I think that some of the best Crowes stuff we did had that spontaneous vibe. Thats something thats always interested me in music. Im not really the kind of person to get too bogged down in the details. I think that takes away from the emotion and the vibe of what youre doing.
The hardest thing to get is true emotion. I always believe you need to earn that with the audience. You can't just tell them ok, be sad now. Humor, you can add. Even to the last minute you can be adding little bits of humor. But the true earned emotion is something that you really have to craft.
My love for pottery started completely by chance when a good friend of mine recommended I take a class. When I sat down at a pottery wheel, it was like love at first sight. It was so deeply meditative, and I felt connected right away.
I've been typed as historical fiction, historical women's fiction, historical mystery, historical chick lit, historical romance - all for the same book.
You know, in some ways conducting is counter-intuitive. It's like winter driving in Finland - if you skid, the natural reaction is to fight with the wheel and jam on the brakes, which is the quickest way to get killed. What you have to do is let go, and the car will right itself. It's the same when an orchestra loses its ensemble. You have to resist the temptation to semaphore, and let the orchestra find its own way back to the pulse.
Other than the obvious, like Cher and Diana Ross, I actually find a lot of inspiration from time periods. So it's not necessarily people, it's the essence of the time period, whether it be the '90s or the '70s or the '40s. The specific time and what vibe it gave you, what the emotion of that time was, and trying to get that emotion again.
Bourgeois class domination is undoubtedly an historical necessity, but, so too, the rising of the working class against it. Capital is an historical necessity, but, so too, its grave digger, the socialist proletariat.
At some point during every cooking class I teach, I do my signature move: dramatically add handful upon handful of salt to a large pot of boiling water, then taste it and add even more.
It might work with one orchestra, and the next orchestra - the oboe player might not get it. It's different every time, but some of the orchestras do end up enjoying it and having a great time.
It was very challenging, trying to add an orchestra on top of these traditional African rhythms, because as soon as you add any kind of melody or chords over it, it stops feeling African.
I didn't bother with television myself because it consisted largely of windmills, puppets and pottery wheels, interspersed with elderly men smoking pipes while they discussed Harold Macmillan in Old Etonian accents.
In the same way that I've no desire to live in earlier historical periods, I never touch historical recipes. Most historical cooking is detestable.
Today's food trucks are far from cheap eats on wheels, there are some seriously gourmet offerings on four wheels.
I like to get people moving and jumping. I think it's good to add more emotion and chaos.
There's power in the collective. If you don't believe me, just watch a symphony orchestra with a conductor and 120 people who are thinking about exactly the same thing at the same moment - no babies, no stock markets, no mortgages. Just 32nd notes.
The Mexican people are increasingly middle class, and Mexico has substantially become a middle-class society. This is true despite the significant poverty, and the class and geographic inequality that have deep historical roots.