Originally Posted by Daycare Nation

Would it bother anyone here if they heard a story about Sonic Youth being mean or not very cool?

I once had a roommate in a band that won a Grammy, and he told me that long ago, in the 80's, they played a festival with Sonic Youth. SY asked to borrow their instruments and then proceeded to destroy them on stage without permission and without reimbursing his band for the money. His band was very poor but didn't wish to make waves because it was after all Sonic Youth.

I don't vouch for the validity of this story, and I certainly don't wish to bring up any bad feelings when my friend asked me not to do it...but I do question in my mind whether this could be true, and if it is true, I ask myself how and why, and what kind of people SY are.

Originally Posted by me

Most likely Daycare Nation's ex-roommate's tale is an exaggerated one. Let us assume that items were, in fact, borrowed. Usually an account such as his has some grain of truth to it, & I'll refrain from a blanket assertion that it is a complete fabrication. Sonic Youth probably re-strung the guitars with very heavy guages & tuned them exceedingly tight as they are wont to do & damaged the tuning pegs, hairline fissured the neck at the base or busted a bridge or something during their performance. That is, if any damage did, in fact, occur. It is readily known that they can be rough on instruments & the like sometimes. I can never imagine that they actually "destroyed" loaned equipment. Any damage that ensued was certainly not deliberately maliciously intentional.
That's my take & you can take it to the bank.

Things like this routinely get blown out of proportion & embellished for effect by all parties involved because people are bored & it makes for a better story in their warped minds that have little to no respect for the truth of things.

I figured that after four pages of second guessing & jibber-jabber, sixty-six replies & close to six hundred views, that someone might appreciate a sensible response, so I posted.

Again, that's the most likely explanation. I didn't write what I wrote to offer excuses or plausible deniability for Sonic Youth's sake, because this event as described never happened. Hearsay doesn't hold water in a court of law & it doesn't fare well under scrutiny on a Sonic Youth message board either given the nature of the charge.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daycare Nation
My question was, would it bother anyone if it were true?

No one seems to be answering that--they seem more concerned with discovering who my friend's band is.

Daycare Nation keeps going back to this question & it's a rather moot point because Sonic Youth fans should not be put on the spot & forced to answer a question like this when the alleged incident is based solely on hearsay. And of course people want to know which band his ex-roommate is in to gain more information to possibly further this debate, because their curiousity has been piqued, & also to test his credibility, naturally. It seems both surprising & odd that Daycare Nation would not realize this himself & that he would be such a doggedly tireless advocate for his ex-roommate's yarn. At any rate, his diatribe has been resoundingly blown to smithereens & an airtight case for reasonable doubt has been made by myself.

I think a smarmy khchris(original)-inspired "Next" is apropos & indeed, for once, actually warranted at this moment.