And thats just what this little sensual tidbit is..."dirty". I was completely unaware of the subject matter running through this album until one of my friends pointed it out to me......There we were, driving down Ohio interstate 42 in a bright red 1980's Toyota Tacoma (my first vehicle, of which I also careemed a deer on the same interstate, bending the front bumper and adjacent, self-installed fog lights under the frame), DIRTY playing in the tape deck, when my friend blushed, covered her mouth, and giggled. When asked why she acted so, she said, "did you hear what she (Kim Gordon, sonic youth's quasi-lead singer) just said?" "Yes!" I replied with forced confidence. Yes of course I new what they were singing about. How silly. What kind of loser would sing along in a mid-pubescent voice while driving down a backwoods Ohio road in a banged up toyota truck--with a self-installed air horn--and WOULDNT know the words? DUH?!
Obviously, not all the material in this album is sex related, but the parts that are, really are, for sure. What makes this album different from other sensual/sexual sonic youth songs (songs like "androgynous mind" from the later release EXPERIMENTAL JET SET TRASH AND NO STAR, which I later found myself consistently fast forwarding through--knowing full well what I was missing), is its ability to handle the sensual in a less confrontational way. The album's smooth guitar slides and low, cool vocal tones give it the ability to "sneek" racy issues in under the radar. Its ethereal feel sends you into a dream state (in which, if you are not careful, you might wake up in another bed, with your shirt off, hugging a sinister looking plush toy with a knife in your hand).
But besides being a sensual album, DIRTY is dirty in another, more important way. Its "dirty" like the blues. If you read up on how Sonic Youth experimented with alternate guitar tunings, you'll find many of their "out of standard" tunings were originally used by blues guitarists a half century earlier, and its evident on this album more than any other Youth album (in my humblest of opinions). The sounds are blues, the beats are blues, the vocals are sly, low and hushed in a bluesish fashion, but most of all the overall vibe of DIRTY is blues. "Dirty" blues, the kind of blues that picks itself up off the bar room floor and rises out of some deep, guteral place within the human soul/psyche.
Interestingly enough, not long after listening to this album, I found myself leafing through the "used" blues tapes at the local record store. I began to devour any and all recordings of blues slide guitarists I could find, and although I couldnt play guitar at the time, I was fascinated by the process of breaking a beer glass (or grabbing a metal socket from your tool set), sliding the neck over your pinky finger, and ripping up and down the neck of a homemade guitar.
There is something of the essence of blues here in DIRTY, the dirty, candid, real-life feel of a bar stool brawl---and I like it (not brawling, of course, Im a wuss. But I dont mind watching and cheering it on....). Strange how this band, known as the progressive cornerstone of indie rock, connected me to a genre of music more than 100 years old, a genre of music which seems to come in many skins, yet one central, continuously, vibrantly pumping heart.
I have to confess, saying the words "the blues" in such a passionate way, makes me feel and sound as old as my parents. But if I attach the words "sonic youth" somewhere in the sentence it just might give me a little more street cred, or at least let you know that Im in on the innuendo...... *wink* *wink*.
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