Sonic Youth to Play UPenn Spring Fling + Student Reactions

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Everyone I was with thought Steve Shelley should have gotten the majority of the money from our gig. Dude was on.

(two uses of "on" in the past tense x-post!)

miccio (miccio), Monday, 28 March 2005 15:54 (nineteen years ago) link

I compare them [SY] to Ace-of-Base, an afterthought, almost a novelty act.....and now I hear Dartmouth gets Robert Randolph AND Talib Kwali? I thought we had more pride than that.

???

sleep (sleep), Monday, 28 March 2005 16:08 (nineteen years ago) link

stereolab ain't no $10k, nor is sy $25k - unless their agents wanna hose dumb college kidz (precisely what's happening).

hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 28 March 2005 16:33 (nineteen years ago) link

or, maybe more precisely, want to suckle at bloated ivy league entertainment budgets.

Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Monday, 28 March 2005 16:35 (nineteen years ago) link

hstencil: i know stereolab were 10K in philly last time around at the troc, for a fact.

maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Monday, 28 March 2005 16:37 (nineteen years ago) link

the RZA headlining princeton lawnparties was pretty messy...thankfully there was free beer. go ivy league state!

irrigation can save your people (irrigation can save your peopl), Monday, 28 March 2005 16:41 (nineteen years ago) link

as a graduate student at penn and a regular poster here, i have to repost my ranting response to the DP editorially that started "So what is your favorite Cat Power song? Oh, you don't know who they are?"

My rant in it's entirety:

these performers are hardly esoteric...pretty standard fare for anyone who gives two shits about popular music. anyway, it doesn't take an idiot to figure out that large scale collegiate concerts are a mistake to begin with. pop-music philistines will always resent decent line-ups while failing to realize that the bands they'd like to hear are too busy selling out stadiums and amphitheaters to bother with putting on a private concert for Penn students.

as the author of the editorial can't figure out that a crowd-pleasing concert of the sort he craves is untenable at Penn (even though there was a DP article covering exactly why it is impossible published several months ago), i suspect he is even more worthless than an idiot: the sort of person that will move from his fraternity house right out to the suburbs upon graduation where he can live out the remainder of his proudly unexamined life.
(just imagine listening to Linkin Park on your humvee's kickin' bose stereo...i bet it will sound soooo awesome. it's out there... just waiting for you... dumb-ass.)

vocab review
philistine: A smug, ignorant, especially middle-class person who is regarded as being indifferent or antagonistic to artistic and cultural values. (does this describe you?)

mono.mono (mono.mono), Monday, 28 March 2005 17:00 (nineteen years ago) link

so I came a little unhinged maybe, but the whole affair is so irritatin'. i think that Penn had the Roots last year which only reminded me of the time that the Pharcyde played a similarly large-spring concert at my alma mater and opened with their song "Jiggaboo Time."

This song features the lyric: "When you're rappin' for the white man/it's jigaboo time/it's jiggaboo time."

At least Sonic Youth and Cat Power vs. Penn keeps it all in the family...the hipsters vs. squares in whiteyville.

(which is not to say that there aren't non-caucasian students at Penn, but their numbers are egregiously small.)

mono.mono (mono.mono), Monday, 28 March 2005 17:12 (nineteen years ago) link

hurlo, you guys should try to play at penn next year!

peter smith (plsmith), Monday, 28 March 2005 17:14 (nineteen years ago) link

if out hud plays they can stay at my apartment.

mono.mono (mono.mono), Monday, 28 March 2005 17:16 (nineteen years ago) link

if stereolab is more expensive now that mary hansen's dead, that sucks.

hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 28 March 2005 17:29 (nineteen years ago) link

This band fucking blows. They're a bunch of washed up losers. If SPEC was going to hire these clowns why didn't they just go and get the cast of the surreal life...they're just as washed up and just as bad. If they really wanted to get a good non hip-hop band what's wrong with Jimmy Eat World, Saves the Day, The Format, & Taking Back Sunday????

Personally you couldn't pay me to watch Sonic Youth. I'll definitely be going to the Jimmy Eat World/Taking Back Sunday/The Format show on 4/15 at the Tweeter Center in Camden.

Simon H. (Simon H.), Monday, 28 March 2005 18:07 (nineteen years ago) link

Erm, not me. Quotation marks are good.

Simon H. (Simon H.), Monday, 28 March 2005 18:08 (nineteen years ago) link

Yeah, Peter, if we can get on that gravy train, why not, heh heh. I don't think it's in the cards, though.

Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Monday, 28 March 2005 18:24 (nineteen years ago) link

wow, man. my school got shit like Maestro Fresh Wes (if you have any idea of who that is, holla)

ken taylrr (ken taylrr), Monday, 28 March 2005 18:33 (nineteen years ago) link

We had Guster one year. (Okay, we also had Run DMC, but that's what going to school in da Bronx does for ya.)

Je4nne Ć’ury (Jeanne Fury), Monday, 28 March 2005 19:02 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't think there were ever any good bands at my school. But the sad thing is, SY is really only good live if you have their most recent album memorized. I respect their refusal to do Greatest Hits sets, but I've seen them twice and been bored both times. "Yay, another song I don't recognize."

Lyra Jane (Lyra Jane), Monday, 28 March 2005 19:19 (nineteen years ago) link

Huh? They played tons of old stuff on both the Murray Street and NYC G&F tours. I think all their albums were represented.

sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 28 March 2005 19:54 (nineteen years ago) link

huh? i saw sonic youth in november [or october, whatever] and they played a lot of old and new stuff:

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/live/livesonicyouth.html

maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Monday, 28 March 2005 20:03 (nineteen years ago) link

huh? i saw sonic youth in late summer and they played a lot of old and new stuff:

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/live/livesonicyouth.html

maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Monday, 28 March 2005 20:03 (nineteen years ago) link

damn. i guess i didnt catch my error! can a moderator delete the first post? thanks.

maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Monday, 28 March 2005 20:05 (nineteen years ago) link

yeah, they've definitely been better about balancing the new with old on recent tours. it's kind of my theory that the reason Murray St. and NYCG&F were such short albums is because they knew they'd want to play all the new stuff but didn't want it to dominate the set like it did for the ATL tour. of course, Nurse was longer, but when I saw them last year they left out a few songs and made room for more hits.

Al (sitcom), Monday, 28 March 2005 20:17 (nineteen years ago) link

doesn't every college have minor controversies like this no matter who they book for the big spring/fall concerts? and inevitably columnists and letters to the school paper jump into the fray, it's hilarious.

in my freshman year (2000), Outkast AND Ludacris played my school, but most of the concerts since then have been relatively minor college-friendly hip hop like The Roots and Cee-Lo and people always bitch.

Al (sitcom), Monday, 28 March 2005 20:20 (nineteen years ago) link

people always bitch about everything booking-wise, yeah. i'm still apologizing to people because jeru's guarantee was $15k and we couldn't afford it (much less limo from poughkeepsie, backstage rider requests, etc.).

hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 28 March 2005 20:38 (nineteen years ago) link

Huh, maybe things have changed recently. I saw them once in 1995 and once in 2002 (I think, it was when they toured with Wilco), and both times the set seemed at least 3/4 new.

Lyra Jane (Lyra Jane), Monday, 28 March 2005 21:39 (nineteen years ago) link

my campus radio station is supposedly trying to get together a show featuring the Clipse and Ying Yang Twins. I will shit a gold statue in the shape of Steve Urkel if they pull it off.

miccio (miccio), Monday, 28 March 2005 21:43 (nineteen years ago) link

reading some of those anti-sonic youth posts is just totally bewildering. this dude, for example:

sonic youth [...] was in the midst of the grunge era but not nearly as influential as the other bands. they are, and will be remembered as a band that fit in with the times but didn't break much ground on their own, much like soundgarden and bush (who i wouldn't mind seeing). nirvana is very influential but just because they are, and sonic youth came out before them and they are relatively the same genre, you can't say that sonic youth is as influential as nirvana. that's blasphemy! (it goes on like this.)

sure dude, bush is in the same ballpark (league, even!) as sonic youth. just keep telling yourself that.

(so is this show open to the public? if so, i'm there, but it doesn't look they'll let the unwashed masses in.)

spasticheritage, Monday, 28 March 2005 23:43 (nineteen years ago) link

time for me to find facebook group

BOATPEOPLEHATEFUCK (ex machina), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:03 (nineteen years ago) link

http://upenn.thefacebook.com/group_profile.php?gid=3910
http://upenn.thefacebook.com/group_profile.php?gid=3940


Cool Kids Like Sonic Youth has 56 members. [ see all of them ]
Students against Sonic Youth has 148 members. [ see all of them ]

BOATPEOPLEHATEFUCK (ex machina), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:05 (nineteen years ago) link

Announcement
Joe Gross and myself are seeing a REAL Spring Fling Show, Widespread Panic at the Tower Theatre. We should boycott this spring fling show and try to get tickets to Panic if you can. Also RAQ is playing the night of this shitty show. The concert choice won't ruin fling but it was something I was looking forward to. Search for alternatives to this shitty mixture of Velvet Underground and Weezer (not to demean the names of those bands)

BOATPEOPLEHATEFUCK (ex machina), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:06 (nineteen years ago) link



Zachary Moscow (UPenn) wrote at 12:31am March 21st, 2005:
bryan, you are one of the most pathetic people i've ever been in contact with. http://www.phantasytour.com/bisco/boards_thread.cgi?threadID=663727&page=1 on this link, bryan not only attacked joe gross, one of the administrators of this group, but he posted joe's personal information. members of his disco biscuits fan club proceeded to further harass other penn students like rachel aresty, who only said that she wanted to see snoop doog. what's wrong with snoop dogg? i don't know. you and your disco biscuit friends are douchebags, bryan graham. i am honestly shocked that someone would stoop that low over something as insignificant as a facebook group. grow up.

BOATPEOPLEHATEFUCK (ex machina), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:09 (nineteen years ago) link

i'm trying to get tickets to this through my girlfriend, who's in a grad program, but might be able to finagle two (two per penn card!)

i just want to walk around campus with my tape recorder and ask students to flip out about this. it would be an excuse for me to cross broad street!

blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:13 (nineteen years ago) link

it seems like most of the "upset people" are jam band wankers!

BOATPEOPLEHATEFUCK (ex machina), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:18 (nineteen years ago) link

BPHF be OTM.

scene two, enter "bride of jam band wanker":

http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/423e7d535a3d3?in_archive=1

i'd like to point out that this was a cover story for the DP...

(i suppose it beats "Residence Hall Besieged with Plumbing Woes" for entertainment value.)

mono.mono (mono.mono), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 03:08 (nineteen years ago) link

mono mono, i thought that story about the plumbing was awesome! development needs to work that angle when hitting up people for money.

maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 03:25 (nineteen years ago) link

lots of jam band wankers are big sonic youth fans

gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 03:37 (nineteen years ago) link

overheard in the other room, while a class was on break:

"sonic youth havent put anything out in years"
"im gonna go see interpol instead"

seriously, who the fuck is feeding america's youth this information?

maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 19:10 (nineteen years ago) link

spin magazine.

Ian John50n (orion), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 19:25 (nineteen years ago) link

I'd almost agree except Spin did a big interview w/Thurston last year

Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 19:26 (nineteen years ago) link

For a clueless audience, nothiing topped the 2000 tour with Pearl Jam. Talk about a mismatch. When Kim did her crazy "Kool Thing" dance, two long-haired Creedheads mumbled, "Who's that crazy bitch?"

Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 19:29 (nineteen years ago) link

maybe spin forgot about the beck/thurston/tom surgal cassette on freedom from: "kill any/all spin personnel." xpost to matos.

Ian John50n (orion), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 19:36 (nineteen years ago) link

I remember a friend told me in 1995 that a friend of his had gone to Lollapalooza and saw "some stupid band with this chick in it." guess who?

Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 19:39 (nineteen years ago) link

Hole?

MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 19:51 (nineteen years ago) link

Avril!?

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 19:58 (nineteen years ago) link

OK, who wants a ticket to this thing? They go onsale 4/4. Let me know.

maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 20:03 (nineteen years ago) link

haha, should've wrote "at the end he saw . . . "

Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 20:06 (nineteen years ago) link

Sinead?!

jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 20:08 (nineteen years ago) link

Nico!

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 20:10 (nineteen years ago) link

are tix only being sold to students and/or locally, maria? if so, then yeah, I might make a request w/ you by 4/4, if I decide to go.

Al (sitcom), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 20:11 (nineteen years ago) link


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