"You can rebel against everything adults say. When I want to find out what the new music is, I find out what parents hate."
George Clinton
Interviewer: “Ohio’s been described as very industrial and bleak—flat empty planes—“
DEVO: “That’s exactly the atmosphere that allowed DEVO to exist...The cities are the major source of information—they are devolving at a faster rate than the rest of the country—but they represent the trend always. They’re ready for it, just like in FEMALE TROUBLE, the sequel to PINK FLAMINGOS, DIVINE says: Who wants to die for Art? And everybody says ME! ME!—in a kind of facetious parody, a kind of enactment of the total nihilism, self-contempt and debasement that people feel….We weren’t stupid enough to be businessmen, and we weren’t pretty enough to be DAVID BOWIE, we’re just following our genetic imperative….”
Johnny Ramone: (to Paul Simonon): “What do you do? Are you in a band?”
Simonon: “Well, we just rehearse. We call ourselves the Clash but we're not good enough.”
Johnny Ramone: “Wait till you see us—we stink, we're lousy, we can't play. Just get out there and do it."
1976 conversation quoted in Punk: The Definitive Record of a Revolution by Stephen Colegrave and Chris Sullivan (2005)
“Sun Ra? He’s out to lunch alright—same place I eat at.”
George Clinton
“It’s not that I want to forget [the 13th Floor Elevators.] I have good memories of those days. But that really wasn’t my bag. I’m a horror lover and that’s what I’m into now… I’m trying to horrify them, demonize them and ‘possesionize’ them…All my life I’ve run into people who said, ’If you read too much of that horror, it’s going to hurt you.’ They were always trying to take it away from me. But people love monsters. They love those horror movies and I just figured it would be kind of neat to put it all into music.”
Roky Erickson
“I hated the fan stuff that had built up around the band—the idea that we had taken over from Joy Division. They were expecting me to take that one step, so that I could forever remain young. People wanted me to kill myself. I thought, ‘I’m going to piss everyone off by doing a really idiotic pop song.”
Robert Smith