Road Movies

By Lee Ranaldo

Road Movies is poetry by the guitarist of the seminal punk (and beyond) band Sonic Youth, who paved the way for the explosion of Nirvana and punk on to the mainstream music scene in the early nineties. They are arguably the most influential rock band of the late 1980's, and are living legends today. Road Movies is the literary equivalent of the dark and noisy waters of Sonic Youth's early work. His words mirror the beauty that can be discerned in the band's emotive walls of noise. As the title suggests, large parts of the book are inspired by time spent on the road with Sonic Youth. His words evoke the strange suprises and almost out of body clarity that occurs during travel. Interspersed with grainy photographs of road side fireworks stands, cigarette machines, and tractor trailer wheels, the book recalls the everyday things that, when taken out of context, become absolutely extraordinairy. In this way he tells, in flashes reminescent of the absolute freedom attained in the literature of Kerouac and Bukowski, the story of one restless mind's journey across and through America.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932360735
• ISBN13: 9781932360738
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

how different from the sea is the boat

This book is small but its contents are Big. On records like Evol & Daydream Nation, Lee would spew forth words "@ breakneck speed, every bolt rumbling", things from real life & beyond whilst the band cranked it up perfectly. On paper it seems different but it helps to read it out aloud yrself. Of course a large part of this has been recorded for a record called Dirty Windows that came out last year, but still it is good to have in this form. In the Kingdom #19 is longer than the song itself was, & you find out what it is about, how THE CAR & DRIVER take over everything in certain moments of raw power & the landscape of rural or urban America. A lustful side of his personality is revealed in New Condo, Me & Jill [appeared on Ciccone Youth: the Whitey Album many years ago] & Angels. Some of the poems are contemplative, others are violent & passionate. Sonic Youth fans [i.e. anyone w/ 1/2 a brain] should enjoy this on some level, maybe fans of modern poetry will too. LEE IS FREE!