The Lounge Lizards were relating with a tradition and it was like I was playing within a musical context. The guitar playing stood out as being different in some way. That was a real education for me. Votes: 15
We recorded that trio and it's out on the Knitting Factory label. I've got another record in the can with that group and Marc, which I'll hopefully finish some time before next summer. Votes: 14
The period right before punk rock where people like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop were really strong. Votes: 14
We deliberately used elements from Brazilian music and from African and Asian music. Now people can hear that but then it sounded so abstract, they couldn't hear it. Votes: 10
My parents were missionaries - I was born in the States but I grew up in Brazil. Votes: 8
Years ago when DNA was going on, I produced a record in Italy but I didn't think I'd do another one. Votes: 8
I had friends in this band called Mars and they used to play a lot. Votes: 7
We were interested in this notion of compression- a lot of the songs were really short so that you'd absorb them in memory rather than when you're actually hearing them. Votes: 6
Then the early punk rock period with Television and the Ramones. That's what I loved- that's what I was listening to immediately prior to when I started to play. Votes: 5
It was a scene in the sense that we were all close and we all knew each other before the different bands had really formed. We used to rehearse in the same place. Votes: 2
We were really interested in music from all over the world. We realized that what we were doing was very close to contemporary classical music because of the lack of tonality in the guitar- the fact that I play guitar the way I play. Votes: 2
It was very interesting for me because DNA made music without much technical knowledge at all. Votes: 2
There was a generation of people who moved here to make something of themselves. They had to really struggle and created really something on their own apart from a lot of attention. It was a really exciting time here. Votes: 2
Certainly since then many people have taken a lot of those ideas and ridden them for years and years and made careers out of them. Part of that is willingness to do the kind of work that I wasn't willing to do. Get into a van and cover the country. Votes: 1
I think the Ambitious Lovers never got their due- we had terrible management and at that point, we were on major labels and we didn't have any music business savvy which we could have used. We made a series of hilarious mistakes not in terms of music but in terms of making it happen. Votes: 0