The band's songs featured prominent references to avant garde artists, the 1960s counterculture movement, and New York City. Thurston Moore chose the band's name due to its association with a moving company started by composer Philip Glass:
I decided to call the band "Chelsea Light Moving" because I had been reading this book called Love Goes to Buildings on Fire by Will Hermes, which is a history of New York underground music from 1972 to around 1978. He talked about Philip Glass starting a moving company. [Glass] had a van and he took a classified ad out in a local paper and he called the moving company "Chelsea Light Moving". He started the moving company so he could make some coin to rent out a concert hall to put on a performance. As soon as I saw that, I really liked it.[3]
Current countercultural movements are also addressed by Chelsea Light Moving, notably the Occupy Wall Street on the song "Lip":
Those lyrics do have a certain cynicism to them. I wrote them during the Occupy Wall Street protests, which I was completely supportive of and really into. I like the attempts at anarchy, and the idea of it being sort of a street-school of ideas. I thought it was contemporary and defining itself outside of the old guard of protests and resistance that had existed historically. The old guard of protests became mollified by the machine of power and money, it didn't really have much effect any more, so there needed to be a new way of bringing attention to any kind of injustice that goes on socially. I was really inspired and impressed by it. "Lip" was written about wanting to give power to anger in the face of injustice.[3]
The band broke up in 2015, and Thurston Moore has since continued making music under his own name.[4]
^ abPerla, Cory (September 12, 2013). "Thurston Plugs Back In". Artvoice. Archived from the original on September 17, 2013. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
