298 Quotes About Rock-and-roll

And I like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today-jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, rock and roll, hip hop and on and on- is derived from the blues.

If Music is a Place -- then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.

We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity.

There's something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together. This wonderful little world that is unassailable. It's really teamwork, one guy supporting the others, and it's all for one purpose, and there's no flies in the ointment, for a while. And nobody conducting, it's all up to you. It's really jazz__that's the big secret. Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.

At the end of the song, the last chord I play sends the synth flying. It sails through the air and explodes when it lands, people dodging the synth-shrapnel left and right. You can tell it's the greatest thing that ever happened to them, this synth-bomb. The crowd goes wild.

The story of ten-year engagement and of Ormus’ consequent oath of celibacy spreads quickly; and this, too, makes Ormus and Vina irresistible. The new band takes off almost at once, and the force of its ascending shakes the land. Starting at oddities, ther grow quickly into giants. At once conqueror and celebrant, Ormus storms the citadels of rock, and Vina’s voice, as Yul Singh oversaw, is his weapon. Her voice is the servant of his melodies, his singing the servant of her voice.

Pop is not music. Pop is celebrity. Fabricated personas that are all style, no substance. Pop is a celebration of fakeness. Artifice is the only cultural currency left, now that the internet has erased all contextual borders.

Graham: Rod told me I needed to cut out half of my solos. Said they were interesting for people that loved technical guitar work but boring for everyone else. I said, "Why would I play to people who don't care about good guitar?"He said, "If you want to be huge, you gotta be for everybody.

The guitar breathed. It inhaled and exhaled, and music filled the shop as the instrument picked the heartbreak of generations.