Moby Quotes

I love a lot of the New York bands, but Patti Smith stands out. I just read 'Just Kids' and it's an inspirational, well-written account of an emerging New York artist in the late seventies.

I love biographies. I read Patti Smith's 'Just Kids.' I'm into that time frame in New York, the '70s and '80s. In art school, I read 'Close to the Knives,' the autobiography of the artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz.

Lou Reed was a hero because he was an anti-hero.

I always wanted to move to New York because of the Velvet Underground, because of the picture that they painted of New York City.

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 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.

I think New York has evolved in my work just the way the city has.

I'd photographed musicians before but this was different. Syd was very charismatic, and he had the aura of a poete maudit, which made him the perfect subject for me - I realised that rock n' rollers were the modern equivalent of all the poets I was so enamoured with.

When I was 16, I was in Boston and some friends said, 'You want to go to New York?,' I went with my roommate... These guys said, 'We're going to this club. Just don't go in the washroom.' It was CBGB. I had no idea what it was or the history of all the music. All I knew was this was my first 21-and-over club and I managed to get in!

My first job in NYC was playing a gig in the early nineties at CBGBs.

I grew up in Greenwich Village. Dad was friends with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

I would say that Times Square was the central hangout for Burroughs, Kerouac, and myself from about 1945 to 1948.

I loved 'Just Kids' by Patti Smith.

When I was 13, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground made more sense to me than anything else.

My golden dream was to move to New York and live in the Village and become that cool rebel beatnik Jack Kerouac.

I was a real East Village girl.

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 heard the Velvet Underground and that changed things when I was like, 15.

My aunt made stuff; my mom was creative, so I was surrounded by that. When I moved to England, it was '75, and everything was happening. My whole teenage life is England, glam rock and David Bowie and Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop, all that stuff.

I have had a place in New York in the musicians' district on the Upper West Side since 1986.

We got our first significant pieces of press in the 'New York Rocker' from early gigs at CBGB.

I came to New York for the first time with Peter Buck at age 19. We spent a week living out of a van on the street in front of a club in the West 60s called Hurrah. It's where Pylon played. I saw Klaus Nomi play there. And Michael Gira's band before he did Swans-they all wore cowboy boots and were so cool and had great hair. I was so jealous.

New York City pretty much reeked of music. Reeked of rap and hip-hop. As for me, growing up in a strict West Indian, Trinidadian household, and a Christian household as well, I had to fight for the right to go and actually be a part of it.

You had bands like D.O.A., or Black Flag, and a whole network opened up to trailblazer a counter culture movement. I'm more interested in the less sensational type of stories.

I think that, just like the art scene and the music scene is exploding in LA - I mean, let's face it: if you want to be an artist you cannot live in New York anymore because it is too expensive…