Sonic Youth Quotes
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Songs seem to always spring from improvisation.
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I'm just old enough to be able to say I got those very first Beatles records right as they were hitting America. My father brought them home. It was definitely the earliest musical influence on my life, and still one of the greatest.
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It's really hard for me to sing and play bass.
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The world is going to end for each of us in a prescribed time, and you sort of understand that your time is limited at a certain point, and you want to get done the things you want to get done. You don't want to leave things undone, because you only have a limited amount of time.
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The last two records I liked playing a lot.
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I feel most free onstage. The audience, it's an abstraction. You don't really see anyone out there, but you feel the audience inside you.
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Change is always good. It brings you to a new place.
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Sonic Youth, for better or worse, is/was a machine that carried me along through pregnancy, motherhood, and creative opportunities I never would have achieved on my own. I'm grateful and surprised that we were listened to, loved, ignored, and overrated.
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I was surrounded by nature and trying to come to terms with this blissful nature versus the inhumane mentality of war. People were being deluded by someone using the word peace.
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Probably the most fun thing we do in our lives is getting up on stage.
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Anyone who grows up with parents who are very influential, there are cases where people run away from that if they have parents who are really lame.
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Anyone becomes mannered if you think too much about what other people think.
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Well, it was kind of accidental that Jim started playing with us, although it wasn't sudden... we hadn't really looked around to think who could be a fifth member.
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It's hard to say when the life of a band starts and stops... but playing music together is an act of trust. When that's broken, it's impossible to continue.
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Whenever I can afford to do something, I do it.
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I mean, I don't even think of myself as a musician, really.
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I don't have any desire to do something that sounds explicitly rock. Like, I don't have a burning need to be a rock musician. I feel like I've taken that as far as I can take it, for me.
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I like the adrenaline of playing improv - it makes me feel really calm.
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I wasn't very confident about clothes; I was always hunting through racks, never sure what looked right. It can be like that again when you're older.
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I never really thought of myself as a musician. I'm not saying Sonic Youth was a conceptual-art project for me, but in a way, it was an extension of Warhol. Instead of making criticism about popular culture, as a lot of artists do, I worked within it to do something.
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I just happened to start playing music for the conceptual ideas.
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I grew up listening to John Coltrane and jazz, so they were subtle influences. I sometimes think about doing some kind of weird jazz record, but I don't know... It's on my list of things to do. I don't want to have to then go promote it.
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I would be too self-conscious if I just thought of writing lyrics for a song. I have to trick myself into doing it.
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In a lot of the art world, you have to present yourself as you know what you're doing at a young age. Music gave me another outlet. The 'no wave' bands were such an inspiration; it felt so free - once you start doing it, it's hard to stop. But I can't get away from art. It comes back around. I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't pursue it.