I really love D.C.; it's one of my favorite places to perform. I always say when I come here, I feel like my IQ increases by 20 points.
There was always so much encouragement, to just really take it and run with it, from Deadheads.
Broadway is a very different kind of place. It's kind of like Nashville in that there's a certain amount of people that are involved, and those people are what run it.
It took time to really build myself a reputation as a good live performer, a musician and an artist.
Nashville may be famed for its country music, but this may well be the capital of rock and roll music in the United States of America.
I'm so far removed from live playing any more.
D.C. is a great place. The music, jazz, has always been great here, the restaurants have always been fantastic here. And there's been a lot of changes in this city over the last 30 years, and all for the better.
All men in their 40s want to be in rock bands, and I reserve the right to be in a pub band at some point.
Well that's probably what'll end up happening: a load of really good musicians who can't afford to be in bands, who have to have day jobs, you know what I mean? And then that's when you start losing a lot of the live touring bands.
New York is vibrant, sexy, naughty, always surprising, and has great live music and great fashion.
I was surprised by how much I loved Portland. It is so wonderfully creative without being artsy. Great food scene.
When Phish broke up, I made some comment about how I'm not gonna go around playing 'You Enjoy Myself' for the rest of my life.
I was 14, and I played this club that's no longer there because it was poorly managed: the Texas Tea House in Fort Worth.
I remember that first week at the Whisky and the gigs we (The Buffalo Springfield) did with the Byrds, We could really smoke ! That band never got on record as bad, and as hard as we were. Live we sounded like the Rolling Stones.
Being in Blur has allowed me to travel and hear the music that's being made all over the world.
I was always more interested in the ultimate live performance rather than the recording for its own sake. And, for the audience too, that thrill of - just being there.
I fell in love with Nashville. I got lots of work.
The piano sounds like a carnival and the microphone smells like a beer. And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say, man, what are you doing here?
When kids can't afford to see it anymore maybe we'll have a whole resurgence of garage bands all over America and this New Wave thing will start to mean something on a grass roots level.
That's one thing that you notice in New York that you don't notice in LA is how much music is all over the place.
There's so much music in Austin, and it's all so different.
In our early period we pretty much survived or perished on our capacity to reach people, and on getting into the pattern of having no money and playing lots of shows.
I've been singing since I was 8 years old and working in clubs since I was 14. I've been working full time since I was 16.
I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life playing clubs, if that means I'm playing music that I believe in.
This was an era where I was going out every night seeing Sparks, Berlin, Duran Duran, and Split Enz. Amazing acts doing really weird stuff, and I was very open to music and letting it transform me.
