Pitchfork

Hey, remember the celebrity-curated Sonic Youth compilation put together by Starbucks? Well, it's finally coming out. Hits Are for Squares goes up for sale June 10 at select Starbucks stores and online via Starbucks Entertainment's Hear Music/Universal Special Markets.

The disc collects 14 Sonic Youth famous-people-favorites, plus one brand new and exclusive SY jam called "Slow Revolution". Among the celebrity curators: previously mentioned cats like Eddie Vedder, Dave Eggers, David Cross, and Chloë Sevigny, plus newly-announced SY-philes such as Radiohead, Beck, the Flaming Lips, Mike Watt, Flea, Mike D, Gus Van Sant, and, sigh, Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody. Jeff Tweedy and Marc Jacobs apparently didn't make the cut. Peruse everyone's selections in the tracklist printed below.

Thurston Moore initially dropped the Starbucks bomb on Pitchfork back in June 2007, joking, "Starbucks is the new record store, right?" Kim Gordon later remarked that Starbucks is "less evil than" Universal, parent to Sonic Youth's label, Geffen.

And hey, speaking of squares, check out dude on the cover up there!

And speaking of people picking things out, Thurston recently donned his curatorial cap to select the pieces presently on display at NYC's KS Art gallery. The exhibit, titled "NOISE/ART", features creations from folks who moonlight as noise musicans and runs though June 10. Among the artists: members of Wolf Eyes, Hair Police, Nautical Almanac, Double Leopards, and Religious Knives, Leslie Keffer, Thurston's Northampton Wools partner in crime Bill Nace, and Kim Gordon (nepotism alert!). Mr. Moore will also help assemble a NOISE/ART exhibition book, due in 2009 from PictureBox. Thanks to reader Paul Fugazzotto II for the tip.

And speaking of art exhibits, the career-spanning SY one we mentioned a while back, "Sonic Youth Etc.: Sensational Fix", opens at LiFE in Saint-Nazaire, France on June 17. It will visit several more art spots this year and the next.

And speaking of books, Sonic Youth have inspired quite a few of them just this month alone. Stevie Chick's Psychic Confusion: The Sonic Youth Story is available now via Omnibus Press, while David Browne's Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth, put together in cahoots with the band, hits shops May 26 via Da Capo Press. A third tome, The Empty Page: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth, arrives May 29 in the UK via Serpent's Tail and features, well, just that.

And speaking of music (we did mention music somewhere up there, no?), Sonic Youth will play some of that live at a number of places this summer. Oh yeah, and Thurston's doing Psychic Hearts at the behest of My Bloody Valentine! And the new Free Kitten disc is out now. Whew!

Hits Are for Squares:

01 Bull in the Heather [selected by Catherine Keener]
02 Sugar Kane [selected by Beck]
03 100% [selected by Mike D]
04 Kool Thing [selected by Radiohead]
05 Disappearer [selected by Portia de Rossi]
06 Superstar [selected by Diablo Cody]
07 Stones [selected by Allison Anders]
08 Tuff Gnarl [selected by Dave Eggers and Mike Watt]
09 Teenage Riot [selected Eddie Vedder]
10 Shadow of a Doubt [selected by Michelle Williams]
11 Rain on Tin [selected by Flea]
12 Tom Violence [selected by Gus Van Sant]
13 Mary-Christ [selected by David Cross]
14 World Looks Red [selected by Chloë Sevigny]
15 Expressway to Yr Skull [selected by the Flaming Lips]
16 Slow Revolution [exclusive]

Sonic Youth:

07-04 New York, NY - Battery Park *
08-04 Leucate, France - Les Méditerranéennes Festival
08-05 Lokeren, Belgium - Lokerse Festival
08-07 Oslo, Norway - Øya Festival
08-08 Gothenburg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival
08-09 Saint-Nazaire, France - Escales Festival

* with the Feelies

Thurston Moore:

09-19 Monticello, NY - Kutshers Country Club (My Bloody Valentine ATP)
09-27 New York, NY - Stone (as Northampton Wools)

# performing Psychic Hearts

Lee Ranaldo:

05-22 New York, NY - Flea Theater (as Text of Light)
05-28 New York, NY - Issue Project Room $~
06-11 New York, NY - Issue Project Room (16 Channel Surround Sound Festival) %
07-19 North Adams, MA - MASS MoCA ^

$ performing with Marina Rosenfeld, Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori
~ with the Joshua Light Show
% performing with Leah Singer
^ performing with Bang on a Can