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Michael Gira

Michael Gira Books

Singer-songwriter

Michael Gira, born in February 1954, is a renowned American singer-songwriter. His musical career began in the 1970s, known for his unique musical style and exploration of religious themes.

The Consumer

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“When my sister was released from the mental hospital, she came to live with me in the tilting and crumbling one-bedroom house I'd bought with the small amount of money I inherited when our parents died. She arrived one afternoon unannounced in a taxi. She must have known instinctively that I'd take her in. I don't know how or why they released her. Probably due to overcrowding, and they had her scratch her name on a form then pushed her out the door. Or maybe she just slipped away when no one was looking (who'd notice in a place like that?)--she never did tell me and I didn't ask her. I was so happy to have her with me again that the last thing I wanted to do was break the spell by letting reality intrude. Ever since they'd dragged her away weeping with laughter and reaching out for me with our parents' blood still coating her hands with shiny red gloves, I'd felt amputated, like they'd pulled her kicking and screaming and insane out of my guts.”

Book:The Consumer

Source: The Consumer

“It was a kind of sado-masochism. I would take the things that were painful to me and elevate them and, through the mantra of music, make them into a release.”

Music Mantra Sm

Author:Michael Gira

“The sun filters through the closed curtains like urine.”

Sun Curtains Urine

Book:The Consumer

Source: The Consumer

“An oiled young stud does sit-ups on his Soloflex machine, eviscerates himself with an impossibly honed and gleaming kitchen knife, flings his dangling intestines over his shoulder like a sashaying transvestite in a mink stole and walks straight into a day school room full of naked shit-smeared children, who devour him in a bloody tornado of razor-sharp teeth.”

Book:The Consumer

Source: The Consumer

“Milk from my fat body, squeezed from my worm...”

Book:The Consumer

Source: The Consumer

“I'm just as comfortable performing solo with just my acoustic guitar and vocal as I am with a band. The main thing for me is that the performance remain rooted in the words and voice, that there be no place to hide.”

Voice Band Comfortable Performances Guitar Performing Rooted Solo Vocal Acoustics Acoustic Guitar

Author:Michael Gira

“When I first started doing the quieter, more acoustic material in Swans, there was a lot of derision and outright hatred from the audience and press, just as in the early days of Swans when we were rejected outright because of the bludgeoning, single-minded violence of the music.”

Firsts Audience Violence Materials Hatred Presses Rejected Acoustics Swans Derision

Author:Michael Gira

“I'm more interested in pulling out strands of joy from both myself and the audience. I'm not saying the music or songs are "light," just that when they're performed with the correct commitment it's a source of real pleasure, for me anyway.”

Real Light Joy Song Pleasure Audience Source Commitment Pulling Strands

Author:Michael Gira

“I could never release something on the label I didn't personally love. The label's really an extension of my own musical career, and I'm intensely involved with every aspect personally, so it'd be a betrayal to myself if I released something simply because I thought it would make money.”

Ifs My Own Careers Involved Aspect Musical Betrayal Release Labels Making Money Extensions

Author:Michael Gira

“I never wrote poetry, just prose. I don't really consider songwriting a form of poetry either. The words are important, of course, but they're dependent on the music.”

Important Form Courses Prose Dependent Songwriting

Author:Michael Gira

“Many of the songs were written as a way of paying tribute to specific people, but in the end the songs took on a life of their own and I didn't worry about accuracy or biographical truth, so it's not a problem.”

People Way Ends Problem Song Worry Written Tribute Accuracy

Author:Michael Gira

“I went to art school and never thought I'd be a musician, but then punk rock came along in the late 70s and kind of ruined my life. So I quit art school to get involved in music and I've been doing it ever since.”

Kind Art School Rocks Involved Late Musician Quitting Punk Ruined Get Involved Punk Rock I Quit Art School

Author:Michael Gira

“When I drink a Glass of water, it's thick and crawling with life. My mouth leads to the interior of my body - a caldron of disease, germs, and perversions of biology. I don't exist individually. I'm made of millions of living creatures, eating each other, decomposing, eating each other.”

Made Body Water Millions Drink Creatures Disease Eating Mouths Glasses Biology Thick Interiors Germs Living Creatures Crawling Perversion

Author:Michael Gira

“Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments.”

Beautiful Creatures Ugly Temperament Swans Majestic

Author:Michael Gira

“I am definitely less and less interested in music made by people that exist today, people that are living. I just see them as part of the whole stupid process of the music business, desperate (even if they feign indifference) to get noticed, trying to "make it" in the stinking music business, to become "famous" etc, and it disgusts me.”

People Ifs Trying Made Whole Today Process Stupid Indifference Desperate Etc Disgusting Music Business

Author:Michael Gira

“The music takes you. It has to be alive. It's like you hammer something, and the way it happens to bleed leads you into new directions.”

Way Happens Alive Like You Hammers New Directions

Author:Michael Gira

“I have my own record company. I have to answer to God, basically. I'm not young, so I want to make the best possible work I can before I exit.”

Want I Can Young My Own Answers Company Records Exit Record Companies

Author:Michael Gira

“I don't want to sound like everybody else.”

Author:Michael Gira

“I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound.”

Sound Loses Guitar Loud Electric Electric Guitar

Author:Michael Gira

“You find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn't stay the same. It morphs constantly.”

Way Sound Repetition Push Yourself

Author:Michael Gira

“The goal is ecstasy, but I don't want to make some sort of saccharine pop music. I want to make something that's completely uncompromising: the best possible music ever made.”

Want Made Goal Pops Ecstasy Pop Music Uncompromising

Author:Michael Gira

“I don't throw my body down on the stage at all anymore because I'm sure I'd snap like a twig.”

Body Stage Snaps Twigs

Author:Michael Gira

“I used to routinely break my ribs doing stupid things onstage, but I have a healthy fear of breaking my bones now.”

Used Break Stupid Healthy Bones Ribs Stupid Things Healthy Fear

Author:Michael Gira

“The sexuality of children - there's a lot friction there. That tension interests me a lot.”

Children Interest Sexuality Tension Friction

Author:Michael Gira

“I wanted to challenge myself and move into something new. I felt that using the name Swans and the sonic attitude that that engenders was what I needed to move forward musically, and it's led to lots of new things.”

Wanted Moving Names Felt Challenges Attitude Needed Moving Forward Something New New Things Swans

Author:Michael Gira

“Playing an old record doesn't interest me at all. It's exactly the opposite of what I want to do.”

Want Interest Records Opposites Old Records

Author:Michael Gira

“I'm always trying to push myself into unfamiliar places with the music, sometimes without success, I have to admit. But I'd rather be there than relying on a style that people recognize and want to follow.”

People Want Trying Sometimes Style Always Trying Unfamiliar

Author:Michael Gira

“It wouldn't interest me to try to sound like Cop or something. It would be silly and soul-crushing.”

Trying Soul Would Be Sound Interest Silly Crush Cop Being Silly

Author:Michael Gira

“As far as playing playing festivals and everything, I feel like that's what I was born to do. I'm an entertainer, hopefully in the best sense.”

Feels Born Hopefully Festivals Entertainers

Author:Michael Gira

“Nina Simone was an entertainer. Bob Dylan was an entertainer. Anyone that can occupy a piece of music and make the air catch on fire at that moment is a true entertainer. That's how I view it. That's what I was meant to do. I love doing it. That's why I'm on earth.”

Moments Earth Views Fire Pieces Air That Moment Bob Dylan Entertainers Nina

Author:Michael Gira

“I really wanted to get to the animal core of rock music and eliminate anything that wasn't necessary.”

Wanted Animal Rocks Core Rock Music

Author:Michael Gira

“When I walk around New York now, there are so many ghosts. I find it very uncomfortable. There were many hard years, and I never really achieved any kind of comfortable financial success, so I just associate it with struggle. When I had a chance to get out, I was elated.”

Years Kind Hard Chance Walks Struggle New York Comfortable Financial Ghost Uncomfortable Associates Financial Success

Author:Michael Gira

“Making those CDs, signing them, numbering them, packing them. It takes hundreds of hours, but it's worth it because I'm able to do the thing I love.”

Able Hours Worth It Cds Signing Things I Love Packing

Author:Michael Gira

“Maybe in the future I'll put out someone's one-off project, but generally I don't have time.”

Author:Michael Gira

“I'm a producer in the old-school way - not just some slacker working on Pro Tools.”

Way School Tools Producers Old School Slacker

Author:Michael Gira

“I got involved, for the most part, in the actual song construction, lyrics even. I didn't want to write the lyrics, but if there was a howler in there, I definitely pointed it out. Just trying to bring it up to a higher level. Of course, after a couple records, people get fed up with that. That's fine.”

People Ifs Want Writing Trying Song Courses Levels Records Fine Couple Higher Involved Feds Construction Higher Level Fed Up

Author:Michael Gira

“I'm the band leader. That's not to say that the other people are my minions - they all put in a tremendous amount of personality, and push the music in ways I would never expect.”

People Way Leader Personality Amount Band Never Expect Minions

Author:Michael Gira

“You make your work and you can't ask for approval when you're doing it. Otherwise, it's going to be untruthful in some way.”

Way Asks Approval

Author:Michael Gira

“I'm pretty confident that people are going to come along for the ride. If they don't, tough.”

People Ifs Tough Along For The Ride

Author:Michael Gira

“I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound. But I can't find myself in a situation where our band Swans is doing typical chord progressions - it just seems cliché to me. Even changing chords sounds like a cliché sometimes, though it happens occasionally in our music. But you find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn't stay the same. It morphs constantly.”

Sometimes Situation Electric Repetition Progression Push Yourself

Author:Michael Gira

“At a certain age, children are total Id - they're anything but beautiful little flowers. That always interests me. The place where the ego and the superego start, and where guilt and socialization and morality takes place, the true root of it.”

Children Age Beautiful Interest Flower Morality Ego Guilt

Author:Michael Gira

“It's good that people come to the shows because there's nothing fashionable about Swans. Never has been, really. We've never been part of a scene. So the people that come are really there for the music. Fortunately, there's a lot of young people and a burgeoning female contingent, which is good as well.”

People Scene Female Fashionable

Author:Michael Gira

“I never could read Foucault. I find philosophy tedious. All of my knowledge comes from reading novels and some history. I read Being and Nothingness and realized that I remembered absolutely nothing when I finished it. I used to go to the library every day and read every day for eight hours. I’d dropped out of high school and had to teach myself. I read Sartre without any background. I just forced myself and I learned nothing.”

Philosophy School Used Reading Hours Teach Novel High School Library Eight Finished Backgrounds Remembered Nothingness Absolutely Nothing Tedious Reading Novels

Author:Michael Gira

About the Author

Born: February 19, 1954
Known for: Singer-songwriter
Quotes: 43

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