Quote from John Cale about David Bowie
There was this period around mid-late '70s when David and I would run into each other in New York. There was plenty of talk about getting some work done, but of course we’d end up running the streets, sometimes until we couldn’t keep a thought in our heads, let alone actually get a song together! One night we managed to meet up for a benefit concert where I taught him a viola part so we could perform together. When I wrote "Night Crawling," it was a reflective moment of particular times.
That kind of NYC that held art in its grip, strong enough to keep it safe and dangerous enough to keep it interesting. I always figured we’d have another go at the two of us recording together, this time without the interference of being perpetually off our heads! The thing about creating music is the ability to divine a thought or feeling even when reality says it’s a logical impossibility.
Brooklyn Vegan
He said this when doing press for his new single "Night Crawling." While he wrote it back in the 70s when he was hanging out with David Bowie in New York City, he didn't release this song until 2022.
Quote from Charlie Munger about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Young lawyers frequently come to me and say, "How can I quit practicing law and become a billionaire instead?" I say, well, it reminds me of a story they tell about Mozart.
A young man came to him, and he said, "I want to compose symphonies. I want to talk to you about that."Mozart said, "How old are you?"
"Twenty-two."
And Mozart said, "You’re too young to do symphonies." And the guy says, "But you were writing symphonies when you were ten years old."
He says, "Yes, but I wasn’t running around asking other people how to do it.”
Howard Lindzon
Charlie Munger shared this nugget of wisdom at the 2019 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting.
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Quote from Nick Cave about Charlie Watts
About ten years ago I decided that it might be a good idea to get in shape for an upcoming tour and so I booked some training sessions at a local gym in Brighton. I’d never trained or even entered a gym before and I also didn’t have any kit, and so, in preparation, I ordered a tracksuit from Amazon. When it arrived the tracksuit was very small — I think it was actually a child’s size. I had forgotten to order trainers but found an old pair of giant white sneakers that had belonged to one of the kids. As I left the house for my first session at the gym I was aware that I looked ridiculous and so I stuck on a bucket hat that was lying around in an effort to disguise myself.
I spent the most punishing hour of my life in the gym that day, with a trainer who, as far as I’m concerned, basically violated me. Drenched in sweat, I left the gym vowing never to return. On the drive home I suddenly remembered that I had promised Susie that I would pick her up from Heathrow — I also realised that I was late and had no time to go home to change out of my gym clothes but I thought, ‘Fuck it, I’ll drive straight to the airport, run into the terminal to meet her and then get out of there, no one will see me.’
When I arrived at the airport I needed to have a piss so I stopped at the bathrooms and as I walked back out, in my tiny tracksuit, my giant white trainers and my bucket hat, there, walking toward me, was Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones. He had silver hair and was dressed in an elegant pearl-grey three piece suit, a button down checked shirt and a tie. He literally glowed with a kind of inner serenity, and as we passed each other we locked eyes for a moment and he smiled at me — not an unkind smile, but not a kind one either, rather the impassive look one animal might give to another in the wild, that signalled their complete and total supremacy.
As I watched Charlie Watts disappear into the crowd, I rearranged my bucket hat, and thought, “There goes a truly great drummer,” which is what I thought when I heard the news this week of his passing — “There goes a truly great drummer.”
The Red Hand Files - Nick Cave's Q&A Website
Nick Cave posted this on his website in response to a few questions from his fans when the late great Charlie Watts passed away.
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Quote from Lou Reed about Lou Reed
“I have never thought of music as a challenge — you always figure the audience is at least as smart as you are,” he wrote. “You do this because you like it, you think what you’re making is beautiful. And if you think it’s beautiful, maybe they think it’s beautiful.”
NY Times
This quote reflecting on his own songwriting and creative process appeared in his NY Times obituary.
Quote from Lou Reed about Bob Dylan
“Dylan gets on my nerves,” he said in 1968. “If you were at a party with him, I think you’d tell him to shut up.”
Twenty-one years later he would tell Rolling Stone, “Dylan continuously knocks me out.”
NY Times
The juxtaposition of these two quotes appeared in The NY Times obituary for Lou.
Quote from Liam Clancy about Bob Dylan
He was always, just hanging around. Sometimes, you'd want to just say [swats], get away!" [ laughs ]
No Direction Home
This is from an interview that appears in Martin Scorsese's documentary, No Direction Home.
Quote from Bob Dylan about Liam Clancy
Liam was profound. Besides all his rebel songs and his acting career, he would have these incredible sayings.
Like once he said to me, after about thirty pints of Guinness, "Remember Bob—no fear, no envy, no meanness."
I said, "Hmm, right."
No Direction Home
This is from an interview with Dylan that appears Martin Scorsese's documentary, No Direction Home.
Quote from George Harrison about The Traveling Wilburys
The thing about the Wilburys to me is, if we'd of tried to plan that, or if anybody had tried to say, you know, "Let's form this band and get these people in it," it would never happen. It's impossible. And, the thing happened completely just by magic, just by circumstances. Maybe there was a full moon that night or something like that. It was quite a magical little thing really.
I had dinner with Roy Orbison and Jeff [Lynne], and I said to Jeff, "Look tomorrow I'm just gonna go in the studio and make up a tune, and do you wanna come and help?" And he said, "Sure."
Bob [Dylan] we knew had this little studio. I phone Bob up, I mean sometimes you can call him and not get through for years. He picked up first ring and said, "Sure come on over."
My guitar was at Tom Petty's house, so Tom, Jeff picked me up, we went over to Bob's. I got the first line, it said, "Been beat up, battered around," and then, wham. They just kept coming with all these lines.
And, there's Bob saying, "Well what's it called, what's it about?" Well I finally saw behind a door this big box with a sticker on it saying, "HANDLE WITH CARE."
I said, "Handle With Care?"
He said, "Oh yeah, good."
The True History of The Traveling Wilburys (Documentary)
This quote appears at the beginning of a wonderful short documentary about The Traveling Wilburys directed by Willy Smax called, The True History of The Traveling Wilburys.
Quote from Brad Paisley about Mick Jagger
When they were in Nashville, they came in a couple of days early. What they do, which is really neat, when you tour at the level they're at, they sort of take over a city. When The Rolling Stones are coming—and you remember when they were here—Nashville was buzzing for several days. It was like, "There's a Mick Jagger sighting!" We ended up going to dinner at Etch here in town. And what was funny about that was that Mick had said—I had said, well when you get in town you wanna go eat? We've got some great new restaurants, and he said, "Yeah."
He picked the restaurant, and I thought for sure he's got people that do that. When we sat down to eat I said, "I've never been here before, how'd you find this?" He said, "Oh yeah I think Trip Advisor or something like that." [Laughs] He, like looked it up, and it said this is great. He said, "It said this is great, I thought we should try it."
The next thing you know we're sitting there and I said, "You've gotta come back when we can be here without anybody knowing, and see if we can record and you can experience the city and really see what the creative process is like in this town," and I never expected him to say. "Yeah let's do it," and he did. Next thing you know three months later he was at my house.
YouTube
This was from a 2017 radio interview with Brad Paisley where he talks about how he talked Mick Jagger into recording with him.
Quote from Brad Paisley about Keith Richards
Somebody gave me a tip, which was really interesting, "Mention the Louvin Brothers to Keith Richards." That's all I had to do, and he was ready to talk about "Satan Is Real." He loves that album...The Louvin Brothers were a Bluegrass duo that were amazing. They sang great. They were Opry members, Charlie and Ira Louvin. Ira was a hellian. He was crazy. He was one of those guys, the stories are legendary. But they also did Gospel records that were sort of really judgmental Gospel records [laugh], and it was a really interesting thing. [The Stones] were fascinated by stuff like that.
YouTube
During a radio interview in Nashville Brad Paisley discussed hanging out with The Rolling Stones the week of their 2015 show in Nashville at Nissan Stadium.
Quote from Jack White about Loretta Lynn
Loretta used to say, "To make it in the business you had to be great, different, or first."
And she thought that she was just different, and that's how she made it. But I think she was all three of those things, and there's plenty of evidence to back that up too.
Jack White's Official Instagram
This is from a video that Jack White recorded as a tribute to Loretta Lynn the day after she passed away on October 4th, 2022 at the age of 90.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Terry Johnson
Last but not least was Terry Johnson. He left school illegally at fifteen and lied about his age to get the job at IBC. By the time I arrived he was already doing sessions as an engineer at sixteen. To say he was a natural is something of an understatement. He was an extraordinary talent. For eighteen months or so we were pretty much inseparable. We soon discovered that we shared the same taste in music and sound and became close friends, closing ranks against the somewhat disapproving attitude of the senior engineers at IBC.
As that first year progressed, music began to change and the demand increased for English records to sound more and more like what was going on in America. Most of the older engineers didn't get it and were entirely dismissive. This meant that Terry, being as young as he was and having a natural enthusiasm for trying new ideas, was in great demand, and he pulled me along with him.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man, where Glyn describes the engineers he worked with at his first job at IBC, one of the largest independent recording studios in Europe in the early 60s.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Joe Meek
The late great Joe Meek used IBC on occasion. He had his own studio at home, where he developed his extraordinary sound, but he would often bring his tapes in to run them through one of our home-built equalizers to cheer them up a bit. I think he was frowned on by the powers that be, and as I was the most junior in the place I would be given the job of looking after him. What a great opportunity for me. He was a great and innovative engineer and a quiet, kind, and seemingly egoless man.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man, where Glyn describes the engineers he worked with at his first job at IBC, one of the largest independent recording studios in Europe in the early 60s.
Quote from Glyn Johns about David Price
Some of the classical sessions were engineered by David Price, an unpleasant little shit of a man, as I remember. He had a client, a BBC radio producer in real life moonlighting as a classical record producer. He bordered on certifiable, and like so many producers was an egomaniac. Most of the classical stuff was done on location, in large halls in London that could accommodate a symphony orchestra, like Wandsworth, Hammersmith, or Walthamstow town hall.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man, where Glyn describes the engineers he worked with at his first job at IBC, one of the largest independent recording studios in Europe in the early 60s.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Alan Stagg
Alan Stagg was also an engineer, specializing in classical recording. IBC being the only independent studio in Europe that had its own mobile recording unit meant we could go to any of the bigger venues required for recording large orchestras and choirs. Alan did very little recording, which turned out to be a good thing, as it quickly became apparent to me that he was not much of a specialist. However, he made sure the studio was always the first with the latest equipment, and the fact that it had such a great variety of talented engineers must have, to a large extent, been down to him.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man, where Glyn describes the engineers he worked with at his first job at IBC, one of the largest independent recording studios in Europe in the early 60s.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Ray Prickett
Then there was the very aptly named Ray Prickett. Although he suffered from little or no sense of humor and treated me like an unpleasant smell, he was still a great engineer. Among many others, he engineered most of the records that Alan Freeman produced for Pye Records. Petula Clark, Lonnie Donegan, and Kenny Ball being a few of the many successes he had.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man, where Glyn describes the engineers he worked with at his first job at IBC, one of the largest independent recording studios in Europe in the early 60s.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Eric Tomlinson
IBC was not only the best-equipped independent studio in Europe but it was also blessed with a great assortment of engineering talent, starting with Eric Tomlinson, who was the senior engineer on the staff when I began and, in my opinion, was one of the finest in the world. I remember that he had this habit of standing with one foot on top of the other while he worked, his hands flying around the console, never needing more than one run-through of the most complex of orchestral pieces before having it memorized, balanced, and ready to record. He was extremely kind to me, and I learned a great deal from watching the master at work.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man, where Glyn describes the engineers he worked with at his first job at IBC, one of the largest independent recording studios in Europe in the early 60s.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Jeff Beck
Brian was as insipid as I had expected, but the guitar player was astonishing. I had never seen anything quite like him. Playing rhythm and lead seamlessly with a fantastic sound. He was very cool-looking, quite scruffy, and had car grease ingrained in his hands. I grabbed Stu and asked where the hell he had found this guy. He and Brian had gone to see a band called the Tridents at Eel Pie Island, a popular venue on an island in the middle of the Thames at Twickenham. Being impressed with the guitar player, they approached him and asked if he would consider joining Brian's new band, the Nightshift. Everyone knew who Stu was, and I am sure that was the reason Jeff Beck agreed to join.
The band did not last long, but Stu and Jeff became lifelong friends and he quickly became one of the crowd that would hang out at the house, as he lived a short distance away in Carshalton. There must have been something in the water locally, as you could have thrown a net over the small area that Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Stu came from.
Sound Man
This quote appears at the end of the "Stu '62" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man. The Brian that he references is a Brian Wiles, roommate of Glyn and Ian Stewart (aka "Stu") in 1962. At the time The Rolling Stones were hanging out at their house a lot, and Brian decided he wanted to be a star as well. Glyn describes it like this: "After some months, Brian Wiles, feeling left out of the action, decided he was going to become a singer and put a blues band together. Stu, being the pal that he was, took it upon himself to help, as Brian did not know any musicians other than those he met through Stu and me, and they were all committed to other bands. I thought the whole idea was a joke, having had the misfortune to hear Mr. Wiles sing, and a blues singer he was not. A few weeks went by and I was informed that the band was formed and ready to play their first gig. It was to be at a local folk club in Leatherhead on a Sunday afternoon. Dreading the prospect, I thought I should at least show willing and went."
Quote from Glyn Johns about Ian Stewart
By this time the Stones had a successful record deal and were being managed by Andrew Oldham, who had taken the decision to fire Stu from the band as he felt Stu did not look right. I thought that was pretty extraordinary as none of them were exactly textbook for a rock star. He was offered the job as their road manager, I am sure out of loyalty from some members of the band and also due to the fact that he owned the van that they all traveled in with the gear. I was in the next room at Decca Studios when he was told, and when I expressed my disgust at their decision he told me that he was quite happy with the arrangement, adding that the idea of being a pop star had no appeal to him whatsoever and, as he felt they would become incredibly successful, it would be a great way to see the world. As time went by, it proved to be an excellent decision, as he really took to his new role and the freedom it gave him. He was far too straight to ever be a rock star. The Stones were the true beneficiaries. They not only got the services of a great piano player, they also had the most trustworthy friend anyone could wish for as a road manager. Keith Richards has always said that he is still working for Stu and, as far as he is concerned, The Rolling Stones are Stu's band.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Stu '62" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man. Glyn considered Stu to be one of the finest blues musicians he ever heard, so he really couldn't believe they kicked him out of the band.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Ian Stewart
We moved in together and the one piece of furniture that Stu brought with him was his upright piano. I remember waking up one morning to the sound of the most extraordinary blues music wafting up from the living room along with the usual smell of deliberately burned toast that he would make every morning. I went to investigate, to find Stu sitting at the piano, wearing nothing but his underpants, with an open letter on the stool beside him. The contents of the letter, apparently from an old flame, had upset him to such an extent that the only way he could deal with it was to play the blues. I felt like I was intruding, so I went back to my room where, for the next hour or so, I was treated to this impromptu outpouring of emotion by one of the finest blues musicians I have ever come across.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Stu '62" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man. Glyn and Stu became fast friends and eventually roommates. Glyn describes there house like this: "Stu kept all of the Stones' gear at the house, so we would appropriate guitar amps various from the loft in the roof to use for our sound system, which was very rarely silent, and incredibly loud. Fortunately, the house was in the middle of a large plot a long way back from the road and the neighbors on either side were some distance away. There were many great parties at 'The Bungalow,' with much coming and going. There was always something going on, but because we were all so busy we never seemed to get under each other's feet."
Quote from Glyn Johns about Ian Stewart
In 1962, Colin Golding, the bass player in The Presidents, introduced me to Ian Stewart, or "Stu" as he was affectionately known. Colin told me that he knew this guy who lived locally who had a vast collection of jazz and blues records. So he was definitely to be checked out. The friendship that grew from that meeting had an immense effect on my life. We met and discussed our mutual interest in the blues. He was so modest that it wasn't for some time that I found out that he played the piano and that he and a bunch of like-minded blues enthusiasts had put a band together called The Rolling Stones. In fact, he was responsible for starting the band with Brian Jones, having answered an advertisement Brian had placed in Jazz News earlier that year.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Stu '62" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man. The Presidents was Glyn's band at the time.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Laurence Olivier
He was to read the most important and emotive speech in the whole piece—[Lord] Nelson's letter to Lady Hamilton the night before he died at the Battle of Trafalgar. His transformation into character was extraordinary to watch. Those of us present being stunned into silence by the end of the one and only take.
Later that morning he was joined by a group of young actors who had to play a scene with him. It was quite obvious from the start that they were all in awe of him, but within minutes he had them completely at ease in his presence. A true professional. His personal problems left at the door, his concern for others and the job at hand taking precedence.
Sound Man
This quote appears in Glyn Johns' autobiography, Sound Man, when he's describing the first session he got to run as an engineer. Here's Glyn setting the scene: “In 1960 I got my first opportunity to actually sit at the console as an engineer. I was the assistant on the recording of a Son et Lumière production about the Battle of Trafalgar staged on Lord Nelson's ship the Victory in Portsmouth Harbour. Lord Nelson was played by Sir Laurence Olivier, who wanted to work on a Saturday, and the engineer, Ray Prickett, refused to work on weekends, so I was given the job. I was petrified. Fortunately, the director, Peter Wood, was a charming and kind man and did his best to put me at ease, knowing that this was my first session in charge. Just the idea of being in the presence of the great man was bad enough. It only involved one microphone, so not a lot could go wrong. Pathetic really. Unfortunately, the news of Olivier's intention to divorce Vivien Leigh and marry Joan Plowright had broken in the press that morning. So when he burst out of the elevator on the third floor and into studio B with a flurry of agitated entourage, there was steam coming out of every orifice.”
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Quote from Glyn Johns about Ry Cooder
Later in 1969, on a Stones session for Let it Bleed, Keith didn't show. So while we were waiting, Nicky [Hopkins] started jamming on the piano with Charlie and Bill. Pretty soon Mick got a harmonica and was soon joined by Ry Cooder, who was sitting in with the band that night. Jack Nitzsche had brought him over from California to play on the soundtrack to the movie Performance that we had finished a couple of days earlier. I ran the tape machine and the result was an album called Jamming with Edward, eventually released on Rolling Stones Records in 1972. It is just a bit of fun, showing Nicky's sense of humor and extraordinary technique, and it is great to hear Ry playing with Bill and Charlie. Definitely worth a listen.
Sound Man
This appears in the "Sunday Sessions" chapter of the Glyn Johns autobiography, Sound Man.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Jimmy Page
Soon I realized that I could use the time to experiment and get some great experience at the console, and I put the word out that you could get free studio time at my Sunday sessions. This attracted a crowd of exciting young musicians. Among them was Jimmy Page, who my pal Colin Golding had told me about. They were both at Kingston Art School—not far from where we all lived—along with Eric Clapton.
I suggested that I might be able to get Jimmy some paying sessions, but initially he declined, saying he would lose his grant at school if it became known that he had an income. It was not long before he changed his mind, and in a short space of time he had replaced Big Jim Sullivan as the number-one session guitarist in London.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Sunday Sessions" chapter of Sound Man, the Glyn Johns autobiography. He describes his Sunday sessions at IBC, the studio where he worked as an engineer in the early 60s like this: "Weekends were almost never booked in those first two years I was at IBC. So we were allowed to use the studio on Sundays to record our own projects. It all started with me and my friend Rob Mayhew recording a few demos, with John Timperley or Terry Johnson engineering. It was with one of these recordings that I attempted to be 'discovered' as a vocalist, with a song I had written with my neighbor Hugh Oliver, called 'Sioux Indian.'"
Quote from Glyn Johns about The Beatles
The one thing that struck me about The Beatles in those early days was how relatively ordinary they sounded without the vocals. They could have been any competent group of the day, but as soon as the voices were added the magic was there. It has always amazed me how they progressed as writers, musicians, and producers from this already exalted position.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Jack Good" chapter of Glyn Johns' biography, Sound Man. In this chapter he was describing a lot of the bands he heard and recorded in the early 60s when he was working as an engineer at one of the most prominent independent recording studios in Europe at the time, IBC.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Lonnie Donegan
The first session I was assigned was for Lonnie Donegan. This was too good to be true. He was still my favorite recording artist. I even discovered that the picture on the front cover of my much-coveted 10-inch album was taken in studio B at IBC. It was all too much for a young boy.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of Glyn Johns' autobiography, Sound Man. He's describing his first job in a recording studio, writing: "I started work at IBC the very next day, as a lowly assistant engineer. This meant setting up the studio before each session to the engineer's requirements, keeping continuity, and taking the blame for anything that did not work, while receiving varying amounts of verbal abuse from my superiors before, during, and after the session, and then stripping the studio afterward, with a great deal of tea making and equipment polishing thrown in."
Quote from Glyn Johns about Ian Stewart
It was through the window of the Harlequin that I was to catch my first sight of Ian Stewart. He would ride by on his racing bike, cutting a very athletic figure in his leather cycling shorts, his exaggerated chin thrust forward from the exertion of pedaling up the hill on Cheam High Street. He was three or four years older than me and we were not to meet until I was seventeen or eighteen, and boy did that change my life.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of Glyn Johns' autobiography, Sound Man. The Harlequin was a coffee shop that Glyn would frequent as a teenager. Here's how he describes it: "Sometimes smaller groups of us would meet in the Harlequin coffee bar in Cheam, making a round of toast and a cup of tea last until we were asked to leave by the owner, Mrs. Hughes. Little did I know then that twenty years later she would become my mother-in-law."
Quote from Glyn Johns about Lonnie Donegan
Les Paul's records almost paled into insignificance when I heard "Rock Island Line" by Lonnie Donegan for the first time on the radio. I had heard nothing like it and rushed out and bought it the next day. This was the first record I ever owned, and it and the 10-inch album Donegan released shortly thereafter became my staple diet for the next few months. He started the skiffle craze, which led to a fairly short-lived dominance of the charts by several other bands that copied him, and led me to American folk music and on to the blues.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of Sound Man, Glyn Johns' autobiography.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Les Paul
My sister Sue had a portable record player and, being three years older than me, found me to be nothing more than an annoyance throughout our youth. Therefore the record player was strictly off-limits, with very rare exceptions. I remember she bought a 78 of "Little Rock Getaway" by Les Paul and Mary Ford. It was a completely new sound. Les Paul was the first artist to use multitracking. He would record a guitar part on a mono machine, then play it back and record it onto another machine while adding a second guitar, repeating the process until he had the arrangement he wanted. Then he would do the same with Mary Ford's voice, adding her three or four times in harmony with herself. This was some years before the advent of multitrack recording as we know it today. Along with every other punter, I knew nothing of this and just thought it was a great sound. His innovative approach to recording led to the formation of the Ampex company, who produced the first multitrack tape machines with Les being given the second one off the line.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of Glyn Johns' autobiography, Sound Man.
Quote from Glyn Johns about Jimmy Page
I stayed on at the church as a server and started going to the church youth club on Wednesday nights. Among other delights, we would have discussion nights and play table tennis and were taught ballroom dancing, which didn't appeal to me at all, but at least you got to put your arm around a girl legitimately. One evening we had a talent night. I remember a boy in his early teens no one had seen before, who sat with his legs swinging over the front edge of the stage and played an acoustic guitar. He was pretty good, he may have even won, but I don't think anyone in the hall that night had any idea that he was to become such an innovative force in modern music. This was to be my first meeting with Jimmy Page.
Sound Man
This quote appears in the "Early Years" chapter of Glyn Johns' autobiography, Sound Man.
Quote from Lee Ranaldo about Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth? Strategy?
Pitchfork
Lee Ranaldo joked about this when discussing how they managed the band’s legacy after they broke up. We're not sure if he said this directly to Pitchfork for their 2022 article where we discovered this quote, or if it's something he said previously.
Quote from Warren Buffett about Charlie Munger
Charlie, as a very young lawyer, was probably getting $20 an hour. He thought to himself, "Who’s my most valuable client?" And he decided it was himself. So he decided to sell himself an hour each day. He did it early in the morning, working on these construction projects and real estate deals. Everybody should do this, be the client, and then work for other people, too, and sell yourself an hour a day.
The Snowball by Alice Schroeder
This appeared in an authorized biography of Warren Buffet by Alice Schroeder—The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, first published in 2008.
Quote from Jason Fried about Berkshire Hathaway
I love old people in general. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, I think, Munger is in his 90s now and Buffett is in his 80s. But they’ve always had this kind of wisdom which is this old-school, almost Farmers’ Almanac style of wisdom. I’ve always been attracted to that. I think complexity has also become a sport, where it’s like the more complicated something is, the better you think you are at it. Like if you make it more complicated, you’re better at it or something. I just think it’s kind of the opposite. So, I love those guys. That book [Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger], to me, sort of highlighted a lot of that kind of thinking. So, anything that Munger has written. I love reading Warren Buffett’s letter to his shareholders, which I think is a must-read for anybody.
The Tim Ferris Show - Podcast Interview
This quote comes from an interview that Tim Ferris did with Jason Fried on his podcast, The Tim Ferris Show - Episode #329. You can hear the quote around the 30 minute mark.
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Quote from Jason Fried about Jeff Bezos
Focus on the things in your business that won’t change." Examples he gave us…In 10 years, no one is going to say "I wish Amazon had worse selection" or "I wish it took longer to get an Amazon product” or “I wish Amazon’s customer service was worse.” So they invest in those core areas all the time. Those investments will always pay off, vs chasing the next trend, fad, or moment.
Medium.com/@jasonfried
This idea is something that Jason Fried has said many times over the years since Jeff Bezos first became an investor in his company, 37signals. It's appeared in the 37signals' book, Rework, on their podcast, on their blog Signal v. Noise, on Twitter, and elsewhere. Here Jason expressed this idea concisely after someone on Medium asked, "What's the most important thing you learned form Bezos?"
Quote from David Heinemeier Hansson about Steve Jobs
"Real artists ship" was one of Steve Jobs' mottos. You can clearly see that ethos still in present-day Apple. There are no far-future tech demos from things in the R&D lab at Apple keynotes. While their car project is the perhaps one of the worst kept secrets in company history, they aren't deliberately trying to flaunt it. Because a tech demo isn't shipping. And shipping is what counts.
Hey World - DHH Blog
This is David Heinemeier Hansson's take on the famous Steve Jobs quote, "Real Artists Ship." It first appeared on his "Hey World" personal blog, a blogging product built by his company 37signals that ties into their email product, Hey.
Quote from Jason Fried about Jeff Bezos
[Jeff] said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.
He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.
Signal v. Noise — The 37signals Blog
This is from a blog post by Jason Fried describing a time Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and an investor in Jason's company, 37signals, stopped by their office to talk about product strategy with their team. 37signals has built many products over the years, but is most famous for their project management tool, Basecamp. Basecamp was one of the first web-based Software-as-a-Service (aka SaaS) products.
Quote from Ringo Starr about The Beatles
It doesn't matter how many times we deny the reunion stories, it'll still go on. Even if there's only one of us left, they'll say he's getting it together with himself.
You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett