Thurston Moore celebrates UK punk movement

By Scott Munro
( Classic Rock )
published

Sonic Youth singer and guitarist Thurston Moore talks about the music that changed his life in BBC documentary

Sonic Youth’s singer and guitarist Thurston Moore will celebrate the UK’s punk scene in a BBC documentary.

The Artsnight magazine show sees Moore explore the music that changed his life 40 years on from the birth of the punk rock scene.

He meets Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley, Chrissie Hynde, director Julien Temple – and speaks with Celeste – daughter of the late X-Ray Spex vocalist Poly Styrene. She died in 2011 aged 53 following a battle with cancer.

Speaking to Celeste, Moore says: “I saw the band in 1978 when they came over to New York, and when your mom was singing Oh Bondage! Up Yours! she put the microphone in my face.

“I felt really scared in a certain way because everyone was looking at me. That was the first time I ever sang in a microphone in any kind of context of rock’n’roll. That was my big debut.”

Artsnight airs tonight (March 11) on BBC2 at 11pm GMT.

Scott Munro
Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers and magazines as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. After initially joining our news desk in the summer of 2014, he moved to the e-commerce team full-time in 2020. He maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott grew up listening to rock and prog, cutting his teeth on bands such as Marillion and Magnum before his focus shifted to alternative and post-punk in the late 80s. His favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Drab Majesty, but he also still has a deep love of Rush.