The first song I remember hearing
The Kingsmen – ‘Louie Louie’
“It was the first time I heard a rock ’n’ roll song that felt very intimate. A lot of it had to do with my five-years-older brother, who brought it into the household. I was hardly four or five, playing it relentlessly on my father’s early ‘60s console. [My brother] told me he had recorded it with his friends! He would stick his head in the door and mouth the lyrics. It’s a great, primal rock tune. It became part of our family.”
The first record I owned
Iron Butterfly – ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’
“I was 10 years old in ’68. My brother nudged me and said, ‘That’s a cool record.’ I kind of knew about ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ – I had seen it written about in the margins of rock ’n’ roll magazines, which I was always perusing – and found out it was Latin for ‘In The Garden Of Eden’. What was so appealing was that [the title track] took over an entire side of the record, which was an audacious thing to do at that time.”
My first gig
Rick Wakeman, New Haven Coliseum, 1975
“It’s a little embarrassing. I had been trying to go to concerts as a teenager and some compatriots of mine had already lost their concert virginity. I thought, ‘I’ve really gotta see a band.’ I was completely immersed in rock ’n’ roll music but had yet to go to a concert. It was a little difficult because we were in a rural area of Connecticut – it was a trek to get to New York City, which was this Eden. That would all come very soon. The concert didn’t really move me, but I was happy to be there.”
The song that reminds me of home
Beethoven – ‘Für Elise’
“Being a musician since the early ‘80s, home is in a van or a tour bus, or any little beer hall across the globe. You sort of lose a sense of home. I would say ‘Für Elise’ because my father would be playing this music on the piano. That would be resonant of ‘home’ for me.”
The song I wish I’d written
Sex Pistols – ‘God Save The Queen’
“As an American, there was distance in terms of relating to why a band would utilize this traditional title and reconstitute it for their own take. To me, that kind of linguistic theft was interesting. It seemed dangerous, obviously, to espouse this anti-Royalist statement. To have the line ‘We mean it, man’ was them taking this long-in-the-tooth counterculture hippie-speak and being sardonic and cynical. I was like, ‘What a loaded, incredible, explosive line to melt down everything that comes before you.’ It was probably Johnny Rotten’s greatest moment, that line in that song.”
The song I can’t get out of my head
Iggy And The Stooges – ‘I Need Somebody’
“It starts out with Iggy singing, ‘Well, I am your crazy driver / Honey, I’m sure to steer you wrong.’ It’s slightly corny but totally cool – certainly the way he sings it. For some reason, I bring this song up in my head all the time. If I hear someone say the word “somebody”, I think about the end of that song, where Iggy’s like, “SOMEBODY! SOMEBODY! Just like you!” All of a sudden, it just arrives in my brain – since 1973.”
The song I can no longer listen to
Dire Straits – ‘Sultans Of Swing’
“Not to denigrate that song, because it’s a brilliant, repetitive earworm of a song. But, man, when it comes on… It’s kind of the new wave equivalent of ‘Hotel California’. I just go running out of the room. If I’m sitting in the barber’s chair, I’ll take the bib off and run. It drives me a little bit crazy. ‘Sultans of Swing’ brings me back to this feeling of political refusal towards playing well in the context of punk rock.”
The song that makes me want to dance
Unnamed band – ‘Everybody But You’
“There’s this really crazy horror film from ’85 called Night Train To Terror. It’s a collection of three unfinished, failed independent horror films that were thrown together. As a device to glue it together, God and Satan are on a speeding train through the night, having a discussion. It’s an amazing, messed-up film.
“Every once in a while, there’s this footage of an early ‘80s, new wave rock ’n’ roll band – a Hollywood perspective of what the new wave was. The singer keeps saying, ‘Dance with me! Dance with me! Dance with me!’ Before this interview, I checked it out again, got up and started doing a hucklebuck across the room!”
The song that makes me cry
John Tavener – ‘Song for Athene’
“It’s a funereal piece of music and I first heard it when I was watching the funeral for Princess Diana on television at the time. It was being played as her casket was brought into the church. It was such a touching, deep piece of music that I was brought to tears. I thought she was a really wonderful person, and to see the Queen do a full bow [at Diana’s coffin, which broke Royal protocol] was a very heavy moment.”
The song I do at karaoke
Sparks – ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us’
“I try to stay away from karaoke! I find it extremely unnerving. The hardest audience to play to is, like, five people. 5,000? Yeah! Let’s do it. But this is one karaoke song that I’ve done and always enjoy doing.
“I did it with Jim O’Rourke, who was playing guitar and bass with Sonic Youth for a couple years. He was really into Sparks. I was really into Sparks. Nobody else in the band gave a rat’s ass about Sparks! So we really connected – we were Sparks fanatics. Sonic Youth was involved in a residency in Sweden and Jim and I concocted that we would do Sparks karaoke. I played Ron Mael and had the ‘stache – much to the confusion of the audience!
The song I want played at my funeral
The Velvet Underground – ‘We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together’
“You could almost consider Lou Reed the perennial Prince Of Nihilism and ‘We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together’ is this complete exultation of the promise of joy – although there’s this underlying, possibly sinister card being played there as well. I would like everybody to clap along and sing: ‘We’re gonna laugh and dance and shout together!’”
Thurston Moore publishes ‘NOW JAZZ NOW: 100 Essential Free Jazz & Improvisation Recordings [1960-80]’ via his Ecstatic Peace Library imprint on December 5