This film, directed by Charles Atlas for The South Bank Show in 1989, was what made me fall in love with SY, and admire Zorn. Using a fanzine type approach to his montage – talking heads floating in front of New York street scenes, it’s a typically playful approach from Atlas (more of whom, later).
With testimonials from Lydia Lunch, Glenn Branca, Karen Finley and Vernon Reid, among many other influential artists, the freewheeling style eventually settles into more conventional fare, with John Zorn talking about the influential icons- from seedy film noir to Morricone to the music from cartoons, which he admires because of strange time signatures. There’s an acknowledgement of his greatest hero, Ornette Coleman, to whom he plays tribute in typically skronky style.
Sonic Youth is of course dominated by big, overgrown kid Thurston Moore, but Lee Ranaldo gets a tarot card reading, there’s a mock shooting of Steve Shelley, and Kim Gordon sarcastically protests, “We really just wanted to be an LA glam metal band”. It’s at its best, though, when the music speaks for itself, suffice to say, and there’s a barnstorming medley from ‘Daydream Nation’. I know, a medley…
It’s still worth rewatching, but in general, it feels too truncated, only scratching the surface of both artists. At least another hour on both would have felt more satisfying – because there’s so much left out. ‘1991: The Year Punk Broke’ is possibly a better indication of the band at their best, even if ‘Daydream Nation’ arguably pisses on ‘Goo’ and ‘Dirty’. But it’s still a fun little dip.
Hit The North 
Great write up Lorelei! SY is one of my favs too though never saw this film. And I had a dip in John Zorn land back in the 90s too. There’s so much love for Daydream which I can appreciate, but I’ve preferred shorter albums like Sister, even Evol I guess — was glad to see they actually made some really good ones right at the very end of their run too. My favorite show seeing them live was Washing Machine. It seemed like that album was a “return to form” after a creative dip, and it was really fun to watch them perform some of those longer, spacier pieces. And they opened with “express way” which was my favorite track for a long time. Thanks for pumping out the great essays here, really enjoyable to see all you’ve been consuming and are interested in.
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Ahh, thanks, Bill. Appreciate that. I saw SY around ’92, and they were just too quiet for me, sadly. Pavement were better that night. I think ‘EVOL’ is definitely my favourite, should probably cover it if I haven’t already. But there’s loads of great new music too, it never stops!
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Funny you like EVOL too, that’s cool. Nice dark palette that one. Pavement and SY is such a good pairing. I think their bassist when on to play with them when Kim stopped unless I’m totally making that up. Or maybe he played in addition to Kim, though that seems weird. And Pavement is maybe the Kevin Bacon overlap with the Fall and SY or something! I should shut up now and will.
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Haha! Think you could be right there, re: Pavement. And Sonic Youth also covered The Fall for a Peel Session…funny how it all circles back to The Fall ,too!
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