Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon
Chiefly famous as the bass player and co-vocalist for defunct New York post-punkers Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon wrote this memoir in the wake of her split from Thurston Moore, her husband and bandmate of nearly thirty years. The title comes from the query most frequently put her way by lazy (and invariably male) rock hacks: “What’s it like to be a girl in a band?” – to which, Gordon laments, she never decided upon a satisfactory answer.
Despite the understandable hurt and sadness regarding the fractious circumstances that frame this story, Girl in a Band is no scurrilous tell-all project. The tone is absorbingly reflective, as Gordon writes with enthusiasm and tenderness about art, music and those closest to her (including Moore); ascribing personalities to treasured locations as she ponders her own insecurities. Perhaps sensing that her target audience do not need further forensic detail about the band’s origins, she instead focuses on favourite recollections throughout her musical career, and her background in conceptual art.
“Maybe everything always looks better twenty years later,” she muses at one stage, in a rare bout of nostalgic yet explicit pride, despite being convinced of the frailty of her own confidence. The titular question recurs at various points and is treated with deserved scorn: instead, Gordon chooses to tell us what it’s like to have been this girl in this band, and it's never less than fascinating.