Sonic Youth

Did you ever really have that much fun at McCarren Park Pool, whose reign as one of New York’s most popular summer show spots will end tomorrow when Sonic Youth brings the curtain down on two years’ worth of weekend concerts at the waterless Williamsburg swimming hole? Sure, it’s hard to complain about free shows by A-list indie bands (Superchunk last summer was our favorite). But the crowds? The stifling heat and lack of shade? The Porta-Johns? Having to navigate through all those nauseating clown-hipster posses? Maybe we’re just getting old, but we’d rather be lounging at a real pool and listening to Daydream Nation on our headphones.  read more »

CONCERTS:

Since they blew through South by Southwest this spring, Seattle’s Fleet Foxes have steadily climbed indie rock’s crowded ladder. They played the Bowery Ballroom in March and again in July, stormed the Pitchfork Music Festival later that month, jumped across the pond for England's Isle of Wight festival in August, and sold out their October show at Webster Hall. It's a wonder they found time for a full-page profile in Spin. Surprisingly (or not), the quintent sounds very little like your traditional scraped-on-Pavement indie rock. As evidenced by June's self-titled debut, Fleet Foxes’ are into lazy English folk, fat, shamelessly gorgeous four-part harmonies, and hummable melodies that seem to circle endlessly back on themselves.  read more »

Williamsburgers will weep with sorrow at the end of this month when McCarren Park Pool closes its gates. On Aug. 30, Sonic Youth will play the final show and all the kiddies will have to say good-bye to their Sunday funtime activities. The New York Times wrote an obituary of sorts for the pool, since the city will soon take back the cement-filled space and return it to its natural state, a public swimming pool.  read more »

Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore told New York Magazine last week that the band plans to launch a traveling art show that will stop in New York, possibly at the Whitney.

"We're putting together this museum show that's utilizing all the artists that we've worked with on different covers and concepts, and that's going to happen for two or three years," said Mr. Moore, following a gig at the "Kool Thing" at Marc Jacobs's fashion show. "It's going to happen in young museums, there's one outside of Paris, there's one in Malmö, Sweden," he added.

More details about this daydream of a national tour after the jump.  read more »

Has middle age finally caught up to Sonic Youth, the noisy New York art-rock quartet whose punky cartoon-selves once pilfered watermelon from Peter Frampton’s cooler on The Simpsons?  read more »