Sonic Youth

If you were there when t'Youth tore up our very own beach, you'll know how sought after recordings of that night have been - and finally we have an official release documenting that awesome and chaotic night.

Yescomeon! Now issued for the first time officially with the band’s consent. Culled from three 1985 gigs in the UK during a transitional and transcendent time in the band’s story, Sonic Youth’s 'The Walls Have Ears' appeared / disappeared as a 2LP set in 1986 - not just a live album but an artful tapestry full of live experimentation with songs, between-song tape segues, darkness, humor and audio verité. In this 2LP set brimming with primitive classics like ‘The Burning Spear,’ ‘Death Valley 69,’ and ‘I’m Insane’ (uncredited on sleeve), segues and live guitar changes ooze together threaded by Madonna tapes and vocal loops off the board (somewhat a necessity for distraction until the band had a full fledged stage crew to prepare guitars).

The first two sides of 'Walls' are massive, cavernous, with newly-drafted drummer Steve Shelley. SY tear it up especially on one trash-fi excerpt of ‘Blood On Brighton Beach’ (actually ‘Making The Nature Scene’) from a legendary outdoor gig November 8th where [Thurston] Moore, [Kim] Gordon and [Lee] Ranaldo’s guitars treble-blast dissonant shockwaves over the black-stoned beach of Quadrophenia fame.

The record’s second slab spotlights an April 1985 at London’s Hammersmith Palais and was one of the final appearances live of Bob Bert on drums, again featuring some molten takes on ‘Brother James,’ ‘Flower’ (listed as ‘The Word (E.V.O.L.)’), and others.

This document remains an essential representation of some lean and mean years of the quartet’s throttling march out into the world.”