“The guitars we had early on were really cheap, like charity shop or thrift store guitars, that was our thing. We were like, “We’re gonna make these guitars sound cool. They don’t sound that great being played traditionally, but they sound really good if they’re modified and experimented with.”
We would restring them with different gauge strings and do alternate tunings and we were so proud to have these strange, cheap guitars making the music. When we did start making a little money in the band, though, we realised it would be great if we had some guitars that actually worked better, so that was our first splurge. I remember #LeeRanaldo and I going up to uptown Manhattan, 48th Street, which had all the music stores, and finding somewhat affordable guitars, which were #Fender #Jazzmasters and #Jaguars.
I remember Lee pointing to a Jazzmaster saying, “Oh, that’s the guitar #TomVerlaine uses on television.” I said, “Say no more” and we got a couple of those. We realised immediately that it was such a step up. Those guitars really sounded beautiful and the length of that guitar was really good body-wise, because I’m a big, lanky person.
We would actually sort of devalue these guitars by taking out all the electronics and hardwiring them just to the volume knobs.” — Thurston Moore
#SonicYouth / #AltRock / #grunge / #fuzz <https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/thurston-moore-interview>