famous music related quotes

[SEHpicker]

I bet he wishes he could take this back... talk about putting your foot in your mouth... this one is right up to the hip.

 

"The Beatles are not merely awful, I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful... They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as the crowned heads of anti-music."

William F. Buckley Jr. 1962

 

SEHpicker

[Caevan O’Shite]

Well, at least he didn't state this as a record-company employee rejecting them, right?

 

Maybe he still felt that way up to his death!

 

And, to be fair, it's more understandable to imagine someone reacting that way to their music circa '62, than later when they had grown exponentially all around. They were new, they were raw, they were still fairly derivative at that time, playing light pop/rock & roll for the most part. What if you were comparing them to, say, Miles, 'Trane, McCoy Tyner, Wes, then in 1962? They could've seemed pretty "dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art" of music, especially to someone who wasn't into rock & roll...

 

What cracks me up is how there were music-company people who turned them down, and the similar stories about Led Zeppelin being insulted and laughed out of record co. offices when they were shopping for a label... !!

[p90jr]

Buckley was a conservative and a right-wing reactionary... a "cultural gatekeeper," as he saw it. He didn't like anything new or different... that's what "conservatism" is - a resistance to change. He didn't like rock and roll, youth-oriented pop culture... I'd bet you can dig up things where he takes swipes at jazz other than big band...

 

"My dear, one simply doesn't drink Dom Perignon '52 at room temperature. It's as unthinkable as listening to the Beatles without ear muffs!"

- James Bond, in Goldfinger

[Fingerstyle_Jim]

I believe Elvis Presley said something like "I don't know anything about music, I don't have to know anything about music in the business I'm in", while at a fairly high point in the, uh, music business.

 

Jim

[p90jr]

I remembered this article from Buckley back when Jerry Garcia died... I'm not a Dead fan of any proportion, but Garcia was a good soul, so this pissed me off a bit.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/1995200511210832.asp

[Larryz]

I don't miss Buckley but I do miss the Beatles, I think they were just smarter than he was about music and he couldn't stand the fact that they lasted so long...but I'm sure he wished he'd never opened his yap as time went by...

[skipclone 1]

Well I hate to speak ill of people who are no longer with us.

Except now.

One of the best bits of journalistic schadenfruede that I ever felt terrible about totally enjoying was a review in a local paper called

`Rock Bottom Bach`, a review of a program of Bach by Mr. Buckley appearing with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. It takes a special ability to screw up an entire orchestra, and I thought to always remember that he did it by ..."rather than correcting his mistakes, making the typical amatuer`s mistake of speeding up." Now I should emphasize that I found it a lot more amusing than the reviewer, who made it plain that he was deeply offended by having to sit through that kind of sonic carnage. Specifically he said that

"It`s the worst live performance I`ve ever seen." and "Mr. Buckley has no business playing in front of a paying audience." I liked it so much I saved a copy, but it`s back in the U.S.-point being, whatever imperiousness he brought to judging the worth of musical figures, he was speaking as one versed in cultural values, not musical ones.

 

[picker]

Well meanwhile, back at music related quotes, which was the point of this thread in the beginning, we have;

 

"Go ahead on Mister Businessman, you can't dress like me."

 

Does anyone under the age of 30 recognize it?

 

Or how about;

 

"Do da name 'Ruby Begonia' strike a familiar note?"

[p90jr]

Yeah, when you strike a chord within people with a quote it's bound to derail the thread a bit.

 

In a new copy of Esquire there's a bunch of Les Paul quotes. Here's two priceless ones:

 

"It's not about technique, it's what you have to say."

 

"The audience: they're not professionals. They just love music. It isn't necessary to play over their heads to be respected."

[The Beatles27]

"I was told when I first started to play that simple music is the hardest music to play. And blues is simple music."

-Albert Collins

[mhuxtable]

"I believe that music is God's voice."

 

"We wanted to bring some love to the world. I thought we were good at doin' that. Bringing love to the world."

 

Brian Wilson

[Fingerstyle_Jim]

Oh, and "D minor is the saddest key of all keys", Nigel Tufnel

 

Jim

[picker]

"Our music is mediocre."

Gene Simmons, Rolling Stone Interview, 1976.

[Eric Iverson]

"First master your instrument. Then forget about all that s**t and just play." - Charlie Parker

[Larryz]

"We don't like their sound and guitar music is on the way out" Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles 1962.....this is what I thought the thread was about, sorry...didn't mean to go off target...

[skipclone 1]

Okay, I didn`t see any criminal behavior in adding an anecdotal experience based on another person`s comment but I`ll try to refrain from doing it any more.

 

 

"A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges."-Benny Green.

 

This quote was the answer to a cryptogram-a substitution code puzzle-in a puzzle book.

[SEHpicker]

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid"

-Frank Zappa

 

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you

have to do is touch the right key at the right

time and the instrument will play itself.

-- J.S. Bach

 

"Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture" - Thelonious Monk.