| Lee Ranaldo Q & A | Psychic Hearts Review |

Sonic Hearts, Sonic Minds

All photos by Jay Blakesberg, except where noted

Sonic Youth's Expressway To Yr Skull

By Michael Goldberg

Mountain View, CA

"Did you know that only Hole are allowed to park backstage?"

Thurston Moore shakes his head. He's way too cool to actually get mad, but you can tell this burns him up. "I just saw a sign that said that," he says to Steve Shelley. "Kill rock stars! I mean where's that law come from?"

In a backstage dressing room at the Shoreline Amphitheater, on the final day of Lollapalooza '95, Sonic Youth are holding court. Moore, all six-plus feet of him, is slouched on a couch, looking like King of Slacker Nation, in his Dr. Pepper Museum t-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. Ranaldo, standing, is deep in conversation with former Grateful Dead keyboardest Tom Constanten (who played in the Dead during the late '60s, when they recorded their most experimental work including Anthem of the Sun). Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees and her friend (and drummer), Budgie, wander in, then move to an adjacent room to drink martinis with Kim Gordon. Steve Shelley is going over the set list that Thurston put together for tonight's performance.

And then there is Coco, Moore and Gordon's one-year-old daughter, who keeps running in and out of the room.

Tom Constanten, who since leaving the Dead has recorded several CDs of classical music, asks Ranaldo how Sonic Youth have managed to succeed on their own, decidedly idiosyncratic terms. "We just snuck in the back door," Ranaldo says, laughing. "We've been around 15 years. It's kind of like the Dead. A gradual thing."

Sonic Youth have spent the past two months doing the impossible, headlining Lollapalooza, playing to nearly 20,000 kids each night, bombarding the MTV crowd with the Hard Stuff, noise 'n' roll, the demanding, breathtaking art-core that has made them international legends in their own time, sonic leaders in a war against conformity and musical stasis.

Sonic Youth, "Star Power" (from Evol)
(45 second excerpt)

Stereo MPEG (1.08M)

Mono MPEG (540k)

Mono Sun-AU (360k)

"We're not out to change the world," Ranaldo tells me later. "Our whole thing is about exploring musical territory and broadening our own horizon that way."

They have recorded 11 albums since 1982, including the soon to be released Washing Machine. Using myriad alternate tunings, combined with a kind of life-merges-with-art point of view articulated in their lyrics, Sonic Youth have created a sound and sensibility that has influenced bands all over the world. Their progeny range from My Bloody Valentine to Pavement. It can be argued that a Velvet Underground reunion would never have been possible, if Sonic Youth hadn't helped create a context for their return to action. From old-liners like Neil Young, who had them open his Ragged Glory Tour a few years back, to Japan's Boredoms and Shonen Knife, the influence of Sonic Youth is felt.

On to page 2 of 7

---