For those of us who didn’t grow up within an easy commute to Lower Manhattan, reading “Sonic Life” might just evoke jealousy. If you’re a fan of the music a young Thurston Moore was — punk as it morphed into post-punk, no wave, hardcore and on — well, those feelings will be extra intense.

Among the first concerts he went to (mine was Rick Springfield at the Civic Arena, just saying), Moore nabbed an up-close seat at legendary Max’s Kansas City for a bill including Cramps and Suicide. Yes, Moore got to see Suicide’s Alan Vega circa the mid-1970s, breaking glass and doing his music-as-threat thing.

Jealous. But not surprised.

Moore, a founding member of Sonic Youth, is among the more creative guitarists (along with bandmate Lee Ranaldo and Kim Gordon) during a period in rock music filled with folks exploiting sonic possibilities. For Sonic Youth, that took the form of what would get dubbed noise rock, with the band (mostly with Steve Shelley on drums) exploring various tunings, feedback, shoving drumsticks under strings and banging at the fretboard. 

Moore is an unabashed fanboy in his 471-page tome to the music and artists that shook his soul. He was there, walking the then-unstable streets of the Lower East Side, able to eek by with only occasional employment in a $110 apartment. Of course that affordability would end — “The days of Lower Manhattan as a punk rock playground were numbered,” he writes of the mid-80s — but not before he could see a whole lot of great shows.

For readers new to this creative period of rock, full of musicians ripping up the usual templates: Take notes. This author has a wide appreciation for music, offering love for Patti Smith to Bad Brains, Charles Mingus to Television.

This can mean “Sonic Life” reads a bit checklist-y at times, with back-to-back anecdotes of concerts attended in the early pages. The connective tissue, however, is solid: the repeated drives from his hometown of Bethel, Conn., into the city with his best friend Harold.

Crucial to any rock bio is filling in those weird little historic gaps, from those club lineups to cross-pollinations. Maybe you, like I, had never thought of Thurston Moore and Rick Rubin coexisting. Well, the two apparently had a conversation — at a record store, of course — about how terrible a metal band’s show had been the night before. Rubin would soon go off to produce the Beastie Boys, Slayer’s top-shelf metal album “Reign in Blood” and so much else. 

Moore recognizes his privilege as a male at multiple points; at 6’6”, he has a decided advantage walking into most spaces (except maybe the subway cars that he most definitely had to duck to board). This awareness tracks, coming from the guy singing “Youth Against Fascism” (on the hit-after-hit “Dirty” LP from 1992). He nods to the insularity of the largely white no wave art scene; he thanks Gordon for imparting her fierce feminism.

As with any autobiography written by a musician who’s also a writer/poet — such as Voidoid/Television founder Richard Hell’s excellent Lower Manhattan-set “I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp” (2013) — it takes a bit to settle into Moore’s style. Who knows, maybe it’s being used to the economy of words in Sonic Youth songs. Moore’s word choice remains measured, thoughtful, just more stretched out.

Of falling in love with Sonic Youth co-founder Kim Gordon, he writes, “Whatever the reason, we found ourselves in harmonious enchantment, an existence of timelessness and wonder that, in our youth felt natural and promised.” Actually that could be in a Sonic Youth song, Gordon drone-singing it surrounded by feedback.

Sonic Youth [spoiler alert] is no more, imploding after 30 years alongside the demise of Moore and Gordon’s marriage.

Moore donates just a few pages to the relationship that caused much upheaval in the indie rock fandom: an affair with book editor Eva Prinz. (Moore and Prinz are now married.) Which is fine. I’d have taken those pages to read more about the making of “The Eternal,” Sonic Youth’s final album. (And since I’m in reviewer mode here: It features one of their best songs, “Antenna,” setting the choreographed chaos of guitar interplay against a melancholic vocals.)

This, then, is a book more for the Sonic Youth fan. “The Dirt” (the seminal Mötley Crüe sleaze-fest), with its dramatic “Behind the Music” arc, this is not. Tommy Lee likely would not have had enough time away from Terror Twin Nikki Sixx to start a music festival, crank out a fanzine, collaborate with Lydia Lunch, record for Todd Haynes’ “Velvet Goldmine” soundtrack and bust out an evolving discography released via major labels (Geffen) and marquee independents (Matador). 

Polly Higgins: phiggins@post-gazette.com 

First Published: October 29, 2023, 9:30 a.m.