A Quote by Lester Bangs

And doing so you can recreate yourself and you can also come up with something that is not only original and creative and artistic, but also maybe even decent, or moral if I can use words like that, or something that's like basically good.
In the early '90s, it felt like there was space - there was like an empty feel. There was nobody really doing this. Maybe the Pixies were, a little bit. Their lyrics were also disjointed, more psychosexual or something. That's part of youth, too, maybe, that you just feel like you're doing something different.
It's always been important to us to be original, which sounds really easy when you say it. Everyone says it all the time, but it's actually not that easy to be original. It's also something scary because if you're doing stuff that doesn't sound like anything else, I think a lot of people get scared of that. A lot of people tend to follow instead, they wait for something else to do something new and then they follow that. We just don't like to do that.
I remember driving home from a movie - it wasn't 'Halloween' but another one, maybe the original 'Omen' - and I dropped my friends off, and it was also broad daylight, and yet I was sure that, like, Damien was in the backseat or something like that.
I guess I feel like; if you're doing something and people are accusing you of appropriating something like that so obviously, then I would feel like I've failed as a creative person. It's just like stealing something and doing some sort of slight alteration to it - I'd feel like I'm not doing my job as a musician, or as a creative person - if it's just obvious like that.
Are you a person—with volition and maybe some stubbornness and at least the capacity if not the actual determination to do something surprising—or are you a tool? A tool just serves its user. It’s only as good as the skill of its user, and it’s not good for anything else. So if you want to accomplish something special—something more than you can do for yourself—you can’t use a tool. You have to use a person and hope the surprises will work in your favor. You have to use something that’s free to not be what you had in mind.
I like feeling like I'm discovering something new. That's really a special feeling and also, you don't have it that often. At least, I don't. Maybe I'm not creative enough.
Most songwriting like poetry takes a careful selection of words. Sometimes you're just channeling something and a selection of words come out that you wouldn't normally say, but you come up with an assortment of words that are really special. It just makes sense even if it's normally how you wouldn't express yourself.
My method is related to an attempt to do something that might be understood by today's world, or that could at least provide understanding. In other words, doing something I understand and that everyone understands. This natural desire for communication is also found in other domains, like reading and discourse, etc. I also hate repeating myself; it gives me no pleasure whatsoever. Once I've understood something, I need to start off on new ground.
I like to look up the formal definitions of words that I'm already familiar with and sometimes you find out a word means something you didn't already think of, you know? I looked up the definition of "upset" and it was something like, "To be filled with uneasiness and anxiety," and I feel like that all the time, so I was like, "That's appropriate." But also it's a name that when you hear it, you wouldn't assume that it's any certain type of band. It kind of has room to grow into and make it redefine the word.
What an amazing opportunity to do something like direct a movie and step out of your creative comfort zone and yet do something that is also so familiar at the same time. I was also just excited to have the chance to direct, which I may never get to do again.
Well, to have some teams come at you like Montreal did, it’s definitely flattering, and I think it was good for me to also set a precedent for players like me and how important we can be to teams. That was something I was happy to do as well, you know? Sometimes players like me are maybe overlooked or not looked at as an important piece to the puzzle, but it was something I wanted to prove and wanted to show.
I really think kids should understand that music is like learning the alphabet. You put small letters together to make words, and then you use these words to create a story, but with music. And they really need to know how to mix and match those letters and how to come up with something that is really interesting, or speak in metaphors as poets do to show us something maybe we didn't think about.
It's certainly not just a spot opinion; it's something that obviously has been building up for years. It is also very good for publicity, and it is the kind of recognition that maybe will help financially, also.
'Commercial' is not the word that has to be said only by CEOs. It has to be something that is maybe the essence of design, because design has some sort of art in it and creation, but it's also some object that you have to use. There is also this pragmatic end to it.
I like making sure that I've got a decent haircut, my beard's a decent length. I trim it once a week and that's all I need to do. Also, shoes polished. Just put yourself together properly. It's about self-respect, but it's also about having a bit of respect for the people you're interacting with on a daily basis.
I think, as the writer, you're always going to mourn something [left out of a film]. But you also just want to know there's a good reason for it being left out. On the whole, you want to give something to somebody creative. The worst thing you can do is say, "Here, be creative, but do it like I want you to do it." I was always very mindful of that.
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