This DVD is the 20th anniversary edition of the fabled rock documentary “1991: The Year Punk Broke” by Dave Markey which features the now iconic Sonic Youth tour of Europe with future grunge kings Nirvana. The newly expanded version will also include previously unseen additional footage of punk/grunge legends such as The Ramones, Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney, Babes in Toyland and Gumball. Available at colette.

‘The Year Punk Broke’ DVD is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

40th birthday parties should be pretty special, and they don’t come any more special than the recent 40th anniversary celebrations for New York’s Anthology Film Archives who put together a sterling line up in honour of the experimental cinema and the legendary film maker and occultist Kenneth Anger, which included the Virgins, slamxhype favourites Sonic Youth and a special noise set from Lou Reed.

The not for profit cinema and film archive has been pioneering avant garde films in New York’s East Village since the 1970s and last week they held a party at the city’s Hiro Ballroom which featured one of the best line-ups of any event I have ever seen.  I am absolutely gutted that I couldn’t attend!! Hosted by guest of honour Kenneth Anger it saw a series of performers soundtracking a movie of their choice from the  Anthology Film Archives.

First up was Technicolor Skulls, Anger’s rock band played to his Lucifer Rising movie, while the Virgins played to the sight of Maya Deren’s The Very Eye of Night; Sonic Youth to Jonas Mekas’ Walden (Diaries, Notes, and Sketches) and a very special performance by the Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed to Maya Deren’s Meditations on Violence.

An amazing one-off.  Check out the pictures and videos from the events and let us know below if you were lucky enough to attend.

Source: Opening Ceremony

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Slamxhype faves Sonic Youth have just announced that they have recorded the soundtrack to French feature film “Lights Out” (aka Simon Werner a Disparu).

The bands avant garde rock meets pop score features throughout the movie which debuts at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.  The film, by French director Fabrice Gobert, tells the tale of a group of high school kids who went missing in the mid 90s.  Stay tuned for more details.

Sonic Youth “Lights Out” Soundtrack is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

Mirror/Dash is a group formed of Sonic Youth members (and husband and wife) Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore.  An exploration in sound, it’s a freeform noise project inspired by avant garde composers, free jazz and punk rock in which both musicians torture their instruments with effects, by throwing them about or hitting them with drumsticks, screwdrivers, or whatever else comes to hand to create a trance like drone of sound.  Opening Ceremony attended a recent gig by the band at the Thirty Days Gallery in NYC and recorded the spectacle for us all too see.

It’s pretty far out stuff, but we love it!  Check out the videos below.

Mirror/Dash At Thirty Days Gallery is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

One of the original band members of musical group Sonic Youth, it is as a front line guitarist and vocalist that Kim Gordon is more widely celebrated in cultural circles. However, this show of works by Kim Gordon is what could be the turning point for her pigeon-holed status. Entitled ‘The Noise Paintings’, Kim Gorodn’s paintings are now on display at John McWhinnie Gallery until May 8th 2010. Energetically executed and hand written text in black and blue paint hold the punk attitude and lifestyle that is still very apparent in Kim Gordon. See a preview of The Noise Paintings below.

Kim Gordon The Noise Paintings is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

As “Performing/Guzzling”, the new monograph from Kim Gordon, bassist with art rock superstars Sonic Youth, shows she is also a highly acclaimed artist.

The monograph features a series of abstract, mixed media watercolour portraits of the dreamlike faces she can see from the stage.  Highly limited to 3,000 copies the book comes with a signed print and has been put together by Gordon herself and also features other works from her plus lyrics and essays from writers Jutta Koether and Hilton Als.

Published this April by Nieves and Rizzoli, Performing/Guzzling handsomely translates Gordon’s output in book form. Look for it in April.

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“Ripped: T-shirts from the underground” is a new book from Cesar Padilla celebrating the punk and new/no wave culture of the late 70s and early 80s through Padilla’s impressive personal collection of ripped, torn and sweat stained original shirts from the era.

Padilla has been collecting these shirts since he was a kid growing up in California idolising this almost exclusively New York based culture, so to give the book some context and readers a greater insight into what it was really like to be around at the time he has interviewed some of the leaders and key movers of the scene including punk poet Lydia Lunch, fashion designer Betsey Johnson and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, as well as other well known fans of the bands on these t-shirts such as Will Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy).  The New York punk scene was a seminal moment in time, but it has been covered so often and is now so over familiar that it almost feels banal, but these classic and rare tees from the bands that defined the movement, including Sonic Youth, Run DMC, the Sex Pistols, The Kinks, Talking Heads and The Cure, give you a fun and unique feel of what it was really like to be a punk kid back then.

Ripped comes out 9 March 2010 and is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

Source: cool hunting

“Ripped: T-Shirts From The Underground” Book is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

Sonic Youth have been involved not only in the music industry since their formation in 1981, but in a wide variation of mediums of creational discipline such as conceptual art, photography, cinema and design. Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo is paying tribute to the band’s multidisciplinary ventures and holding an exhibition entitled Sonic Youth Sensational Fix which has been open since early February and will remain on show until May 2nd 2010.

Curator Roland Groenenboom has put together a visual feast of Sonic “parafernalia” including pósters, flyers, album covers, drawings, lyrics and music gear. Also showing will be works from artists such as William S. Burroughs, Paul McCarthy, Raymond Pettibon, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman and Patti Smith all showing the close relationship between their work and the band and their interest to be in touch with the international contemporary culture surrounding them.

The art centre also will present various parallel activities centred around Sonic Youth and experimental music, such as workshops for children, special cinema presentations and a pair of concerts curated by Sonic Youth presenting Bestia Ferida and Macromassa.

Images Shift

Sonic Youth Sensational Fix at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

Music festivals are everywhere these days, usually featuring the same corporate mega-star artist hawking their latest over-produced album, but there is one set of festival promoters who like to do things differently, All Tomorrow’s Parties.  Founded ten years ago as a fan-friendly, non-corporate cultural experience, each year All Tomorrow’s Parties take over run down holiday resorts in the UK, USA and Australia and invite their favourite artists to curate a weekend of the best in alternative and cutting-edge underground culture, coaxing several legends out of retirement along the way (Devo, My Bloody Valentine, Slint, Pavement, The Stooges, Jesus and Mary Chain, Young Marble Giants…. to name a few).  With curators spanning Sonic Youth, Mat Groening, Portishead, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Dinosaur Jr, Pitchfork Media to Nick Cave,  bands having played including The MC5, Public Enemy, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Madlib, Grizzly Bear, Ghostface, Hot Chip and The Aphex Twin, plus exhbitions from artists such as Pete Fowler, mini film festivals curated by the likes of Jim Jaramusch and stand-up comedy between bands they offer a truly unique event.  To celebrate their tenth year they got together with Warp Films to create “All Tomorrow’s Parties – The Movie” a documentary of professional and fan-footage from their early days, right up to their latest events.  The DVD hits stores from Monday (16th November), check out the trailer below and get the DVD here.

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“Grunge” is a new book from photographer Michael Lavine and musician Thurston Moore, from art rock band Sonic Youth, chronicling the rise and fall of the cultural movement that dominated the early 90s.  Lavine’s photographs document the scene from the bands to the fans whilst Moore’s text explores the discovery of Seattle punk; the seminal bands that defined the movement; the exploitation of the subculture; the backlash of grunge and his relationship with close friend Kurt Cobain…. giving a fascinating insight into what it was like to be part of one of the biggest youth subcultures ever.

Available now from Amazon.

Images from Coute Que Coute.

Michael Lavine x Thurston Moore “Grunge” Book is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

During the nineteen-eighties, there was a sort of competition among certain members of the American independent-rock scene to make the most hideous noise possible. Guitars were rebuilt to produce wild and staticky new sounds, then played painfully loudly; lyrics and stage antics were often gruesome and intimidating. Butthole Surfers, a psychedelic-punk band from Texas, projected graphic footage of penis-reconstruction surgery on a wall behind them while they performed, and a woman danced around the stage wearing only a loincloth. Steve Albini and Santiago Durango, members of the band Big Black, made their guitars screech at frequencies that seemed designed to give listeners tinnitus. Michael Gira, the lead singer of the almost comically misanthropic band Swans, sang about rape and ritual physical humiliation, and on more than one occasion leaped into the crowd to assault an audience member.

Continue reading the words of Sasha Frere-Jones from The New Yorker here.

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Sonic Youth have made a name for themselves with a black metal influence, and their new album is a prime example. Newsweek have given us a preview of their new album “The Eternel”, fairly annoying that when a track gets started it moves on but none the less it does offer insight into what the band’s Matador debut will sound like, be about. The word “meditation” comes up a couple times, levitation, a leaky lifeboat, Hollywood Boulevard, anti-orgasm, poison arrows, and the brain police once.

Sonic Youth “The Eternel” Album is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

during their tour of Europe in late 1991.

Also featuring live performances by Dinosaur Jr, Babes In Toyland, The Ramones and Gumball.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Year Punk Broke. is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

Source: The Art Collectors

Sonic Youth Sensational Fix Calalogue is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

Converse kicked off their Converse Century Concert Series last night In the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, PA. The show was headlined by the legendary Sonic Youth and it was held at the Theatre of the Living Arts and with the show costing a mere $10, it was a definite sell-out. In addition to the Philadelphia show, Converse is slated to produce shows in Chicago, San Diego, and San Francisco with more acts participating. Sonic Youth headlined this show in Philly, but other acts that will be participating include: Bad Brains, The Hold Steady, N*E*R*D, The Black Keys and more. And like the Philadelphia show, the upcoming concerts will also be shows with reduced prices. Converse’s goal is to bring great shows at smaller venues for a more intimate feeling for the fans. Wearers of Converse were ushered in for a meet-and-greet with Sonic Youth, so just a heads up for those attending future shows.

Converse Century Concert Series: Philadelphia is a post from: SLAMXHYPE