Sonic Youth & Romantic Relationships

So Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore are breaking up.  This one didn’t hit me too hard as I was never a huge Sonic Youth fan (just a guy who liked some of their music), but back 15 years ago when Michael Gira & Jarboe of Swans broke up it really threw me for a loop as far as the hope of ever being able to find that ideal relationship of either (a) two equals that are successful artistic individuals (I’m not going to get into the debate about how many people are willing to shush off Jarboe & Gordon as tagalongs as I think it’s false) or (b) the ability of a semi-broken man (representing myself) to somehow ensnare an angel.  Of course both of these things are wrong & about celebrity worship, but when you’re someone obsessed with music it’s really hard to find any role models that present themselves as being in any kind of successful romantic relationship that doesn’t seem detrimental to their art.  There have been a couple minor rock star couples I’ve been friends with that have made me retain hope for the dream (in fact I did a series of interviews with them a few years ago in QRD), but also see the reality of the everyday problems in any relationship because in the end we’re all just people, which unfortunately kills the dream of one day rising up to having some kind of ideal indie rock god life.

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Brian John Mitchell has run Silber Records since 1996 & the zine gone webzine QRD since 1994.  He is perhaps best known for his music in the band Remora.  He runs a daily blog about running a label where this article originally appeared.