Carrie Brownstein Quotes
-
I wrote so much about fandom and participation for NPR that I eventually realized my most fertile way of participating in music is to actually play it, at least in a way that made the most sense to me.
-
The hedonistic lifestyle is difficult to achieve when you're still carrying your own gear. Trust me that you don't feel glamorous with a 60-pound amp in your arms; it's a lot less sexy than toting a vodka gimlet and impossible to do in heels.
-
To me, that ugliness, that grotesqueness - that's the essence [of life]. That's where you realize, it's not about all the consonance and the harmony. It's all the parts that are wrong that help explain why we're drawn to something - what the mystery is - just as much as the beautiful things.
-
I guess the role of art is to make something that is ambiguous and complex.
-
The natural world operates by its own set of rules. The animal world, all the places that are feral and ungovernable, that's where I find a lot of inspiration. There is just as much beauty there, but there is also decay and violence.
-
You can't bury a part of yourself that's so innate to who you've been, even if it's not for the sake of anything other than a pure enjoyment of it.
-
I think proteins are really good for your brain. And your brain is where comedy comes from.
-
Nothing is as nice as plugging in your guitar and turning up the volume really loud, just seeing what kind of beautiful noise you can make with it.
-
I don't want to mislead people.
-
Wholeness is sort of a dubious concept. Because in terms of the human body and literal wholeness and structures, you think: "here are the structures that help make me whole." Family, or school, or the city I live in. When those structures are dysfunctional or decaying, you end up kind of Frankensteining pieces from everywhere in order to make yourself sated and comfortable and alive.
-
It's hard to beat the visceral high of playing live and creating something spontaneous.
-
I think short-term goals are important. Trying to set a missive for yourself for the entire year can be daunting, and it can feel too easy to fail or fall short of that.
-
I'll admit that I'm not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast.
-
The fact that people go to Portland to visit a tiny feminist bookstore-no matter what the impetus is for them getting there-the fact that they go in there and look around and shop for books or stationery or whatever, is a major source of pride for me.
-
I've mostly been focusing on writing, and I've really enjoyed not playing music. It will always be part of my life, but I don't feel the immediate need to be playing for people.
-
I've noticed that as someone who has done music and creative things in Washington state and Portland, to kind of toot your own horn, or admit, "I'm going for it. I'm hustling," is not exactly the norm. Which is weird, because you go to New York, or LA, or anywhere else, you've got to be gunning for it - and you should be - you're part of a fast-moving stream of other people who are really ambitious. People move here to work less. So, to say that you're hustling all the time, and going for it, is kind of a little bit against the grain here.
-
Well, in some ways I had sort of the opposite experience of other people that are sort of dreaming of being in a rock band. I was dreaming of like corporate lunches and just like, and I'm not really joking. Like the whole idea to me was really appealing.
-
With Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.
-
For film and television, it's interesting how fans feel that their particular ways of manifesting their affections are the correct ones. It's not just about being a fan, it's about how you perform your fandom. That's always been interesting to me.
-
I think it's very disheartening and undermining to focus on nostalgia or youthful sentimentality as the lens through which you view art and culture, because then you feel like everything good already happened. I really just try to be in the present with music and just find the things that are invigorating and make me feel happy to be alive right now.
-
The enemy of any artistic statement is to create something that no one cares about, in the sense they have no opinion either way.
-
I've always loved writing. Doing that at the same time as playing music can be tiring.
-
Rihanna has guts and she always seems to be singing from someplace honest, dark and fierce.
-
The school systems at my childhood had enough money or enough parent involvement that they felt like learning music and songs, and exploring the whole pop or classical canon, were just as important as algebra or biology. Music is such a visceral and tactile experience for a kid, and to just replace that with video games or something that doesn't have the same sort of physical impact would definitely be a poor choice, and have a negative impact.