I was living in Gainesville, Florida, and our babysitter brought over the soundtrack to The Who's "Tommy" - not the actual record "Tommy", but the soundtrack to the movie with Elton John and Aretha Franklin. I remember hearing it for the first time and it was so confusing. It was like waves and waves of unknowable and indescribable sound coming out of the stereo.

As a studio, you have to have a niche. You have to provide a service and there has to be a reason for your being around.

I like vinyl because it's not quite random access. You have to pick up the needle, flip the record. I do think that an 18-20 minute block of music is sacred, and I can see why it's catching on. I really don't know if it will stay, but it's such a bizarre world, I think it's possible.

There's nothing like space and the ability to make unlimited amounts of noise at any time, especially in San Francisco.

The funny thing is that even engineers and techs don't know what a tiny telephone connector is - people call them TT connectors. Engineers used to come by all the time and say, "Why are you called Tiny Telephone?"

When I tour with a band, things get more unconscious and more automatic as the tour goes on. Music has to be like natural speech. It's probably like learning a foreign language. Thinking about the use of pronouns is not the passionate part of communicating with people.

Making love to robots will probably be great one day. It's just not a viable option right now.