Ikue Mori Quotes

I really want to do a book on the history of the no-wave music scene in New York, how it extended out and formed lots of other things. It was such a great visual culture.

Back in 1981, the chances of a punk-rock girl band from L.A. doing what we did was completely nil.

Harlem's Apollo is probably the most well-known music hall in the world.

II know very, very little about the ukulele, but I actually grew up playing the viola from 4th grade through high school.

There's something about pulling out a real tape from a shelf and looking at it and knowing that 'Everlong' is on it, or 'Best of You' is on it, and it's really special.

I loooved Sleater-Kinney like a crazy person.

First concert I ever went to was a group called The Yardbirds. Eric Clapton is the lead guitarist.

I'd played in about four or five bands before we started up, only a couple of which did club dates.

When I was 16, I was in Boston and some friends said, 'You want to go to New York?,' I went with my roommate... These guys said, 'We're going to this club. Just don't go in the washroom.' It was CBGB. I had no idea what it was or the history of all the music. All I knew was this was my first 21-and-over club and I managed to get in!

Before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context.

In 2010, I had been playing guitar for 50 years.

I got to see all these incredible blues players, like Jimmy Reed.

You know, Glen Campbell sang with the group right before I joined the group.

My brother Carl taught me how to play bass. I'm a self-taught keyboard player, though - I figured out our harmonies at the piano.

You know, I only claim to play three instruments. My dad is a banker, but a drummer at heart; and my mom used to teach piano lessons when she was younger. So I can play some piano, play a little drums, and fake the bass - but banjo, mandolin, and guitar are my thing.

I enjoyed every minute of what I was doing with sessions, because The Blossoms, the group that I was singing with, they were the first black background singers. There weren't any.

I started out playing ukulele when I was 5 or 6 years old.

As far as music is concerned, I played music for a very long time, so I have a background in that.

On Nov. 5, 2012, my friend Elliott Carter died in New York at the age of 103. For me, he was and remains one of the most interesting figures of music history in the past century.

I never went to music school.

One of my favorite venues is the Bowery Ballroom in New York. I love the room; there's a tiny stage, but I really like the feel of it.

A lot of people don't know that the Go-Go's came from the L.A. punk scene.

I was playing drums in church when I was six. Then I picked up the piano when I was 11 or 12.

I ended up taking piano lessons at a really young age, I took, like, years of piano lessons, and I always loved to sing.

I played the piano growing up and then stopped for 10 or 12 years.