Carrie Brownstein Quotes

What I value most in new music today is strangeness, oddity. Passion. And humor. I listen to a lot of hip-hop because it combines so many things like that.

The fact that people go to Portland to visit a tiny feminist bookstore-no matter what the impetus is for them getting there-the fact that they go in there and look around and shop for books or stationery or whatever, is a major source of pride for me.

I’ll admit that I’m not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast.

Florida is such an unlikely place for a band, unless you’re an emo or hardcore band. In terms of the touring route, or even the way the geography works in terms of bands and communities, Florida’s always been this appendage that you either cut it off and dismiss it, or you somehow include it in your scope.

If you always want to look relevant, just be CGI-prepared.

I think closing-off is the most detrimental thing we can do as people. Also, the idea of not judging oneself.

With Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.

I’m pretty horrible at relationships and haven’t been in many long-term ones. Leaving and moving on – returning to a familiar sense of self-reliance and autonomy – is what I know; that feeling is as comfortable and comforting as it might be for a different kind of person to stay.

To me, curiosity is married to optimism. And that’s where a lot of my motivation comes from. A lot of my way out of depression and anxiety is that intersection between optimism and curiosity. Because it means taking a step forward with the hope that there will be discovery.

After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise.

I think in some ways, whether you’ve ever actually been to Portland, people definitely understand this highly curated niche lifestyle, because a lot of people are sort of striving for that now. Or they’re hating on it.

There was this kind of wackiness that was really embraced and put on a pedestal. It was before the millennium. We were envisioning a future that was mostly idealistic. I think that came crashing down a little bit in 9/11, or a lot. There is something about Portland that does seem to still exist in this total idealistic world and total idealistic mind frame, and I think that’s what Dream of the ’90s is talking about.