Paul Di Filippo Quotes

Music's cyclical. There's always that next generation that always comes along.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to see your music going from generation to generation.

What you have to understand is that blues... it's in a line from the oldest forms of African music. If you're playing it like it's an echo of the past, it would be a lot less exciting, but this music lives today.

Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.

The blues is the foundation for a lot of things. Things have branched off. It's cool how music grows, but the foundation is always there. It's not going anywhere. The blues is always going to be relevant.

I love traditional music. But in any culture around the world, there is the historic and cultural music and everything that's been passed down and passed down, and hopefully you take that, and then you take it, you know, the next distance, and then somebody else takes it the next distance.

When you do something in music and see it happen again in the next generation, you know you're on the right wave length.

I never want to make a complete, 180 reactional record. I wanted a connection to what I've done in the past but still move forward and evolve.

Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn't mean that artists from the rock n' roll/folk-roots culture - of which he was not really a part - shouldn't get better as they get older, like the great jazz or blues artists.

I can see that if this was an album done 10 or 15 years ago we could see we were moving on to some place else.

I'm trying to change the root of funk, trying to make it more progressive, more melodic and more lyrically structured.

Music is changing. I'm just doing what I'm doing, and hopefully in the next 20, 30 years, some kids can take what I'm doing and change it again. If the music doesn't move, then it's dead.

You continue to evolve with each album that goes by and, as an artist, you continue to expand with every recording project.

But for the first time, we haven't made a huge leap forward in sound from our last album. Fans who own Kid A should be able to get their heads around it.

And my daddy could play a harmonica and also the guitar, so I guess I got a little bit from both of 'em, but I think mostly from my mother's side of the family.

In some articles written about me, writers have said I'm a link between the old and the new, and I think, in a certain sense, that's legitimate.

Music changes, and I'm gonna change right along with it.

I listened to Pablo Casals, which was a big change for me. Without hearing Casals, I would never have advanced as I did.

I don't just come from a musical family, but from a musical community.

We are so indebted to our ancestors, musically speaking, that they have left us 400 years of music.

I think music changes and it evolves.

Then to have Brett come along and follow in the footsteps, it's so gratifying. I get as much enjoyment out of watching Brett play as I did of entertaining people myself.

Music is a continuum and the modern and avant-garde composers of today will be part of the standard repertoire 30 years from now.

One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture - some might say the supremely important aspect - is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past.

There's been a progression in my sound.