![]() And they’re certainly not the first to authorize bootlegs for fans to enjoy. Of course, as anyone who’s purchased a Black Flag onesie can tell you, Sonic Youth are hardly the first band to maintain a robust presence long after they’ve disbanded. And at this point, Goo shirts, whether genuine or memefied, have essentially become the aging-hipster equivalent of a Rolling Stones tongue tee.īut in recent years, Shelley and Ranaldo have been putting in extra work to make Sonic Youth as active as an inactive band can be. All the while, Sonic Youth’s influence continues to permeate the indie-rock world, through bands like Dry Cleaning, black midi, and Porridge Radio. Ward, Sun Kil Moon, and Land of Talk, among others. And proud New Jerseyite Shelley has bounced between Moore and Ranaldo’s projects while serving as a drummer-for-hire for the likes of M. Still holding it down in Sonic Youth’s native New York, Ranaldo has used his records to explore Beat-inspired spins on classic-rock melodicism. The L.A.-based Gordon formed the noise duo Body/Head and embarked on her own electro-driven solo escapades. Moore decamped to London, where he’s recorded a string of very SY-like solo releases with his eponymous group. Since the split, the members of Sonic Youth have never strayed far from view. “We were totally blindsided,” Shelley adds. But it wasn’t the existence of the illicit live recording that bothered them-after all, Ranaldo came of age as a tape-trading Deadhead-but the fact that it was leaked into the marketplace in a semi-official capacity by their own UK manager at the time, without the band’s knowledge. ![]() “We were not happy to see it,” guitarist Lee Ranaldo recounts during a recent Zoom call with Shelley. And it marked the moment when Sonic Youth received the ultimate validation that they were reaching a wider audience: They discovered the first bootleg bearing their name. ![]() It was also the era when drummer Steve Shelley joined the group, adding a more propulsive rhythmic thrust that would guide the band’s music for decades to come. Sonic Youth formed in 1981, but their legacy as we know it today really started to get written five years later, when the band became a flagship act on SST Records-then the premier label in the American underground-and released the art-punk masterwork EVOL. ![]()
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