Suck it, Sonic Youth!

Alright, one thing that everyone knows about Sonic Youth is that they love noise.  In most of their songs, they'll either a) start it with noise, b) end it with noise, c) feature a noise breakdown in the middle of the song or d) lace the entire track with subtle background noise.  They love the stuff, and they've been credited with revolutionizing guitar noise and its use in popular music, creating a wealth of incredible sounds using unique experimental techniques and countless strange tunings.  They've been the proud students of the No Wave scene and electric guitar ensemble composer and performer Glenn Branca.

But alas, ladies and gentlemen, I know who Sonic Youth's true predecessors are.

I was perusing through my iTunes library the other night (shuffle mode strikes again!) and I came upon this little gem from 70s AOR, adult-contemporary-demigods Chicago off of their 1969 debut Chicago Transit Authority.  It's a solo piece by their guitarist, Terry Kath entitled "Free Form Guitar," and it's exactly what you'd think it is.  The piece consists of nearly seven minutes of ungodly, brutal, headache-inducing guitar noise.  Half of it sounds like a cross between a particularly obnoxious motorcyclist revving up his machine and a lawnmower exploding.  It's exactly the sort of thing that Sonic Youth built an entire career out of, yet Chicago was doing this over ten years before New York's prodigal hipsters came into existence.  Don't get me wrong, I love Sonic Youth as much as any indiephilic twenty year old would (The Eternal is my most anticipated summer release), but whether or not Sonic Youth would like to admit it, these guys, who later wrote this song, beat them to the punch and did a damn fine job at it.

Below is Terry Kath's monstrous solo.  Enjoy!

Addendum: Right around the same time, the Grateful Dead were also doing the exact same thing that Sonic Youth eventually did.  While Chicago's turbulent noise came from one man and his amp, the Dead were doing full-band freakouts, also similar to what Sonic Youth would do.  While this was brilliantly captured on 1969's Live/Dead album, here's the sound of the Dead doing their thing in 1968.  Have fun!