Jackass Penguins

I think at the time of Shadows I was so excited about doing a record in a real recording studio and I was so sick of people dismissing my records as being fucked up and un-professional. On Shadows, I wanted everything exactly the way I heard it in my head. But after that album, I started noticing that albums I had loved my whole life had tons of things I would have (at the time) insisted upon re-doing. Slightly off pitch vocals, instruments going slightly out of time with one another, as well as straight-up-mistakes-all of these things prevail triumphantly on Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, Van Der Graaf Generator, Butthole Surfers and countless other records (even The Beatles) that I have always loved. I had always perceived those records as being pure perfection and when I realized that I had sharpened my sense of perfection to the point where, were they under my supervision, those records would have been cleaned up to the point of being inferior. I realized that I needed to re-evaluate what perfection meant to me. I figured out that when a recording session is focused on, and a flow of energy goes from the second you walk in until you leave, and you know the songs well, there is a good vibe and some laughs, the imperfections that appear are very desireable and the right number of them spaced out well, is one of the most beautiful types of perfection there is.