Albany, Sonic Youth, Edson & Garrett (among others)

JC Garrett & Richard Edson, packed in the car, leaving Albany for destinations (as yet) unknown, 1978

Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth 

by David Browne 

 


1-10 of 20 pages with references to Richard Edson: 


1. on Page 3: 

"... "There was nothing sacred, and anything that was perceived as sacred had to be reduced," recalls Richard Edson, a musician who arrived in the city (from Albany [ed.]) during this time. "It was the beginning of a whole 35 ..." 


2. on Page 16: 

"... didn't actually know that many-except for one they'd seen playing around and hanging about A's. Like Gordon and Moore, Richard Edson had arrived in the city fairly recently-in his case, ..." 


3. on Page 17: 

"... guitars and keyboard, and almost immediately, Moore began playing his instrument at top volume. "I was like, Well, that's interesting,"' Edson recalls. "No warming up here. ..." 


4. on Page 18: 

"... GOODBYE 20TH CENTURY With Edson behind the drums, the new band played its first two shows as Sonic Youth, one on May 8 at Club ..." 


5. on Page 21: 

"... The Noise Festival would be the last of those, and Edson himself was on the way out. "The scene was just too straight and too white and too middle class, so ..." 


6. on Page 38: 

"... for it, they would need a drummer to firm up their sound. Without many options, they reached out to Richard Edson, who decided to return to the fold: "I remembered it fondly enough," he says. ..." 


7. on Page 39: 

"... and more dreamlike and expansive, on another wordless performance, "Where the Red Fern Grows." During rehearsals, Edson had ridden the band particularly hard on another partly developed song, "The Burning Spear. ..." 


8. on Page 41: 

"... stores encircling the battered Union Square Park, 14th Street was, as Richard Edson puts it, "the northern demarcation. It was a wasteland above that. ..." 


9. on Page 42: 

"... GOODBYE 20TH CENTURY were able to lay down rough takes of some of the songs they'd worked up with Edson, but the experience was so unsatisfactory that, except for a recording of "Where the Red Fern Grows" that would be ..." 


10. on Page 45: 

"... An even more obscure East Village reference point was embedded on the cover: Edson folded his hands on the cover in imitation of a Jesus statue he'd walked by on the way to the ..." 


11. on Page 46: 

"... like James Brown drummers, soft and so deep into a groove and hoping everyone else would approach it that way," Edson recalls.) Both the rhythms and the guitars intensified on the next track, "I Don't Want to Push It," but minimalism ..." 


12. on Page 47: 

"... " As Coleman also learned, Edson was no longer a member of Sonic Youth. Edson's commitment to the band had been shaky from the start; he'd ..." 


13. on Page 48: 

"... GOODBYE 20TH CENTURY To the three of them, Edson's announcement came as a jolt and an inevitability. During rehearsals, Ranaldo would often see Edson with his fingers in his ..." 


14. on Page 50: 

"... when it was released, shortly before he spotted their flier. He'd already seen several of their shows, including one with Edson, and was astounded by how long they took between songs-hours, ..." 


15. on Page 59: 

"... " Adopting hard-boiled urban identities was not unusual on the scene: For a while, Richard Edson referred to himself as "R. Smith" during Sonic Youth shows and put up a sign on his apartment door that ..." 


16. on Page 60: 

"... Finally, Moore and Lunch met by way of their mutual friend Edson, who lived across the street from Lunch. By then, Sonic Youth had formed, and Lunch approached Moore with the idea ..." 


17. on Page 98: 

"... a larger, more complex issue reared its head. Bert had stayed with the band far longer than his predecessors Richard Edson and Jim Sclavunos, ..." 


18. on Page 171: 

"... Richard Edson during his second tenure in Sonic Youth, Danceteria, New York, 1982. (Photo by Catherine Ceresole) ..." 


19. from Back Matter: 

"... Former mem- bers David Keay, Richard Edson, Bob Bert, Tom Recchion, Jim Sclavunos, and Jim O'Rourke graciously sat down with me (or let me hound them over ..." 


SOME BACKGROUND HERE and FOREGROUND HERE ...


Return to @75GRAND




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------