They may have been the Led Zeppelin of noise-rock, but Sonic Youth chucked The Big Book Of Guitar Heroics out of their NY apartment window on day one. Not for them all that ersatz-Hendrix malarkey – this trio’s influential brand of rock came with its own punky logic and arty aesthetic, their tough, twisted take on music informed by punk and the avant-garde experimentalism of Glenn Branca. Right from track one, album one – (She’s In A) Bad Mood on 1983’s Confusion Is Sex – Moore, Gordon and co-founder Lee Ranaldo used strange tunings, dissonant chords, feedback squalls and grungy drones to make their point. They’d gouge the innards out of their guitars; like John Cage with his pianos they’d ‘prepare’ them, with screwdrivers, with drumsticks. They could purvey ragged, minimalist nuance, and later fashioned college rock hits while members of My Bloody Valentine, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr and Nirvana furiously made mental notes.