Quotes About Performance

For the most part, the real work is done in the songwriting stage and recording; the next step is presenting to people.

Performing is the easiest part of what I do, and songwriting is the hardest.

Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking.

I enjoy recording and performing, but it's the songwriting that I love most.

People like me for my songwriting and production, not my singing.

I think of the Tycho sound as something separate from the band. I think the methodology and approach to production I use on the Tycho records can be applied to a lot of things. But from a performance and songwriting perspective, yes, Tycho is a live band.

I enjoy acting because it is very different to songwriting and it allows me to flex a different creative muscle.

Both with songwriting and playing a role, you're delivering the truth of something in a moment. In a lot of ways, it's the same thing.

I'm not really much of an actor, so when I started on 'The Daily Show,' I was just trying to adopt the faux authority of a newsperson. Having a British accent definitely gave me a sonic leg up on that because there is a faux authority to the British accent in and of itself.

Sonic Youth could never really get it together acoustically - quite frankly, it wasn't something we were really that interested in.

Sonic Youth played one show before we even had a drummer. It was just me, Kim, and Thurston. The lights slowly went down, and the set was just 30 minutes of feedback.

By the time I was seven, I did a sonnet at Shakespeare's Globe theatre for Shakespeare's birthday because my dad had been at the first season of the Globe and was friends with the artistic director. Somehow, that lead to me doing a sonnet!

While you're improvising, you may come up with something which will break him up. As soon as that smile comes out, you know that, hey, we're having fun.

This illness made it impossible for me to give my best effort to our audience, but now that it's been identified, I'm looking forward to a complete, quick recovery and to get back out there with John as soon as possible.

When you're playing someone who drinks a lot, it's not that interesting to play that condition because as soon as you know that, you got all the information you're going to get from it. It's like hitting the same note on the piano over and over again.

I feel like, with how medicine is evolving, something will be out there soon that can help you heal from arthritis. That might be what helps my longevity and pushes me to keep performing.

Craft comes into acting later rather than sooner. I was somebody who had to learn through a process - a natural actor doesn't need to.

Real talent is mixing realism with bluff. Every great artist I really respect has a certain amount of bluff; sooner or later you have to be a conjurer, and conjure images.

Every actor's deepest desire is to reach a huge audience. So, I don't look down upon commercial cinema... there's a beauty in it that you understand sooner or later.

The nature of markets, and that includes player acquisition markets, is such that sooner or later any set of successful formulae that provide an excess return above investment are discounted.

If you aim at anything lower that is expecting your audience to be really alert and aware, then you're going to be caught out sooner or later as a composer.

The stage is a routine. It keeps you grounded, like a metronome. I find that soothing.

There's such a freewheeling nature to 'Second City,' and the greatest thing about 'Second City' was having a sophisticated audience night after night who appreciated what it was. They knew it wasn't all going to be great when you improvised, so they were very forgiving that way.

It's not about the script: it's about who the director is and who the other people in the cast are. Because you can look at a great script and execute it in a very sophomoric way, and you can look at an OK script, and you can execute it in a very sophisticated way and come out with something really good.