So, I bought a new CD and I was trying to get it open but couldn't with all the layers... I mean plastic and then tape, and the tape is like government tape. It says 'open here.' Is that sarcasm?
I was the bohemian in my family, the "this is my favorite shoe and I don't care if it has tape around it" kind of person. The tape could become a fashion statement. Or a political statement.
Maybe I'll start from the initial idea, what motivated me to do that. In 1953, I had access to a tape recorder. Tape recorders were not widely available. There was no cassette tape back then. It was a Sears Roebuck tape machine. I put a microphone in the window and recorded the ambience.
People who leave their cars on the street with tape covering their broken windows are obviously too trusting. I mean, when your car did have glass for a window, someone broke into it. How is tape any more of a deterrent? What are the thieves going to say? Ooh, that like looks like duct tape, we can't beat that. Let's look for one with scotch or masking.
Tape machines are effects boxes as well because each tape machine has its own sound. You can over-load a tape machine or you can bump it a certain way so it compresses or makes a sound, tape saturation.
All the dialogue on tape, and we'd play the tape in performance. Then I thought it'd be interesting if the actor's repeated what they heard on the tape, but at a slower speed, so we'd get a web of language.
People don't care about what someone says about you in a movie--or even what you say, right? They care about what you build.
No matter what, all I want to do is win. I don't care what anybody says, any media outlet, anybody says as a person; the one thing they can't say is that I don't want to win.
I don't believe anyone who says they don't care what people say about them. Of course they bloody well do.
My mother says to me, when I'm making a new movie, she says, "Oh, is Steve Buscemi in it?" I'd say, "Yeah." And she, "Oh, then it's going to be a good one." I swear to God, she says that every time. And when I say Steve's not in it, she says, "Oh."
Who says, who says you're not perfect? Who says you're not worth it? Who says you're the only one that's hurting? Trust me, that's the price of beauty, who says you're not pretty? Who says you're not beautiful?... Who says?
Some people record onto tape, and then they pay for the tape, and download those onto a hard drive. Initially in a Pro Tools program. Other people go straight into digital, and use no tape at all.
People don't care about what someone says about you in a movie - or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people's life better, then that's something that's really good.
When we had the San Francisco Tape Music Center, we had a couple of Ampex tape machines there, and I could string tape from one machine, past the heads, and over to the next machine to the supply-reel amp, and have another delay there.
What's that sticky stuff called? Basta: Duct tape. Yes, duct tape. I love duct tape.
I had invented my own system, my own way of making electronic music at the San Francisco Tape Music Centre, and I was using what is now referred to as a classical electronic music studio, consisting of tube oscillators and patch bays. There were no mixers or synthesizers. So I managed to figure out how to make the oscillators sing. I used a tape delay system using two tape recorders and stringing the tape between the two tape machines and being able to configure the tracks coming back in different ways.