Margaret Cho Quotes

People like Aphex Twin, Jason Pierce, Jarvis Cocker and William Orbit are actively showing their interest in a wider field of music. Jarvis and I met on a benefit for an extraordinary man called LaMonte Young, the father of minimalism, who worked with John Cale and shared a loft with Yoko Ono.

I really liked punk music and experimental music that my brother was taking me to go see in the city, when I was probably, like, 13 years old. I was seeing a lot of teenagers making 'weird' music, and I think that was probably a big part of the reason that I actually started to play myself.

I picked up the bass kind of postpunk-style. There's a real art to not learning how to play an instrument and being able to still play it.

Lately, I'm spending more and more time working with non-rock musicians and leaving the mainstream - almost dissolving into another world, musically.

In the early eighties, there were a lot of artists involved with the music scene. All those young artists, before their careers took off, were into music. Robert Longo used to play some guitar. He had a band for a while. Basquiat had a band. I mean, people were always trying to mix music and art - in fact, I'm guilty of it myself.

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

We were watching bands like the Ramones and Blondie and other bands beginning to ignite.

While my friends were busy listening to the Talking Heads, Police, and B-52s, I was busy teaching myself to program on the Atari.

Sonic Youth, for better or worse, is/was a machine that carried me along through pregnancy, motherhood, and creative opportunities I never would have achieved on my own. I'm grateful and surprised that we were listened to, loved, ignored, and overrated.

People like Jeff Buckley, the Mars Volta and Bjork made me listen to music differently. You learn the voice is an instrument you can do crazy things with.

If you go back to the '80s, you had a whole plethora of artists, everyone from Madonna and Cyndi Lauper to Prince. God bless Lady Gaga for doing her thing, but she's kind of a lone peacock now. If anything, we have a much more conservative kind of pop world. It's not necessarily about individuality.

L.A. is kind of flat these days; I guess Austin and other places are like that now. But that's what I wanted to get across: You could be as crazy as you wanted, and that was OK. You didn't have to be good; people would still come and hear you.

I think that a band that cannot limit themselves to one genre and can kind of do a lot of different things.

When I left the country to study in the U.K., I suddenly realized, and I'm still realizing, how much other stuff is out there - like My Bloody Valentine, who millions of people are passionate about, but they're still considered an 'underground' band.

I was a big fan of the Rain Parade, Green on Red, X, the Rolling Stones.

In the old days, maybe we'd come across Captain Beefheart, buy a record, go, 'This is great!' and notice how his music is evolving, changing, and becoming more complex, more radical. And we would follow that progression and see it reflected in the alternative culture it came from.

I've always had influences from all over the place, like Mr. Bungle and Primus. As a band, we try not to focus too much on where it's coming from, because we're always listening to music.

I knew that my love for the Sisters of Mercy, Lords of the New Church and that kind of stuff, was never going to lend itself well to a direct interpretation in Black Veil Brides.

I try to take whatever I can from the songs I grew up listening to, these vibed-out pop numbers, and make them my own in some weird way.

Most songs on the radio are so straightforward and it just doesn't open up people's minds.

I am a black new wave artist.

I have a checkered past. I'll take any eyeliner that comes my way.

You are all a lost generation," Gertrude Stein said to Hemingway. We weren't lost. We knew where we were, all right, but we wouldn't go home. Ours was the generation that stayed up all night.

I love going out every night. It’s so exciting.

I think one's musical life should be free and open to new experience in order to keep expanding your mind and horizons.