Before they headed to the Minnesota State Fair last night for a rain-soaked concert with the Magic Numbers and the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth stopped by for a tour of the Walker galleries with Performing Arts curator Philip Bither. The band–Thurston Moore, Steve Shelley, Lee Ranaldo, and Kim Gordon–has been here before: Gordon gave a talk on Yoko Ono’s influence in 2001; Ranaldo performed in 2004 as part of the group playing a live score for Stan Brakhage’s films in Text of Light; and, most memorable of all, SY headlined Rock the Garden 2000 (with Stereolab and Sunship Sextet). But this time around, they came specifically to see the work of a friend, Los Angeles–born artist Cameron Jamie.
Launched by the Walker in 1998, Rock the Garden has gone from an intermittent street jam to an off-site extravaganza on Boom Island, a parking ramp rave to, in 2019, a two-stage affair in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Here’s an authoritative look back at the festival's history, from Antibalas to Wilco.
Thurston Moore at 60: A Bizarre Path Toward Enlightenment
From beautiful and mesmerizing to blisteringly loud and grating: music writer Michael Cyrs shares his thoughts about the first evening of Thurston Moore: Moore at 60, a two-night celebration curated by Moore at the Walker.
Ecstatic Peace: Nels Cline and Thurston Moore on Aging, Poetry, and the Cosmos
While both are best known for breakout acts they're associated with—one co-founded Sonic Youth, the other plays guitar for Wilco—Thurston Moore and Nels Cline share a passion for less mainstream pursuits: experimental music, art collaborations, poetry publishing. Friends and collaborators for more than two decades, the duo will have a reunion on the Walker stage this weekend during a two-night celebration of the 60th anniversary of Moore's birth. In anticipation, the pair connected via email this week to talk politics, art, and coming to terms with aging.
For his 60th birthday, Sonic Youth cofounder Thurston Moore has curated a two-night exploration into his own past and future, his influences and influencers, through collaborative performances with Nels Cline, Anne Waldman, crys cole, Danez Smith, and others. The night, writes Landon Kuhlmann, promises a raucous celebration at the intersection of words and sound, but it also offers a mystery: what the radical chemistry of these collaborations will yield on the Walker stage.
