Psychic hearts no more: the coolest couple in the world, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, announced that they were separating after 27 years of marriage, putting the future of the long-running alternative band in jeopardy. At the very end of Sonic Youth's Williamsburg Waterfront concert in August, Moore left the crowd with this final benediction: "Anything is possible through the power of love."
In a statement released through their label Matador Records, they said: "Musicians Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, married in 1984, are announcing they have separated. Sonic Youth, with both Kim and Thurston involved, will proceed with its South American tour dates in November. Plans beyond that tour are uncertain. The couple has requested respect for their personal privacy and does not wish to issue further comment."
The band has five dates for that South American tour scheduled in November. The couple have a 17-year-old daughter, Coco, who fronts a band of her own called Big Nils. In a 2008 SPIN interview, Moore was asked about the secret to his "famously great marriage:"
There's no secret. We've never sold each other out on anything. I can easily follow the allure of wanting to go out and be with the boys, and play industrial noise and smoke pot and drink, but nothing replaces the reality of our relationship. I can't trade that for anything. I can't think of how or where I'd be without Kim's influence. And we're like any couple that's been together for close to 30 years. There's a genuine psychophysical connection. Sometimes I feel things happening in me, and I know that something's going on with her. When you're married and you have that kind of connection, you become really spiritually, psychologically connected. We grew up together, in a way.
Below, you can listen/watch some Sonic Youth classics, including "Kool Thing," "Bull In The Heather," "Teenage Riot," "Sunday," "Anti-Orgasm" and "The Diamond Sea."
