Kim Gordon and Kim Deal joined forces on the latest episode of Netflix talk show Everybody’s Live for their debut joint live performance. Gordon took the stage first, performing her song “Bye Bye,” while Deal followed with her own track “Nobody Loves You More.” The pair then collaborated on “Little Trouble Girl,” a Sonic Youth song Deal contributed vocals to on the band’s 1995 LP “Washing Machine”. Host John Mulaney emphasized that the moody rendition was the pair’s “first time performing together, anywhere.”
“Little Trouble Girl” marks the only time Deal and Gordon have previously worked together. Deal appeared in the song’s music video, but she apparently never played the track live with Sonic Youth before they disbanded in 2011.
Kim Deal released her debut solo LP, “Nobody Loves You More“, in November, while Gordon veiled her second solo album, “The Collective”, last March. In December, the pair teamed up for a conversation in Interview magazine, which saw them reflecting on their parallel careers and their approaches to writing and recording songs.
In the interview, Deal explained that there is no difference to how she approaches a solo track as opposed to one for the Breeders. “That never occurs to me,” she told Gordon. “The only thing that occurs to me is like, ‘I haven’t played a keyboard in a while. I’m going to put it through the Marshall and see if anything sounds cool.’”
Kim Gordon, meanwhile, said that her solo albums have been a different way to express herself than Sonic Youth. “I’m not a natural singer,” she said. “I know what works for me in the sense of using rhythm and space, and I really do like working off rhythms. I really just wanted to do more of that. I feel much freer in what I’m singing about in a certain way. I don’t feel like I have to hold myself back in some way.”
She added that there is currently no interest in a Sonic Youth reunion, noting that, “It would never be as good as it was.”
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