Sonic Life: A Memoir

"Downtown scientists rejoice! For Thurston Moore has unearthed the missing links, the sacred texts, the forgotten stories, & the secret maps of the lost golden age. This is history—scuffed, slightly bent, plenty noisy, & indispensable." —Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Underground Railroad & Harlem Shuffle

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 & 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, & inspire.

His dream came to life in 1981 with the formation of Sonic Youth, a band Moore cofounded with Kim Gordon & Lee Ranaldo. Sonic Youth became a fixture in New York’s burgeoning No Wave scene—an avant-garde collision of art & sound, poetry & 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, & Pavement, & playing alongside such icons as Neil Young _ Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of music: the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible.

In the spirit of Just Kids, Sonic Life offers a window into the trajectory of a celebrated artist & a tribute to an era of explosive creativity. It presents a firsthand account of NY in a defining cultural moment, a history of alternative rock as it was birthed & came to dominate airwaves, & a love letter to music, whatever the form...