Here’s something from Wooooo#4 that you might like. Sorry about the lack of postings, putting the finishing touches on the new issue. #5 is going to make your balls explode.

Thurston Moore
Interview Jason Crombie
Illustration Jason Polan

What are you doing right now?
Ah, just in the studio working on vocals. Me and Kim are both singing.
For the new record?
Yeah.
Are you ever gonna do another Psychic Hearts?
That’s the next thing we have to do after we do this, sit down and do Psychic Hearts II.
Really!?
Uh-huh.
Excellent! Psychic Hearts came out in the what—early ’90s? It’s been a while.
I keep writing Psychic Hearts II and then when I start thinking I’m ready to record, its time to do another Sonic Youth record and I shuffle the songs into what Sonic Youth is doing…
Bummer.
Well, it works alright.
Whats the new Sonic Youth record called?
Well, it might be called Do you believe in rapture? [The album was released on June 13th, after this interview took place, under the title Rather Ripped.]
How’s it sounding?
Ah… it’s very straight up, kind of like NewYork Dolls…er…Throbbing Gristle…No, it’s sort of ah…it’s sort of a rock ‘n roll record for us.
Really?
Maybe, I don’t know. Kinda weird record…little bit of a…kinda Lou Reed 1972 vibe…
Right.
But it’s not old fashioned. I don’t know…I don’t really know how to play.
What are you talking about?
I’m just making stuff up.
What’s your stance on downloading?
Well, I like it in a way, because it really allows people to go out and discover…
To explore.
Yeah. In a way, the music industry is so used to a certain standard—and that’s selling billions of records and making a lot of money—and in a way it puts music and musicians in this wholly other, exalted kind of economic world, and I never really saw the reason for that, you know? Why should somebody doing this job be paid more than somebody who’s working in an office? Or a petrol station? I mean, not that I’m trying to denigrate it but I’m just saying that the fact that people are so scared for their money…they need to rethink the concept of what they’re doing. I don’t know, it never really affects us because we were never really big money makers, but I can see how being Metallica, who are used to making millions of dollars, feeling like they’re throwing millions of dollars away because people just aren’t buying their records.
Yeah.
They’ve got a big overhead, they’ve invested so much…
How much would it cost me to have Sonic Youth play the launch of the next Wooooo?
When is it?
I think March if the weather’s nice.
Oh, forget about it.
Why! What are you doing in March?
Oh March, we’re like totally…I don’t think there’s a day in March I can actually…breathe hardly…[incoherent mumble]…
What about for $1000?
$1000?
Yup. One-Thousand dollars.
$1000?
Three zeros.
[silence]
So I heard you used to be a dish pig?
What?
I heard you used to wash dishes in a Soho restaurant.
Yeah, it was the place that was on Prince Street and Wooster. When I lived down there, there was no real retail at all in Soho. People just lived there and there were some galleries…that’s all.
I can’t even imagine that.
Yeah, there was no stores, it was like, old factory buildings that people lived in and there was one restaurant that these artists had opened up in the early ’70s. It was called Food.
Oh, is this the place where you decided how much you wanted to pay?
I don’t remember that. Maybe at first it was like that, but certainly by the time I got there it wasn’t like that. It was started by this kinda radical artist in Soho and it was a great place.
How long did you work there?
I was there for maybe less than a year…they fired me.
What happened?
I don’t know, I think basically it was because I was late a lot or something.
Did you ever get cock-rot?
Did I ever get what?
Cock-rot—you get it when your groin area is constantly dampened by splashing dish water.
Oh, no, I wasn’t there long enough…actually, come to think about it, maybe I did. I was at an age where I was happy to have a job and get paid. I’d get free food and I’d pack up a bunch of fruit and bring it home…
Nice.
Yeah, you know, I’d wash some dishes and then go out on the street and have a cigarette and Keith Haring would be postering his little posters and I’d give him some food…
Yeah?
Yeah, it was fun times.
So why didn’t Sonic Youth ever do MTV Unplugged?
Ahhh…first of all, we were never asked, and I don’t think we ever had the notoriety that would have enabled us to play it.
It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.
It wouldn’t have worked. We never really had much of a presence on MTV.
No, but I mean, you guys need to be plugged in, right?
We’ve played unplugged.
Really?
Yeah, at Neil Young’s benefit. That was last year.
Huh. So what are you listening to that you’re kind of ashamed of?
Oh…maybe the new…what’s her name…Fiona Apple record.
No!
Yeah, I totally think it’s great. I would never have thought I’d like Fiona Apple but it came into my house and started getting played by my daughter, and at first I was like ‘No.’ and I’d walk away. But then I realized it was actually…it was actually great.
Well, it could be worse.
I know, it could be worse. It could be Hillary Duff or something, which is awful.
How does it work with hi-fi at the Moore/Gordon home? Politically, I mean.
Politically? Well, my daughter’s actually pretty good with that. She doesn’t ever play anything I find really distasteful. There was a point she went through for about a year where it was this kinda tween-pop—Hillary Duff, Avril Lavigne, you know…ah… even some of that I really liked.
Oh god, really?
No.
That’s a pull quote, I’m making the text in that sentence an inch bigger than the rest. Who do you wish you’d seen perform, but now its too late because they are dead?
John Coltrane. I would have liked to have seen Billie Holiday. I would have liked to have seen Thelonius Monk…
It’s all jazz.
Yeah, yeah, those guys were good.
I read an interview with you years ago where you recommended this Coltrane album called Interstellar Space, and I went out and bought it.
Oh yeah, yeah.
You owe me $20. It is the worst record.
Oh no, oh no, that’s him completely breaking through.
It’s bananas.
Yeah, It’s a really radical record.
It’s bananas. Anyone outside of jazz you would like to have seen?
Um, I would like to have seen the Velvet Underground in their heyday.
Now that would have been cool.
Yeah, and um…that’s about it.

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