Anthony Fantano Quotes

Hearing things like 'Wake Up' by Lora Logic, or the Raincoats' 'In Love' - that was something I wasn't prepared for. I couldn't hear anything that came before it in the music, and I didn't want to. I was absolutely in love with its out-of-nowhereness.

I was real into Devo, Pavement, Captain Beefheart, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

When Talking Heads started, we called ourselves Thinking Man's Dance Music.

If someone says 'grunge' or 'punk,' you know what the sound is, but if you say 'No Wave,' it's kind of mysterious. That was the most interesting part and should have been the most inspirational thing about it... here's this collective sonic insanity, and none of it sounds anything alike.

It's very schizophrenic because I like a lot of very straight pop, like Small Faces, Stones, Kinks; and on the other hand, I like a lot of avant garde things.

Sonic Youth could never really get it together acoustically - quite frankly, it wasn't something we were really that interested in.

I really loved the hardcore alternative vibe Prince had on 'Dirty Mind.'

I guess you could call my music progressive, pop, rock.

I'm definitely nostalgic about the music of my youth; The Clash and Fishbone and that whole music scene. I still have all that music to this day. There was some great music going on in the late 70s and 80s.

I started making music with my band in the '80s, so I am more product of post punk than classical music, and I have always carried on this way.

There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.

It was a really interesting time in New York in the late 70s and early 80s, and the music scene was really, really interesting because you didn't have to be a virtuoso to make music, it was more about your desire to express things.

When I was little, people like Talking Heads were on the radio. There was something geeky yet groundbreaking about them.

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.

Like, Mission Of Burma to me always sounded almost like they were part of the British Arty New Wave. I kind of like that. I like not being able to tell the difference.

Too pop for punk, too 'old school' for the New Wave, Mumps were a '70s era New York rock band, out of time.

Mars is really different, into art. Lydia Lunch is more energy. James Chance is more commercial in a different way, in funk and jazz. They were all doing original things, trying to create their own sound and music. I think they're all great.

Absolute 80's is three hours of mainstream 80's music. I also do New Wave Nation that is more cutting edge. It is more punk stuff from the 70's to the 90's.

Things that excite me are these four different bands: Wire, with a song called 'Champs,' Misfits, with a song called 'Hybrid Moments,' R. Stevie Moore, and Wipers 'Wait A Minute.'

Prince turned experimental music into pop music. 'When Doves Cry,' the whole 'Purple Rain' soundtrack - he was inspired by the Cocteau Twins and new wave pop and brought it into R&B when he first started, and then it became this cool, next-level, kind of hard-to-digest music. Which is what I felt 'House of Balloons' was.

When The Fall pummeled their way into my nervous system, circa 1983, it was as if a world that was familiar - and which I had thought too familiar, too quotidian to feature in rock - had returned, expressionistically transfigured, permanently altered.

We're more of a rock band and we have a punk influence and a pop influence.

At the time, 'Oxygene' was considered a totally 'far out' concept... What was 'in' at the time was disco, hard-rock, and the early days of punk... and moreover, 'Oxygene' was instrumental. And I was French!

Obviously, Sonic Youth has been a huge part of my life for many, many years, and I love all those guys dearly.

I like stuff like Joy Division and Verdi, and then some naff stuff.