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The album that changed Rob Instigator's life.
DAYDREAM NATION - Sonic Youth
I grew up with music in the house all the time. the first bands I dug at age 8-9 were van halen, def leppard, quiet riot was my fave, hard rock and metal. I progressed in that vein for years getting deeper into thrash (remember when it was called thrash? megadeth, metallica, slayer, Anthrax, exodus, nuclear assault, etc.? anyone?) and hardcore punk. I reached a point when i was around 15 that I was burned out. I listened to megadeth's Peace Sells But Who's Buying over and over and over and over again for several months. I had started to feel the stagnant nature of metal, the false posturing, the ridiculous "rock-god" aspirations, the ego of the whole thing. It was getting to me but I did not understand it then. One day I was reading people magazine, and saw a review for Sister, and it included a picture of these 3 dudes and one chick (a chick in a band? and it was not a stupid looking lita ford type? amazing!) standing in a new york alley, wearing reguilar clothes, not posturing like the dozens and dozens of metal pinups and posters that I had sapled to my walla nd bedroom ceiling from hit parader, kerrang, metal mania, Circus magazine and such. I could not take my eyes from the picture. i read the review and it intrgued me. it spoke of noise squalls, of feedback drenched proto-songs, of beauty and bliss in chaos. It sounded to me like this band, sonic youht, who did not look all that young, had what I wanted, what the heavy metal bands tried to fake with satan lyrics and stupid costumes and posturing. That review stuck with me. When, a year or so later, I sw daydream nation come out, I thought "hey, this is that sonic youth band, that band with the ridiculously fantastic name I read about." and bought it.
everything changed. what constituted a song changed, what could be music changed, what was ROCK changed, what was GOOD changed. I found honesty, and artifice, beauty and ugliness, chaos and peace, joy and pain, in just the first song, TEENAGE RIOT! Tag I was it. Kim told me so. she told me again. she re-assured me I WAS IT DAMNIT. That cassette, the blast first one that stunk like motor oil, was on my boombox next to my bed constantly. i woudl sit in my room and my little bro would come in asking why i was still listening to that same album? The damn thing was LONG> i did not know it was a double album at the time. noone I knew had evern heard of sonic youth. Daydream nation showed me the world of true independent-minded music. uncompromising music. daydream nation is the single greatest moment of my life. I can honestly say it changed everything, EVERYTHING in my life for the better.It also gave me something which was MINE> noone else's. noone listened to sonic youth in alief texas. Just me. It was mine. so it stayed until college 5 years later. Only then did I find others who listened to sonic youth, and to this day I have yet to run into anyone who is as blindly devoted to them and their music as I. I will KILL YOU for sonic youth, if they asked.
everyone I know knows that sonic youth is MINE.
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