Sonic Youth add 'Hold That Tiger' bootleg to Bandcamp archive
Sonic Youth are continuing to upload items to their Bandcamp archive and today it’s the live record Hold That Tiger which was recorded in 1987 and released in 1991. Here’s the backstory from drummer Steve Shelley:
Originally released as a semi-official bootleg LP in 1991 by friend and music writer, Byron Coley, on his Goofin’ imprint (we would eventually hijack the Goofin’ moniker for our own band-run label a few years later). The recording was nearly 60-minutes in length, so to prevent manufacturing a cost-prohibitive double lp, the master was slightly sped-up to fit the entire concert (us blasting through a finely-tuned set of songs from Sister, EVOL and a nightly encore tribute to the Ramones), on one single lp. Cramming the grooves of the vinyl in such a way resulted in Hold That Tiger playing at a lower volume on the stereo, thus the “one hour long – don’t have a cow! – crank it up’ sticker affixed to the front of the original lp cover. A few years later in 1998, Hold That Tiger was remastered for CD re-issue. The audio quality was improved from the lower fidelity lp but unfortunately the slightly sped-up performance was not corrected – until today. We are pleased to make available the best-sounding version of Hold That Tiger – SY performing full-on in 1987 – via Sonic Youth Archive on bandcamp.
You can stream Hold That Tiger — now at its proper speed and volume — below.
In other news: Kim Gordon is appearing on the debut album by LXB (the duo of The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst and Siouxsie/Creatures drummer Budgie); Thurston Moore has been expanding his Bandcamp archives, too, as has Lee Ranaldo.