‘Nice Ass’ by Free Kitten

 For todays installment in Girl Power Week we are gonna look at another “super group’, Free Kitten. Formed in 1992 as a collaboration between Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Pussy Galore’s Julie Cafritz, two of the most amazing women in punk rock, the group was joined by Yoshimi P-We of the Boredoms on drums and Pavement bassist Mark Ibold. Notice in the line up the balance of members from more traditional punk/indie bands and members of noise/hardcore bands. This perfect mix really shows up in their music. The songs are always on the border of descending into absolute chaos held together only by a solid bass line and a vocal melody. Meanwhile, the guitar is delightfully overdriven and the drums are a punk rock versions of Captain Beefheart rhythms. This band is just the right mixture of punk rock elements.

 I think my favorite element of ‘Nice Ass’ is the subject matter of most the songs, the problems you face while being in the music industry. Basically, the members started a group to complain about the pitfalls of touring and the stupidity of the process. The whole album is a sneering look at the way things work and no one could vocalize that better than Kim Gordon, one of my favorite female voices in music. When this album was released in 1995, it seemed this is the way things would always work in the music world but we know better now, don’t we?

 In the end I’m sure people will chalk Free Kitten up as just another punk band but they are more than that. They’re a punk band with a hook both musically and ideologically. Nothing is more punk than railing against the system you’re apart of. Plus it’s just perfectly loud, chaotic music. What’s not to love?

Song: ‘Call Back’

‘Murray Street’ by Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is a band that holds a very unique place in the history of rock’n’roll. With a career lasting almost 30 years, Sonic Youth has always been a leading influence in underground music. They are just one of those bands that has been around forever but has always found a way to doing something new and interesting. The way I see Sonic Youth is as a gateway to more experimental music. They are like the gateway drug of avante-garde music. You listen to Sonic Youth before you hit the heavy stuff.

That isn’t to say Sonic Youth doesn’t make some heavy, crazy music themselves. The SYR series is designated for their experimental compositions. Plus, when they started is 1981 they were a big part of the no-wave scene, helping bring noise rock to more people. As time wore on they became major players in the alternative scene and played with such acts as The Jesus Lizard, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, etc. Sonic Youth survived the 90’s and continued to make music into this millennium. For this album they added on long time collaborator Jim O’Rourke as a fifth member. For their 12th album they created a landscape of simple drumbeats and guitar noises.

This album is made up of my favorite type of Sonic Youth song, the noisy, lyrically thick, stream of consciousness jams that you have to listen to three or four times before you fully appreciate them. Compared to a lot of Sonic Youth records, ‘Murray Street’ is rather light. All the guitar noise you’d expect from Sonic Youth is there but it’s used in a different way. Instead of smack you in the face and throwing you around, it’s used for texture and mood. The most aggravated this album gets is on the track ‘Plastic Sun’ which features the classic angry vocals of bassist Kim Gordon, which is one of my favorite gritty vocals in history. This album is also another example of the rhythm section keeping it somewhat simple for the benefit of the song. I know it works for the song because I’m bobbing along to it.

My favorite part of this album and the and the thing that separates it from other Sonic Youth albums for me is the lyrics. I’m heavily into beat poetry and the whole stream of consciousness type of poetry. While the lyrics of ‘Murray Street’ aren’t all like that, a good portion is. Every line is a poem in itself, wound together to create such a clear and thick image. The words on this record almost breathe with the music. It’s sometimes hard to distinguish a separation. They are the kind of lyrics that it doesn’t matter what they say but instead how they make you feel.

All in all ‘Murray Street’ is a great album to start with if you want to get into Sonic Youth. It’s a point in their career that they were changing sounds so it has elements of all their work in it. It’s not too long or abrasive, which is likely to scare the uninitiated. It’s a beautiful noise punk record.

Song: ‘Radical Adults Like Godhead Style’