Kim Gordon is an American musician, songwriter, and visual artist. She is best known for being one of the founding members of Sonic Youth.
Gordon was born in 1953, in Rochester, New York but grew up in Los Angeles, California. She attended a progressive elementary school that was attached to UCLA which focused on learning by doing before attending high school and then continuing her education at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles with a brief stint at York University in Toronto, Canada where she played in her first band.
After graduating from art school, Gordon moved to New York City where she joined the short-lived band CKM, with Christine Hahn and Stanton Miranda and later met her future bandmates Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore. Gordon and Moore began dating and formed the band Sonic Youth with guitarist Lee Ranaldo in 1981. The band’s early recordings were experimental, more art than conventional music. Gordon continued to focus on visual art as well as her band and also became a contributor to Artforum.
Sonic Youth released their first two albums, Confusion is Sex (1983, Neutral Records) and Bad Moon Rising (1985, Homestead Records). Between these albums, in 1984 Gordon and Moore married. Bad Moon Rising and their later album Daydream Nation (1988) received strong reviews and the band steadily built a fan following. In 1990, Sonic Youth released Goo, their debut album on a major label. The album became their first commercial hit and the band toured extensively both that year and the next. The tour was documented in the documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke and also featured Nirvana, Babes in Toyland, Dinosaur Jr., Gumball and Mudhoney. In 1991, Gordon produced Hole’s debut record, Pretty on the inside with Don Fleming. The album received critical acclaim and cult status.
In 1992 Gordon started a Free Kitten with Julie Cafritz, the year after they were joined by drummer Yoshimi. They released three albums on the Kill Rock Stars record label and a fourth album on Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label. Around this time, Gordon and stylist Daisy von Furth launched the clothing line X-Girl. Gordon and von Furth collaborated with Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, and Budapest-born artist Rita Ackermann and the artist Mike Mills designed the graphics. Kathleen Hanna, the front-woman of Bikini Kill was a fan. The clothes were almost androgynous, a preppy look that softened the skater girl/riot grrrl look and appealed to both tomboys and ‘girly girls’ alike.
Gordon and Moore had a daughter, Coco in 1994. Sonic Youth played Lollapalooza the following year and their popularity continued to grow in the mid-to-late 1990s. In 1996 the band established SYR (Sonic Youth Recordings) to allow them to release their own records as well as those of their friends without the pressure of a major label. Sonic Youth continued to tour and record and in 2009 they released their 16th album ‘The Eternal’. In 2011, following the separation of Gordon and Moore the band split up.
In 2012 Gordon formed an experimental noise guitar project with Bill Nace called Body/Head. Their debut album Coming Apart was released on September 10, 2013 by Matador Records.
In addition to her musical career, Gordon has become an established visual artist and curator. In 2005 the artist’s book Kim Gordon Chronicles Vol. 1 was published. It featured photos of Gordon throughout her life and the following year, Kim Gordon Chronicles Vol. 2 was released which featured her drawings, collages, and paintings.
Gordon has been an inspiration for many other women in music, including Kathleen Hanna and Róisín Murphy. Hanna stated that Gordon was ‘a forerunner, musically. Just knowing a woman was in a band trading lead vocals, playing bass, and being a visual artist at the same time made me feel less alone. As a radical feminist singer, I wasn’t particularly well liked. I was in a punk underground scene dominated by hardcore dudes who yelled mean shit at me every night, and journalists routinely called my voice shrill, unlistenable. Kim made me feel accepted in a way I hadn’t before. Fucking Kim Gordon thought I was on the right track, haters be damned. It made the bullshit easier to take, knowing she was in my corner.’ In 2015, Gordon’s memoir, Girl in a Band: A Memoir was published.