October 8 [17:00 EDT] -- So what was the first brick in the bridge between Sonic Youth and Neil Young? An AM Radio.

When Sonic Youth turned up at a premiere get-together at the legendary New York club CBGB's Monday night for the new Neil Young documentary "Year of the Horse," Sonic's Thurston Moore told MTV News' Kurt Loder that his affinity for Young goes back to the first time he heard the guitar legend on the radio.

"I became aware of Neil on 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' on AM radio when I was just a kid and it was a beautiful song," Moore told MTV News. "I thought it was one of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard, and I bought the 45 and I used to play it all the time. I remember writing the words down in my school notebook and the B-side of that single was 'Birds,' like a song I always played."

With age though, Moore notes that he steered away form anything remotely resembling classic rock. "Of course, in 1976 and 1977, I was 17 or 18, I threw away any record before '77. I mean, I threw away Zeppelin and Floyd and whatever. I mean, I just got rid of them, put them in the basement."

Moore went on to say that he was eventually reeled back into the Neil camp by Young's evolving guitar sound.

"I remember walking down Canal Street right here... and hearing this music like coming out of a store and it was 'Hey, Hey, My, My' ('Into The Black'), and it was this brutal industrial guitar tone that was just so ripping. I could not believe what it was at the time, and I went in and asked and it was this new Neil Young record, and it was the first time I took someone pre-'76 seriously." [809k QuickTime]

Of course, in the 18 years that have elapsed since Young delivered "Rust Never Sleeps" to an unsuspecting world, Sonic Youth have gone on to do their own share of guitar-heavy experimentation, an artistic tradition that the band is currently continuing in a series of instrumental CDs Sonic Youth is recording in their own studio and releasing on their own label. The band (minus Lee Rinaldo, who was in Europe at a poetry slam) took the crowd gathered at CBGBs down their new artistic path in a performance that gave folks a taste of where their sound may be heading on their next album.

"We are just going to be playing this music we have been writing," Moore said before the band's set. "Lee is not here tonight, which is going to make it even more weird and stripped down."

Sonic Youth will showcase their new direction when the band plays New York City's Avery Fisher Hall on November 21. Fans can also check out the Sonics' sound on their EPs on Sonic Youth Recordings, or wait until their next album arrives in the spring of 1998.