Comp' Index

No.3: SPEND A PENNY

Players: one at a time.

Equipment: a tenpenny piece in a bucket of water, plus lots of pennies.

Before the party, the host or hostess places a tenpenny piece at the bottom of a bucket of water. During the course of the evening, when any guest approaches nervously, asking for the 'the little boys room (or some other euphemism), the host leads them to the bucket (which might induce a momentary panic) and give them a penny, telling them that they will only be shown the whereabouts of the toilet, when they have successfullly dropped a penny on top of the tenpence.

Sonic Youth were everything they're said to be and more, a murderous, thundering brutal assassination of those often hackneyed stereotypes you find in rock 'n' roll. Is this what they're calling the metal revolution? Then pass me the binoculars dear, I want to take a closer peek.

They look like psychedelic punk psychotics but that gets nowhere close to describing their velocity of sound - Sonic Youth are Einsturzende Neubaten with a Californian sense of the absurd, feedback addicts with a warped sense of humour.

The random order of feedback noises is the base for song titles like; 'The Green Light' and 'Death Valley 69' though where one ends and another begins is anyone's guess. Disorder, brutality and chaos are obvious fascinations but, at times, the hairy guitarist trod close to Alice Cooperland and the girl bassist's impersonations of Patti Smith were perfection itself.

Devoid of these friendly touches and if they didn't look like they were having such a fine orgy onstage, they'd be just another dose of scream 'n' grind. As it is, every gig is a new venture, and no songs are repeated the same which nullifies the value of recorded moments. I wouldn't want this as a daily medicine but it sure cleans out the system.

Sonic Youth are just what what the Doctor ordered.

HELEN FITZGERALD - MELODY MAKER, 9 November 1985