$20 / All Ages
THURSTON MOORE | Website
Thurston Moore moved to NYC at eighteen in 1976 to play punk. He started Sonic Youth in 1980. Since then he’s been at the forefront of the alternative rock scene since that particular sobriquet was first used to signify any music that challenged and defied the mainstream standard. With Sonic Youth, Moore turned on an entire generation to the value of experimentation in rock n roll – from its inspiration on a nascent Nirvana, to Sonic Youth’s own Daydream Nation album being chosen by the US Library of Congress for historical preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2006. Thurston records and performs in a cavalcade of disciplines ranging from free improvisation to acoustic composition to black/white metal/noise disruption. He has worked with Yoko Ono, John Zorn, David Toop, Cecil Taylor, Faust, Glenn Branca and many others. His residency at the Louvre in Paris included collaborations with Irmin Schmidt of CAN. Alongside his various activities in the musical world, he is involved with publishing and poetry, and teaches writing at Naropa University, Boulder CO, a school founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman in 1974. Thurston also teaches music at The Rhythmic Music Conservatory (Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium) in Copenhagen.
Presently he performs and records solo, with various ensembles and in his own band, The Thurston Moore Group (with mbv’s Deb Googe, Steve Shelley & James Sedwards). In 2014, the band released The Best Day which critics described as “optimistic and sun-drenched in beauty” and “[has] experimental attitude dovetailed with instantly accessible pop melodies.” The Best Day was a record defined by positivity and radical love. In 2017 Thurston Moore Group’s released a full-length album, Rock n Roll Consciousness which was recorded in The Church studios in London with producer Paul Epworth. The songs are expansive, anthemic and exploratory with lyrics that investigate and herald the love between angels, goddess mysticism and a belief in healing through new birth. Ranging from opener “Exalted”, an unfolding and emotional journey in homage to sacred energy and exaltation, to “Cusp” a charging, propulsive piece with a feeling of Sonic Youth mixing in with My Bloody Valentine. “Turn On” is a pop-sonic poem to holy love both intimate and kosmiche to the contemplative mystery of life-defining time travel in “Smoke of Dreams”. The record concludes with “Aphrodite”, a strange and heavy no-wave rocker in salutation to the idol of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.
Thurston Moore’s new release entitled SPIRIT COUNSEL is a box set of new material recorded between 2018-19, including epic tracks such as “Alice Moki Jayne,” dedicated to Alice Coltrane, Moki Cherry and Jayne Cortez. “8 Spring Street” is an homage to his late teenage mentor Glenn Branca and “Galaxies” is a symphonic masterpiece constructed of twelve musicians playing 12-string electric guitars.
DEVIN BRAHJA WALDMAN is a saxophonist, drummer, synthesizer player and composer who lives in New York City. Since the age of ten, Waldman has accompanied his aunt, poet Anne Waldman. He leads the ensemble BRAHJA, which released its sixth album in September 2019 on the Estonian label RR GEMS Records. Waldman has performed with William Parker, Malcolm Mooney, Patti Smith, Thurston Moore, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Charles Hayward and Yoshiko Chuma. He tours with Nadah El Shazly and the Norwegian hardcore group MoE, and is a member of Heroes Are Gang Leaders and Land Of Kush. He is a co-founder of groups Notable Deaths and Ziad Qoulaii Allstars. As a youngster, he was taken under the wing of pianist Paul Bley. Waldman is a co-producer for the poetry and music label Fast Speaking Music. He is opening on solo saxophone during the Thurston Moore Spirit Counsel tour.
