cult of kim & thurston

Music: The Cure: The Cure (2004) Last night, courtesy of Dale Smith, one-half-ringleader of that underground poetic pantheon-collective Skanky Possum, Scott Pierce, another poetic genius/publisher (Effing Press), and lowly, woefully unpoetic me were Very Important Persons at the Sonic Youth jam. Some years ago Dale received a "fan letter" and package from Thurston Moore, who had been reading "the Poss" and Dale's accomplished poetic flights on the page from afar. Because Dale is a rock star for Thurston, our resident Poet Ph.D.-Candy-Daddy got to hook us up with the VIP treatment: can you believe I forgot to bring my motherfreakin' camera? We were twenty feet away from the action! Wow, what a show!

I've seen Sonic Youth once before, probably for the Daydream Nation tour, I cannot recall (I was still into psychedelics then, and honestly don't remember seeing it). So it was a real treat to see these legends sans the lysergic haze and, wow, what a great show! The sound was fantastic and the musicianship top-notch (what a difference thirty-years of experience and having a family can make on focus, heh?). I was surprised at how young the gate were, and the screaming that punctuated what should have been some more somber, melancholy tunes from the newer album (which I've not heard, but, if the show was any sort of glimpse, the newer album has a lot of Wire-like sounding songs, with percussion on the guitar and bass, that sort of thing). Kim was just a trip to watch: dancing around, flinging her arms with shimmy-style abandon, singing like Nico, but with that been-there-done-that vibe her a-tonal voice seems to hint.

Eh, I'm kicking myself I didn't bring a camera. After the show, Steve and Thurston came out to meet the VIP wristband contingent. They were really nice and friendly, talking about, well, nothing. I got tired of seeing all these people kiss Thurston's pinky-rings (he was really nice about it, you know, but the sycophancy was annoying). Dale was really, really excited to meet Thurston, and it was clear the feeling was mutual: they kept trying to talk about poetry, etc., and then some weedy schmoo would interrupt them and say, "oh, we emailed two years ago and . . . . " It was cool to be "backstage" and all, but, eh, I dunno. I can see why people go all ga-ga over Thurston. He still looks like he's 17, but he's almost fifty. And Kim didn't come out, which bummed us all out because, well, she's hot. She's got super-mean stair-master legs.