Actually, when I was in elementary school, I saw a saxophone. A band came to my school, and I saw this guy get up and play this solo. And I said, 'Oh man, what is that! That must be fantastic!'
To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings - it's all a miracle. I have adopted the technique of living life miracle to miracle.
Is Abundant Success in all his honest undertakings.
The actual writing of a song usually comes in the form of a realisation. I can't contrive a song.
I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money.
I get a lot of inspiration from the audience feedback to our live shows.
Do it again on the next verse, and people think you meant it.
I feel that it is healthier to look out at the world through a window than through a mirror. Otherwise, all you see is yourself and whatever is behind you.
We teach about how to drive in school, but not how to manage finances.
I thank you in advance for the great round of applause I'm about to get.
You're surrounded by electronic music in New York. I mean New York is one of the few places in North America where electronic music is the prevalent form.
Music. It's all creativity right here, right now.
I'm just as sick as the others, although I prefer to do my sickness in private.
Almost all the fans I meet are pretty cool people. They're intelligent and tend to think about things a bit more than your average rock'n'roll fans: sensible people I wouldn't mind having a drink with.
In this culture, where entertainers and athletes wield such power, it seems only right to me that they try to make their influence a good one.
You will not make a man wiser by taking freedom of action from him. A man can only learn when he is free to act.
One often learns more from ten days of agony than ten years of contentment.
We try to recruit good players and good people.
We never heard of tape. Everything was live, live, live.
Everybody had their fans and they were fans of all of them.
You have a different crowd every night, so you should do a different show to suit them. I tailor the show to their mood.
Youth is in a grand flush, like the hot days of ending summer; and pleasant dreams thrall your spirit, like the smoky atmosphere that bathes the landscape of an August day.
I wish that person outside would stop coughing.
As an individual I was known as the DJ or the mixer.
You gotta do it with class and integrity. If not, you're gonna drag yourself through the mud.
He asked my girlfriend if we could come over and sing some of the songs that we had written, which we did. After he heard the songs, he said that he knew someone in the record business by the name of Bob Shad.
Unfortunately, the young generation, who I believe have their own place in the sun like I had mine; but I wish it was possible there were other ways to have them understand this music was here before they came, and the reason that it was here.
For the amount of talent I had - and I couldn't dance, act, or tell a joke - I enjoyed a tremendous career.
The first time I heard Johnny play at the Fillmore East, I wasn't really impressed. He had come on the scene with everybody telling me how great he was, and I didn't hear it.
Just believe in what you're doing, and keep doing it.
Mexican Shuffle was a turning point of the Brass.
Rolling Stones, Beatles, we gave them all the break they were looking for. All they needed was a good opening act, and we went out there and performed as well as we could... over 15,000 kids chanting.
I had one year of struggle. My parents were always there, but I didn't want to rely on them. Now it's moving pretty fast. I'm not rich, but obviously this is fantastic. All I know to do with money is put it in a shoebox anyway.
Country music has changed tremendously, so what now is considered country was not considered country at that time. We were doing stuff that probably could have been called country music today, but would certainly have not have fit in at that time.
You know, it's just tough to get together and do work with somebody.
No matter how famous and established they were or however blessed they were with great songs or long careers, if they lived alone, they lived alone. That's not the way I wanted to live prior to the tour or after.
When I got started in New York, it wasn't like it is now. If you were different from Miles and Dizzy, it was very difficult to make gigs and make money with your own style.
I would be surprised if there weren't some owners who didn't want to get a deal done right now and get back to playing hockey.
What you will be looking for is a day that closes above the prior day's high and most likely 'breaks' out to the upside to close above a trading range. This is the twitching worm that causes the public to leap before they look.
No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find some people on your side that wish you were on the other side.
Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you're still playing a guitar.
All you needed back then was a blow dryer and a dream.
Soon I will be doing what I love again.
I'd like to be able to tap with my action this low without buzzing.
The best way to break a bad habit is to drop it.
It is always easier - and usually far more effective - to focus on changing your behavior than on changing the behavior of others.
I wasn't aware of it at the time, but I was a big favorite with the Mafia.
I am disappointed in the music business, I feel like a lot of people in the music business are phoney, there's a lot of people who will abuse and take my kindness.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, Way up tall, There's a land where they've never heard of cholesterol.
People have given me the freedom and believe in me enough to say if I want to do these things that I will find a way to make it work. I don't know if they think I'm crazy, drug damaged or just an old weirdo.
When I wrote those two songs, I couldn't have been any closer to the bottom.
There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind.
If PJ Harvey ever came to town I'd definitely go try to go see her.
Things change all the time, and they'll probably never be the same again. It's just the natural evolution of the human condition. Things change, and whatever it is is what it is. I mean, you try to start second guessing that, you either get rich or die broke.
To me, a feminist belongs in the same category as a humanist or an advocate for human rights. I don't see why someone who's a feminist should be thought of differently.
As I go back and listen, the other girls weren't singing quite like I was.
I always tell people I want to see the world through His eyes, and I want people to see Him in me.
Oh, Michael Jackson is Michael Jackson. And no matter if he sold 40 million records off of one record and sold 15 off his last or whatever the counts may be, Michael Jackson will be Michael Jackson.
I guess that my life has been a series of flukes in the record business. The first thing I ever did was the biggest record that I'll ever have.
Now and then, I had moments of greatness, but I never knew how to duplicate it consistently.
I think getting the rest of the guys in the band to write is important.
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it.
You know, it's funny... when you're making money, people don't think you're playing jazz. Now when you're not making money, people think that you're a good jazz musician.
We're much more controlled now. We were kids back then, we each had our own demons. It was insanity.
If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts.
Until they put that sand and dirt in my face I will not sit in church all day.
When the business starts shaping the art, or the delivery of the art, then it's not right.
We're the acceptable edge of the unacceptable stuff.
I guess if you stay around long enough, they can't get rid of you.
I'm not gonna ride home in the car. I'll wait for Randy. I think I'll get home quicker.
As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.
If we cannot by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly cannot do it by force.
Now we just showin' and provin' that there's a ghetto everywhere you go.
Bob summed it up best when he was on his knees at the end of the night saying, 'Don't trust in Guided By Voices.' You were there; was the show awful or something? I know it was sloppy, but they're not really that tight anyway, but was it embarrassing, was it sad?
I go out with my band six months of the year and the rest of them with the Blues Brothers.
I like to think about stringing songs together like a string of pearls, or a string of beads, but ultimately it has to be stuff that really works with the band, and gives a spin to the older material.
Music was our wife, and we loved her. And we stayed with her, and we clothed her, and we put diamond rings on her hands.
But wealth is a great means of refinement; and it is a security for gentleness, since it removes disturbing anxieties.
I remember seeing the song in some diners on the selection gadget that plays records at the table while you were eating. We were never told if the songs ever got on any charts.
That's when we was makin this video stuff. They went all over the place makin it. And they was wantin to know, at the college, how I got started playin and how do I do everything - you know, all that.
The violinist must possess the poet's gift of piercing the protective hide which grows on propagandists, stockbrokers and slave traders, to penetrate the deeper truth which lies within.
Success to me was getting out of that contract in one piece.
It's a Fox thing, the bad-boy image. They're trying to type me out. There are worse things in life, you know. I'm just really excited about the opportunity.
We're the Tom Tom Club and our studio is the Clubhouse. It a way of making it a little more personal.
It's our job as economic developers in the state to make sure any prospect receives all available incentives.
Ella can work nightclubs that Duke might not be able to work, because of having the big band. Where they go now is strictly a matter of their own names and talents.
It seems like if you are not painted up special way or have some tailor made outfit to put on to go out on stage... I don't know... there's too much of it out there.
It's pretty much run by everybody. We're very involved in everything that goes on. We always have been.
I never got to make that transition from little girl to young woman... and that really screws you up.
People think when you get a record deal all your problems will go away. We know that the bigger we get, the more problems we'll have. I guess Puff Daddy was somewhat - what's the word? - prophetic in that respect.
There's so much left to achieve, there's so much more to do, there's so much that has not been done.
It would have been more comfortable to remain silent.
I got into the studio when I was thirteen. At the age of twelve I was doing public performances.
It's the truth and people need to hear the truth.
I'll just start laying out the melody exactly where I want it to fall. And then I'll go back and fill it out. Whereas, in other pieces I'm really just going a couple bars at a time.
I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for Hope, and there is nothing he wouldn't do for me... We spend our lives doing nothing for each other.
Good teachers make the best of a pupil's means; great teachers foresee a pupil's ends.
Be prepared, and be careful not to do your good deeds when there's no one watching you.
My mind is not a bed to be made and re-made.