In the wake of Patti Smith and Just Kids, do you think that editors are calling Kim Gordon, every day, to ask her to write her own memoir? I also feel, strongly, that if Kim Gordon did her own version of L.C.D. Soundsystem’s “Losing My Edge,” it would be pretty epic.
It was fun to watch Gordon at Tom Tom Magazine’s Women in Media/Women in Music panel - the conversation must’ve felt to Gordon like her “Sacred Trickster” video. I would love to, at some point, go to a “Kim Gordon You Are The Coolest How?” panel, where she could talk about collaboration with Thurston and maintaining a relationship and stuff like that. It would be interesting. But what struck me about Gordon was that you got the idea that music was more of a side thing to her visual art, which makes sense. It’s what she was trained in.
She’s so beautiful, too. Cheekbones of glass. There’s something about her beauty that reminds me of Betty Draper. Maybe it’s the cheekbones and blondeness, the cool. Maybe it’s that she got out, she escaped, with the specter of a perfect wife and mother probably hanging over her head. The opposite of rock. I want to know more. She’s mysterious!
And Gordon did not pick up an instrument until 28. Nor did Patti Smith. And isn’t that fact inspiring?
Today’s vibes: Smashing Pumpkins, “1979.” Is there a better video about slacker teens and their wild freedom? Does Billy Corgan look like a Giant Baby in a turtleneck in the backseat?
Other videos with this vibe: Sonic Youth, “100%,” The Arcade Fire, “The Suburbs.” What do those videos have in common? They’re both directed by Spike Jonze. Katy Perry’s video for “Teenage Dream” and Kesha’s video for “Take It Off” are both going for that vibe, but they are ultimately about selling Katy Perry and Kesha as well as teenage kicks, so it’s just not grungy enough. Perhaps that’s the difference between videos when you are “alternative” and “authentic” as opposed to “pretty pop star” - or, maybe it’s because Perry and Kesha are ostensibly participating in their shenanigans…
(I’ve noted this before, but really: there is a redhead fountain of youth and Thurston Moore has found it. Where is it? I will go to there.)
Are there other videos that fit in this (generally, not so multicultural, huh? very “rocker”) category?