Anthony Fantano Quotes

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.

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.

When I was in college in Philly, there was a lot of post-punks... hardcore... like, rock. Sixties, retro, proto-Strokes kind of bands.

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.

Since I loved underground music, I tried to carve a space for feminism within it. Those were my hopes.

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.

When I was a kid, I was into hardcore music. The scene in New York was tiny. Every person hanging out was in a band and played at the A7 Club. There was not much rehearsing or anything. Just doing.

I listen to a lot of indie or rock music.

If it's me and yer granny on bongos, it's the Fall.

One overlooked great 1980s rock n' roll band, maybe punk rock - they were on SST Records, same label as Black Flag - is this band called the Leaving Trains.

Here in Ohio, the hardcore scene is a big thing, so some of our good friends are in hardcore bands. So we've had to figure out how the heck we get these people to respect us.

The lion's share of what I listened to in the Eighties, what really affected me, was coming from Britain.

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.

Sid Vicious began the age of participation in which everyone could be the artist. Sid proved that you don't have to play well to be the star. You can play badly, or not even at all. I endorsed that attitude. If you can't write songs, no problem - simply steal one and change it to your taste.

I love punk rock, but I also love metal.

I listened to all types of music, and obviously when I got to Seattle I was very much aware of the music scene there.

Rock music is niche.

Minor Threat was an important band, believe me that it was important it in my life, but it belongs to an era that no longer exists. I'm not nostalgic. I think music today is much more important, because something can be done about it.

So many of the bands that influenced me growing up were English, even if I didn't realise it. English pop ruled the world in the '80s!

The first Decline I did was out of sheer love and appreciation for the music. In 1977, it was more about bands, because punk was a new form of music. It was groundbreaking and political.

I love punk, I love a lot of British Invasion bands, I love garage bands.

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

Thank you for the music, Sleater-Kinney. This gang of three was the best American punk rock band ever. Ever.

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.

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.