Thurston Moore at High Noon Saloon
It’s no shock that even when going up against a free Battles show at the Memorial Union Terrace, art-rock legend Thurston Moore could still pack the High Noon Saloon for a rare Madison solo gig on Saturday. After a quick opening set of breezy folk tunes from Hush Arbors (the primary project of Moore’s awesome touring guitarist Keith Wood) that the crowd couldn’t bring itself to shut the fuck up for, the freakishly tall 52-year-old (who can’t seem to age beyond 28) seized the stage with his backing band. “Hello, we’re the Fuck Walker Blues Band,” Moore cracked before easing into folk-rocker “Illuminine” from this year’s Beck Hansen-produced Demolished Thoughts.
While the drunk doofus that kept howling for Sonic Youth’s “100%” between every song might have left unsatisfied (as Moore completely evaded not only the SY canon, but electric guitars in general), the outsider sonics of Dirty still haunt the tunes from Demolished Thoughts, whether it’s in the clattering harmonics of “Illuminine,” the fluid chord choices of “In Silver Rain With A Paper Key,” or Moore’s signature Lou Reed-touched vocals that cut through beautifully on tunes like “Mina Loy” and “Blood Never Lies.” Even a bit of Moore’s noise-driven weirdo side spilled out when the whole band would shift, reforming into mighty cascades of organically powered, seemingly improvised drones for minutes at a time. Moore’s killer back-up players almost made the show on their own; guitarist Wood, violinist Samara Lubelski of Hall Of Fame, harpist Mary Lattimore (who Moore jokingly introduced as a “black metal harpist” that was “dialing it back for the show”), and Sunburned Hand Of The Man’s John Moloney on drums. Lubelski’s swelling violin seemed to stitch the sonic patchwork together, as Lattimore added rippling waves of harp noise to the lyrically ridiculous “Space,” but reeled into more conventional playing for other tunes.
While the set featured the latest record in its entirety, Moore still slipped in “Never Day” and “Fri/End” from 2007’s Trees Outside The Academy and “Psychic Hearts” from Moore’s underrated 1995 solo jaunt of the same name.
Before wrapping up his set with “Psychic Hearts,” the mop-headed frontman told a story about his first time playing at Madison’s Wil-Mar Center with Sonic Youth: “At the time, I was real big into reading these hardcore fanzines.” He continued, “Some of my favorite hardcore bands at the time were from Madison, and they’d always play this place called the Wil-Mar. I was physically nauseous because I was so nervous about playing this legendary hardcore venue, I mean, mostly because I was in an art-rock band and assumed that everyone would hate us. Well, we played and everyone that was inside went outside during our set. I asked around afterward and found out that people would sit outside there because a. it sounded a lot better and b. it was free. So I guess it didn’t go so bad after all.”
