It was the first time anyone had paid any real attention to us, and in Artforum no less. Thurston and I interpreted it as Greil’s saying: “This small gesture is important and significant.” Later, Greil and I got to be friends.
In fact, the lyrics for the song “Brother James” came after I read about the blues in Greil’s book Mystery Train. “Brother James” appeared on an EP the band put out after Confusion Is Sex called Kill Yr Idols, a name we took from a Robert Christgau quote. Robert was the other big music critic of the time along with Greil, but he basically ignored us. Robert and the Village Voice, the downtown New York City weekly he wrote for, were never sympathetic to Sonic Youth or to the local rock scene in general, and the one night he came to one of our shows, someone in the audience tried to light him on fire. Playfully, though.
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