Guest essay by Nels Cline

Here is Nels’ essay from my book Pity The Genius: A Journey Through American Guitar Music in 33 Tracks on a track that had great impact on him

Book Available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1955604169?l

CHANGE COURSE! -- HEARING SONIC YOUTH’S “BRAVE MEN RUN (IN MY FAMILY)” IN 1984

In 1984 I was 28 years old and had been working for several years at the Rhino Records store in my home zone of West Los Angeles CA. I was also playing in various projects of what one might term “jazz” or “experimental” music on both acoustic and electric guitars, depending: Quartet Music (acoustic), Rhythm Plague (electric), Julius Arthur Hemphill & the J.A.H. Band (electric), Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra West Coast (acoustic), Wayne Peet’s Doppler Funk (electric)... As a record store geek + guitar geek, I had explored guitar and guitar-centric music with considerable interest verging on obsession since I was in my early teens. My point in mentioning this is to explain that, being an ardent fan of both “legit” types of guitar (blues, “straight ahead” jazz, classical guitar, various folk/fingerstyle forms) and “experimental” guitar music from around that time (Fred Frith, Derek Bailey, Keith Rowe, Hans Reichl, Eugene Chadbourne...) along with my past and present growth out of rock ‘n roll - from psychedelic to blues-infused to “prog” to “punk/No Wave” lacerations - hearing odd/episodic compositional forms and odd/original tunings and microtonality was pretty normal for me. Taking this all into account, I wonder and often marvel at the impact that hearing early Sonic Youth recordings had on me - a lasting impact, to say the least. It seems that I can’t avoid tossing chunks of autobiographical material into this, my humble attempt to explain something that can be difficult to explain. Why DO we respond to sounds, to ART? What are we thinking? Or are we mostly FEELING? I am leaning to the latter as my overall assessment. Anyway, here goes...