He is the guitar player for Sonic Youth, and a solo artist. In addition
to recording around 20 albums, and producing several for other bands,
he has written 3 books. He has two children, Cody (born 1985) and Sage
(1999)
He is one of the three guitarist in the super-group "The Million Dollar Bashers" that were assembled specifically for the soundtrack of I'm Not There (2007), alongside Nels Cline from Wilco and Tom Verlaine from Television.
When you listen to early Leonard Cohen records or Joni Mitchell records, you feel like a window has been opened into someone's life. I've written lyrics in the past that have been way more abstract and maybe harder to parse, but with this record ['Last Night on Earth'] I just felt like I wanted things to be a little bit more personal, a little bit more open.