Bill Laswell

Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner.
 * "I started listening to Indian music really early on and ironic to what we were just speaking about, the first time I ever heard Indian music was at a college in Ann Harbor Michigan, a concert at the University, which was Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakka, who is Zakir Hussain's father. On the way to the concert, I think I was 14 years old, someone spiked everyone's drink with LSD. I had never done that before and around 14 years old, I went to the concert and of course it started to take effect and that became the most psychedelic music that I had ever heard with the tabla, the drone, and the sitar. That was my first experience not only with LSD, but Indian music and it happened at the same time!" http://www.philzone.com/interviews/laswell/laswell.html


 * "I didn't know I was tripping at the time – I was totally absorbed with the music," said Laswell, 47. "It had a very profound effect on me. ... It was a very steady pulse but with syncopation. It had a rubbery quality, with the parts interlocking in constantly shifting ways, the rhythms being stretched and compressed. It was spontaneous, improvised. It had a very trance quality." http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz/index.cfm/fuseaction/current.articles_detail/project_id/61/article_id/378.cfm