When punk began to be a genre, people were going to go out and try to mine it. Some of the better groups, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, were very artificial.
There are no pimps, no whores, no transvestites – gone. Now that’s more the culture I’m comfortable in … I don’t like it in the house, you know what I mean, but I like it somewhere around.
Second only to the sea, the Miami sky has been the greatest comfort in my life past 50. On a good day, when the wind blows from the south, the light here is diffuse and forgiving.
The most successful stuff is sold to you as indispensable social information. The message in the music is, ‘We are terribly, terribly slick and suave, and if you listen to us, you can probably get a leg up in society, too.’
My general take on American music since 1969 is that it’s just getting stiffer and people are getting more uptight – audience, performance, and palace guard.
