Sonic Youth – The Whitey Album

This website covers Sonic Youth's September, 1986 interview appearence in Guitar Player Magazine, the article mentions Gordon's use of a .96mm Gibson triangle pick, heavily worn over the corse of one of Sonic Youth's 45-minute live sets:

NOTES

This is a very nice Daydream Nation era piece with several extensive sidebars dedicated to the band's gear, tunings, and even some tablature. The three guitar players are also interviewed together after a show. The article opens with Thurston recording some screams into his Sony walkman to play during the gig while they change guitars. The band discuss their influences, cyberpunk, improvisation and their songwriting process in general.

GEAR MENTIONED

The article mentions many of the guitars used by the band, though often doesn't specify who used them. Thurston is pegged as the bigger supporter of the Jazzmaster, having recently purchased a reissue.

• Fender Jazzmasters (1) (2) (3) (4)

• Fender Jaguar

• Fender Mustangs (1) (2) (3)

• "a pair of identical Telecaster Deluxes" (1) (2)

• Fender Duo-Sonic

• "a Mustang/Telecaster hybrid" (??)

• Strat-style Fernandes

• Univox Plexiglas Dan Armstrong copy

• Quest refitted with Ibanez pickups

• Ovation Viper

• Drifter

• '76 Gibson Thunderbird bass

• Rickenbacker bass

• Ovation bass

LEE: "One thing we hate is locking tremolos. We'd never buy a guitar with that. The Jaguar and Jazzmaster never go out of tune, and the Mustangs are pretty reliable, too. The Jazzmaster pick-ups sound a little thin to my ear, but Thurston somehow manages to get a lot of meat out of them." (Indeed, Lee shied away from the Jazzmaster until he first started putting Tele Deluxe pickups in them in the mid-90s.)

The Drifter, pictured in a promo shot with Daydream Nation under its strings along with the drumstick, is showcased as the "sickest" guitar, explaining that Lee pulled out the frets years ago as a microtonality experiment, and it's now fitted with 4 bass strings and Thurston uses it as his drumstick guitar.

• Peavey Roadmaster Amplifier w/ 4x12 cab (THURSTON)

• Peavey Roadmaster Amplifier w/ 6x10 cab (LEE)

• Fender Super Reverb (blackface) as extension cab (LEE)

• Peavey Encore 65 (THURSTON, to play his Sony Walkman thru onstage)

• Marshall Jubilee Bass Series head w/ Dietz 2x15 cab (KIM)

LEE: "Most Peaveys are horrible but they made that one great series of top-of-the-line six-tube killer-watt amps."

LEE's PEDALS:

• Pro-Co Rat distortion box

• Boss Compressor/Sustainer

• Morley volume pedal

• Fender DGC1 delay (should be DGL-1 digital delay)

THURSTON's PEDALS:

• DeArmond volume pedal

• MXR Blue Box ("just as a goofy thing")

KIM's PEDALS:

• Aria MP-5 Metal Pedal

• Dunlop Cry-Baby wah wah

As in the earlier issue, the band discusses their dislike towards relying on effects, though you can see they're starting to adopt them.

THURSTON: "They just get in the way. I'm more interested in the organic side of sound, like tuning. Pedals are a deviation. If you use them, then you're listening to the effect and not the guitar; they become the dominant factor in the sound."

Both guitarists use medium gauge Jim Dunlop picks (Thurston .60 mm, Lee .88 mm), while Kim uses a Gibson heavy gauge (featured as a gnarled stub in the issue's fold-out poster of famous picks).