Sonic Youth - Texas, 1986: Live at the Continental Club

Released by Sonic Youth through their fan club, this official bootleg functions as a wonderful document of the band's mid-'80s era just as they were beginning their slow rise to prominence in the underground rock scene. The featured show occurred on April 12, 1986, at the Continental Club in Austin, TX, where the band first debuted the songs from their EVOL album. The stronger songs from EVOL such as "Tom Violence," "Expressway," "Shadow of a Doubt," and "Starpower" show up here in beautiful fashion, making this live recording a wonderful supplement to the studio album. Since Sonic Youth's studio albums all tend to house a strange tone totally unique to that particular album, these raw performances have a much different feel from the original versions. Furthermore, the band plays a few of their older classics such as "Kill Yr. Idols" and "World Looks Red." Though you might finish this record hungry for more, its 11 songs stand as arguably the best artifact from the band's mid-'80s in terms of sound quality, surpassing Hold That Tiger, another well-circulated live album from the band's following tour in 1987.