Pens, sticks, car antennas: Thurston Moore turns guitars into noise machines | My Guitars & Me S2E4 - video Dailymotion

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00:00Hi, this is Thurston Moore, and this is my guitars, and me.

00:30I never really thought, you know, that I was going to be a guitar player so much, I just

00:37sort of liked that it was a noise machine of sorts.

00:41When we were first starting in Sonic Youth, a lot of the songs we were creating were defined

00:49by the actual guitar that they were played on.

00:51And I really liked that aspect, you know, it's just like the guitar was completely critical

00:57to the song itself.

00:59So I feel that way, like with this Jazzmaster that I play, you know, it was this guitar

01:03that country and western stars would use, or even, I mean, it's a Jazzmaster, so like

01:08some jazz players would use.

01:10And we started using these guitars, and I really found that they had these properties

01:15that I could, you know, extend what a guitar does traditionally.

01:21And we thought it sounded good to put any kind of implement, whether it was a thin drumstick

01:27or a car antenna, or a TV antenna, you know, even like a pen, you know, you could sort

01:34of put beneath the strings here, you know.

01:48So you can really overdrive it, and create like this kind of industrial music.

01:58I never really learned how to play traditional guitar to any great extent, so as far as having

02:09any developed technique in traditional playing, I do not have it, but I have, I think my agility

02:16certainly became more sophisticated in the context of how I play.

02:22I still see it, the guitar, as really just an ends to a means for me, it's a tool to

02:26write songs with.

02:29I am very particular about it, and when I lose my primary guitar, and this is the primary

02:34guitar I play, it's a real loss, like I have to really start from the bottom up.

02:45We would gut out the electronics, as you can see here, there's no top electronics.

02:51The toggle switch is fine between the neck and the bridge pickup.

02:56I'm not so much anymore, I used to be pretty thrashy, to the point where every time you

03:01would hit one of those knobs and buttons, they would like alter what you were doing,

03:07or it would just cut off your sound, and that was unacceptable.

03:10So let's just take out all those electronics and just hotwire it straight to the volume.

03:16It's funny, because no two pickups sound the same, that's another thing.

03:20If you can find a guitar where those factory pickups sound great to you, you're in luck.

03:28This Jazzmaster, Fender did a signature series for me, and for Lee, and both of our guitars

03:37have certain distinguishing characteristics.

03:41I replaced this bridge, but I didn't replace the plate, because I didn't want to alter

03:47it too much.

03:48The color was from a prototype that a guitar tech named Eric Becht, who was working with

03:54Sonic Youth, he kind of created a prototype that looked like this, and I thought it was

03:59great, and so we kind of utilized a lot of his aesthetic into making this guitar.

04:06You get pigeonholed into something, you get pigeonholed into playing a Jazzmaster.

04:19I don't feel pigeonholed, I feel like it's the most functional guitar, and it brought

04:27me into a really good relationship with Fender as a company, and they've been really gracious.

04:35Their meat and potatoes is the Tele, and the Strat, and the Jazzmaster.

04:42I think they're beginning to look at doing a new Fender 12, which is with this guitar.

04:52Six years ago, my wife Eva gave this to me as a 60-year-old birthday gift, and it's kind

05:02of a beautiful, beautiful guitar.

05:17I did a number of pieces of music with this tuning in this guitar.

05:23There was a 60-minute-long instrumental piece that I had written called Alice, Mokey, Jane,

05:32so this guitar was really essential to that.

05:34I love playing this guitar.

05:36I use it more for more expansive instrumental music, in a way.

05:43I think the Fender Electric 12 is the coolest, best Electric 12 string, and why it went out

05:51of production, I don't know.

05:57Finding them for a reasonable amount of money is a little bit of a challenge, but they're

06:02worth every cent.

06:51This is my new album, Flow Critical Lucidity, and every single record store you can find

06:57yourself in, ask for this if they don't have it, but they should.

07:08Peace and love.

Pens, sticks, car antennas: Thurston Moore turns guitars into noise machines | My Guitars & Me S2E4

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