by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Thurston Moore might be the avant-garde and improvised music scene's greatest ambassador to the mainstream - and possibly vice versa as well. For close to a quarter century, guitarist Moore, bassist Kim Gordon (his wife) and guitarist Lee Ranaldo have been performing together as Sonic Youth (and in countless side and solo projects). The NYC band could rightfully be called sonic elders today - if you're into underground noise and improv music right now, chances are you probably have a couple of their records in your collection.

Earlier albums like Evol, Sister and Daydream Nation acted as blueprints for what would be called alternative music in the 1990s. They brought punk's dirty edge to psychedelic art rock by way of strange tunings, creatively applied distortion and dissonance, and lyrics that came across like a bad-trip variant on Beat-poet abstractions.

Their latest record Sonic Nurse proves that they're just as relevant as ever. At the same time, it's pretty much guaranteed each year that at least one SY member will show up at Victoriaville, Quebec's Festival Musique Actuelle (aka FIMAV or, more commonly, "Victo"), helping that fest become relevant with a younger and far wider crowd. This year, Moore's bringing his hand-picked Dream Aktion Unit octet, and serving as artistic director on five other shows as well.

Throughout our hour-long conversation over the phone from his home in Connecticut, Moore comes across as much as musicologist - and music fan - as musician. He talks about avant-garde folk and U.S. hardcore bands like Reagan Youth and Big Boys with the same heartfelt admiration he has for William Parker and William Hooker.

Mirror: How do you feel when people tell you what a musical impact you have had on them?

Thurston Moore: It's fantastic. I love hearing stuff like that. As a music fan, I have the same experiences and still hear people who really turn my head around. There are these moments in time where you hear something and it really leads you into new directions that feel right, resonate with you, you respond to and you identify with. I still get those feelings all the time.

M: You seem to be a huge fan of music, but you've always been able to escape your influences.

TM: Well, I'm still a really big fan of music. I guess I'm really influenced, for better or worse, by other people's music. But I never wanted to be in a band so I can be devotional to bands I like. I know a lot of music-fan musicians that start sounding exactly like their record collection, and I never really wanted to do that. Whatever I do, musically, I always want my voice to be out there first and foremost.

M: A lot of people have this misconception of you just being into avant-garde, noise and improvisational stuff, but you also seem to have a soft spot for pop.

TM: I don't really like that much on the mainstream charts, but I do have a strange fascination with people like Hillary Duff and that kind of squeaky-clean pop sound. I have a 10-year-old daughter, so I hear a lot of this stuff in the car. The best clean pop stuff is on these weird compilations and soundtracks. She's really turning me on to stuff like that. One of the best records I've ever heard was this CD called Heroes and Villains: Music Inspired by the PowerPuff Girls. It's this cartoon show that is really big with kids and they had this CD that was just full of these pop-punk masterpieces on it. I just crank that shit up in the car.

Aktion pact

M: You've been a regular attendee and artist at Victoriaville. What does this festival represent to you?

TM: For somebody like me, who really likes to document and likes to listen to the history of improvised music on record, Victoriaville is this real vanguard festival. There are a lot of great festivals in Europe, but I think Victoriaville is probably the most established festival of its kind in North America. When I first heard about Victoriaville, I was reading all these listings for all these people I just really wanted to see, like Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann and all these heavyweights. The first time I went there to play was great. I mean, we were from the rock world and the director was just shocked, because usually it's just bearded men smoking pipes that go to these festivals, and the kids that showed up to see us were pounding on the stage, screaming, "Teenage Riot!" We just came out and did improvised music and it was just insane. It was really exciting for us and I think the director was excited too. After that, he started bringing in bands like the Boredoms, bands with the godspeed people, and Kim went there with her band and Lee went there with a band, and I think those were good moves on his part.

M: So tell me about the ensemble Dream Aktion Unit, which you got together for this year's festival.

TM: I really wanted to do a large ensemble of free noise, but something in which the musicians would work really well together, instead of just this blowout skronk thing. I was lucky to find a bunch of musicians that would really work well with each other. There aren't any rehearsals, and some of the people I've already played with and others I've only seen, but I think it should be good.

M: With bands like Wolf Eyes and Hair Police in this year's program, it seems that extreme electronics is definitely finding a place in the festival.

TM: I was just trying to tell the director of a festival in Europe that there are a lot of new underground bands and musicians, like the two you mentioned, who don't play these improvised festivals but, as far as I'm concerned, are the most new and exciting things happening right now. Bands like Double Leopard, Dead Sea from New Zealand, Sunburnt Hand of the Man. These are all great bands that do improvisation, and don't get recognized by these festivals.

Sonics for the youths

M: Sonic Youth has always embraced the underground, but have had some flirtations with the mainstream. Were those a big learning experience?

TM: I don't think we really flirted with the mainstream as much as the mainstream flirted with us. We occasionally get these really weird offers from people, like, "Hey, U2 want you to come over and play with them in Rome." When stuff like that happens, we just say, "Let's go see what that's like," and we play to a half-filled arena of disinterested people. That Neil Young tour we did [in 1991] was just Neil Young fans watching us and saying, "What the fuck?" We've never had the misfortune of having an accessible hit, but I guess we are a household name. Y'know, we've never sold any gold records or anything, and we don't make that much money - we're just this group where more people know the name first and then know the music.

M: But I can hear your influence on alt-rock bands - they'll kind of slip in a Sonic Youth part in a typical pop format.

TM: I hear that sometimes, but it's always their perception of what they think Sonic Youth is. We're the ultimate reference point for regular bands to do something different. I was watching [the documentary on] the making of Nirvana's Nevermind, and Dave Grohl is talking about one of the songs and how it was written and he calls one part their Sonic Youth section. I was just like, "Yeah that's us, all those sound layers." (laughs)

M: But a lot of kids pick up on Sonic Youth and then open themselves up to more non-traditional forms of music.

TM: I guess that happens, to some extent. Music is not supposed to be an elitist thing. It's all out there if you want to hear it. There are a lot of musicians who just want to play music exclusively to people who automatically understand it. There are currently a lot of people in the underground noise scene who are like that. I really like to challenge that and go against that type of elitist thinking. I love fucking with those people.

M: So you're more like, "Yeah, Ghost is all fine and dandy, but have you checked out the PowerPuff Girls soundtrack?"

TM: Completely, man. The PowerPuff Girls soundtrack is the ultimate.

At Victoriaville's Colisée des Bois-Francs on Saturday, May 21, 10 p.m., $30. For more info, go to www.fimav.qc.ca

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