An Interview with Thurston Moore

On August 13, 2013, I got together with Thurston Moore in his flat in Stoke Newington to discuss how his readings in contemporary American poetry influenced some of the songs on the recently-released self-titled album by his post-Sonic Youth band, Chelsea Light Moving. We never really got around to talking about the record, as we spent most of our three or so hours together having a wide-ranging conversation about Vito Acconci, Bernadette Mayer, the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, Dan Graham, Dee Dee Ramone, Clark Coolidge, Lydia Lunch, and beyond. This is a condensed and lightly edited transcript of that conversation.