T. Moore - Sonic Life: A Memoir

Thurston Moore. New York: Doubleday, 2023. 467 p. 

condition: very good 

From the founding member of Sonic Youth, a passionate memoir tracing the author's life and art—from his teen years as a music obsessive in small-town Connecticut, to the formation of his legendary rock group, to thirty years of creation, experimentation, and wonder.

Thurston Moore moved to Manhattan’s East Village in 1978 with a yearning for music. He wanted to be immersed in downtown New York’s sights and sounds—the feral energy of its nightclubs, the angular roar of its bands, the magnetic personalities within its orbit. But more than anything, he wanted to make music—to create indelible sounds that would move, provoke, and inspire.

His dream came to life in 1981 with the formation of Sonic Youth, a band Moore cofounded with Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo. Sonic Youth became a fixture in New York’s burgeoning No Wave scene—an avant-garde collision of art and sound, poetry and punk. The band would evolve from critical darlings to commercial heavyweights, headlining festivals around the globe while helping introduce listeners to such artists as Nirvana, Hole, and Pavement, and playing alongside such icons as Neil Young and Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible.