At one time they've been the most important thing to me. So I can't hear our records on the radio, I can't stand it, because they sound so out of what everyone else is doing.
When you are making a record and if you spend too much time over it, you have to record it a tone lower or cut the tones lower because you can't reach some of the notes, I find this. But when you go on stage, you have to put the key up and it really changes the whole thing.
Then I got together with my brother and a friend and we decided to play dates. The more we played, the more we wanted to do it. And it got to a stage where we wanted to do it all the time.
I'm obviously very keen on the theater and I think it's inevitable that some of the orchestral and chamber pieces have got dramatic elements which might even suggest an unspecified dramatic plot of some kind or other, even though it's not in my mind at the time.
I think people are turning inward more now cause the world's got in such a weird, crazy state. I think its making people think more about their life and what it is really that they are doing. And how do we interact with a world that's going crazy? It's a very important time.
Working with the Kinks, there always seemed to be some kind of automatic process at work. Ray and I had this telepathy happening for a long time, where one of us always knew what the other could do with something.
I think its really matured a lot. I like the fact that there is now more to do there than gamble, since I don't do a lot of that. The people are great. I seldom have time for vacations and when I do I prefer the beach instead of the desert.
It has to do - I think - with growing up in an apartment, with my aunt and my cousins right next door to me, with the door open, with neighbors walking in and out, with people yelling at each other all the time.
Watergate was unique because it allowed the public to play its democratic role in expressing its outrage at the presidency. And as a result, for the first time in history a president resigned.
Let there be no doubt: the state of our union is strong - stronger than the terrorists who seek to harm us and stronger than the challenges that confront us. At the same time, we know that our union can be stronger still.
