Alt Music Quotes

Mein gutes altes kroatisches Herz beschleunigte von Walzer zu Death Metal.

[...] ne aflam in cu totul alte raporturi fata de muzica clasica decat oamenii din epocile care au creat-o; veneratia spiritualizata si nu intotdeauna suficient eliberata de sub stapanirea unei melancolii resemnate, nutrita de noi fata de adevarata muzica, este cu totul altceva decat senina placere naiva iscata de muzica in vremurile in care a aparut [...]

Ich hatte mich immer darauf gefreut, alt zu werden, und das auch überall lauthals verkündet. Seit den Heldenanfängen hatte ich eine seltsame Sehnsucht nach dem Jenseits-Davon gehabt, mich auf Partys zielsicher neben Leute aus meiner Elterngeneration gesetzt und mein Alter auf Anfrage eher hoch- als runtergerechnet. Womit ich nicht gerechnet hatte, war das Dazwischen, die uneindeutige, demütigend lange Zeit zwischen Fräuleinwunder und Lebenswerk. Denn das ist es, wofür der Pop keine Toleranz hat. Für Frauen, die ein kleines bisschen alt sind und nicht mehr ganz jung. So wie der Pop auch Frauen wie Beth Ditto und Lizzo feiert, als dickes Feigenblatt einer anorektischen Kultur, durchschnittliche mitteldünne Frauen mit runden Schultern und Hüften aber nicht mal mit der Zange angefasst.

I am not great in a crowd. I don’t see a lot of rock shows because sometimes I am afraid I won’t get out. I used to squeeze my little self into the scrum and jump around and cause tiny trouble. Now I just want to sit down and have someone perform my five favorite songs while I eat a light dinner and receive a simultaneous pedicure. Is there some kind of awesome indie/alt/hip-hop/electronica music tour that can do that?

-Nei - øøøæææh! BANANARAMA?! Eg like jo heavy, ugh, eg like ikje sånn fittemusikk frå helvete! - Du må åpne opp for nye ting. Du har levd for lenge i det der kukfengselet for lenge og hørt på heavy. I kveld,høre du, ikveld, skal du og meg drikke Cava og høre på Bananarama, for eg elske Banarama og alt di står for!

Maybe a film is just a diversion, a way to feel briefly better about our lives, the limitations and disappointments that define us, the things we cannot change. Most of us leave the theater, after all, and just go on being ourselves. Still, maybe something else is possible. Maybe in the moment when the music swells, and our hearts beat faster, and we feel overcome by the beauty of an image—in the instant that we feel newly brave and noble, and ready to be different, braver versions of ourselves—that we are who we really are.

In November of 1997, the New Jersey–based independent radio station WFMU broadcast a live forty-seven-minute interview with Ronald Thomas Clontle, the author of an upcoming book titled Rock, Rot & Rule. The book, billed as “the ultimate argument settler,” was (theoretically) a listing of almost every musical artist of the past fifty years, with each act designated as “rocking,” “rotting,” or “ruling” (with most of the research conducted in a coffeehouse in Lawrence, Kansas). The interview was, of course, a now semi-famous hoax. The book is not real and “Ronald Thomas Clontle” was actually Jon Wurster, the drummer for indie bands like Superchunk and (later) the Mountain Goats. Rock, Rot & Rule is a signature example of what’s now awkwardly classified as “late-nineties alt comedy,” performed at the highest possible level—the tone is understated, the sensibility is committed and absurd, and the unrehearsed chemistry between Wurster and the program’s host (comedian Tom Scharpling) is otherworldly. The sketch would seem like the ideal comedic offering for the insular audience of WFMU, a self-selecting group of sophisticated music obsessives from the New York metropolitan area. Yet when one relistens to the original Rock, Rot & Rule broadcast, the most salient element is not the comedy. It’s the apoplectic phone calls from random WFMU listeners. The callers do not recognize this interview as a hoax, and they’re definitely not “ironic” or “apathetic.” They display none of the savvy characteristics now associated with nineties culture. Their anger is almost innocent.

I don’t see a lot of rock shows because sometimes I am afraid I won’t get out. I used to squeeze my little self into the scrum and jump around and cause tiny trouble. Now I just want to sit down and have someone perform my five favorite songs while I eat a light dinner and receive a simultaneous pedicure. Is there some kind of awesome indie/alt/hip-hop/electronica music tour that can do that?

Das Musikwunder in unserem Dorf begann mit dem Auftauchen eines pädagogischen Ausnahmetalents, das alles veränderte. Es war der gebürtige Georgier Wachtang Korisheli, den wir, seine Schüler, bis heute mit geradezu anhänglicher Verehrung Professor Korisheli nennen. In meiner Erinnerung kam er wie aus dem Nichts, vorbeigefahren mit seinem kleinen, ratternden Volkswagen. Er war einfach plötzlich da und begann, unsere Grundschule in eine Art musikalisches Labor zu verwandeln. Das war 1957, ich war gerade sechs Jahre alt.

But tonight wasn’t about me. It was about Rogue and LJ Records. It was about the music. The fans. This alt rock life I was born to live.

I popped my cassette of Alte Kameraden into the player. A friend had taped it for me. Alte Kameraden seven and one-half times. The Royal Netherlands Guardsmen. Music to enlist by. It got my adrenaline moving. By the time I reached Candi Yakozi’s street I was ready to fight thirty-two Royal Bengal tigers. I counted doorways from her address to the corner. I parked and walked up the alley to the back door of her garden apartment. I knocked lightly. The door opened instantly. Candi Yakozi was wearing a smile and spike heels and a white sharkskin blouse that came to a screeching halt something like fifteen inches north of her knees. It looked like that might be all.

chanten tree toyums a day – idn’t that reet, Nudger?’ Nudger nods and storts rolling a joint. ‘And is it, like, working?’ I go. Ronan’s there, ‘I habn’t had sex in two weeks.’ ‘I should hope not. You’re on an island with a bunch of Polish construction workers.’ ‘Polish? They’re alt from Duddygall, Rosser!’ ‘Donegal? Jesus. Well, you know me, Ro – everyone who’s not from South Dublin sounds exactly the same to my ears. The point I’m trying to make is that, well, you wouldn’t be having sex given that there’s no actual women on the island.’ ‘The thing is, but, I habn’t eeben had a wank, Rosser. Two weeks – and I habn’t pult meself off once.’ ‘Hey, that’s, er, great news.’ I know they say we’re too quick to praise our children these days but I still say it anyway. I’m there, ‘I’m proud of you, Ro.’ He goes, ‘It reedy woorks, Rosser. The chanten, the sitar music, the meditayshidden, the little birra hash that Nudger brings oaber. Ine arthur learden how to switch off me libeetho, so I am. Ine cured, Rosser.’ ‘That’s good news for you – and for Shadden obviously.’ ‘Ine saying to Nudger, he should be doing this for a libbon. Imagine how much thee’d pay for a serbice like this oaber in Hoddywoot! Alt them fiddum steers with their bleaten sex addictions, wha?’ Nudger smiles modestly, then lights up. He takes two blasts off the joint, then passes it to Ronan. Out of the blue, I go, ‘Ro, can you do me a favour?’ He’s like, ‘What koyunt of a fabour?’ I’m there, ‘Can you look after something