"You can always improve on something, the technology is different today, but I would leave it well alone. If there was something that was incomplete, that might be interesting... because I do that on my website"
About this Quote
There is a quiet tension here between the addictiveness of revision and the dignity of the artifact. Dave Davies is talking like someone who’s lived long enough inside loud music to know that “better” is often just “newer,” and newer can be a trap. The line nods to a familiar modern itch: technology makes everything editable, remixable, endlessly upgradable. But his instinct is restraint. “Leave it well alone” isn’t nostalgia cosplay; it’s a defense of the moment a recording captured, with all its limitations, accidents, and choices baked in.
The subtext is about authorship and time. In an era when artists can scrub noise, tune vocals, and reassemble history from hard drives, Davies is arguing that completeness can be overrated. He’s more intrigued by the unfinished, the frayed edge where the artist’s hand is visible. That’s the pivot: if something is incomplete, then revision becomes excavation rather than revisionism.
His aside - “because I do that on my website” - is the tell. He’s not anti-technology; he’s pro-boundary. The canonical work stays intact, while the internet becomes the workshop, the sandbox, the place for alternate takes and ongoing tinkering without rewriting the past. It’s a surprisingly modern artistic ethic: protect the record as a document, and let experimentation live in public, off to the side, where it can be playful instead of corrective.
The subtext is about authorship and time. In an era when artists can scrub noise, tune vocals, and reassemble history from hard drives, Davies is arguing that completeness can be overrated. He’s more intrigued by the unfinished, the frayed edge where the artist’s hand is visible. That’s the pivot: if something is incomplete, then revision becomes excavation rather than revisionism.
His aside - “because I do that on my website” - is the tell. He’s not anti-technology; he’s pro-boundary. The canonical work stays intact, while the internet becomes the workshop, the sandbox, the place for alternate takes and ongoing tinkering without rewriting the past. It’s a surprisingly modern artistic ethic: protect the record as a document, and let experimentation live in public, off to the side, where it can be playful instead of corrective.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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