the studio on that one and failed to do most of them much justice live.

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How can I tell?

Well the bridge is always great, but every time they come out of it, he always sounds like shit on Pattern Recognition. It's like, "stop the fucking song"-bad.
I think he has the tuning notated wrong in some composition book and no one cares to tell him about it,
or most likely, that he simply needs one guitar for the bridge and actually needs another for coming out of the bridge, but since he doesn't have that particular needed guitar in his hand, he approximates by compensating based on the tuning of the guitar he's using. If this is the case, he should go get that needed guitar during the bridge, because it isn't working as he's been doing it.

And don't take this as your golden opportunity to pounce on me. I love Sonic Youth.
But any idiot should be able to hear (in the case of live video -see) the exact same thing I'm describing (nearly) every time they play Pattern Recognition. If people go to see Sonic Youth they naturally don't expect perfection, but they also don't want to hear that sort of thing either.