Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I get to swim in the ocean every single day, which is a very, very important thing to do to stay connected.
I sit around and try to play along to certain songs that I really love. It helps you explore new territory.
The first paid show was in Los Angeles at an art opening and I was paid maybe, I don't know, twenty five bucks?
Good art doesn't really have an expiration date on it. That's something to be happy about, if you're making art.
I come from a school of artists, the Mission School in San Francisco, and there are a lot of artists I look up to.
You have to collaborate with the moment and the environment. It kind of was magnified by the house being a studio.
Having friends who are records nerds - that's the best thing you can do, have a record-geek friend to take you far.
I've always said that musicians are the comics of my generations and comedians are the politicians of my generation.
It's embarrassing to quote Gandhi or something, but being the change you want to see in the world is pretty powerful.
Africa. There are a gazillion different languages people speak there, different bone structures, so vast and different.
Basho is the great poet of Japan, writing in the second half of the 17th century, but his work is still incredibly fresh.
I'm one of those people that if you're told that if you put your hand in the fire, you'll burn your hand, I won't listen.
And because my teeth don't bite, I can take them out dancing I can take my little teeth out and show them a real good time
Generally, I can't really do much without music playing - even writing or thinking. Peace and quiet means putting on a song.
There is something to mystery. You make up this entire world that you fit into because of what the actual music does to you.
I meditate.' That's like saying 'I eat.' Think of all the food there is! And there are almost as many varieties of mediation.
Grizzly Bear's 'Knife' is one of the best videos of all time - everything Encyclopedia Pictura has done is really incredible.
I've always wanted to write a song that goes, "I love you" and a book that goes, "Something happened." Something very direct.
"I meditate." That's like saying "I eat." Think of all the food there is! And there are almost as many varieties of mediation.
Personally speaking, Canada is becoming more and more beguiling and mysterious and I feel as though I really need to explore it.
I always wanted to move to New York because of the Velvet Underground, because of the picture that they painted of New York City.
I don't ever think of myself as a dark person or a ruined person in any way. I just feel happy to be alive, and to be able to love.
I sometimes think a movement as rich and wild and incredible as Tropicalismo wouldn't have survived without incredibly catchy music.
Well, love is a difficult thing to hold on to. It's a slippery little beast. It will hold you and then it will elude you at any moment.
When the Internet came along, the first thing I did was look up Wu-Tang so I could print out their symbol and glue it onto my skateboard.
My number-one hero in terms of interdisciplinary art is Laurie Anderson, but I've always admired anyone who can think way beyond any one medium.
I was born with a beard. We're quite hairy down in Latin America. We don't have to use sponges when we wash dishes. We just use our baby beards.
John Cage is someone I got into as a visual artist, before I even knew his music. I don't think a lot of people even know that he does visual art.
Dad had four world records, and they happened to be Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Ali Farka Toure. I tried singing like these people, and it didn't work.
I've got a long list of things I consider to be selling out. But amongst that list, one of them is when you make art without putting your guard down.
This is my definition of selling out: When you change what you do or do what you do as a reaction to someone else's expectations or lack of expectations.
Of course, before the internet people found records, too. You can still do it. It's just that people like to make the least amount of effort as possible.
As I get older, there's this new realisation and it's almost like a relief, and that is that I can never be who I once was, but only who I want to become.
When I go to vote for anything, I always pencil in the proposition to return California and Texas to Mexico. I'm the one person that's voting for that one.
I can't imagine anyone approaching art without the joy of experimentation. The joy of it is inherent... and that is how you flow with the reality of change.
The best New York in the world is driving down the [Pacific Coast Highway] listening to the Velvet Underground. That's the best time I've ever been to New York.
There are plenty of things in vaults that didn't sell in its time. So much stuff. But slowly these companies start to get a hint that these things have some value.
My interested in Brazilian music stemmed from wanting to find a musical identity other than the salsa and meringue that I was inundated with in Venezuela as a child.
Now if I lived in my land, which I do, if I lived in Iceland, if I lived in Greensland I'd still have Chinese children, but out of my ears my little grey baby hears.
I think five percent of all songs can be love songs, and another five percent can be miscellaneous or political, but the rest should just be about medieval feminists.
I look at making records like you make a dish. A culinary experience. The way you throw in a tambourine, it's like spices or herbs. The main part of the song is the stock.
Cripple crow say something for our grieving, where do we go once we start leaving. Well close that wound or else keep on bleeding and change your tune, it's got no meaning.
I don't think I'm getting better, quote unquote, as a singer or guitar player. But I'm more comfortable in this particular space. I get better at being a bad singer, so to speak.
In the past, I had this open-door policy where everyone was invited. And that was awesome, but you end up releasing songs that you don't really like and justifying it in your head.
We live in an age where many things are working hard to conk us out and anesthetize us. Anything we can do to shake us out of that- with no other purpose than to wake us- is valuable.
Caracas was a crazy place in the early Nineties. For instance, when I was 11 years old, I pierced my ear. No big deal, right? But everyone was so scandalised that they shut down the school.
I find Mexico exciting to visit, but I think [it] is looked down upon. Mexico is not a very respected place, unless you're Mexican, and even then it's something of a love/hate relationship.
Within America, there are extremely different place. I'm not saying it's one homogenous color. It's obviously an incredible place. There's no other place like it, and it's incredibly diverse.
People want to be successful, and they want to be acknowledged for what they do. Sometimes they make really great art and aren't. Historically, the best artists weren't. But their work survived.
I didn't want to make a record that was just guitar and voice, that was just the technology available to me. At the time, I remember thinking, "I am making a Faust album." That didn't translate.