David Longstreth discusses his musical influences

The leader of Dirty Projectors, David Longstreth, took to the McGuire stage at the Walker Art Center for a special installment of Making Music. We learned how the multi-instrumentalist crafts his music from a wide assortment of sounds, voices, and anything else with a touch of inspiration, as displayed in the Dirty Projector's 2009 release "Bitte Orca".

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Music

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• Dirty Projectors
• David Longstreth
• Making Music
• Whole Music Club
• James Everest

[aklein123456789]

pet sounds is "unnecessarily complicated"?... AHAHAHAH

he should listen to his own band

[GiganticAsses]

I don't think he's pretentious at all. Before I read any interviews I thought he would be the most pretentious person on earth, he surprisingly, well, normal. I love him too.

[mlg5454]

i love how non-musicians cling to these interviews. i love these interviews, but i've rambled like this about influences before and i understand all the hypocritical and pretentious and ranty things he says, because he's creative. he doesn't know what he means. he's just talking. whatever. analyzing and criticizing is so easy. just listen to him. woo hoo

[G8tr1522]

@nukegunrack Agreed. I was really into Bitte Orca, and was going to buy more music of theirs, but after hearing that (the Zappa comment), I just can't respect him. I'd like to email him about it, because it's just ruining the band as a whole for me.

[nukegunrack]

After hearing the Zappa comment, I can't take him seriously. I'm sorry, he should at least respect what Zappa did and if he was still alive today, I bet he would have some humorous and just awesome comments that would put Longstreth in his place.

[doyouplayindropd]

@aklein123456789 did you listen to the rest of the video? he says that was only his initial reaction when he first listened to it as a young kid... he goes on to say he kept coming back to it and one day it popped, and realized it was 'actually really, really expressive.' he also implies it was a big influence on his love of vocal harmony.

[boogster123321]

@aklein123456789 from reading some of his interviews, longstreth has an interesting history of pot calling the kettle black. he also said that he hates frank zappa because he is to technical and nerdy.

[buddybuchanan]

The Beatles were phony because they played acoustic instruments and had a tambourine overdub? huh?

[spicyxlilxman]

smart ≠ snarky

smart ≠ pretentious

smart = good music

he makes good music and has studied it for long enough to know what he's talking about.

[thatsoundsdelicious]

@maximus50238 That's cool. To be honest, I expected your next reply (above) to be snarky, so 10 internet points for you!!

[maximus50238]

@thatsoundsdelicious haha sorry i thought you were just misunderstanding what he even meant, so i thought you were ignorant about that stuff. sorry for assuming

[thatsoundsdelicious]

@maximus50238 I heard him, "they sound similar in energy". I respectfully disagree with that.

And for the record, I don't think you'd need to remind anyone which came first, Black Flag, the Punk scene or the Beatles. Sheesh.