Lee Ranaldo

As a fixture of the New York music scene for 30 years, Sonic Youth performed in New York City innumerable times, and served as ersatz cultural ambassadors for the city when traveling. As part of the 2019 Rooftop Films programming, Sonic Youth will present a New York-specific collection of film and videos from their private archives. Much of the material to be presented is completely unseen, threaded together with a few items which are out there in the public knowledge but here presented from the best source available to the band.

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A fly-on-the-wall documentary about the recording of the music score by Sonic Youth.

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A concert film of Sonic Youth performing their Daydream Nation album in full with a bonus encore of Rather Ripped songs at the ABC in Glasgow in 2007.

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The untold story of a series of Reagan-era guerrilla punk and industrial desert happenings in Southern California that are now recognized as the inspiration for Burning Man, Lollapalooza, and Coachella. Interviews and rare performance footage of Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Redd Kross, Einstürzende Neubauten, Survival Research Laboratories, Savage Republic, Swans and more.

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Filmed during dozens of recording sessions, Hello Hello Hello is a story of the creative process - Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) collaborating with producer Raül Refree, across a year and 3,842 miles with a little help from their friends. Novelist Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude) plays writer/lyricist/muse to Ranaldo's artist/composer wanderings, across soundscapes created alongside friends and musical guest artists including Nels Cline (Wilco), Sharon Van Etten, Alan Licht, Kid Millions (Oneida), and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth). Theirs is an unusually intimate and personal process in the creation of Ranaldo's album, Electric Trim (Mute, 2017), a bold, new sound and a lush and striking departure from Ranaldo's signature work.

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Documentary about the revolutionary flamenco-rock album "Omega", composed by maestro Enrique Morente and the Granada group Lagartija Nick in 1996. A groundbreaking album with great impact on the national and international music scene in which Morente adapted songs by the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and he put music to poems by Federico García-Lorca.

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SEX AND BROADCASTING is a feature length documentary about New Jersey's WFMU, the world's strangest and most unique radio station, and one man's attempt to keep it alive in the face of recession, the persistent threat of commercial media, and the challenges that come with keeping a rebellious group of outsiders together.

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For over 30 years, Martin Bisi has been recording music from his studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn. He has worked with many influential musicians, including Sonic Youth, Swans, Herbie Hancock, Brian Eno and the Dresden Dolls. Now though, he finds himself squeezed in by the approaching gentrification of his neighborhood.

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This DVD features 13 provocative short films by Richard Kern. Color & B&W film shorts with Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins and more. Includes Death Valley 69 , The Right Side Of My Brain, You Killed Me First, The Bitches, The Sewing Circle, X is Y, Fingered, Horoscope, Submit to Me Now, My Nightmare, Manhattan Loves Suicides, Submit to Me, and Evil Cameraman. Music from Sonic Youth, Cop Shoot Cop, J.G. Thirwell, Butthole Surfers.

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The final Sonic Youth concert

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The second last show on Sonic Youth's sad final stanza, a festival tour of South America that eventually took them to Chile for the Maquinaria Festival. Putting on a brave face, the band run through a set of hits with some deeper cuts as well, before replacing the planned 'White Cross' encore with a ten-minute 'Teen Age Riot'.

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After months of living a solitary existence, Lenny, 34, picks up his kids from school. Every year he spends a couple of weeks with his sons Sage, 9, and Frey, 7. Lenny hosts his kids within a midtown studio apartment in New York. During these two weeks, he must figure out if he wants to act as their father or be their friend. Ultimately, their trip upstate results in complete lawlessness taking over their lives.

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From The Basement features intimate live performances from some of the finest musical artists. No hosts, no studio audience, instead the artist and their performance take center stage

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First DVD release from this refreshingly basic UK music programme puts the music in the foreground with an impressive role call of acts. With sparse production and no filler (no host, no audience, just artist centre stage), From The Basement's eclectic line-up reads like a contemporary alternative who's who; The White Stripes, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Albert Hammond Jr., The Shins, Beck, Damien Rice, José González, Super Furry Animals, Eels, and more.

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Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show airing weeknights at 12:35 am Eastern/11:35 pm Central on NBC in the United States. The hour-long show premiered on March 2, 2009, and is hosted by actor, comedian and performer Jimmy Fallon, an alumnus of Saturday Night Live. Hip hop/neo soul band The Roots serve as the show's house band, and Steve Higgins is the show's announcer. The third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman, the program originates from NBC Studio 6B in the GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City. The show typically opens with a brief monologue from Fallon, followed by a comedy "desk piece," as well as prerecorded segments and audience competitions. The next segment is devoted to a celebrity interview, with guests ranging from actors and musicians to media personalities and political figures. The show then closes with either a musical or comedy performance. The show frequently employs digital media into its comedy, which has become crucial to its success. Fallon has been appointed to become the next host of The Tonight Show, where he will succeed the current host Jay Leno at the conclusion of the 2014 Winter Olympics, with fellow SNL alum Seth Meyers slated to replace Fallon.

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Celebrating the cream of the New York rock scene, including classic performances from the Ramones, New York Dolls, Television, Blondie, Lou Reed and more. 01.New York Dolls - Jet Boy (Nov 1973) 02.Patti Smith Group - Horses (May 1976) 03.Talking Heads - Psycho Killer (Jan 1978) 04.Television - Foxhole (May 1978) 05.Ramones - Don't Come Close (Sep 1978) 06.Blondie - I'm Alway Touched By Your Presence Dear (Mar 1978) 07.Lou Reed - Waiting For The Man (Dec 1984) 08.John Cale - Dying On The Vine (Dec 1985) 09.Sonic Youth - Sugar Kane (Dec 1992) 10.Patti Smith - Because The Night (Apr 2002) 11.Lou Reed - Perfect Day (May 2003) 12.John Cale - Venus In Furs (Oct 2003) 13.David Byrne - This Must Be The Place (May 2004) 14.Antony And The johnsons - Hope There's Some One (Jun 2005) 15.The Strokes - Last Nite (Jun 2006)

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This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007 and for an entire year, as indicated in the title, a large public (the artist's friends, as well as unknowns) were invited to view a diary of short films of various lengths (from one to twenty minutes) on the Internet. A movie was posted each day, adding to the previously posted pieces, resulting altogether in nearly thirty-eight hours of moving images.

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Footage from 2005’s Festival Art Rock in Saint-Brieuc, France, featuring Metric, Sonic Youth, Jeanne Balibar, and other acts.

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Sonic Youth's 2005 performance at Les Eurockéennes de Belfort festival, one of France's largest rock music festivals.

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A feature-length documentary chronicling early '80s punk rock band the Minutemen, from their beginnings in San Pedro, California, to their demise after the death of singer D. Boon in 1985.

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While planning the eventual DVD release for "1991: The Year Punk Broke", Dave Markey cut a 40-minute film out of unused footage to create a companion piece to include. The film was also shown to a handful of lucky audiences before the DVD's eventual release in 2011. It's an awesome bonus with tons of great footage that could have easily been in the film. These songs were probably the best to leave out of the full-length film, since 2 were brand new and still quite shaky. The only tour staple not accounted for in either film is "Mary-Christ". Here are the sources I could determine: Inhuman - ?? White Kross - 08/27/91 Bremen Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit - 08/24/91 Koln In Bloom (Nirvana) - 09/01/91 Rotterdam Eric's Trip - 09/01/91 Rotterdam (but spoken intro is from 08/25/91?) Tunic snippet - 08/27/91 Bremen Chapel Hill - 08/27/91 Bremen

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A compilation of 24 music videos by Sonic Youth ranging from 1990 to 2002. Collaborators include Harmony Korine, Spike Jonze, Todd Haynes, Mark Romanek, Richard Kern, and more.

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Ground breaking music videos from some of the most influential bands of the 90s Punk/Grunge scene such as the Flaming Lips, Mudhoney, Bad Brains, Afghan Whigs, Foetus Inc, Soul Asylum, American Music Club, Babes in Toyland, Dinosaur Jr and more.

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A 2004 documentary on thirty years of alternative rock 'n roll in NYC.Documenting the history from the genuine authenticity of No Wave to the current generation of would be icons and true innovators seeing to represent New York City in the 21st century

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Quintessential alternative rockers, Sonic Youth, celebrate free-form experimentalism while reinforcing their performance-art driven tradition in this Soundstage performance, recorded on May 7, 2003 at WTTW Grainger Studio in Chicago. The band, which settles just outside the realm of definition, delivers a part rock, part free-form noise, part avant-garde punk performance which features a new song "Sympathy for the Strawberry."

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Filmed April 12, 2003 at a benefit concert held at and for The Anthology Film Archives, the international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of avant-garde and independent cinema. In addition to screening films for the public, AFA houses a film museum, research library and art gallery. The event, which raised money for the Archives and celebrated the life and work of avant-garde film maker Stan Brakhage, featured Sonic Youth providing an improvised instrumental collaboration with silent Brakhage’s films. The band performed with drummer/percussionist Tim Barnes (Essex Green, Jukeboxer, Silver Jews).

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Jimmy Kimmel Live! is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and broadcast on ABC.

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The band performs at the Free Jazz Festival

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Christian demonstrates some techniques and preparations and meditates on the turntable, improvisation, and the difference between the sonic and the visual arts.

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This portrait of the New York band Sonic Youth marking the band’s 20th anniversary covers its history from the beginnings to today. Numerous video clips and films of live gigs as well as interviews with, and reminiscences of, collaborators over the years will be used to document the musical development of one of the most innovative and influential bands of the last two decades. Contemporaries include former mentor Glenn Branca, composer and conductor of guitar symphonies which had a seminal influence on participating musicians such as Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, who went on to become Sonic Youth’s guitarists. The band members‘ numerous creative arts projects and other musical activities – in particular improvised music – will be covered in depth.

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A film about the Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco in 1996.

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Two men from Pennsylvania give up hope in their small run down coal mining town, and head off in search of the beaches of California. The two steal cars as they travel across the USA and are joined by a wild young woman.

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