1. 
2. 
3. 

Katy St. Clair

It made perfect sense for Thurston Moore to be playing an Amoeba in-store to support the release of his new solo album, Trees Outside the Academy, because he has been shopping here for years. He can usually be found rifling through the experimental section for hours, gamely talking to awkward fans who muster up enough courage to approach him.

Moore has one of those boyish, perpetually young-looking faces that you recognize immediately, but might not exactly place… "Did I go to high school with him?" No. Hm. "Was he in the same dorms as me?" Nope. Then it hits you, oh my god, it's him.

The crowd for his performance was full of  "Oh my god, it's him's," many of which were lined up along the stage like alter boys awaiting a sacrament.

The stage was full of acoustic guitars--  not the usual fifty that Sonic Youth bring along, but at least five--  a simple drum kit, and a violin. The band came out to a warm welcome from a packed audience, and consisted of Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and violinist Samara Lubelski; Chris Brokaw on guitar, some dude named Dementia on bass, and, of course, Thurston Moore on lead vocals and guitar. They lit right into the first song on his album, "Frozen Gtr.", which began with an Eastern dervishy drone from Lubelski's violin that then progressed into the muddy pop with fuzzy edges that is Moore's signature sound. His solo stuff is different from Sonic Youth, much poppier and more folky even, but there still exists that somewhat menacing backbeat driven along by Shelley's drums and oddly tuned instruments.

Moore broke a string halfway through the song, and gamely kept playing.

"Can I have that string?" said one of the alter boys up front. Moore seemed amused but a bit baffled.

"What kind of guitar do you have that will take this string?" he asked the kid, handing it over. "Keep me posted how that works out," he laughed.

From there he played a few more songs from the album, "Fri/End,"  "A song about two girls who love each other," he said, and  "The Shape is in a Trance."

It started to feel like an in-store should, like you are having a private concert in your parent's basement. It helped that Moore is a great conversationalist. "You guys buying any good records here?" he asked the crowd. No one spoke up, probably intimidated by a guy who's record collection probably rivaled theirs by about ten fold. Moore pushed on. "What's the best black metal band?" he asked us. Someone yelled out "High On Fire!"

"Are they black metal?" Moore asked incredulously. (The dude knows his metal genres.)

"No," he continued, "which black metal band do you love," he asked. Then he stopped to clarify. "Actually, you don't really love black metal. You are supposed to hate it. So, which black metal band do you hate?" Everyone laughed. FYI, it was decided that Bleeding Kansas was the best black metal band.
He played two more songs, one of which began with feedback, leaving more than a few of us in the crowd hoping that it was gonna be a Sonic Youth song. Then he invited his roommate Christina Carter out for the last song, "Honest James," about James Brown. We knew she was his roommate because he told us--  he lives with Christina, Coco, Kim, and his cats Merzbow and Licorice. (Just a little trivia for you, gentle reader.)

"Honest James" is the prettiest song on the record, and Carter and Moore sang the song in tandem, another echo of Sonic Youth.

By then we had all forgotten that this wasn't a concert at the Fillmore, and the set seemed to end too soon. He thanked the folks for coming out, gave one last nod to the guy who was clutching his broken string, and left the stage.