Rock Quotes

“I think of our differences as a family squabble. If I shout and scream at him, it’s because no one else has the guts to do it or else they’re paid not to do it. At the same time I’d hope Mick realizes that I’m a friend who is just trying to bring him into line and do what needs to be done.”

– Keith Richards on Mick Jagger

I’d rather play jazz, I hate rock and roll.

– Ginger Baker

Rock’s so good to me. Rock is my child and my grandfather.

– Chuck Berry

All rock musicians are deaf… Or insensitive to mellow sounds.

– Marc Bolan

Rock ‘n’ roll is ridiculous. It’s absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we’re wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.

– Bono

Your woman pisses you off so that gets in there; that’s rock n roll.

– Gary Cherone

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

– Kurt Cobain

The great thing about rock and roll is that someone like me can be a star.

– Elton John

I don’t know which will go first – rock and roll or Christianity.

– John Lennon

If you don’t know the blues… there’s no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

– Keith Richards

I am a dog that loves my fleas.

– Marilyn Manson

Two things never go out of style: spirituality and sex. They’re the same thing.

– Carlos Santana

We’re like Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.

– Robert Plant on Jimmy Page

Music is fulfilling. The next day you feel better.Drugs, the next day you feel

– Neil Young

A journalist asked me why I dye my hair. It’s either that or Grecian Formula.

– Flea

If I started thinking too much about how influential I’ve been, then I’d be more of a turd than I already am.

– Iggy Pop

Serious music usually doesn’t pay.

– Elvis Costello

I don’t buy into the idea that you’re not supposed to rock & roll after a certain date. Maybe I should be in Bellevue, but I’m just having a good time.

– Steve Tyler

I opened the door for a lot of people, and they just ran through and left me holding the knob.

– Bo Diddley

What will I be doing in twenty years’ time? I’ll be dead, darling! Are you crazy?

– Freddie Mercury

Onstage, I make love to 25,000 people, then I go home alone.

– Janis Joplin

I’ve never had a problem with drugs. I’ve had problems with the police.

- Keith Richards

“I think of our differences as a family squabble. If I shout and scream at him, it’s because no one else has the guts to do it or else they’re paid not to do it. At the same time I’d hope Mick realizes that I’m a friend who is just trying to bring him into line and do what needs to be done.”

– Keith Richards on Mick Jagger

For more, visit the Rock Quotes Page

1,000 Rock Songs

1,000 rock songs was prepared for us by our friends at Rocksbackpages

Is it the final countdown?

Well in the words of RBP editor, Barney Hoskyns…

“This was never meant to be definitive just a starting point for ‘But what about…?’”

So if you have a ‘But what about…’ moment, post your own favourite tracks on to our blog and we’ll add them to the play list with your name and a dedication.

Click here for the article.

JEFF, THE DRUMMER, DYSON 1945 TO …

BACK STORY Jeff “The Drummer” Dyson was an academically gifted child who, after gaining a First Class (hons) degree in philosophy from Durham at the remarkably early age of 19, became a lecturer in sociology at Sunderland Polytechnic in 1965. His early academic work is still extant with his paper in the British Philosophical Review of 1964 on “Equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes”, Laocoön and The General Theory of Signs” is still widely regarded in philosophical circles as a seminal piece of early post modernist analysis. However, Jeff Dyson’s first love was music and by the age of 22 he had left the Polytechnic to consummate his passion.

MUSICAL CAREER Jeff had already started his musical career playing in local bands in Sunderland and then became the founder member of Alan Brown’s Roker Park Electric Experience – a psychedelic rock band of limited interest to all except, possibly, aficionados of Sunderland Football Club’s playing style under the manager of the same name. After one single (Lennie the Lion – celebrating the career of Sunderland’s Len Ashurst) charted at 42 in the UK, the band broke up blaming creative differences. Many, including the band’s lead guitar and vocalist, Nigel Panthorn, pointed the finger at Dyson’s increasingly bizarre behaviour which had become more noticeable since he had moved on from Newcastle Brown Ale to Mescaline and Purple Hearts. Jeff next re-emerged as founder member/drummer of the folk rock band Balrog in 1970, having apparently spent the previous 3 years in a squat on Haight Street in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco. It is difficult to verify this claim as he had by now interlaced Californian, hippy argot with his North East accent which, when combined with alcohol and drugs, rendered him all but incomprehensible. He claimed, further, to have contracted an STD from Janis Joplin and became famous (within the folk rock community) for his opinions on other drummers which developed over the years from “Spencer Dryden (drummer with Jefferson Airplane) is a rhythmless fuckwit” to “Keith Moon couldn’t hit a fucking drum with a fucking cricket bat – fuck him”. Balrog’s first album (Songs from Inside Moria) was a critical success, with Jeff’s eccentricity on the drums counterpointing the melodic harmonies of Nigel Panthorn (with whom he had re-united after their differences of 1966/7) and the violin and sitar playing of Meryl Streatham (ex Mothers of Witchcraft and Cindy and the Barbels). In 1971, however, Panthorn decided it was important to bring a keyboard player into the band and despite early conversations with a young Elton John and Rick Wakeman, Jeff’s acerbic comments ensured that this musical development did not take place – of Elton John he was reported as saying “I’m not having that fucking arse bandit on the same stage as me, right” and Rick Wakeman was rejected because “fucking Ross Conway could fucking play better than that cunt and he had one less finger”. These musical differences led to the final break between Dyson and Panthorn and Jeff the Drummer disappeared from the music scene following a period of incarceration in Durham Prison after setting fire to Panthorn’s leather trousers on stage, assaulting a police officer who tried to intervene and attempting to rape a female police officer who was, he claimed, “fucking up for it, the dirty tart, or why else was she wearing a fucking uniform and black stockings and suspenders?” RECENT SIGHTINGS Jeff moved away from Sunderland in 1975 and is believed to have been living in a converted garage in Hull since 1988. Despite three attempts to get treatment for his drug and alcohol addiction he seems to have found it impossible to abandon his self destructive habits, partly because it appears that he retains his acerbic nature having reportedly called Alcoholics Anonymous “a useless bunch of fucking panty wasters who couldn’t stop a nun having a wank”. Interviewed recently by the ROCK-on tv channel on Sky who had dug out a couple of audio clips of his drumming with both Balrog and Alan Brown’s Roker Park Electric Experience and who wished to make a documentary about him, The Drummer demonstrated his usual ability of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by throwing them out of his “house” and recording a foul mouthed attack on the channel and posting it on YouTube.