M.J. DeMarco Quotes

I'm just being myself. I'm not a very complex guy; I'm not a very studious, crazy intellectual guy. I'm just a guy.

Patience is important, and also, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. But if you do, do. That's a general rule in how I live my life.

Computer system analysis is like child-rearing; you can do grievous damage, but you cannot ensure success.

I thought I knew Elton John, but then it was like, "Woah, Elton's a pimp! He's really amazing." And since Billy and Elton are homies, I'm finally getting it - the two piano boys.

I was having a good time before, but you grow up after a couple years and realize, "I can't get drunk like this every night." Things change.

Perfectionist? Thats not something I am.

Once a song comes out, these songs aren't mine. They're everybody's. So there you go.

Regardless of how funny I want to be, I don't ever have a problem speaking from my heart or speaking honestly to people.

I take making music seriously, but you have to have a sense of humor about yourself. I invite people into my life. That's how I do it.

Get the right people. Then no matter what all else you might do wrong after that, the people will save you. That's what management is all about.

You can't control what you can't measure

Journalists say my music is "blue wave," or "dreamy," or "jangly-slacker jewel," and none of it really makes sense to me.

There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back.

The purpose of a team is not goal attainment but goal alignment.

I don't have that much experience in the studio, but I'm always really uncomfortable when I'm there. You're on the clock and it costs a lot of money.

When you're growing up, you just take what you've got.

I often hear people say that a person suffering from Alzheimer's is not the person they knew. I wonder to myself - Who are they then?

I think people do expect something a little weird to happen. Maybe they've seen something I did once on the Internet and expect that I'm gonna do that every night.

I like guitar. It just turned out that it's the instrument I learned to play. I have a lot of respect for it and I'm learning more and more everyday.

Neil Young is the prime example, the grand goal, if you will. He's still shredding, and he never lost his credibility.

The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.

I have a lot of friends that I'd like to shout out but I don't think anyone will know who they are.

I hate living in a really small apartment, living in a shoebox, not being able to play the drums, not having space. It sucks.

Quality is free, but only to those who are willing to pay heavily for it.

The more you focus on control, the more likely you're working on a project that's striving to deliver something of relatively minor value.

Visual supervision is a joke for development workers. Visual supervision is for prisoners.

You kind of have to be like " What have you been working the last five years for? Why are you complaining?" It's essentially me talking myself out of being a crybaby indie rock butthead.

It's so crazy with the Internet and being able to play shows to people who are actually interested in you. I feel so lucky when that happens.

First law of Bad Management: If something isn't working, do more of it.

The pathology of setting a deadline to the earliest articulable date essentially guarantees that the schedule will be missed.

That's kind of the weird thing about Salad Days. I had to block time off from touring and tell my management and label like no press, no nothing. Let me make an album. You guys are running me dead.

I never liked living in Montreal. And I don't really like the music scene there. It was never my cup of tea, and I never felt like I ever fit in.

It was weird [touring with them]. It felt more like we were playing for Phoenix. They asked us because they're fans of what we do.

Connan Mockasin from New Zealand. I met him a little while ago, I love his music.

If nothing is declared unchangeable, then the organization will resist all change.

Product quality has almost nothing to do with defects or their lack.

Organizational busy work tends to expand to fill the working day.

What we are looking for is managers who are awake enough to alter the world as they find it, to make it harmonize with what they and their people are trying to accomplish.

Some of the most flowery praise you hear on the subject of teams is only hypocrisy. Managers learn to talk a good game about teams even when they're secretly threatened by the whole concept.

I lived in Brooklyn for a year and I moved out to Rockaway Beach. I've been living here for two years now. I put my address on the album, so I have a lot of visitors all the time.

I'm not very good at playing piano, so I usually hit chords with my right hand. And those chords came, and I was just singing a little bit.

If I feel like I'm going too far in one direction, I just can it. It's a weird thing. Some of my songs might be cheesy; I try and keep it light. It's hard to explain.

I'm getting paid to tour and travel and I don't have to work a shitty job. And it's weird because you like start getting pissed off about that.

The fundamental response to change is not logical, but emotional.

Training is practice doing a new task much more slowly than an expert would do it.

When you objectify a person living with dementia, you dehumanize them. Once dehumanized, the person becomes a villain.

I like a lot of west coast stuff like Aerial Pink.

I recorded this album in a windowless room in Brooklyn by myself. I think Chamber of Reflection sums the album up better than Salad Days to tell you the truth.

[Making music] only turned into this weird job in the last year or so. Once I figured that out, I was having a blast.

I mean, Manhattan is cool. But weird parts, I like that. Jamaica, Queens, that's great.