Jim Jarmusch 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.

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.

To be in a band, at least according to the rules of rock in the 1970s, one must know how to play an instrument. But rather than waste time solving that problem, No Wavers ignored it. The point was simply to make music, not to learn how first.

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

I'm not an '80s fan. I'm more '70s New York pre-punk kind of thing, and I guess I grew up with '90s grunge, post-punk pop music.

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.

As a New Yorker you can't help but be proud of the fact that so much music and culture started here. Punk rock, jazz, hip-hop and house music started here, George Gershwin debuted 'Rhapsody in Blue' here; the Velvet Underground are from New York.

I associate creativity with independent music.

There's a focus that hasn't been there for ages and ages and some American bands are sounding quite English like they did in the late 70s and early 80s.

I didn't really see the British punk movement, if that's what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really.

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.

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

For me, growing up in New York, it started with Elvis Costello and the Clash and then got into louder things like Bad Brains and Stimulators, because those were, like, the local bands. Then I started getting into bands from England like the Slits. I remember seeing Gang of Four at Irving Plaza; that was a really big show for me.

I started dating JD Samson from Le Tigre, and suddenly I was listening to more up-tempo music and old dance music, like ESG and Gang of Four, and I thought, 'Wow. This is fun.'

Bands such as LiLiPUT and Essential Logic were just as unorthodox as Gang of Four or Wire, even taking their sounds a step further with shrieking vocals and saxophone.

Despite being an ocean apart, New York's ESG and France's Lizzy Mercier Descloux were shooting for roughly the same idea: disco beats with a rough and energetic presentation.

They are one of my favorite bands and one of my first musical loves: Devo.

The U.K. trio Let's Wrestle doesn't make music for its art, but for its attitude.

Punk-rock records came out and you bought whatever you could find. But Devo didn't happen for another three years. Sex Pistols didn't tour the States until '78. At that time, for me, it was really about CBGB, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, the Ramones, and Television.

I mean, you could have said Elvis Presley was new wave when it happened. I heard Willy DeVille and Tom Petty and to me they were new wave really because they were new.

I make my music to express everything I feel is necessary to communicate at a given time. Through music, I can express myself with statements that are more nuanced and more contradictory than factual details.

I was fortunate enough to be living in Hollywood, CA, when the underground punk rock music scene started. It was a small group of artists, misfits and weirdos, where everyone was welcomed and encouraged to express themselves.

I think rap in general allows you to be more lyrically expressive. It's a lot easier to state your identity, as opposed to with a guitar making all these weird metaphors.

I loved all that riot-grrl scene and Nation of Ulysses and Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear. I loved it. It was the moment sort of first growing up where bands had stopped looking like roadies.

I got to play The Vortex in London with the Buzzcocks, the Fall, me and Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. That was a serious Manchester night.