21 December 2007

I Love The Kim Gordon



I want to write a children's book about Kim Gordon. Here's how it might go:

Kim Gordon is the bass player & singer for Sonic Youth.

Kim was born in April of 1953 in Rochester, New York on the southern shore of Lake Ontario.

Kim's mom was a seamstress.

Kim was born in New York, but she grew up in Los Angeles.

She went to the Otis College of Art and Design.

After graduating, she moved to New York City and met two guys named Lee and Thurston.

She began dating Thurston and the three of them formed a band, calling it Sonic Youth, in 1981. (Their name came from combining the middle name of the MC5's Fred "Sonic" Smith with the trend of reggae artists, such as Big Youth, featuring the word "Youth" in their names.)

Thurston and Kim got married in 1984.

Kim gave birth to their daughter, Coco Hayley, in 1994.

Not only is she a mum and the bass player for Sonic Youth, she is also an established visual artist and curator. Her work has been exhibited across the U.S., Japan and Europe. In the early 1980's, Gordon wrote for Artforum and worked for several SoHo art galleries.

Kim is an amazing woman; an icon, brash and enigmatic.

Kim Gordon is our generations Rosie the Riveter.

Kim is to underground music and culture what Rosie was to manufacturing plants that produced munitions and materiel during World War II.

And this concludes our children's book about Kim.

Here's an interview with Kim from Pop Matters: Secret Girl: An Interview with Kim Gordon

And now for some gratuitous photos of my first crush:


Kim & Vincent Gallo front row at a Marc Jacobs show.

Kim...

On thrift-store shopping: “I will sometimes, but not anything that sort of looks vintage. Because I kind of feel like when I dress in vintage stuff that represents the seventies and sixties, I kind of did that. I’m more conservative now. I’m so boring.”

On designer Anna Sui: “She's always made clothes that reference periods when clothes represented something meaningful to musicians. I don't really wear her clothes. I sort of feel like a lot of the stuff is too young for me, quite frankly. But I feel like lately I’ve seen things that look more like I could embrace as a woman.”

On not shopping at Forever 21, in solidarity with friend Anna Sui, who's suing them: “Oh no! Are they ripping her off? I just went there the other day with my daughter [grimaces and shrugs]. I’ve definitely bought a dress at H&M that looked a lot like Anna Sui. What can I say? It was really cheap.” HOLLA!

On finding age-appropriate stage clothes: “It’s kind of a challenge [laughs]. There are certain requirements. I like to wear a dress because it’s against type. And it can’t be black. People think of extreme music as black leather. There are certain ideas of what you’re supposed to look like if you rock. I like the contrast between something that looks vulnerable and this hard music. I like a party dress. I’ve worn stuff from Sue Stemp recently because it’s a dress that doesn’t look like a dress. And I bought a white dress at H&M recently. It doesn’t look like anything. I don’t necessarily want to wear anything that screams a [certain] designer.”

















1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey check out the fantastic and currently hottest reggae artist Ava Leigh who’s worked with the famous sly n Robbie, Nick Manasseh and future cuts. There is free music available at www.avaleigh.co.uk.