Sonic Youth co-founder Kim Gordon brings experimental new music to the Fillmore
NYC experimental punk heroine Kim Gordon brings her current band to the Fillmore Saturday to play music from her latest album The Collective along with songs from throughout her career.
After graduating from art school and moving to New York to pursue a career, Gordon would become a figure in the downtown no-wave movement, founding avant-garde group Sonic Youth in 1981 with boyfriend and future husband Thurston Moore. Though she had no musical background, Gordon quickly picked up the bass and proved an eminently capable singer.
Mixing elements drawn from the dissonant downtown improv/free jazz scene and composer Glen Branca's microtonal guitar ensembles (both Moore and second guitarist Lee Ranaldo would play under the avant-garde composer's direction) with droning, propulsive post-punk, Sonic Youth developed a unique sound built around unorthodox tunings and treated guitars with drum sticks and screwdrivers in the strings. After releasing its first self-titled EP on Branca's Neutral label, the band became a cornerstone to the NYC noise-rock movement alongside Swans -- who the group shared rehearsal space with and supported on several early tours -- and freeform punk/funk band James Chance and the Contortions.
Sonic Youth would move on to recording for Moore's own Ecstatic Peace imprint (the live compilation Sonic Death: Early Sonic 1981-1983) and Homestead Records (1985's Bad Moon Rising) before finally landing on SST Records for the critically acclaimed EVOL the following year, its first effort with new drummer Steve Shelley. That effort found the band tempering the noise of past releases with more pop sensibility while still maintaining its experimental approach, a shift that would continue on subsequent releases Sister and Sonic Youth's landmark 1988 double album Daydream Nation.
Earning the group's the best reviews of its career, Daydream Nation significantly raised Sonic Youth's profile and led to a major label deal with Geffen Records. The follow-up debut for the label Goo in 1990 scored the band MTV airplay with the hit "Kool Thing" (featuring Chuck D of Public Enemy) and broke Sonic Youth to a much wider audience. The quartet spent the decade as one of the most influential alternative rock outfits on the planet, starring in the documentary The Year Punk Broke and serving as headliners for the 1996 Lollapalooza Tour. In 1993, Gordon formed the band Free Kitten with fellow NYC noise-punk figure and Pussy Galore member Julia Cafritz, the first of what would be a string of collaborative side projects.
Sonic Youth maintained its stature as leading lights alternative music into the 2000s until the dissolution of Gordon's marriage to Moore over his infidelity led to the band splitting up in 2011. While the musician was already in the midst of a creative tear prior to the divorce with her exploration of acting and a return to visual arts, she ramped up her musical endeavors with experimental duos featuring former DNA drummer Ikue Mori and guitarist Bill Nace (in the group Body/Head) as well as the release of her acclaimed autobiography Girl in a Band in 2015. In 2019, she put out her industrial-tinged solo debut for Matador Records entitled No Home Record with songwriter, producer and programmer Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Yves Tumor, Drake, and Lil Yachty) as well as a live recording of a duo performance with minimalist blues guitarist Loren Connors entitled at Issue in 2022.
That summer, Gordon led her band -- now playing guitar exclusively -- through a bracing set to close the first night of the Mosswood Meltdown in Oakland, drawing heavily on No Home Record. She has since reunited with Raisen to produce the follow-up effort The Collective, another heady salvo mixing Gordon's hypnotic, mantra-like vocals and noisy guitar with the producer's disorienting and angular trap beats. The album was released to wide acclaim earlier this month. Gordon brings her tour promoting the album to the Fillmore in San Francisco Saturday night. Experimental sound artist Twig Harper opens the show.
Kim Gordon
Saturday, March 30, 8 p.m. $48
The Fillmore