As mentioned in a recent Aquarium Drunkard Book Club, some of the most entertaining parts of Thurston Moore’s Sonic Life memoir come during his teenage years, way before Sonic Youth was even a twinkle in his eye. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fan? From the suburbs of Connecticut, Moore made countless trips into NYC to soak in the punk/CBGB/Max’s Kansas City worlds, catching shows by The Ramones, Suicide, the Dead Boys, Sid Vicious … and Patti Smith, of course. Thurston paints an evocative portrait of this New Year’s Eve blowout, which doubled as Patti’s raucous 30th birthday party. He was dangerously high on mescaline.
Hear it for yourself …