Girl in a Band: A Memoir

3.67 out of 5 stars

29,884 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 1481533436 ISBN 13: 9781481533430

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2015

*[Read by the author - Kim Gordon]

Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth, fashion icon, and role model for a generation of women, now tells her story - a memoir of life as an artist, of music, marriage, motherhood, independence, and as one of the first women of rock and roll, written with the lyricism and haunting beauty of Patti Smith's Just Kids.

Often described as aloof, Kim Gordon opens up as never before in Girl in a Band. Telling the story of her family, growing up in California in the '60s and '70s, her life in visual art, her move to New York City, the men in her life, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, her music, and her band, Girl in a Band is a rich and beautifully written memoir.

Gordon takes us back to the lost New York of the 1980s and '90s that gave rise to Sonic Youth, and the Alternative revolution in popular music. The band helped build a vocabulary of music - paving the way for Nirvana, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins and many other acts. But at its core, Girl in a Band examines the route from girl to woman in uncharted territory, music, art career, what partnership means - and what happens when that identity dissolves.

Evocative and edgy, filled with the sights and sounds of a changing world and a transformative life, Girl in a Band is the fascinating chronicle of a remarkable journey and an extraordinary artist.

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From the Back Cover

“Unconventional. . . . Not a garden-variety rock memoir . . . [but] a strange and lovely book about a woman finding and losing herself onstage and off and crafting a complicated creative life when none of the molds quite fit.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Engaging and surprisingly intimate.”—Vanity Fair

“More than a memoir, though one of the most riveting music biographies ever penned.”—Examiner.com

For many, Kim Gordon, vocalist, bassist, and founding member of Sonic Youth—one of the most influential and successful bands to emerge from the post-punk New York scene—has always represented the epitome of cool. And almost as celebrated as the band’s defiantly dissonant sound was the marriage between Gordon and her then husband, Thurston Moore. When it was announced that the couple was splitting after twenty-seven years of marriage, fans were devastated.

In Girl in a Band, this famously reserved superstar speaks candidly about her past and the future. From her childhood in the sunbaked suburbs of Southern California, growing up with a mentally ill sibling, to New York’s downtown art and music scene in the eighties and nineties and the birth of a band that would pave the way for acts like Nirvana, as well as help inspire the Riot Grrl generation, here is an edgy and evocative portrait of a life in art.

Exploring the artists, musicians, and writers who influenced her, and the relationship that defined her life for so long, Girl in a Band is filled with the sights and sounds of a pre-Internet world and is a deeply personal portrait of a woman who has become an icon.

About the Author

Kim Gordon is a musician, vocalist, visual artist, video director, and actress. She rose to prominence as the bassist, guitarist, and vocalist of the experimental downtown New York post-punk band Sonic Youth, which she formed with Thurston Moore in 1981. In 1993 she launched her own fashion line, X-Girl, and continues to be a tastemaker in fashion. In 2012 after the breakup of Sonic Youth, she formed Body/Head with friend and experimental guitarist Bill Nace. She has appeared in several films by directors Gus van Zant, Todd Haines, and Olivier Assayas, as well as in episodes of Gossip Girl and Girls.

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