when i was about 14 or 15 (like alot of you here) i adored nirvana. so after he kept name dropping sonic youth i checked em out. my mom worked at a hair & nail salon and i would always walk across the way to the used book & record store and browse for hours (started crate diggin early) till my mom was done doing the nails of the wives of the texas rangers players. so i saw a cassette of goo and thought "man, that looks kinda stupid". but, kurt said they were awesome, so they must be awesome. so like i usually did, i 5 finger discounted that thing, went next door to the cici's pizza and had lunch while i listened to my new tape. the tape hadn't been rewound so i put it on side a and just pushed play. turns out it was cue'd up to the end of mote. keep in mind i had no idea what so ever what SY sounded like at this point, all i knew was that kurt cobain liked em so i should check em out. so i'm sitting there eating my buffet pizza, having a sweet tea and listening to the trail end of mote. it was fucking weird. at first i thought there was something wrong w/ the cassette, but alas that was just the way it sounded. i fell in love. i couldn't believe music like this actually existed. i played it for all my friends (hell i played it for any one that sould listen), but no one got it. but i did, and that was all i cared about. after that, i looked forward to my weekends w/ my mom. i would eagerly run to the book & record store and steal any and everything i could get my hands on that had even the slightest bit to do w/ SY. i amassed pretty much all there albums up to that point, and when i got to high school i replaced em all w/ the cd's. and that was it, i was a sonic youth fan.
years later i went back to that used book & record store one winter when i was home on leave from the navy and spoke to the owner. i told him about how i stole cd's, tapes, magazines and lp's (not easy to steal by the way) from him constantly for close to 4 years and apologized and gave him $150. it was no where near what i owed him, but i don't hink he really cared. he remembered me and said he kinda figured i was stealing but he didn't have that many customers anyways so it never really bothered him. he was a stand up guy, and he totally got it.
that's how I got into Sonic Youth.
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