A while back, there was a question about Ricky Wilson of the B-52s and his unique guitar style(s) and it got me to thinking about another group whose guitarists also were heavily into open/alternate tunings and physically altering their guitars to achieve specific sounds; we're not talking just hot-rodding with different pickups, bridges, etc., we're talking about hacking into the guitars in all aspects including literally hacking a guitar, physically...
Sonic Youth was one of the great bands to come out of the 80s and the two guitarists, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, along with bassist Kim Gordon, redefined electric guitar playing and influenced bands and guitarists who followed after; Moore and Ranaldo started Sonic Youth without very much funding so had to make do with very cheap gear including very cheap guitars, some of which were scavenged pawn shop bargain bin instruments; they has to rebuild/repair a lot of their early instruments and, along the way, developed a flair for adapting the guitars to suit whatever sound they were seeking; much like Ricky Wilson, they took to removing strings in odd configurations, using odd gauges of strings, inserting bits and pieces of other material into and onto the guitars to change the tonal qualities; when a guitar wouldn't stay in tune, they simply devised an alternate tuning to fit the dissonance; later, when they achieved some fame and began touring, they would take loads of guitars with them because some of the guitars actually were only usable for certain single songs in their sets; when Glenn Branca formed his own record label, Sonic Youth was the first band he signed...
This is probably Sonic Youth's best known or widely heard song; singing is Kim Gordon, arguably the best looking bass player in rock (no offense, Steve :D ); incidentally Kim produced Courtney Love's band Hole's first album ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JGBNkLM9_8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3gN9Up6hmc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CXD8PK6Djc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y21VecIIdBI
<O> |
