Bob Bert (Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore)
"If you would have told me in 1985 that I would still be talking about Sonic Youth in 2014, I would have thought, 'What are you, fucking nuts?'"
I wrote a book about 60 years of New York City rock music scenes called This Must Be the Place: Music, Community, and Vanished Spaces in New York City (it comes out on July 11! Pre-order it here). Naturally, in the course of writing a book about New York City music scenes, I did a lot of interviews with New York City musicians, deejays, club workers and owners, and scenesters. A lot of interviews. 140 interviews, specifically, which, in retrospect, was probably too many interviews (whoops).
A lot of these interviews were deeply fascinating, went on for hours, and dove deeply into what it’s actually been like to live and create art in New York through the decades. And then, afterwards, I would find I was only able to include about 1/12 of the interview in the actual book.
So, in the lead-up to the book’s release, I’ve decided to share some of my favorite full-length interviews. I’ll post a new one every week or so, for as long as they last.
If you’re a big enough nerd to sign up for this Substack, you already know exactly who Bob Bert is. But if you somehow got here by accident, suffice it to say that you could assemble a formidable noise rock record collection just out of shit he’s drummed on.
My interview with Bob in September 2020 was among the first I conducted for my book, and my first with someone whose music I’d been listening to before I could even shave: I initially heard Bob on Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising, which I purchased from Columbia House when I was thirteen as part of their 12-CDs-for-a-penny scam. I’d already heard “100%” and thought they sounded “pretty cool” and “kind of like Nirvana.”
The first time I put Bad Moon Rising on, I was alone in my childhood bedroom in suburban Maryland and baked out of my gourd to the point of incoherence - I’d only started smoking weed two or three months earlier and hadn’t learned about moderation yet. So when those drums kicked in on “Brave Men Run (In My Family),” they scared the living shit out of me.
That album was my introduction to this whole other world, legitimately and tangibly altering the course of my life. From there, it was a quick hop, skip, and jump to so much extraordinary music - including Pussy Galore, the band Bob joined soon after leaving Sonic Youth. But without Bad Moon Rising, who knows? Maybe I’d still be eating shit in Maryland and thinking that was as good as it got.
What was your initial introduction to the Downtown scene?
I grew up in Clifton, New Jersey, which is only like 10 minutes away from New York, so I was constantly going to New York for as long as I can remember. But the first things that really intrigued me were the Warhol factory scene, and then East Village Yippie scene that brought us the Fugs.
I saw the New York Dolls when I was in high school - me and my very first girlfriend went to Max’s and saw them in 1973, and then I then I went to see them a bunch of times after that. But I was just a kid discovering all this stuff; I wasn't a part of any of these scenes, so to speak.
Then in 1975, a friend of mine said, “Let's go check out this place, CBGB’s.” We went there on a weeknight, maybe 20 people were there. The bill was Patti Smith and Television. We weren't even that blown away by the music, but I was totally taken in by the people that were there. Even though I grew up like five minutes away in the suburbs, people [there] just didn't look like these people.
I started going there like four times a week. I saw all the early shows: I saw the Talking Heads as a three-piece a bunch of times. They had the coolest audience, because it was all art students and drag queens. I remember really crushing on Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz was staring at me. I thought, oh, he must be gay – I didn’t realize they were together!
Were you interacting much with the other people that were there?
No, not at all, because I was very, very shy at the time. I just went there to see the shows. But back then the drinking age was 18, and no one [checked IDs]. You could go to club when you were fourteen, you could go to a liquor store. New York was a totally different place. I was there with my eyes wide open.
Also, being from New Jersey, there’s such a stigma to it, like the bridge-and-tunnel cliché, although I don't think I fit into that category. But that was still a weird thing years later: I would have people give me attitude for living in [Hoboken,] New Jersey. I’m like, “Listen asshole, I was in Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore, two of New York’s most famous bands! Fuck you, I’ll live wherever the hell I want!”
But I did live in Manhattan from 1978 to 1981. I had an apartment on 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue for $115 a month. It was illegal, so I got evicted, and then I moved to the Upper West Side.
With the whole music scene going on Downtown, did you feel isolated Uptown?
No, because I had a job as a fine art silkscreen printer, and so I was downtown every single day. And this whole time, being a musician was the farthest thing from my mind. I took drum lessons for a year when I was 12 years old, but then when I moved out of my [parents’] house at 18, I stopped playing. It wasn't even a thought in my head.
I kind of fell back into it accidentally in 1979. I saw a little ad in the Village Voice that said “punk art wanted.” So I went to this gallery on Wooster Street and showed them my stuff, and I got accepted into this group show that included Joey Ramone, Screaming Mad George, all these crazy people. At that point, that was the biggest thrill of my life.
What gallery was it?
It was called the Nonson Gallery [133 Wooster Street]. It was definitely a place that, as soon as money started creeping into SoHo, you knew this place wasn’t going to last. At one point, the gallery owner, George Staples, showed me this piece [and asked me,] “What do you think of this?” It was a broken TV set with some graffiti on it. I was like, “This is awful.” It turned out it was Basquiat.
At that gallery, I met my future wife, Linda. Sometime in 1981, we were at this club called the Beat’n Path Café [125 Washington Street in Hoboken], which is long gone. They had some bands playing there, and we’d been drinking. Some band [member] didn't show up, so someone said from the stage, “Hey, does anyone in the audience play the drums?” and Linda was like, “Yeah, Bob does!”
So I got up on stage and started jamming with these two other guys. One was Peter Missing, who later became infamous for [the industrial band] Missing Foundation and that upside-down martini glass graffiti. We became a band called Drunk Driving, which lasted about seven or eight months, [but I left because] I couldn't deal with Peter’s craziness.
One day, this person I worked with showed me the No New York compilation, and I was totally intrigued. So when the whole original CB’s scene was fading out, that's when I really got into no wave and started going to see all those bands.
I was aware of Sonic Youth; I had read in the New York Rocker that Glenn Branca was starting a label [Neutral Records] and that [self-titled Sonic Youth album] was the first release. So when the record came out, I bought it, and I really dug it. I went to see them play a couple times at the Mudd Club and CBGB’s. And then, not that long after I left Drunk Driving, I saw a flyer at [the record store] Rocks in Your Head that said, “Sonic Youth needs a drummer.” I ripped it off the wall and called them up, and after that I was in Sonic Youth.
Where did you guys rehearse?
When I first auditioned for the Sonic Youth, we were rehearsing at [Swans frontman] Mike Gira’s place [“The Bunker” at 93 Avenue B], which was a really depressing place. Avenue B in 1981, you were taking your life in your hands just going over there.
And then we rehearsed at a few other places through the years: We rehearsed in the basement of this place called Plugg Club [140 West 24th Street], which was owned by Giorgio Gomelsky who [had been] the manager for the Yardbirds and for the Stones in the early ‘60s. And there was this woman who booked Danceteria, her name was Ruth Polsky - we rehearsed in the basement of her building [90 West Houston Street] for a while. She actually died a few years later, she got hit by a cab waiting on line outside the Limelight.
I’m curious about Sonic Youth’s relationship to Danceteria, because I know you guys played there a number of times. But then there's that flyer where it's billed as “Dunceteria,” which is obviously not complimentary.
Well, we had a hard time getting the show there. The first time we played there, it was because Lydia Lunch got us in. It was kind of a weird bill with Sonic Youth and Swans on the main stage, and then Lydia was doing some kind of performance upstairs. That was the only night that Lydia actually came on stage and sang “Death Valley ’69” [with Sonic Youth].
The funny part about that show was, there was a $1,500 guarantee for all three acts, which back then was a lot of money. But Ruth Polsky was drunk, and she paid Lydia twice, so every [band] made $1,000 each. Sonic Youth [used] that money [to go] into the studio and record the Kill Your Idols EP.
Where did you first encounter Pussy Galore?
After I left Sonic Youth [in 1985], I was floundering around for a little bit. And then I went to the Cat Club to see Einstürzende Neubauten, and Kim and Thurston were there. I was hanging with them, and I mentioned that I was kind of getting a little itchy to play. They said, “This band just moved to town from Washington, DC called Pussy Galore, and they’re standing ten feet away.” So I went over and said hello to them. They were like 19, 20 years old - I was already 30 - and they were these kids with dyed black hair and brand new leather jackets.
A week or two later, I was outside in front of CBGB’s and Jon Spencer came over and handed me a copy of Groovy Hate Fuck, which they’d just put out by themselves. I said, “Hey, are you guys looking for a drummer?” He wrote his phone number on [the record], and then I called him up and started rehearsing with them. All of a sudden, I went from the Sonic Youth/Swans/Rat at Rat R/Live Skull scene, to the Pussy Galore/Cop Shoot Cop/Unsane scene.
They were so young and new to the city, and they were going out and doing all this stuff. At that point, I was married. Of course, I played the shows and went out to a lot of shows, but I wasn’t hanging with those people on a nightly basis, I was more domestic. So there was actually a feud between Pussy Galore and this band Raging Slab, but I really had nothing to do with it and knew nothing about it. I didn't even know until recent years that the song on Right Now! called “Biker Rock Loser” was about Raging Slab.
Where did Pussy Galore rehearse?
Those [first] rehearsals took place in an empty schoolroom, which is where we recorded one of the first things I did with them, the Exile on Main Street cassette. At the time, Sonic Youth was mouthing off to the press about recording their version of the Beatles’ White Album - of course, it never happened. I think we got through “Back in the USSR” at a rehearsal, that was it. So when I joined Pussy Galore, Jon said to me, “In response to that, we should do a version of Exile on Main Street by the Stones.” I was like, “Fuck yeah, it's a much better record anyway.” We recorded that in some old school room on a beat up 8-track cassette recorder.
Ever since then, Jon has had this practice space [in Alphabet City]. It’s a dumpy little room, it’s always 1,000 degrees in there. When we first started there, we were sharing it with the Unsane, Cop Shoot Cop, and maybe Railroad Jerk. I'd have to walk by a bunch of junkies trying to sell me dope, and then I would go into that basement, turn on the light and watch like 100 billion water bugs scatter away, and then wake up some fucking drug addict member of Cop Shoot Cop off the floor. Just thinking about this little room with a metal drum kit and three people that barely know how to play their cheap guitars, it's amazing…I do have tinnitus, but it’s amazing I can hear at all.
Later on, when Pussy Galore [was falling] apart, we recorded in this other abandoned public school in the East Village, right off Tompkins Square Park [CHARAS/El Bohio, housed in the former P.S. 64 at 605 East 9th Street]. We really liked the sound of that room. The last Pussy Galore record, Historia de la Musica Rock – [the band] at that point was me, Jon, and Neil [Hagerty] - was recorded in that school.
Through the ‘70s and ‘80s, in your mind, was there a venue hierarchy in New York? Were there clubs that were your favorite, or your least favorite?
Tier 3 was my favorite place. I went to the opening night of the Mudd Club, [and] I saw a bunch of shows at the Mudd Club, but I wasn’t a part of that scene, [especially] once it got that velvet rope. The last time I walked in there, the first person I saw was Sylvester Stallone. I was like, alright, I’m done with this place.
But Tier 3 was a couple blocks away, and it was just so great. It was run by this woman Hilary Jaeger, and there were a lot of girls working there. Amy Rigby and her brother Michael [both worked there]. They had great deejays, and great bands—it was right in that post-punk era, so they would get Bush Tetras, 8-Eyed Spy, the Raybeats, all that Downtown stuff. It wasn’t the kind of place that even sold tickets in advance, but you never had to worry about getting in.
It wasn’t only that they had great shows, it just had a great, down-home, post-punk vibe. I’m not a big drinker or a bar guy, so there aren’t a ton of places I like to go to just to hang, but that was one of them. I would just go there on a Tuesday night and sit at the bar. One time, I was there on a rainy weeknight and the only two other people at the bar were David Bowie and Joe Jackson.
Were Tier 3 and the Mudd Club generally acknowledged as opposites, or was it mostly the same people going back and forth?
I don't think so. I mean, the Mudd Club had its own little world. I read Richard Boch’s book - he was the doorman there – and after reading that book, you realize that there was a whole scene there on the [second] floor that had nothing to do with the music. There's all these creatures of Downtown stumbling out of there at 5:00, all coked up and going over to Dave’s Luncheonette.
Tier 3 was definitely a different [vibe]. It only really lasted a year and a half.
I'm really intrigued by Tier 3, because there's not much documentation - probably because it was open for such a short time.
Exactly. Who would have thought back then that people would be looking back on all this stuff?! [Now,] there are kids who are doing their college thesis on no wave! Sonic Youth, their whole story was totally mind-blowing. No one gave two shits about them at the time, and no one could foresee the future of what they would become. If you would have told me in 1985 that I would still be talking about Sonic Youth in 2014, I would have thought, “What are you, fucking nuts?”
The conventional wisdom about rock music in New York in the ‘90s was that it was sort of a dead time, at least compared to the ‘80s. Does that square away with your experience?
Well, it was a weird experience for me, because Pussy Galore ended in like ’91, and in the early ‘90s, that's when Sonic Youth’s career started taking off. So I was getting kind of a vibe from people like I was Pete Best or something. Like, “How can you quit the greatest rock band in the world,” blah blah blah.
I had gotten my own band Bewitched off the ground. We actually opened the East Coast leg of Sonic Youth’s Goo tour, [along] with this band STP, and then we got bounced off the rest of the tour for some new band called Nirvana.
One night I get this phone call from Thurston asking me if I wanted to play that night at CBGB’s with him and Julie [Cafritz] and this guy Ned [Hayden] in this band Action Swingers. I was involved with that band for a while, and then after that I joined the Chrome Cranks. I played with them for like seven years. While I was playing with them, I auditioned for the Breeders and the Muffs, and I was trying to do some other stuff. But the ‘90s weren’t as good to me as the ‘80s were, let's put it that way.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.
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Buy Bob Bert’s book I’m Just the Drummer here.
Preorder my book This Must Be The Place here.
Hey bob. come down from your arrogant EGO !
All your bands and sonic youth are copy paste rock garbage ; you sound like grandpa simpson and the only important band in your interview is missing foundation which you were not a part of and their music is mind blowing