Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Well, Marx is having a comeback. I hear him mentioned a lot in terms of the global financial situation and the general sense of injustice out there. A lot of economic experts in America refer to him without actually using the M word, but he's around.
I'm not a big fan of free to play. And this is just me, but when I buy something, I don't like the idea that I start playing for free, but each time I want to do something a little more interesting or progress, I have to pay. I'd rather pay up front.
Louisville was also good place for being able to make whatever kind of music you wanted to. You didn't have to worry about renting a practice space or figure out when another band would be in there or worry about if your stuff is going to get stolen.
I didn't get a lot of attention from my dad when I was young. That's a big part of it for girls. Because your dad is the first love of your life. If he doesn't put you on his lap and give you a pet, you do end up not really liking yourself that much.
That was like the best start I could've had, the best way I could've started in the music scene. I owe [Jack Johnson] a lot for the beginning of my career and setting me off on the right path, and that's the coolest thing that ever could've happened.
I used to do crazy things that people would bail me out of, and I'm just grateful that I survived. But the music got very lost; I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't really care. I was more into just having a good time, and I think it showed.
I think that a lot of people are going so wrong by analysing music too much and learning from a totally different perspective from the way I learned. I mean, I just learned by listening to people. People I learned from learned by listening to people.
When I create, I feel that I am a participant in the grand pageant of life, a part of the ongoing creative engine of the universe. I don't know if that feeling is enough to replace the solace of religion in the lives of most people, but it is for me.
I've never gone to school for recording. I wish I understood it more. School's been hard, learning things has been hard, because of the A.D.H.D., or dyslexia, or whatever you want to call it, but I know how to come up with stuff to bring it together.
How memories lie to us. How time coats the ordinary with gold. How it breaks the heart to go back and attempt to re-live them. How crushed we are when we discover that the gold was merely gold-plating thinly coated over lead, chalk and peeling paint.
The first several years of my life were used to upload incredible amounts of fear, and I just became afraid of everything. I was afraid of my parents, afraid of my classmates, afraid of the streets of Washington, D.C. I would flinch at every gesture.
I like it better that people aren't throwing stuff at my face and trying to fight me on stage. Like in the '80s, it was just aggravating all the time... I have scars from cigars and cigarettes on me, Bic pens, burns from cigarette lighters, all that.
I'm actually on the Twitter like all those crazy young kids are, and if I'm going to do an in-store appearance or I post something on my website, I tweet these followers, a word I don't like so much, and over 50,000 people go, like, 'Okay, I got it.'
The secret of it is to read what you've got in front of you. Don't, if you suspect that something has a double meaning, don't pause. Don't put on a leery vocal expression if you know what I mean on radio. Don't sort of do anything other than read it.
When I tell people that I lost my baby weight through breastfeeding, they think I'm exaggerating. But it was brilliant for that. It is great for bonding with your baby. It is hard when no one else can feed her, but it was worth it for me. I loved it.
I played guitar all my life, all the way through the Yardbirds, but I knew that for me, this was going to be a guitar vehicle, because that's what I wanted it to be. There is no way I would play guitar like a tour de force like I did in Led Zeppelin.
I get on all right with my parents. But I don't see them very much. They split up when I was eight. I stayed with my mum, but I felt it was a bit soft with her. I could do whatever I liked, and I wasn't getting nowhere, so I went to stay with my dad.
The doctors said I might not be able to walk again. Today, I can almost run, but back then, I couldn't even stand up. I was bed-ridden. If I wanted to turn over in bed, I had to move my legs with my hands. I was in and out of the hospital for months.
I wrote that song for my wife, and it's what some guy who's sitting under a tree would be singing to the woman of his life, telling her how wonderful she is. To me, that's more lasting than something that sounds like it belongs on a movie soundtrack.
Yoko [Ono] was showing me some of these Haiku in the original. The difference between them and Long fellow is immense. Instead of a long flowery poem the Haiku would say 'Yellow flower in white bowl on wooden table' which gives you the whole picture.
When I was about 17 I knew that I was going to be serious about music. Before that I thought, fairly certainly, that I would be a writer. Before that, I thought I would be a forward in the NBA. And before that I thought that I would own a snake farm.
The rest of the band were basically friends, So it was me following them around and begging them to let me be in their band for two or three years. And they finally let me in on the harmonica, actually, and then the keyboards, and finally the guitar.
Sometimes when I have an idea, and I say, 'Okay, let's - it will be great, maybe, if I sing in English, a couple of songs.' Now, the record company and everybody's like, 'No way, you have to sing in Spanish.' And that's, you know, really good for me.
My dad almost died as a child from water-borne diseases in Ethiopia, and he had talked to me about digging a well in Ethiopia and I thought, I have too many friends and great people in my life that would be concerned with this subject of clean water.
I write when I have to; I write when the song is done and I deal with the idea and I just go with it and I'll become what that song is all about until I have finished it. And when you do that, it makes the song more visual, it makes it more personal.
Music fills peoples with life. It doesn't have to be a 'happy song.' If you have that one song that relates to you, whether it's a sad song or a gangster song, whatever relates to you the most in that moment, it can literally get you through the day.
Yeah, there's probably been times when I'm watching cable and seeing there's like three movies that Jack's in and I'm sitting hogging a bag of Cheetos in my underwear and I think 'God, what happened to me? Why can't I be something special like Jack?'
Sonic Youth has a very democratic process for the most part. It almost doesn't matter who brings in an initial idea; everything gets worked over by the band and kind of co-written by everyone in the end because everyone's ideas get contributed to it.
You know, there are times when you play a song over and over and over and you get a little tired of it and you let it sit for a while. It's like, you may love eating sushi, but if you eat it every single day, you're going to get a little tired of it.
I'm not good at talking politics. I'm probably not well-versed enough to speak out, but I do have my opinions and my feelings and frustrations, especially with regards to the environment and sustainability and our lack of taking care of what we have.
There's days when I'd love everybody to relize that things have gone too far, and we need to be born again...but there are other days when I think the world deserves to be destroyed. Why should I help anybody? Everybody's stepped on me my whole life.
I think the way I love talking about my faith is through my story because I think that's all we have to work with sometimes. I think it's the most moving way to share your story, too - is what you know, what you've seen and heard and tasted and felt.
I remember listening to like gospel-y blues tunes. I'd just listen to the rhythm and the music was upbeat. Always upbeat if you get like a good rhythm you can nod your head. You just feel good. But then when you listen to the lyrics it was quite sad.
In this world, everything has a pulse or a vibration. This sound is unique to each living or non-living thing and in itself creates a music that no-one can hear. I believe that this has a very powerful resonance with, and a deep effect on, our lives.
Oh, I started out young. They handed me a cotton sack when I was about 8 years old. Give me a little small one, tell me to fill it up. I never did like the farm but I was out there with my grandmother, didn't want to get away from around her too far.
I think I'm most proud of the fact that I was able to overcome the insecurities that were going to keep me from living my dream, which was just learning to turn off those little voices in your head that tell you you're not capable of doing something.
To get nostalgic about other people's music, or even about your own, makes a terrible statement about the condition of your life and your prospects for the future. I have no patience with that kind of attitude, whether it's on radio or among friends.
The work ethic at art school is completely different than the work ethic amongst people who get into music. People who paint, it's an honorable thing to spend all day and all night in front of your canvas - that is the romantic vision of the painter.
I feel my spot is somewhere between a bass player and a rhythm guitar player. I play with a pick. I play very aggressively. I always have a distortion pedal in line, and I play less melodies and do more stuff against the guitars that create melodies.
Being able to say something lyrically, to say something that will do more than just be words, is really hard. It's easy to do when you're writing a chapter of a book or writing poetry, but it's really hard to do when you're confined to a melody line.
Growing up in the '70s, it was only a few years before that when men started to grow their hair long. And in the '70s, people were pushing the envelope a little farther, with men having even more style and piercing both their ears and wearing makeup.
I'd heard a lot of Motown and Stax when I was a kid, but the more well-known end of it. On Jam tours, we had a DJ called Ady Croasdell who ran a '60s club. He turned me on to underground stuff and what people call northern soul. It just blew my mind.
Musicians play music because you love... I loved to play drums since I was five. It's all I ever wanted to do. Rock stars, or as we call them, posers, guys who want to just look great, dress great. They're not musicians; they're looking for the fame.
With Pantera, we lived through so many trend-of-the-day situations - when grunge was huge, we were still a heavy metal band; when hip-hop started getting incorporated into metal, we stuck to our guns and remained a heavy metal band very purposefully.
To ignore death and to be afraid of it is dumb because everyone is going to face it at some point. If you look at death and the reality of it, you realise that we're all going to die, so let's use this time on Earth to be positive and do good things.
I'm like one of those firecrackers that goes off in your pocket occasionally. I'm not really struggling with it as much as the people around me. But at least I'm not doing too much damage to anybody or to myself. It's just the condition I'm aware of.
If you only try to please others, you're going to resent those people you're trying to please; the ones who are often closest to you. If you choose a path that you yourself want to take, then you're going to be much kinder to the people in your life.
When I left the country to study in the U.K., I suddenly realized, and I'm still realizing, how much other stuff is out there - like My Bloody Valentine, who millions of people are passionate about, but they're still considered an 'underground' band.
My wife says that I changed people's lives or ways of thinking and that I should always be proud and grateful. If I'm dismissive of what we do sometimes, a little bit, she's like, "I was a fan, you changed my life," or whatever. That's what she says.
I am interested in the interaction of a group of people who have a common goal, or a common obsession, each contributing something unique to make something greater than the sum of its parts. I don't know why, but from day one, that has interested me.