ILB ts: bono v thurston moore v geddy lee

The Thurston Moore was a quick read and definitely did give me a clearer picture of what the earlier band days (and even his own early days) were like, but it’s also 500 pages of seemingly endless name dropping and a nearly perverse level of detail on what feels like every concert he ever attended. He then glosses over the later years (not the divorce years, but basically everything from Daydream on) in such a shallow manner that there’s really nothing of interest there unless you’ve never heard of the 1990s before and as a result I still haven’t read the last like 40 pages of the book.

I’m definitely interested in the Geddy book and will read it as soon as I’ve read enough other material in between to not feel like I’m just a rock history fanatic.

Can guarantee I will never crack the Bono book

Moore’s book is ample evidence of why he did not become a successful rock journalist/critic. The only somewhat interesting material is on his Catholic upbringing and Glenn Branca

I will also never read Bono’s. Stephen Harper may be a piece of shit, but snubbing him still makes me smile

On chapter 3 of Geddy‘s book now, where he relates his mom’s WWII concentration camp experience, including how she met his father there. Powerful, sad, horrible stuff.

I like the style of the book. It reads like you’re having a conversation with him.

Can guarantee I will never crack the Bono book

― Slim is an Alien, Tuesday, January 23, 2024 11:06 PM bookmarkflaglink

I'll crack it over my knee, Bo Jackson style

liked the first half of the bono book.
have only heard the name of geddy lee because of pavement but don't know what band he was in and don't care.
sonic youth are okay but not interested in them enough to read a book about them.

I could only read the bongo book on a fee-for-service basis, definitely not pro-bono. Thurston Moore is a dreary personality free zone and he's a smug and punchable arsehole, he was such a boring fucker on that John Zorn/SY South Bank Show program. Geddy Lee has got to be the most interesting one, I mean his mum was an Auschwitz survivor for starters.

Geddy ftw

have only heard the name of geddy lee because of pavement but don't know what band he was in and don't care.

Google takes 2 secs

have only heard the name of geddy lee because of pavement but don't know what band he was in and don't care.

This is the indiest thing I've ever read to the point where I'm assuming it's parody

Can guarantee I will never crack the Bono book

― Slim is an Alien, Tuesday, January 23, 2024 11:06 PM bookmarkflaglink

I'll crack it over my knee, Bo Jackson style

― never trust a big book and a simile (Neanderthal), Wednesday, January 24, 2024 12:39 AM

bono book should become the new standard unit for the 'tear a book in half' challenge

have only heard the name of geddy lee because of pavement but don't know what band he was in and don't care.

presto, a classic ilm ignore-take. who did this poke, can i get a show of hands?

maybe it was meant in jest, let's not

rush

to judgement

(geddy lee was in the band rush)

I'm only about 150 pages into the Thurston book but the brief mentions of Yes are the coldest possible takes on the band, right? That they were pretentious prog doofuses, and in sharp contrast, he favored the more "authentic" and "unpolished" expression of punk.

lol map

I haven't and likely won't read the Bono and Thurston books, but the Geddy Lee book is great. Some amazing stories, an honest account of lifelong friendships, just enough dirt/gossip, a sometimes surprising behind the scenes glimpse of a pretty private band, and one of the more unapologetically Jewish books I've read in a while/

The Thurston Moore was a quick read and definitely did give me a clearer picture of what the earlier band days (and even his own early days) were like, but it’s also 500 pages of seemingly endless name dropping and a nearly perverse level of detail on what feels like every concert he ever attended. He then glosses over the later years (not the divorce years, but basically everything from Daydream on) in such a shallow manner that there’s really nothing of interest there unless you’ve never heard of the 1990s before and as a result I still haven’t read the last like 40 pages of the book.

Kim's book--which is much less "comprehensive--did this too iirc. There is very little info on any of the music post-Dirty

ha SY have the same take on their career as many fans do

probably not much to say about the music. put some dumb rhymes together. add some clankety clank. voila. new SY album.

I could imagine Bono making an album with Thurston, but I couldn't imagine either of them making an album with Geddy.

Geddy has a musical restraining order against U2

"Dear Bongo, no."

I'm not about to read it, but doesn't the Bono book contain pandemic-era insecurity about whether his voice sounds good or just annoys people?

my fave roughly paraphrased take on his book was (based on his tedious attempts at promoting it) "How can an Irish person be so shit at telling stories"

it has to be kind of hard to write an autobio where you become world famous so young. everything after the age of 20 is just...after stuff. the queen. naomi campbell. famine. popmart.

you aren't even a real person anymore.

I'm only about 150 pages into the Thurston book but the brief mentions of Yes are the coldest possible takes on the band, right? That they were pretentious prog doofuses, and in sharp contrast, he favored the more "authentic" and "unpolished" expression of punk.

― intheblanks, Wednesday, January 24, 2024 2:00 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

bono is as cold about YES as thurston is, maybe colder. bono's story about meeting a young dave evans is the guy was a dork in a dublin schoolyard playing "close to the edge" on his guitar (hence his eventual nickname "THE EDGE") and they've been fighting ever since about prog (bono anti-, THE EDGE pro-)

The section of Moore's book dealing with the tour with Neil Young is interesting. The contrast with Kim's book (which is more focused on the launch of X-Girl and Free Kitten during those years; I don't think she even mentions Neil Young at all) was a surprise.

did Neil Young ever, like, actually meet them?

yes, Neil's crew and fans hated the Sonics. But Neil stuck up for them. He later was inspired by SY to make the Arc/Weld noise collage EPs.

Neil Young didn't socialize much with the band, although he'd occasionally visit the Sonic Youth dressing room to praise the night's version of 'Expressway to Your Skull,' a song which he's referred to on ocassion as the greatest guitar song ever written. From an interview in a 1992 French Guitars Magazine in response to the question

Also a Kim Gordon quote at link from someone else’s book where she vents about the tour

http://thrasherswheat.org/jammin/sonic_youth.htm

did Neil Young ever, like, actually meet them?

Yeah, Moore talks about fighting with the crew over stage volume — arena tour protocol is that the openers can never be as loud as the headliner — and finally Young stood up for them and said to let SY play as loud as they wanted to.

I'm sure the crew actually turned them up the same way waving a bottle of vermouth over gin makes it a martini.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d8UQ1diJJsU/XysGwzGNncI/AAAAAAAAaRc/Kx3ZP5xaEUMlgWX3XBOadwF7PFCD7_nogCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Neil%2BYoung%2BCrazy%2BHorse%2BSonic%2BYouth%2B1991.jpeg

Kim’s book definitely mentions Neil Young. I noticed that both Kim and Thurston singled out the Hershey, PA show of that tour as being especially abysmal, which delighted me as a lifelong central Pennsylvanian.

lol

Who is the dude who looks like Mark Ibold in that photo?

Steve?

Bono says No Line on the Horizon fell victim to "the progressive rock virus". I'd be intrigued to know what words Edge would use.

"crap, innit?"

I'm pretty certain Thurston is a Yes fan, he put them on his list of favorite albums once

I would’ve thought Yes were too mainstream for him.

Didn't think he cared about that. He said anyone who doesnt like Blondie is a poser

Isn't he a Queen fan too?

I'm pretty certain Thurston is a Yes fan, he put them on his list of favorite albums once

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, January 27, 2024 1:32 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

A long-haired poseur who sang in a local group held court in the Bethel High School cafeteria, acting ever part the leading light on all things contemporary rock. He asked me what bands I liked. Everyone in his clique had agreed to worship Yes, the British prog-rock messiahs.

My feelings about Yes were decidedly mixed. I had bought the three-disc live album Yessongs, and I recognized the mastery of songcraft evinced by these musos in capes. But too much of the playing was endless guitar-scale noodle-core for my tastes.

"They're all right, I suppose . . ."

--I said, my true feelings evident in my voice.

I had attended my very first proper concert in early 1974 at New Haven Coliseum, where I witnessed Yes's keyboard maestro, Rick Wakeman, perform his recent album Journey to the Centre of the Earth. I had been excited to hear him play, but I found the concert interminably dull.

I didn't relate this to my classmates.

"I'm more into theater rock."

--I said. The Yes lovers looked perplexed.

"You know . . . people like Alice Cooper, David Bowie . . . and Kiss."

Silence.

Followed by palpable distaste. (14)

decades since it still remains flat out astonishing how awesome a band YES is yet how important a right of passage it seems to be (unlike any other band (REALLY!)) to disavow them

meanwhile goodhearted people lament anti-intellectualism, celebrating instrumental incompetence

the mind boggles at what could have been

and i do very much mean * right * not * rite *

(unlike any other band (REALLY!))

idk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcMNayOuq50

come on. the anti-YES contingent is way stronger and louder than the anti-zeppelins. and no one is YES was a pedophile

i think you are otm about the first part but disagree that it's specific to Yes and also suspect it's a generational thing that has passed.

a "fashion" maybe

i would feel as bad for someone who would dismiss charles mingus or the velvet underground as passe generational fashions as i would a kneejerk YES basher

good music is good music

look, anyone who stages the legend of King Arthur on ice is kind of asking for it

"You know . . . people like Alice Cooper, David Bowie . . . and Kiss."

would you say declaring allegiance to obviously shitty bands or disavowing awesome ones is the more important rite of passage?

endless guitar-scale noodle-core

Probably 90% of rock fans would describe Sonic Youth this way, except there's a screwdriver stuck in the strings.

not trying to be a dick to you deflatormouse. but for real i say that the ubiquity of YES as the pivotal band to disavow remains a fascinating (and probably telling!) phenomenon in a culture that on the other hand constantly complains about how dumbed down we are. what other bands that rule as hard as YES are so often negged? can't think of one

There's too much residual punk vs prog bullshit that means nothing to anyone born after 1969.

i love punk rock and i was born way after 1969 (and i am a fan of your writing alfred and sincerely feel better about life (i am neither joking nor being flip!) reading what you write here and elsewhere!). i love prog though too and find it fascinating (and telling!) that despite whatever else happens prog remains stigmatized still. it's one thing not to like a mode of music. fair enough! it's a cultural phenomenon to maintain decades after its heyday that it's the quintessence of "bad" by which one defines "good"

oh that's cool, you're not being a dick, but i'm being kind of a dick, sorry, i mean i'm just being goofy.

i agree with Alfred fwiw. i mean the cutoff may be 20 years later but it's far enough behind us now.

like more broadly i think sometimes it's ok for artists to define themselves in opposition to stuff if having something to kick against provides some impetus to create, even if it's totally false.

i hear a lot of delicate instrumental finesse on those Yes records, applied in ways that are very musical and quite measured and deliberate(d), if not always subtle. Howe's pull offs for instance are exquisite. maybe Wakeman is the guilty party but their reputation for pointless displays of virtuosity seems exaggerated.

That excerpt above is a good example of what irks me about Moore’s writing

three memoirs published in the last two years by bono, thurston moore, and geddy lee pivot early on regarding whether or not they were into YES. why does 20 years or 10 years or 30 years mean automatic dismissal of the phenomenon? i'd say precisely because the band in question is YES -- which in itself is interesting! even if you don't listen to -- or even hate -- YES

I remember reading an interview with Jon Langford that mentioned all the times he saw Yes, not because he was a fan, but because Yes was constantly touring through every single town, college or city in the UK. Like, look at Yes's 1968-1971 tour schedule:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Yes_concert_tours_(1960s%E2%80%9370s)

Thread delivers

xp it's kind of wild how hotels were a popular venue for rock concerts back in the day, at least in the UK. I realize it made logical sense since they often had concert facilities pre-dating rock n' roll - a lot of old jazz broadcasts pre-television were typically held in ballrooms in hotels - but it feels like such a culture clash now. Usually when I do run into a music venue at a hotel (like say the Roxy - there's one adjacent to their basement-level arthouse cinema, something else you'd rarely see in a hotel) it's basically a jazz bar or a place for cabaret acts.

There's a bit in the Guy Pratt book where he takes a gig with Icehouse in Australia and is disappointed to hear they're playing a string of "pubs."

I’d been told that Icehouse was going to tour pubs around the country before embarking on a proper concert-hall tour. Beggars can’t be choosers, but I was a little disheartened, to say the least, that I’d spent over a day on a plane just to go and play pubs. The reason for my disappointment was that music pubs in Britain hold between twelve and forty-seven people and are where you go to see your boyfriend/girlfriend’s brother’s punk/goth band, and have lager poured down your back.

Music pubs in Australia, on the other hand, hold up to 5,000 people and are where you go to see bands that usually play in major sporting facilities.

You’re talking about The Django, birdistheword.

I've never actually gone into the Django, but whenever I see the patrons hanging around outside in the lobby area, I feel like I'd be underdressed - is it a good venue though?

Bands are good.

It’s a bit of the small table, expensive offerings, subpar service experience though.

i love punk rock and i was born way after 1969 (and i am a fan of your writing alfred and sincerely feel better about life (i am neither joking nor being flip!) reading what you write here and elsewhere!). i love prog though too and find it fascinating (and telling!) that despite whatever else happens prog remains stigmatized still. it's one thing not to like a mode of music. fair enough! it's a cultural phenomenon to maintain decades after its heyday that it's the quintessence of "bad" by which one defines "good"

― reggie (qualmsley)

tbc when I wrote "residual punk vs prog bullshit" I meant the binary was bullshit, not prog. I mean, today is former Genesis drummer-singer Phil Collins' b-day!

There is a famous story of Topper Headon bumping into him in the airport, lowering his voice and letting him know that he is a big fan.

Of their bands I am by far the least interested in Rush but would still be most interested to read Geddy Lee’s book.

The punk v prog thing is completely overstated. Prog, or rather classic mainstream prog, was already on its last legs artistically when punk came along and it wasn't just punks who were bored of it.

... Robert Fripp for one!

decades since it still remains flat out astonishing how awesome a band YES is yet how important a right of passage it seems to be (unlike any other band (REALLY!)) to disavow them

it's funny, I feel like Gabriel-era Genesis ought to be this band -- they certainly were for me, I adored them and then I very performatively cast them aside, like I was afraid Lou Reed would be cross with me if he found out -- but Yes is the one who stand in this role for so many

i'm telling you, it's the capes

i'm telling you, it's the capes

it is honestly but like -- that's such a bullshit, macho thing -- like "lol they're dressing up! oh my God they have a whole STORY and the show is on ice" -- it made me happy when the 2000s bands like Coheed were like, oh no that's actually awesome, and young fans without the baggage of orthodoxy agreed

It took John Tesh to make capes cool again imo

it's more entertaining when people give long lists of reasons why they don't like the beatles. denying the father and all that. its more entertaining to read anyway. prog obviously an easy target for ridicule. also....i think prog fans got the rep of being...dicks? or maybe just hardcore nerds who were annoying. d&d. fantasy novels. whatever. you know the drill.

i think prog fans got the rep of being...dicks?

yeah I suspect that prog fans at the level of "my friend who's into Yes" were pretty insufferable over new wave stuff -- in my own peer group that was absolutely the case, the prog bands were afforded "seriousness"/"relevance," that's the sort of division that makes for bad blood

there was this infamous troll on the Rush message boards whose signature was literally "old Rush good. new Rush bad.", and he'd basically do nothing but criticize people who said nice things about "new Rush", but for him, "new Rush" began in like, 1982.

You can still dislike elements of prog, some of what it stood for and a lot of the fans- same for The Beatles for that matter!- without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Johnny Rotten famously had his I Hate Pink Floyd t-shirt but also hid his Can and Van der Graaf Generator records from his interviewers, or did he?

I do think punks tended to like glam a wee bit better than prog though.

Which was Thurston’s original point.

there was this infamous troll on the Rush message boards whose signature was literally "old Rush good. new Rush bad.",

this is the greatest thing

that's such a bullshit, macho thing -- like "lol they're dressing up! oh my God they have a whole STORY and the show is on ice"

yeah mostly that's what it is. also yeah, the divisiveness, it can seem self-important. but also when bands construct elaborate fantasy worlds around their music it diminishes the sense of urgency and makes them easier to dismiss.

"but for him, "new Rush" began in like, 1982."

same here, embarrassingly. i scoffed at all the kids getting into moving pictures when it came out. it's no a farewell to kings!

I remember that after I'd decided all this prog shit was no longer for me and I was cool now with my biggest Lou Reed collection and all the Bowie canon as sufficient for my daily fare and then I'm in the credits of the first Lou Reed solo and there's Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman and the version of "Berlin" they play on is considerably better than the Ezrin produced DO YOU SEE WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO HERE version he gets at on the Berlin album (which desires prog, yearns for prog, gazes at prog with the longing of a neglected lover) -- it would take me a long time to work through this stuff but, like, maybe Moore or Reed or Lydon or whoever talk whatever talk they do in interviews but it's kinda just posing really, scene positioning, music isn't actually like that

Bands are good.

(i was also totally that kid who said after The Wall came out...yes, it's okay, but have you ever heard the piper at the gates of dawn???? hmmmmm????? so sad. man, no wonder people hate prog fans. and i wasn't even really a prog fan! just a dick, really. well, not all the time. but i was weird about music.)

Johnny Rotten famously had his I Hate Pink Floyd t-shirt but also hid his Can and Van der Graaf Generator records from his interviewers, or did he?

No-one ever hid Can records. Lydon played Can (and Peter Hammill, Third Ear Band, Tim Buckley, Beefheart etc) on his famous Capital Radio interview/ broadcast at the height of the Pistols' career (much to the annoyance of Malcolm McLaren apparently). Pete Shelley wrote the sleevenotes to the Cannibalism compilation in 1978. Etcetera.

This thread has me listening to Genesis's Trespass, which is a lot better than I remembered. I've always viewed them as lesser, because they didn't "rock" as "hard" as Yes or ELP, and they were "dark" and "theatrical" but not in as cool a way as King Crimson or VDGG. Now I think I need to revisit/reconsider. I've always liked Foxtrot and the mid 70s live album (though why wasn't it a double?), but I think I'll dig into the rest of the Gabriel albums this week.

i was also totally that kid who said after The Wall came out...yes, it's okay, but have you ever heard the piper at the gates of dawn???? hmmmmm?????

with respect to Piper I am still this kid

^has a bike, you can ride it if you like

Maybe it was some other records he hid, sorry

He hid the records he stole from the record shop

It's funny, I was thinking Wakeman comes across pretty blokey in interviews, way more than you'd expect of someone who is Rick Wakeman, he seems like he would've had more fun playing in a band with e.g. Mick Ronson than Anderson or Howe. Then I remember, wait, isn't Wakeman the pianist on "Hunky Dory"

One of the bands I was in asked someone's friend with a musical theater background play piano on one of the songs, and they gave her one of the songs on Hunky Dory as a reference. She said "Oh, okay, it's like the piano on this other song (from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical), only even busier".

Wakeman also a life-long Tory, among his other crimes.

It was disco and soft rock wot killed prog, not punk! But yes it was on life support by '76, '77, unless you count The Enid as breathing fresh air into the genre. Always kind of inaccurate to think of it as the music of the middle classes though - other than Genesis the bands were a mix of grammar school boys (hence vaguely middle class) and upwardly mobile Greg Lake types. Look at the revolving drum risers etc as the equivalent of nouveau riche interior design.

..i think prog fans got the rep of being...dicks?

Honestly, I think this 100% has to do with ELP. ELP were *massively* popular, so that even regular people got sick of them the same way you might get sick of, say, the Eagles. And as far as the prog guys went, they were both the most macho and most prone to pomp indulgence. Even their theatricality was macho (stabbing keyboards and whatnot). All the other usual prog suspects, from Rush to Yes to Genesis to Crimson to most of them, even at their ('70s) peak it was still very much a cult thing, imo. Rush used to joke that they were the world's most poplar cult band.

Tony Banks defines "angry passive-aggressive prog incel."

Maybe it was some other records he hid, sorry

Well, Can and VDGG had underground cred whereas Floyd, Yes, Genesis, ELP, by 1975/76, seemed like dinosaurs lumbering about (to use Fripp's terminology). Ditto Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, the Eagles etc etc.

Weren't Gabriel-era Genesis only big in Italy?

I find the dinosaur insult so weird, many of the bands were only around a decade and it feels like a few blinks before bands reach that age. Imagine going around calling todays 10-year old bands dinosaurs. There's a site called dinosaur rock or something like that, and it is an insult that can be easily taken as a compliment.

Been listening to Hawkwind's "Damnation Alley" and it sounds a lot like Sonic Youth to me.

Geddy’s weighty book was good reading. He goes into being a Jew, the robes, the haircuts, the albums evolving based on band mood and available tech, the band in-jokes that drove so many nicknames and their stage show content, the drug use, his family and marriage, his studio perfectionism, personal losses, and his love / respect for Alex and Neil. Very few barbs (one FY to Bill Graham made me grin). I liked getting the explanation to a few of the liner note mystery references. Lots of pictures, too.

Started Jesperson’s Euphoric Recall afterwards and enjoyed how like Geddy, he immediately details all the bands lighting up his world. Both big music fans, which makes it the more relatable.

(xp) That's VDGG you're thinking of. Dinosaurs also meant more than just being ancient. I believe Fripp used the description to describe bloated cumbersome rock bands who needed articulated lorries and teams of roadies to lumber from one stadium to another.

Wait, Jesperson wrote a book?

Tony Banks defines "angry passive-aggressive prog incel."

Do 52 years of marriage count for naught?

Yep, just out, end of last year. He’s done a book tour for it. Tommy Stinson showed up at least once with him.

dinosaur rock top five low song.

wasn't it san fran hippie dinosaurs that made dinosaur jr. add the jr.? damn dinosaurs.

he's married, of course he's celibate

I'm sure a heard about Genesis being huge in italy too, way before they were successful elsewhere. And prog thrived there a lot longer too.

did Italy have lots of dinosaurs

Berlusconi was PM ffs

Is Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion) still here? Am I the biggest Wakeman fan here?

if it's any help i am the biggest wakeman hater here (he sucks)

Genesis, KC and VdGG all toured Italy a lot back in the 70s. Henry Cow too. Probably why all the RPI bands like a cross between Genesis and Crimson (I guess VdGG were too sui generis to copy).

i don't think i've ever actually listened to an entire rick wakeman album. or even more than a song from an album. wait, have i ever heard rick wakeman?

he did a gig at the christian fellowship centre in Huddersfield in the late 90's, seems like a wanker. Never heard him -never will do!

I went for a beer with his son once, he seemed OK.

I regularly wonder if Wakeman would think it was funny if someone made an album called Four Wives Of Rick Wakeman and had a cover of the musician walking past models of Wakeman and his wives.

and then do a sequel called Six Children Of Rick Wakeman

Then Journey to the Centre of...

Did he ever do a comedy speaking tour called No Mirthly Connection?

Lots of dinosaurs
http://butterboycompilations.blogspot.com/2023/10/va-z-of-italian-progressive-rock.html

It's funny, I was reading a few years ago about how important Confusional Quartet was to the punk movement in italy and they sound like almost exactly like a prog band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDl6zxECexI

happy belated 73rd, phil

I meant the binary was bullshit

for real apologies - i misunderstood

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Sonic Life is so dull. Incredibly little about recording their 90’s albums, starting Ecstatic Peace, etc. The prose just isn’t interesting

i loved it. wish it had been twice as long; would give it 9.5/10. i liked his prose, except for overuse of the term coin.

Just reading it, sokay. Preferred Kim's.

Will definitely check Geddy's out.