Thurston Moore Broke Up Chelsea Light Moving Because Crazy Sonic Youth Fans Wouldn’t Stop Bothering Him In Small Venues

Carlos Van Hijfte

Thurston Moore Broke Up Chelsea Light Moving Because Crazy Sonic Youth Fans Wouldn’t Stop Bothering Him In Small Venues

Carlos Van Hijfte

Thurston Moore’s first musical project after the end of Sonic Youth was Chelsea Light Moving, an experimental rock supergroup that released one self-titled album in early 2013. Ever since that album cycle wound down, though, Moore has mostly been releasing music under his own name. There’s been one small release with Caught On Tape, his noise duo with drummer John Moloney, but no sign of any new Chelsea Light Moving activity. When The Boston Globe asked him about this development, Moore explained that Chelsea Light Moving’s relatively low profile resulted in the band playing small venues where Moore was often mobbed by “crazy” fans:

When I was touring around with Chelsea Light Moving, I wanted it to be like a project; I didn’t want it to be a solo band. There was no big idea behind it. I was telling people not to put my name in the ads. I really wanted it to be this band that just came out of nowhere. But I got a little tired of it, because we were playing really small little places and basements and stuff where there’s no boundaries, and with the fact that I do have some kind of profile from all those years in Sonic Youth, it meant that every crazy person could just come up to me and be crazy.

For some reason, the thought of obsessive Sonic Youth fans swarming Moore every night to pick his brain about the SYR series makes me laugh uncontrollably.

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