Thurston Moore Of Sonic Youth Announces Memoir, ‘Sonic Life’

Thurston Moore is writing a new memoir, Sonic Life, which is set to be released in 2023 via Doubleday. The book will trace the “wild music and endless wonder” of Moore’s life and career, according to The Bookseller.

A synopsis notes: “From his infatuation and engagement with the Seventies punk and ‘no wave’ scenes in New York City to the 1981 formation of his legendary rock group to 30 years of relentless recording, touring, and musical experimentation, birthing the Nirvana-era of alternative rock, and beyond, it is all told via the personal prism of the author’s intensive archives and research.”

Moore previously confirmed the memoir in several interviews, including one with Vulture last year. He said that the pandemic gave him the space to start writing about his past experiences.

“I’ve always wanted to get involved with a writing project I had in mind for many, many years,” Moore told Vulture. “[It’s] essaying about music and talking about my own personal experience of being a teenager coming to New York in the 70s, what the city was at that time, the underground music scene downtown, and the records coming out of this 1976, 77, and 78 cavalcade of punk rock, No Wave, New Wave, and post-punk. This downtime period allowed me to do this, so I have this manuscript called Sonic Life that I probably will publish at some point in 2021. That’s the bright moment, being able to actually execute that.”

In 2020, Sonic Youth shared an updated version of their 1991 bootleg Hold That Tiger to their Bandcamp page. As the band’s Steve Shelley explains in the album’s description, Hold That Tiger was recorded back in 1987. It was released as a semi-official bootleg LP in 1991. “The recording was nearly 60-minutes in length, so to prevent manufacturing a cost-prohibitive double LP, the master was slightly sped-up to fit the entire concert… on one single LP,” Shelley wrote.

Listen to the best of Sonic Youth on Apple Music and Spotify.