英語勉強用資料・キムゴードンフジロック

CULTURE / MUSIC

Ahead of her Fuji Rock set, Kim Gordon weighs in on punk and U.S. politics

American musician and visual artist Kim Gordon released her second solo album, “The Collective,” earlier this year, and it’s a bona fide banger. | DANIELLE NEU

BY JAMES HADFIELD
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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Jul 25, 2024

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“I like risk-takers, I suppose,” says Kim Gordon, speaking via video chat from Australia a few days before she’s due to appear at Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival. The 71-year-old American musician and visual artist has made a career out of pushing boundaries, both during her lengthy tenure with rock band Sonic Youth and now as a solo artist.

But right now, we’re talking about pop. Last week, Gordon caused a minor uproar when she let slip in a short interview with The Guardian that she’s “not really a fan” of Taylor Swift — “I couldn’t tell you what her music sounded like,” she continued — and preferred Billie Eilish.

“Well, that was a very shorthand answer,” she demurs when I bring it up. Online culture being what it is, though, the comment spawned dozens of clickbait articles and drew some venomous responses from Swifties on social media, all of which Gordon seems to be taking in her stride.

“I do really think that Billie Eilish takes more risks,” she says. “Whereas — yes, I have heard Taylor Swift. I think I've heard Taylor Swift. You know, how can you not hear it? It's in the air. And I am truly fascinated by the sociological phenomenon of her fans and all that. And I think her merch is really good.”

It may seem odd to be discussing such matters with an iconic figure from the world of avant-garde rock, but it also reflects the interesting position in which Gordon now finds herself. Earlier this year, she released her second solo album, “The Collective,” and it’s a bona fide banger. Produced by Justin Raisen, who has worked with artists ranging from Charli XCX to Lil Yachty, it pairs Gordon’s signature half-sung vocals with blasts of noise and industrial-strength beats that are closer to Death Grips than “Death Valley ’69.”

In lead single “Bye Bye,” Gordon coolly recites a to-do list (“Buy a suitcase, pants to the cleaner...”) over a beat that was originally intended for Playboi Carti. The song became an unlikely hit on TikTok, while its accompanying video, directed by Clara Balzary, made more than a few longtime fans do a double take by casting daughter Coco Gordon Moore (who’s a dead ringer for her mom) in the lead role.

“I kind of like it,” Gordon says, about getting Coco to fill in for her. “You know, I don't want to be in a video!”

In her 2015 memoir, “Girl in a Band,” Gordon refers to the German word “Maskenfreiheit,” which translates as “the freedom conferred by masks.” For a performer, she writes, the stage becomes “a space you can fill up with what can’t be expressed or gotten anywhere else.” Has her experience of playing live changed now that she’s appearing under her own name, rather than as part of Sonic Youth (who broke up in 2011)?

“I guess I’ve gotten more confident,” she says. “Maybe even since my first solo record (2019’s “No Home Record”). But, you know, some things can still take you out of performing, or put you in the right mindset. That hasn’t really changed that much.”

She’s now playing with an all-female band, though apparently this was by accident rather than design. She says her drummer, Madi Vogt, and bassist Camilla Charlesworth have been getting her up to speed on recent pop trends; guitarist Sarah Register “is more like me — she comes out of the more experimental world.”

These kinds of distinctions are a lot fuzzier nowadays than they were back in the 1990s, when Sonic Youth thrived on the tension between the mainstream and underground. The band took the drones and dissonance of no wave — the avant-garde music and visual art scene that emerged from New York in the late ’70s — and snuck them into songs that could get played on MTV. Has the nature of the game changed since then?

“Well, I suppose it has for younger people coming up,” Gordon says. “Like, the whole idea of selling out is not a factor to people. People wanna sell out!”

One thing she can’t stomach now is impostors laying false claim to the punk tradition, which for her is about far more than just three-chord rock songs.

“It's not about a style of music,” she says. “Punk is an attitude, you know, it's kind of an anti-corporate thing.”

After her Fuji Rock appearance on Sunday, Gordon will be playing a sold-out Tokyo show with YoshimiO (born Yoshimi Yokota, of Boredoms and OOIOO fame). The pair originally met in 1989, when Boredoms opened for Sonic Youth during the band’s first Japan tour.

“I remember Yoshimi was wearing ‘day of the week’ underwear on her head,” Gordon says. “We were amazed because the Boredoms then were so no wave. It was just kind of a really interesting connection to New York City (of the) late ’70s, early ’80s. It was great.”

When Boredoms later toured the U.S. with Sonic Youth in 1992, Gordon recruited Yokota to join Free Kitten, the playful, noisy band she had started with former Pussy Galore guitarist Julie Cafritz. Asked to describe their relationship, she thinks for a moment and then offers a one-word response: “Cute.”

“Over the years, we sort of communicated through humor a lot — lots of laughing and humor,” she expands. The last time Gordon visited Japan, in 2013, it was to play a couple of freewheeling shows with her fellow Free Kitten. She also interviewed Yokota for “This Woman’s Work,” a 2022 anthology of essays by female writers that she co-edited with author Sinead Gleeson.

“Collaboration, improvisation — it's definitely very much based on individuals, and what each person brings to it and their style,” Gordon says. “She's an extremely sensitive player. We’ve always had a good time playing together.”

The lead single off Kim Gordon's "The Collective" has become an unlikely hit on TikTok. |

Being on tour hasn’t offered any respite from the tumultuous political situation back in her home country. We’re speaking a couple of days after U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the election race and barely over a week since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, although it feels like a lot longer.

“I’m so much happier now,” Gordon says. “I’ve been obsessively following the whole thing. I was feeling pretty fatalistic about the whole Biden thing, and was never a fan of his.”

That’s not to say that she’s much more enthusiastic about presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

“She's like the second-worst possible candidate,” Gordon says with a laugh. “But, you know, it's an improvement, and it gives us a chance against Trump.”

Five decades into her career, Gordon could easily have coasted on the strength of her past reputation as alt-rock royalty, serving up a cozy nostalgia fix for aging Gen Xers. Instead, she’s out there playing festival sets that consist entirely of recent material — and it’s some of the most abrasive stuff she’s ever done.

“Some of the festivals we've done have been with super-big pop stars, and it’s weird because I don't really fit into that world,” she says. “But I don’t have a problem challenging it, in a way. It’s kind of fun to not be in a bubble of, like, indie rock music or something. It’s just music, and that’s mostly how I like to think of it: as just music.”

The Fuji Rock Festival takes place at Naeba Ski Resort in Niigata Prefecture from July 26 to 28. Kim Gordon will perform on the festival’s White Stage from 8 p.m. until 9 p.m. on July 28. For more information, visit en.fujirockfestival.com.

KEYWORDS

KIM GORDON, SONIC YOUTH, FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL, ALTERNATIVE ROCK, PUNK, FUJI ROCK 2024

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