Alienation and Despair - Music Reviews

Sonic Youth AIDS Benefit

Sonic Youth / David Johansen / Debbie Harry / John Giorno / Penny Arcade / Karen Finley / Lou Barlow

Beacon Theatre, NYC, 12/2/94

From alt.music.sonic-youth Sun Dec  4 16:22:40 1994
Path: panix!usenet
From: Wilson Smith 
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative,alt.music.sonic-youth
Subject: Sonic Youth AIDS Benefit, 12/3, NYC
Date: 3 Dec 1994 23:59:45 GMT
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Beacon Theatre, NYC, 12/2/94

[thx to the 2 opinionated nincompoops on alt.music.sy who, with their clueless dismissal of David Johansen, prompted me to swipe the following from some e-mail sent to an imaginary friend...]

John Waters was the emcee, and he was funny as heck, told a few smirking stories about strippers and NYC and Jeffrey Dahmer, and then introduced Lou Barlow, of Sebadoh, who was playing unannounced and solo [we saved a big "nyah nyah" for all the hipsters who strolled in fashionably late way after he was done]. He was REALLY low-key, just him standing there with his acoustic guitar... we spent most of his set (five or six songs), trying to find better seats that we thought we could hold on to... We were *WAY* up in the balcony, and they were a little off to the side, so we moved even higher up, but toward the center...

After Lou B, out came Karen Finley, one of the three or four poets and/or performance-artists who appeared. [They were *ALL* excellent, all of em at least relatively short and sweet, just really direct and solid...] Karen F's a little provocative (actually, I guess all the poets were), but it was a great way to remind folks that this WAS an AIDS benefit without being too obnoxious about it...

After Karen Finley there was Debbie Harry, although they never announced her name... she was the only lame point of the evening, really pretty bad, not aging gracefully, and looking like a stuffed sausage in this ridiculous lil mini-outfit... We were trying to figure out just how old she is... seems like she was probably 25 or so in 70, when she first started hangin out on the NY scene, so jeez, 50???? She started off nicely tho, did the Robert De Niro monologue from Taxi Rider ("Thank god for the rain... you talkin' to me???") over a relatively decent instrumental, but then followed it with a bunch of disco-soundin poop that was downright depressing...

And after DH, I guess there was Penny Arcade, another poet/performer, someone I'd read about it, but never seen. I thought she was great... She did a piece about her initiation at a very tender age into the truly seamy side of life in NYC... scary stuff, truer than true, but funny as heck...

David Johansen was absolutely FANTASTIC, much much better than I had ANY hope of his being, even though once upon a time he was the King (lead singer for the New York Dolls, one of the best bands EVER). I had thought he was hopelessly washed up, but he'd put together a great band (maybe just for the occasion?? "We're the Skillet Lickers," he kept saying, but really, he has a way of just rounding up a bunch of nobodies from Staten Island and somehow whipping together a really tight group -- at least that's what he did post-dolls, late-70s, pre-Buster Poindexter; I thought he'd long forgotten how, tho...).... At any rate, he/they did about four or five of the choicest Dolls tunes, not the real obvious stuff, but stuff that kinda sorta fit the evening, and just happened to include a couple of my favorite songs of theirs -- "Private World" and "Vietnamese Baby." Also did a coupla new tunes, and they were fine.

There was a short break, then John Giorno, another poet, recited some wickedly great and obscene stuff about him and Andy Warhol. Poetry is *SO* different live, when the poets can shout it out when shouting is called for, and whisper when that's what's needed. He rooled...

Finally, SY... they were a LITTLE ragged, this was their first and only gig of the year, but basically wonderful. They did mostly stuff from Experimental Jet Set, but did at least two or three from Sister, one from Daydream Nation, and that might have been it. In between songs Thurston had a cassette of Carole King doing "I Feel the Earth Move" that he'd crank up as they switched guitars or whatever... Toward the end a WHOLE heckuva lot of people jumped up on stage -- I don't know what had happened to security, but jeez, there were probably twenty or thirty people dancing and running around and diving off the stage and then climbing back up... SY played right thru it tho, very cool... Finally the security guys woke up and got things back under control.

All in all, nice show... It was all-ages, and really, lots and lots and LOTS of youngsters, but plenty of oldsters too...

And hey, we saw Thurston at the FMU record fair today! We knew we would...