Quote

I appreciate the past, but I want to make new things. That's the problem with the sack on the back - if you carry it around with you, it's like you get hobbled.

Ian MacKaye

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Ian MacKaye
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: April 16
Composer
Guitarist
Singer
Washington
District of Columbia
Past
Problem
Back
Make
Hobbled
Things
Sack
Like
Carry
Appreciate
Around

More quotes by Ian MacKaye

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We play loud electric guitar music, and we'd hope that that doesn't mean you have to act like an asshole.
Ian MacKaye
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I jump from one thing to the next but try and strike a balance. But it's not nostalgic in the sense of 'those were the good old days and now we're not there'. I don't think like that. Not my way.
Ian MacKaye
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When people who are songwriters say 'That's my property and if you give it away for free then I'll lose my incentive,' then, well, good riddance.
Ian MacKaye
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The Corcoran show was actually almost a reportage. The exhibit was, in many ways, pretty unique. It was one of the first pieces about DC culture that doesn't include some marble building or the Kennedy Center.
Ian MacKaye
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Let's say for instance people say, He's a really totalitarian, strict guy, he's hard to work with or whatever. I don't think it's true, but people's perception of me leads that direction, like I'm a fundamentalist person. I end up having to spend extra time saying, I'm not a fundamentalist. I have other stuff to do.
Ian MacKaye
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I obviously use computers. My car is wondrous. My phone is amazing. I've already talked about the music I'm digitizing. Technology is fantastic, of course.
Ian MacKaye
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Every song I ever wrote, I wrote to be heard. So, if I was given a choice that 50 years from now I could either have a dollar or knowing that some kid was listening to my song, I'd go with the kid listening to my song.
Ian MacKaye
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I have stuff from 1979, 1980 in my collection. But I also have things from 2012. So I don't know if it's memorabilia as much as it is holding on to things that I find relevant that most people might not.
Ian MacKaye
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Structures can be manipulated for ill as well, especially when people are dealing with issues of power, or control, or violence.
Ian MacKaye
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I never imagine myself as anything. I've never had a goal or any future vision at all. I just do what's in front of me.
Ian MacKaye
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I think sometimes my humor is extremely dry, and a lot of times I would say things that I thought were very funny but... I have a reputation of - people think of me as a very fundamentalist, humorless fellow.
Ian MacKaye
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I don't need any more avenues of communication, and frankly I think people are still working out to realize that it's just a tool[social media] rather than something that you have to do or participate in.
Ian MacKaye
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When someone writes a really nasty piece about me. I think they're generally untrue because I think I'm a nice person.
Ian MacKaye
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I'm not a religious person, and I'm not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples.
Ian MacKaye
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Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different, but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it's always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don't ever come within a mile of profit - clearly these people are not playing music to make money.
Ian MacKaye
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I have other projects to do. I try not to let that documentation interfere with my present day.
Ian MacKaye
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I have thousands of tapes, and photos and fliers, letters, posters, artwork - basically everything that ever happened, I kept. I'm not a hoarder, though. I'm sort of a librarian.
Ian MacKaye
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If people want new music then they are going to have to figure out a way to be patrons of the arts. And they will.
Ian MacKaye
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It's so interesting that humanity has to be defined by emotional strife or something. I don't buy into that.
Ian MacKaye
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I think what we took away from first hearing about the punk stuff in England and then the early American punk stuff was a sense of self-definition and also sort of playing music for music's sake and being part of a family for family's sake.
Ian MacKaye