While Thurston Moore is primarily known as a guitar player for Sonic Youth, he’s also an astonishingly prolific artist in his own right. From playing in Mirror/Dash (a duo with Kim Gordon) to running his own label Ecstatic Peace, he remains busy with a myriad of projects.

Born in 1958 in Coral Gables, Florida, he was raised in Bethel, Connecticut. By the time that he enrolled at the university, he decided to move to New York in order to join new wave/punk scene. His first band was Even Worse, which, besides Moore himself, included future members of King Missile and Hugo Largo, as well as Jack Rabid, founder of music magazine Big Takeover.

After the band demise, Moore became a part of Glenn Branca guitar orchestra, which also (at various points) included Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, Page Hamilton (Helmet) and some members of Swans. Eventually, Moore and Ranaldo formed Sonic Youth and signed to Neutral Records, label run by Branca. Band’s core consists of Moore, Ranaldo and Kim Gordon (whom Moore eventually married) and throughout years the band featured numerous members in its line-up, including Jim O’Rourke, Jim Sclavunos, Bob Bert and Richard Edson.

Sonic Youth are still together as of 2008, while many of their contemporaries broke up or faded away – part of the reason for this, quite possible, was an impeccable sense of timing. By 1991, work done by such bands as Pixies, Husker Du and Big Black finally led to mass acceptance of bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden, and (to a lesser extent)  Sonic Youth and Helmet, both of whom were not grunge bands, per se and didn’t became multi-platinum stars, but both became well-respected bands in their own rights (and, unfortunately, plenty of good bands were lost/overlooked in the wake of Nirvana’s success and signing frenzy that followed).

Outside of his work with Sonic Youth, Moore released a number of solo albums, as well as collaborations with the likes of Lydia Lunch, William Hooker, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Chris Corsano, Nels Cline and many others. He was a part of Dim Stars, along with Richard Hell (Voidoids) and currently he’s a a part of noise supergroup To Live And Shave In LA, which also includes Andrew WK, as well as members of Pussy Galore, Half-Japanese and Sightings.

He currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with his wife Kim Gordon and their daughter Coco Hayley Gordon Moore. He also runs Protest Records, an online label that releases anti-war related recordings in mp3 format – a project that so far includes 10 volumes of songs by Cat Power, Eugene Chadbourne, Beastie Boys, Damon & Naomi, Mike Watt, Saul Williams, Gary Lucas, Jonatha Brooke and many others.