Lee Ranaldo
Lazy Eight - Productions

May 1995

I originally assembled this video compilation in 1989, around the time of our move to Geffen/DGC as a compendium of our pre-major label doings in the vid/eye-pop arena, from first fledgling D.V.'69 thru Daydream Nation's quartet of visual extrapolations. We tried various ploys along the way, from Kim's Macy's karaoke excursion, Addicted to Love, to our homemade Teenage Riot, as well as inviting friends new and old, such as R. Kern, Kevin Kerslake and Dave Markey, to make videos for/with us. Fleshing out the thing are some ‘rare' clips of SY in various little-seen action poses - rocking out on syndicated teevee for Night Music, and live at the Town and Country Club in London during the Sister tour, alongside Mr. James (Iggy) Osterberg hisself, which was quite a thrill at the time. Check out the vintage vid visions, our history according to the electron beam of cathode ray rock'n'roll. Screaming Fields of Sonic Love, y'all.

--Lee/SY

The Video:

"Death Valley '69" /director: R. Kern. This was our first attempt at video kulture. Both Bob Bert and Steve Shelley make appearances as we were in transition between them as drummers at the time, and it seemed like a good thing to do. The dreams of sixties flower freedom and lighter than air LP records blown away by Satan teens and bad acid. From Bad Moon Rising.

"Shadow Of A Doubt" /director: Kevin Kerslake. Kevin's first video, I believe, made when he was a film student in Cali. He asked Kim if she would be in it, and sat her on a giant turntable to sing the song. The train was added later. Better duck going into that tunnel... From EVOL.

"Beauty Lies In The Eye" /director: Kevin Kerslake. This one was done in our rehearsal space at the time, Ludlow Street, lower east side. Made during Kevin's burgeoning "swirley stylee", see if you can make us out. Also from EVOL.

"Addicted To Love" /director: Kim Gordon. Kim made this at Macy's video karaoke booth for $20. You can too! She chose the "army" background, instead of kittens or puppies. MTV thought it too lo-fi to air, but we like it alot. Made in the same spirit as the song, which was also done up karaoke style. Note the Black Flag earrings. From Ciccone Youth, The Whitey Album.

"MacBeth" /director: Dave Markey. Dave Markey made this one without telling us about it at the time. Footage shot in his high school bedroom intercut with outtakes from the "Mildred Pierce" vid he shot for Goo. Another Ciccone opus. From The Whitey Album.

"Teen Age Riot" /director: Sonic Youth. This is one of our favorites. We combined footage R. Kern shot for a failed video to the song "White Kross" with stuff I shot of us on tour. We tried to include as many various clips from our personal video collections as possible, placing ourselves in amongst a host of folks we admire. Watch out for Tom Waits and Susanna Hoffs, Iggy and Blixa, D. Boon, Harvey Pekar, and many others. Almost got sued by Wim Wenders' people for inclusion of Nastassia Kinski (from "Paris TX"). From Daydream Nation.

"Silver Rocket" /director: Charlie Atlas. This was shot back in 1989 during the filming of a UK Channel 4 documentary "Put Blood in the Music," which had a long segment on us, while documenting the "NY Scene". The second video off Daydream Nation.

"Providence" /director: Peter Fowler & Sonic Youth. Done in the time it took to play the song through, this was hastily assembled for "Snub TV" (UK), which cut the dirty words from Mike Watt's spiel. Thurston as Glenn Gould. From Daydream Nation.

"Candle" /director: Kevin Kerslake. Filmed in an insane asylum in New Jersey in the days before SubPop was a household word. From Daydream Nation.

"Silver Rocket / "Night Music" Version. Featuring our manager at the time, Don Fleming, on keyboards, this clip is from David Sanborn's short lived "Night Music" TV show, which attempted to put strange musical bedfellows on stage together. Too innovative for television, it was - thus - canceled. Meanwhile, we rocked the small screen.

"I Wanna Be Yr Dog"/"Night Music" Version. "Night Music" again, with an American classic. Here are some of those strange bedfellows you've heard about. Check out the Fleming/Sanborn flute/sax duet. Backup vocs by the Indigo Gurrls, Daniel Lanois on one finger gtr, and Hiram Bullock on the smokin' leads. This was a cool teevee show.

"Schizophrenia" and "I Wanna Be Yr Dog" (w Iggy Pop) / live @ Town & Country. Two songs filmed in London at our first live performance of the Sister material there. We felt real good - London finally gave us a warm welcome - it was an incredible gig. Iggy had been rehearsing down the hall from us the day before, preparing for his upcoming tour. We were peeking in his door, trying to cop some pointers. He later dropped by to say hello, and we invited him to the show, but his appearance on "Dog" was pretty spontaneous. We'd been playing it for years, and were ready. It was a blast (first!), and later the weeklies called us his best backing band in 15 years.

The live bit at the head is part of "Inhuman" as performed on Brighton Beach, UK, in 1985 or 6. "Brother James" at tail is from the same day, at the Zap club on the beach. The whole of this day's events will be released later this year.

The kids singing Goo at the end are Thurston's sister's kids: Katie, John, Eleanor, and Louise.

Uncle Thurston says thanks, kids!

-Lee/SY