Apologies if I've mentioned this before, or if it's been discussed/old news...I've wondered if the name of
this album is technically "The Sonic Youth Sound Experience" with the label intended to be "Walls Have Ears", rather than "Not"...
There's a similar
Big Black "semi-authorized bootleg" released by Blast First around the same time - the label is also "Walls Have Ears". Note the references to
"A WALLS HAVE EARS PRODUCTION" - matching the one found in the
Sonic Youth record's liners. The SY
spine says "this record is called... WALLS HAVE EARS... this record is called... THE SONIC YOUTH SOUND EXPERIENCE... this record is called "NOT 1 (BUT 2)". And then, the Big Black record's liners state "NOT 2 (BUT THREE)" (the site itself claims (NOT 2 [BUT 1]), as well)
The third in this series was by
Head of David - again, note "A Walls Have Ears production" and a NOT catalog #.
The liner of the SY one claims THIS RECORD IS CALLED "THIS TIME, LAST TIME + HERE'S TO THE NEXT TIME" so it may be that no actual title was intended for this release. Since all 3 of these Blast First custom bootlegs are cited as Walls Have Ears productions, and carry "NOT" catalog numbers, it leads me towards the conclusion that "Walls Have Ears" was not initially intended as the title of Sonic Youth's bootleg, but rather became a name commonly linked with it due to the first line of the spine.
Do I have a point? Not particularly. Everyone will still call it "Walls Have Ears", which is fine. The people who released the
CD bootleg seemingly drew a similar conclusion (or lack of one) when titling their version. The album's creator Paul Smith refers to it as "Walls Have Ears". I just wanted to see if there was a little more to it...(plus Mark Prindle just posted a review of the
Big Black bootleg with the label identifed as Walls Have Ears, which intrigued me enough to dig deeper...)