Diamond Sonic Sea of a Young Youth Dream

by Andeh

Posted to Stories on 2003-12-21 13:48:00

The first time that I ever came across the words “Sonic Youth” was when I was 8 or 9, and had walked into a bathroom stall in Florida at some place like Bennigan’s. It was scrawled on the wall, and was written in jagged, almost “punk” demeanor. I stared at this phrase for a minute and marveled at the sound of it. I don’t even know if I knew it was a band at the time, but I really liked the sound of the phrase.
When I was 14 or 15, my bro graduated from university. After he graduated, my family went to his fraternity house and he wasn’t there, for like two hours. I was allowed to go up into his room, and I guess, look around, under the guise of waiting for him. I gazed at the psychedelic poster on his wall, the giant sitting pillow on his floor. I pored over his Cd collection, I recognized a Phish “Hoist” CD, and at that time, I think Phish’s fan base was still relatively college students. About three CD’s back, though, I came across it. Sonic Youth’s “Dirty”. The one with the alien-looking creature on the cover, all orange woven cotton, or something. I must have stared at this, for two minutes. I carefully pulled it out of the rack, so as not to make a sound, and slowly opened the case. I looked over the pics- I must have been staring at this CD case, for 5 minutes, because just when I heard footsteps creeping up the stairs, I flurriedly rushed to put the thing back in the case, and slap it back into the CD holder. When my brother walked in, and high fived me, and said hey, I looked about as guilty as some teen who had just looked at a bad magazine, or something. I stammered, hi. I think mainly though, I was feeling guilty, because I was highly entertaining borrowing this CD (for about three years) and only return it so it would mysteriously appear in my brother’s new city apartment, someday. But no matter.
I soon joined a music club, and among others, decided to sample of Sonic Youth, just to see what all of this jazz was about. I chose “Goo” first, because that’s what fans had said was an excellent offer. Just this album was enough to allow me to choose Sonic Youth as fast becoming one of favorites, no, my favorite band. I listened to many other albums, from “Daydream Nation” to “Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star”, and marveled at their varying sounds from trippy, punk sweet lullabies, to truly experimental rock, some rants, and also some of the most unique and inspiring lyrics, I had heard, in a while. “Cool thing, walking like a panther,” indeed. The lyrics to one song, which contained the lines, “I’m just walkin’ around, your city is a wonder town”, reminded of my first time to New York City, walking around, at night.
In a town where good bands never came through, sometime in the mid to later 90’s, Sonic Youth actually decided to blow through the city next to where my friends and I lived. I rubbed my eyes twice and imagined the possibilities. What would this be like? To hear live some songs I’d loved on the albums.
A band which was so inspirational to my guitar paying, I frantically tried to learn the good guitar songs, from them after I’d become a fan, and dragged my small guitar around with me and the “Experimental Jet Set” sticker always placed on the case.
My second best guy friend and I saved up our money, and tried to get tickets as soon as we could.
It was time.
My friend and I went to the little run down shack by the sea, they were playing in, and luckily to see the beginning. The crowd, as I expected, was a mix of a few supposedly “indie” kids, or kids from bands, from various high schools, a lot of college students, and plenty of people in their 30’s who I expected had been fans of the Youth since the beginning. Yay.
Mike Watt rolled through his set of interesting music I could have only described as rock surfabilly punk. I mostly stared at his bass player who looked like Sid Vicious, padlock necklace and all. And, I lost my friend quickly in the crowd. Very little surfing in this crowd, it was mostly a mellow happy jamming out crowd, enthralled with the music, and stoked to get to see the youth for a final reason.
When Sonic Youth came on, it started out in a mystic song and flowed so easily. Thurston rocked it out, and Kim was smoky-mysterious on her bass as it throbbed and rolled out awesome sounds. Lee was like, well Lee was just awesome on his guitar. Steve on the drums was in his own primal drumming scream world. As they played, it was almost as though I could see notes of pastel colors flowing through my mind, in my head, and I closed my eyes and left a diamond sea wash over me at the encore. After Sonic Youth had left the stage, they had come back with that nice song, and when the fans had screamed for an encore I’d never heard it so loud and meaningful not even at some big, arena show thing.
Show over, a sea of satisfied, and happy,indie fans.
The hot guy from my art class, a senior, ran over to me, as I waited outside, for my friend, “Hey!” he screamed and put his hands into my shoulder. Now, we could be bonded by Sonic Youth, and I never had to wash my shoulder again! (Ha.) I waited for my friend and some guy we had to give a ride home to who for some reason was wearing a black dracula cape.
My friend was late. “Why were you late?” I asked “I tried to get Kim’s autograph but she said no, and brushed past me.” He looked disappointed, but I didn’t know what to think. They had been drenched in sweat, and probably needed to be chilling, in their buses, or something. By a wee contrast, Mike Watt, stood around quite casually outside, and chatted with the fans. I thought that he had mentioned that he was from the area where they had played, but perhaps I was, maybe, dreaming.
Well, the whole show had been like a dream.
I had a bone to pick with my non-caped friend, now. Why, I asked, had he been staring more at the oscillating fan, at the other side of the room, near the ceiling, than at Thurston, during the whole show?
He explained to me, that he had been “tripping”, during the show, unbeknownst to me. Flustered, but undeterred, and stoked by an awesome show, we all then, drove on then, home.
Anyway it was like the greatest concert ever.