\n<\/p>\n
That\u2019s in keeping with what Dave Markey, the director of the documentary \u201c1991: The Year Punk Broke<\/a>,\u201d said was Moore\u2019s driving force: \u201cIt seemed like Thurston had a mission, and the mission was pushing music forward, whether it was his own or other people\u2019s.\u201d The film captures Sonic Youth\u2019s European tour with handpicked openers Nirvana, just before the release of the grunge band\u2019s era-defining blockbuster \u201cNevermind.\u201d \u201cHis intuitive sense of what was happening really came to a head with Nirvana,\u201d Markey added.<\/p>\n Azerrad also hailed Moore\u2019s prescience and taste-making ability. \u201cHe and the band championed Beck, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr. and Nirvana\u201d early on, he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty good batting average.\u201d Beck recalled meeting Moore in 1993, when the Sonic Youth guitarist showed up at a backyard acoustic performance in Los Angeles. \u201cI don\u2019t know how he tracked me down at some barbecue, but he did,\u201d said Beck, whose song \u201cLoser\u201d had yet to catapult him to worldwide fame. \u201cHe\u2019s always seemed to know what was happening, even the earliest version of whatever scene or artist.\u201d<\/p>\n Lydia Lunch, the former singer and guitarist for Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, became a friend and occasional collaborator of Moore\u2019s in their younger days. (She memorably howls her way through \u201cDeath Valley \u201969,<\/a>\u201d Sonic Youth\u2019s combustive first single, from 1984.) \u201cHe may appear very cool, calm and collected,\u201d Lunch said. \u201cBut there\u2019s something deep, dark, mysterious and intense brewing under those blond bangs. If you\u2019re going to do that kind of music, there\u2019s some part of you that has to be extremely bold.\u201d<\/p>\n But whatever is going on under that hair, Moore mostly keeps to himself in \u201cSonic Life\u201d \u2014 by design. He described the process of writing his memoir as one driven by the desire to share historical \u201cdata.\u201d (A lot of data: He estimated that the submitted manuscript came in about three times as long as the nearly 500-page finished product.) \u201cI certainly didn\u2019t want this book to be some kind of personal expose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In October 2011, Sonic Youth\u2019s label made the surprise announcement that Moore and Gordon had separated after 27 years of marriage. The band played its last-ever shows, in South America, shortly thereafter, and effectively broke up. In the book, Moore shares a bare-bones version of what transpired \u2014 he had fallen in love with Eva Prinz, a book editor. It\u2019s a stark contrast to Gordon\u2019s detailed recounting of the events surrounding the affair in her own memoir, \u201cGirl in a Band<\/a>\u201d from 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t take any umbrage with it,\u201d Moore said of Gordon\u2019s revelatory best seller, which he read years ago. \u201cBut it\u2019s something I didn\u2019t want this book to have at all. If I got too much into that, that would be a critical focus, as it is with any memoir. I purposely decided I have no real reason to share those feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n