Sonic Youth

Silver Session

"We didn't really know Jason Knuth--it's possible we had met him, or had been in the same room as him, but we didn't recall... We heard about his passing on the internet--a flurry of grievous and surprised reactions. People were asking us if we were aware of how much he identified and championed our music. As program director for KUSF, he seemingly used Sonic Youth as a standard for playlisting--indeed, at his memorial his friends played 'The Diamond Sea' in acknowledgment of his enthusiasm toward us. He was affectionately referred to as 'Sonic Knuth.' Here in NYC, so far from the San Francisco community, we were touched and more than intrigued. We learned Jason was a vibrant, well-loved guy on the music scene with a completely genuine exuberance toward art and music. His demeanor obviously shrouded a complex inner life which led to suicide. What Jason's feelings were toward his own human existence we may never know, but we do know he will be missed by many as a companion. Sonic Youth wanted to make some gesture toward him as well as focus on suicide prevention. A portion of the proceeds from this CD goes to local charities in NYC, SF, and beyond, and in the past have included www.sfsuicide.org.
"A note on the music: Silver Sessions was taken from an evening when Sonic Youth had to do vocal overdubs for A Thousand Leaves--a band upstairs was hammering out some funky metal overdrive and we couldn't 'sing' properly. We decided to fight fire with molten lava and turned every amp we owned on to 10+ and leaned as many guitars and basses we could plug in against them and they roared and howled like airplanes burning over the Pacific--we could only enter the playing room with hands pressed hard against our ears and even then it was physically stunning. We ran a sick outmoded beatbox through the P.A. and it blew out horrendous distorted pulsations. Of course we recorded the whole thing and a few months later we mixed it down into sections, ultra-processing it to a wholly other 'piece.' In a way, it's my favorite record of ours--I hope Jason digs it.
"Keep on keep on keep on."
--Thurston Moore, 1998

Other Albums by This Artist Sonic Youth A Thousand Leaves Sonic Youth Daydream Nation Sonic Youth Sonic Youth