Significant, revolutionary moments in the personal and musical journey of Thurston Moore will be front and center across multiple media at Tara Theatre on Dec. 10. The Sonic Youth co-founder and current solo artist will be on hand for a discussion about his 2023 autobiography “Sonic Life” and then will introduce the film “Desolation Center,” a documentary about 1983 DIY punk shows in the California desert that featured Sonic Youth as well as celebrated contemporaries such as the Minutemen and Redd Kross.
Moore, who has family in the area, is excited to return to the city for the festivities. “It’ll be great — I haven’t been to Atlanta in a while,” he said on a recent call while en route to New York for events in his former city.
Sponsored by A Cappella Books, the event will be hosted by music journalist Chad Radford, author of “Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History.” In a recent conversation, Radford emphasized his decades-long love of Sonic Youth’s music and his appreciation for Moore’s book. “That band to me was such a perfect conduit to punk rock, to the Velvet Underground, to hard core, to La Monte Young and avant garde and minimalism,” the writer said. “Such a confluence of all of these influences — and you can throw Chuck D in the mix.”
Credit: Photo by Vera Marmelo
Credit: Photo by Vera Marmelo
While detailing the birth of Sonic Youth (which also included Lee Ranaldo, Kim Gordon and Steve Shelley in its heyday) starting about halfway through the narrative, “Sonic Life” also examines Moore’s remarkable encounters in the rundown, violent, artistic New York City of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The book finds him running across everyone from Patti Smith to Television, from Fab 5 Freddy to Madonna and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
“I wanted it to be defined by my focusing on the signifiers of somebody dedicating their lives to a specific vocation,” Moore explained. “In my case, it was this kind of marginalized world of avant-garde punk rock music, experimental music. I really wanted to focus on what the inspirations were.”
While he did appreciate the early to mid-’70s stylings of progressive and Southern rock, Moore turning 20 in 1978 in New York City meant punk rock was right there for him to grasp.
“I was into what was happening in the pages of rock magazines by these artists who seemed much more otherworldly,” he noted. “They seemed to have some kind of alternate voice to what was popular. I was curious about who Patti Smith was.”
His text comes alive as he thrills in the telling of walking into CBGB on the actual coattails of Joey Ramone early in that band’s rise, narrowly avoiding a scream in his face from a confrontational Alan Vega of Suicide at a Max’s Kansas City show, and witnessing Fab 5 Freddy host an early hip-hop event at the Kitchen.
“In some ways it was an incredible time, that period of punk rock,” Moore said. “It was something that still to this day is a bit of a mindset, a bit of an aesthetic that continues to encourage this idea where you’re really open and it’s a forum for everyone who feels like the real world doesn’t accept you sometimes.”
Sonic Youth’s gradual ascent to major label success and a slot on the then-Lollapalooza tour is equally fascinating in the second half of “Sonic Life.” For years the band was just getting by, on small record labels and in even smaller apartments. Ultimately, though, Sonic Youth played just about everywhere, from Atlanta’s famed 688 Club to the equivalent of dinner theaters in the Soviet Union.
Moore gleefully describes the band’s opening slot for Neil Young in the early ‘90s, its feedback-drenched noise rock grating to the ears of Young’s technicians and many of his fans but an absolute delight for Young himself. He laments the passing of Kurt Cobain as part of an in-depth review of the era in which Nirvana opened for Moore’s band and explains how Sonic Youth had run its course by 2011.
“I loved everything about the process of it (writing the book),” Moore said. “The editing was as interesting to me as the writing. The making of the book, the specifics of publishing — it’s sort of like making music. I know what to do as far as being creative, writing a song. I’ve always liked the art of collaboration anyway, where it’s what I call in the book sonic democracy.”
Sometime after Sonic Youth’s 2011 split, Moore (born in Florida, raised in Connecticut, associated with his decades living in New York City) decamped to London, where he resides with his wife, Eva. He continues to make music, recently releasing his ninth solo album “Flow Critical Lucidity.” The record extended his collaboration with guitarist James Sedwards and bassist Deb Googe (also renowned for her work in My Bloody Valentine) and boasts a variety of sounds — from the slow, hypnotic “We Get High” (complete with Moore’s double-tracked vocals) to the shimmering waves of “The Diver.”
“I like the idea of having musicians and a band that is your musical family,” Moore said. “That’s what James and Deb have become, and Jem Doulton, who’s the drummer now pretty much solidly.” Moore does continue to collaborate with Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley when the two are on the same side of the Atlantic.
Credit: Photo by Vera Marmelo
Credit: Photo by Vera Marmelo
Radford and Moore are equally thrilled about the documentary being shown after the two converse about “Sonic Life.”
“What an amazing collection of artists! It was the cool that the organizers of that festival were able to look at the big picture and see the thread that connected all of these things,” said Radford. (The Desolation Center collective put on the fests, giving them colorful names ranging from Mojave Exodus to Gila Monster Jamboree.)
Remembering his own experience in the desert, Moore said, “I was amazed when I saw the movie that they had all this footage. I’m excited that this film is playing because it’s a very inspiring documentary, as far as being in the world of independent music making and filmmaking.”
Moore has literary plans for 2025, having already completed a novel he describes as meta. “Of course it takes place in downtown New York City in the early ‘80s,” he said and laughed. “It involves the music scene, but it also goes off into a certain factor of surreality.”
While fans await this next twist in Thurston Moore’s story, there’s plenty of the past — musical memoir and documentary storytelling — to celebrate at the Tara on Dec. 10.
IF YOU GO
An Evening with Thurston Moore
Dec. 10. Book talk (7 p.m.) and “Desolation Center” screening (8:30 p.m.) at Tara Theatre. Three types of tickets available. Book talk ticket: includes a signed paperback of “Sonic Life,” and admission to the book talk and signing, $20. Book talk and movie ticket: includes a signed paperback of “Sonic Life,” and admission to the book talk and signing as well as the film, $36. Movie ticket: includes admission to the film, $16. (Prices do not include tax.) 2345 Cheshire Bridge Road NE, Atlanta. Tickets and more information: taraatlanta.com.
