David Toop famous quotes

Being a critic is a terrific method for killing your love of art.
-- David Toop

#Art #Criticism #Killing

Sound: always in a state of emergence or decay
-- David Toop

#Sound #Decay #States

Dub music is like a long echo delay, looping through time...turning the rational musical order into an ocean of sensation.
-- David Toop

#Ocean #Echoes #Order

The longer we live, the more we are obliged to confront the deeper meaning of what it is we do.
-- David Toop

#Deeper #Deeper Meaning

Sometimes I'd like everybody who is stuck, or lost, or vacant to stay that way and keep silent for as long as it takes, but that's the critic in me talking.
-- David Toop

#Talking #Long #Way

New ideas emerge of their own free will if they are allowed to.
-- David Toop

#Ideas #Free Will

If you run out of new ideas when you are very young, then it's a problem of talent; If you run out of new ideas when you get older, it may be that there's nothing left to say, or it may be that core ideas demand repeated attention...
-- David Toop

#Running #Ideas #Attention

Like a fly bouncing uselessly off a closed window, I'm caught at a moment when the effort of finding new ways to perceive the world feels just out of reach for me.
-- David Toop

#Effort #World #Way

Logically there is nothing new to say about the New. Or maybe it's just a problem of articulating unfamiliar perceptions.
-- David Toop

#Perception #Problem

People don't have to put you in a box. You can have the confidence to move across, and combine and learn from each different practice. They inform each other.
-- David Toop

#Moving #Practice #People

I'd just written the book Ocean Of Sound, and this terrible thing happened in my life: my wife committed suicide. I was a single parent because of that; I was completely shattered. I had a book that I'd just finished that had been produced through a really, really terrible period, but I had managed to finish it.
-- David Toop

#Suicide #Book #Ocean

I was associated with the Artist Placement Group in the early 1970s and David Hall, the video artist, was an Artist Placement Group artist. I was completely broke at that time, and he said to me, "Come and do some teaching" - he was head of department at Maidstone College of Art. And I went and did a couple of teaching days and practically the only person who showed up was David Cunningham [Flying Lizard's main man], with all of this finished work
-- David Toop

#Art #Couple #Teaching

I had the idea to do an anthology about instrument-making.
-- David Toop

#Ideas #Anthology #Instruments

The Musicians Union declared you couldn't mime on Top Of The Pops, which is obviously impossible, if you've got a studio-based record that you'd worked on for a year or something. And there were a lot of terrible performances. Because on Top Of The Pops, you were just thrown onstage.
-- David Toop

#Years #Unions #Musician

We [with David Cunningham] did do Top Of The Pops. It was an eye-opener. I mean, one of the things that was so interesting - I've talked about this a few times recently, and people can't believe it - they used to do this thing called tape switch with the Musicians Union.
-- David Toop

#Believe #Mean #Eye

David's [Cunningham] a very interesting character. He has more integrity than is good for him. So, everything he did after that sort of undermined what he'd done. Other people who kind of took life more cheaply, would have really gone for it. David almost did everything he could to scupper the whole thing, which I very much admire, but of course it was deeply irritating then, because we wanted to make a bit of money! So we made this very catchy tune and then he added a bunch of weird stuff which was all very strange.
-- David Toop

#Integrity #Character #Interesting

I was at a time of my life of making choices, I suppose: am I a writer, am I a visual artist? And when I was a teenager. I thought I would be a film-maker. Am I a musician? If so, what kind of musician am I?
-- David Toop

#Teenager #Artist #Choices

I had ideas about music and sound and listening and time and so on that I wanted to pursue as an individual, and by doing that book, Brian [Eno] opened the door, and he decided to do a record based loosely on the book.
-- David Toop

#Book #Ideas #Doors

I think I sent one [book] to Brian Eno. I don't know how I got to know his address, but I sent one to him. He called me up and he said, "I really like the book, and I'm starting a new label, would you liked to do something?" It was a tricky situation for me, because I've always had this thing in my life of a tension between collaboration, which was extremely important to me, and then being alone. Make of that what you will!
-- David Toop

#Book #Thinking #Important

Paul [ Burwell] and I had also got interested in making books. We'd been working with Bob Cobbing, the sound poet, since the beginning of the 70s, and Bob had this press called Writers Forum.
-- David Toop

#Book #Sound #Bob

Every time when it comes to writing a book, I think, "I'm the last person in the world that should be doing this, I don't know anything, I can't do this." And I went through years of that with Into The Maelstrom.
-- David Toop

#Book #Writing #Thinking

There's a sense of trajectories that are extraordinary about a life like this. You can reconnect with people and go back to playing with them after years and years of not even knowing if they're alive.
-- David Toop

#Years #Knowing #People

I don't mean I give the same intensity to everything I do - if I did that, I'd be dead, but I'm very conscious, I make notes, and I have a fairly good idea of what's happening in my life.
-- David Toop

#Mean #Ideas #Giving

I think I was like [a game of] skittles, knocked apart by this wooden ball, and there's a strength to that: you're not too self-conscious about what you're doing, so you're not too worried about it.
-- David Toop

#Thinking #Games #Self

If I'd thought, "I can't really play this instrument," I wouldn't have done it! But I didn't care, you know. I didn't care!
-- David Toop

#Play #Done #Care