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Through it all, the words of John Peel echo strongly within me: you have support the music that's being made now. You have to continue to look forward and learn from what's happening. That's my philosophy, anyway.

DJ Shadow

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DJ Shadow
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: June 29
Club Dj
Composer
Disc Jockey
Record Producer
Hayward
California
Joshua Paul Davis
Josh Davis
Joshua Davis
Philosophy
Peel
Support
Echo
Within
Strongly
Words
Anyway
Learn
John
Music
Happening
Look
Continue
Made
Forward

More quotes by DJ Shadow

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The music that I have always liked has always been more rooted in anger or sadness or alienation or any of those inspirational factors that drove rock'n'roll, gospel, and blues. I tend not to value a more pop aesthetic.
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When I first pursued this with Universal, they had no idea what to do. But now that we've gone through the whole process and I've signed this 60-page document that says what we can and can't do, I suppose it will be a little bit easier for the next person.
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I always like to remain a fan, put it that way: and I like to hold the idealised version of what these artists are like. Greed is one of those components of human nature that's inherent in everyone, and sometimes it is an unpleasant thing to engage in.
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When I think about the stuff I turned down it's kind of insane.
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Frequently, when I'm compared to someone, I'm like, Is that really what people think I sound like?
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I saw. I wanted to start my own store so people would know that what they were buying was real. There were bootlegs around at the time that had my name on the cover, but the music had nothing to do with me. I'm not trying to compare myself to [Jimmie] Hendrix, but back in the '70s, there were some Hendrix bootlegs.
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My main thing is constantly looking forward and trying to make music that I couldn't have made at any other time.
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One of my favorite things that Yahoo does on a regular basis is this story: Wealthiest Rap Artists. That's an example of the internet just perpetuating this myth that we're all just sitting around in these mansions like Steven Tyler, bopping around in our swimming pool. It's bullshit.
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I would rather have 10 people working on a record that are really committed and believe in it and love it, than 50 people who have no idea who I am or what I'm for.
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It's satisfying to put out new music. And I think that's the context in which I'm comfortable revisiting things from the past.
DJ Shadow
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I've always been compared to people. It's a revolving cast that comes and goes - obviously, sometimes people stay.
DJ Shadow
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The conventional wisdom of fandom is that you must give your fans anything they want. But I've never felt that that's a healthy attitude - and that comes from being a Star Wars fan.
DJ Shadow
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Cutting and pasting is the essence of what hip-hop culture is all about for me. It's about drawing from what's around you, and subverting it and decontextualizing it.
DJ Shadow
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I always consider every album to be a snapshot.
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It's about respecting what I think people like about the original music. I'm not gonna ever take it to the extent that I'm kinda George Lucas-ing moments of the album over and over again, trying to get them right over the next 30 years - I don't wanna do anything like that. But, yeah - it's a... fascinating conundrum through the years.
DJ Shadow
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I couldn't make a real drum'n'bass or dubstep record to save my life. But I can be influenced by them in small ways.
DJ Shadow
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I got asked to remix a lot of movie themes, like Mission Impossible, which other people ended up doing quite well. But it was just never my thing.
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My problem with iTunes is that I don't have any say in how I'm represented on the site.
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When I make music, it takes me two hours to get into the flow. To me it's like tapping into some kind of subconscious frequency: I just have to turn everything else off, open up part of myself, expose my fears and try to work through it in the music that I'm making.
DJ Shadow
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As for my store, most artists' sites send you to a third-party storefront like iTunes, whereas we're disseminating it ourselves. I was always uncomfortable with the thought of sending somebody who came to my site to buy something to some other store. It just occurred to me, Why can't we do this?
DJ Shadow