What a Fool Believes

Occupy Murray Street

Sonic Youth: “Titanium Exposé”

I almost woke my girlfriend up Friday night to tell her the news: Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth members and indie rock dream couple were separating after 27 years* of marriage.  But what a fucking bummer—one that, days later, still hasn’t sunk in.  Why would I wake my girlfriend—of nearly 8 years—to tell her that the beacon of punk rock love had been extinguished?  ”Hey.  It’s 1 in the morning.  Kim and Thurston are done.  I hope you can get back to sleep now that another instance of the dream of love has turned to a nightmare.”  And this depressing break-up wasn’t even the entirety of the bummer.  The future of Sonic Youth, one of the greatest bands of all-time, was “uncertain”.

Sid and Nancy were catastrophic junkies.  Exene and John Doe were charmingly out-of-tune and then just out-of-tune.  Kurt and Courtney were haunted.  But Kim and Thurston?  Kim and Thurston were perfect.  They played in a band together, sharing the mic over their seductive noise.  They had the same passions, both purveyors of cool, telling us to check out Dinosaur Jr. and Nirvana, William Gibson and Denis Johnson, Gerhard Richter and Richard Prince.  They were edgy downtown bohemians who were also sweet and caring, doling out advice to readers in Sassy magazine.  Basically, they were everything punks like us could hope to be: rad artists in love.

After a few days, I began to allow myself to think about Kim and Thurston’s separation.  I was still in denial about it, still holding off the thought, “If they can’t do it, what hope do any of us have?”**  But you know what?  What the hell do I know about Kim and Thurston’s relationship?  Not much.  I’ve seen them on stage together, heard them on their albums, watched them in interviews.  But I don’t know them.  (Though how cool would it be to know them?!)  Maybe my fantasy of them gazing deeply into one another’s eyes and telling each other how great they were, as they clasp hands onstage after tearing through a twenty-minute version of “Expressway to Yr. Skull”, for their third encore, and then walk out of the concert venue and into their bus was totally false.  Maybe they wouldn’t speak or even look at one another.  Who knows?  (They do and whoever they want to.)  And I understand and respect that it’s none of my business.  Because it’s not.  And I understand that I’ve turned their human relationship into something mythical.  But I’m a romantic and a big fan of theirs.  I have my own relationship with them through their music.  So it’s fucking heartbreaking to me despite not actually knowing them.

Then there’s the band’s future.  I don’t have high hopes for two people separating after a 27-year marriage continuing a working relationship.  Though they have a daughter so they have to maintain some sort of relationship.  And isn’t a band, isn’t music like a child?  Maybe Sonic Youth can be maintained as well.  I really hope so.  I love them.

*How weird is it, considering rock and roll’s “27 Club”, that it’s that number?
**Which was reminiscent of many peoples’ feelings in regards to DFW’s death.