麻豆社

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has shared some musical 'firsts' with 6 Music in a brand new edition of and like an Alt-Rock Zelig the guitarist has been present at more cultural epochs than most.

Having grown-up listening to rock'n'roll's formative years on the radio, as a teen he moved to New York and not only witnessed the birth of punk firsthand – watching acts like The Ramones, The Cramps and Patti Smith, as they took their first steps at CBGB and Max's Kansas City – but he also got to experience the city's poetic avant-garde through spoken word performances by William S. Burroughs and more.

Moore then got a chance to participate, not only as a member of Sonic Youth – who by defiantly doing their thing shaped the music that followed in their wake – but also by running his own indie labels, publishing presses and the like.

After that sort of experience, Sonic Youth's influence has been naturally wide ranging, so here are just ten acts they helped to shape...

Emerging in the mid 1990s, the scene that nurtured Beck arguably wouldn’t have come into being without Sonic Youth's lead. Colliding alternative music and experimental visual art, Beck took his cues from Moore and co. – Thurston was one of the first people to interview the singer-songwriter on camera, making – and though forging his own, idiosyncratic path, he's dutifully paid his dues since.

He recreated Sonic Youth’s 1986 album Green Light as part of his Record Club covers project in 2009, and then invited Moore himself to take part in a similar recording, this time the slightly unexpected endeavour of remaking by instrumental artist Yanni in 2010.

With Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon featuring on the extended version of stand-alone single I Won’t Be Long in 2013, it’s safe to say that Beck wouldn’t be the Loser he is today without Sonic Youth.

While the environments that spawned each band couldn’t be more different – gritty, '80s New York versus '90s Iceland – Sigur Rós were greatly inspired by Sonic Youth.

Adopting the American band’s penchant for hypnotic, enveloping drone rock, many of the Icelandic outfit's initial rehearsals simply featured the group playing a single, all encompassing riff.

"We would play together a lot, sometimes playing the same riff for hours and hours, not writing anything down," frontman Jonsi . "Just playing and trying to get it as pure as we could."

That repetitive refinement ultimately set Sigur Rós on their own path, but without Sonic Youth’s earlier experimentation they might never have found it.

Growing up in New Jersey, Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O’s high school adventures often involved heading into New York with a teenage friend to check out the city’s indie and punk bands. Chief among the acts a formative O – full name Orzolek – saw was Sonic Youth, as .

Yeah Yeah Yeahs then benefitted from the band’s patronage directly, as O not only formed a friendship with Kim Gordon, but the trio played a series of shows – together with Liars – supporting Sonic Youth in the early 2000s.

Fittingly it all came full circle when O’s band had established themselves. They paid tribute to their musical godparents not only covering Washing Machine track Diamond Sea in 2006, but by also staging a unique co-headlining show in an abandoned Brooklyn Swimming Pool. Hopefully a few teenage, would-be future rock stars snuck in to to witness that gig.

Sonic Youth might not have been a spoken word outfit, but the art-rockers have always embraced the words. The ‘singing’ on many of the records is restrained to the point of talking, while Thurston Moore has published, taught and performed poetry throughout his career.

Interestingly though, Sonic Youth’s true spoke word release, In The Kingdom #19 from 1986’s EVOL, is in fact a prose poem by fellow guitarist Lee Ranaldo and it left its mark… in Wakefield.

When the Jarman brothers first formed The Cribs they initially planned to only do spoken word tracks, although a little bit of singing crept in… then a whole lot more.

Still that didn’t stop the band chancing their arm and inviting the "king of the spoken word" Ranaldo to commit another poem to tape, by creating the track Be Safe for their 2007 album Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever together. "We just had one day in a studio in New York and we all played live together in the studio, which was really fun," . "The way that he works is really impressive."

Raw, experimental, avant-garde, noisy, artful… it's a description that could apply to both Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine so it’s no surprise then that Kevin Shields says he took influence from the American indie pioneers.

MBV’s initial work, like 1987’s You Made Me Realise EP, directly taps into Sonic Youth's raw early records, but even on Sheilds' masterpiece Loveless the use of drone and repetition to initially disguise, then enhance his melodies was informed by the art-punks.

"Part of the thing that really attracted me to a lot of the American groups was a real sense of it being bands playing and capturing it purely on tape," . "There was rawness to it and up-frontness to it. Of course, ironically, me imitating the American sound, it was assumed that my music was studio-bound, when, in fact, I was consciously avoiding doing all of that."

Although Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. are both key members of the same '80s scene that helped bring alternative rock to the fore, the latter band were big beneficiaries from Sonic Youth's organising zeal.

From running labels to organising gigs, Thurston Moore and co. did as much practically as they did artistically to inspire a new wave of musical art making. Typically, Dinosaur Jr.'s first contact with the New Yorkers came when they supported Sonic Youth at gig in the 1986 (they were simply Dinosaur then) and were subsequently drawn into vibrant art-punk scene that surrounded them.

"I was in awe of Sonic Youth and could barely talk to them – even now I can barely talk to them," Lou Barlow admitted to . Despite the shyness, that connection led to a longer tour together later the same year, which drummer Murph credited as a key moment in Dinosaur Jr.'s evolution.

"When we got home [from that tour] everyone was, 'You’ve just been out on the road with Sonic Youth!’" he recalled. "We were getting calls to do this and do that and that’s really when stuff happened, and I think they really helped jump-start us into that world."

Blood Red Shoes first stepped into the spotlight in the 2000s by blending US post-punk fuzz and British indie melodies – and it's a combination that's made the duo cult live favourites around the globe.

It's also cocktail that's allowed Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell to stand out from their contemporaries, providing them with a practical blueprint for longevity, instead of disappearing in a blaze of initial hype.

They are clearly grateful, because comparisons to Sonic Youth are possibly the nicest thing anyone's ever said about Blood Red Shoes... according to Blood Red Shoes.

"A good friend of ours told me [Box Of Secrets album track Say Something, Say Anything] sounds like a perfect combo of Blur and Sonic Youth," Ansell . "Which to this day is my favourite compliment we've had." Ah, doesn't it just make you go Goo-y?

Although Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon are often spoken about for their influence or their efforts to nurture new talent, Cat Power is a Sonic Youth success story via drummer Steve Shelley.

Along with providing the band’s rhythm since 1985, he also set up the Smells Like Records indie label and helped to discover and record a fledging Chan Marshall after seeing her supporting Liz Phair in 1993.

Shelley didn't just release early Cat Power records, but he also played drums on her first three recordings too: Dear Sir, Myra Lee and What Would The Community Think. Marshall later saluted her mentor's band by blending Sonic Youth's Schizophrenia with Skip Spence's Weighted Down (The Prison Song) to created Schizophrenia's Weighted Me Down, the B-side to her 1996 single Nude as the News.

Power is not the only artist to benefit from Shelley’s skills though. He also helped Blonde Redhead early on, and has drummed with a range of acts from The Stooges to Sun Kil Moon... and a certain solo artist called Thurston Moore.

Yet another alumni of a Sonic Youth support slot – we’ve not got space to discuss Stereolab, The Gossip, Bikini Kill, Swans, The Flaming Lips and many more who’ve opened up too – Pavement were both influenced by and an influence on the art-rockers.

Having helped deliver grunge to a wider audience a year earlier by taking Nirvana on the road, Thurston Moore and co gave slacker indie a similar shove by recruited the Stockton band for their The Pretty F—king Dirty Tour in 1992.

While these dates gave Pavement a chance to play songs from debut album Slanted And Enchanted to a much bigger crowd, they also inspired the band to up their gig game, as Stephen Malkmus .

“We were a little band on this big tour, so we were trying really hard,” he recalled. “We wanted to impress them.”

Still Sonic Youth got something back for their investment. Bassist Mark Ibold not only joined Kim Gordon’s super group side project Free Kitten, but he became a full member of Sonic Youth (between 2009 and their split in 2011) too.

Arguably alternative music… all music even… might sound a lot different today if Nirvana hadn’t taken Sonic Youth’s advice.

Looking for a new record label after becoming frustrated with the financial drawbacks of being on an indie, about where they should sign next. With Sonic Youth having taken then plunge of signing to a ‘major’ – David Geffen’s DCG – and surviving the ‘sell out’ blacklash, Gordon recommended the switch which started a process that led to Nirvana being bought out of their contract and making Nevermind.

Cream always rises, of course, but in an era of big studio costs and physical distribution the move changed Nirvana’s fortunes at a stroke.

However, Nirvana’s debt to Sonic Youth goes further than just label logistics or distribution models. Not only did they support them on an eventful , but the art punks dominated the trio’s thinking and early ambitions, with as bassist that their initial goal was simply “to do as good as Sonic Youth…”