It's hard to overstate Sonic Youth's influence on music and art in recent decades. Gordon, the bassist, rooted the experimental/alt/noise band's sound with her muscular playing during its entire 30-year run, and I was floored to have the chance to photograph her. We arranged to meet at the Los Angeles elementary school we both attended as children.

In that redwood forest we both knew as kids, on the eve on the publication of her memoir "Girl in a Band," memory and history were palpable. For The New York Times.