Don't Apologise.

I've been listening to a proper mish-mash of stuff tonight, and it's got me thinking about music taste and what it's 'supposed' to say about you. (The inverted commas are my online winking device...go with it.)

Where did this rule book come from that liking one sub-genre of music makes you infinitely cooler than another sub-genre lover? I get the music snobbery part, hell, I'm as guilty as the next person but does liking such a wide range of things somehow dilute your character? Are you spread thinly over toast, rather than scooped out and slapped on? I wrote my dissertation on how your personality affects the music you buy and it was the highest grade I got for my entire degree. I think the fact I quoted Jeff Buckley, Van Morisson and Rob Gordon (well, Nick Hornby if we're getting pedantic) helped.

I have bands and artists that I love and they could not be further from one another in sound, tempo or philosophy. Otis Redding does not sound like Biffy Clyro. Sufjan Stevens does not sound like Hendrix.

I've got an image in my head now of one of those heavy-coated, street-vendors who have a tendency to fling open one side of their jacket to reveal pockets overflowing with watches, trinkets, treasures and old handkerchiefs. Gulp. Is that what my music collection looks like? Let me try to qualify what I mean.. you know the quizzes you can take in magazines where they ask you to tick various coloured boxes to decide your relationship/career/fashion/supposed pet choice? You end up ticking 5 red boxes, 4 yellow, 3 yellow and 3 blue. At the end of the day, this is someone else holding up a definition of you with the boxes they've created but I do think my music collection is made up of blocks of colour. Shades, tones and textures that all somehow fit together like a Rubik cube.

Sufjan sits down with Buckley, Bird and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy.
Otis can share space with Franklin, Cooke and Brown.
Biffy Clyro live with Pearl Jam, Pumpkins and Jimmy Eat World.
Hendrix bonds with Stevie Ray Vaughn, B.B. King and Buddy Guy.
and... Paramore, Panic At The Disco and Kelly Clarkson can all hang out together in perfect harmony.

I'm not ashamed of a single piece of music I own, or like, or shouldn't like. From my perspective, at least, they all thread together because they're mine. I can see that I lean towards the more acoustic, earnest, lyric based stuff but there is always space for the balls-out guitar solos, the bar-jumping, throat-screeching vocals, the thumping back-beats, the undefined electronica, the twang of Americana and the all out pop-power of the universally accepted.

I like cool stuff, and I also like really uncool stuff too. I don't care, all I do care about is that I can complete a Rubik cube. Therefore, I am cool regardless of what you think of my musical taste.

Tattoos..

I've been cheating on Tumblr again, I'm sorry.

I'm here to talk about tattoos. I've been talking about getting one for at least 3 years but am finally starting to narrow the decision process. Hello, I'm indecisive.. plenty nice to meet you.

I'd like two, possibly three, the first of which I've known about for a while.

Esperanza.

It means hope, in Spanish. It's to represent what that year away meant to my life, meant to my headspace, meant to my heart. I'd like it either on my ankle, or wrist. The font, however, is a bitch to decide on. Maybe something like this?

The second is a little harder to stamp. And the third is going to be a quote I haven't found yet.

Here's what I got as inspiration:

Don't you dare.

Note to self: Don't claim to be doing something in your blog unless you're actually going to do it. It's all well and good to use the space as a post-it note to remind yourself but don't you dare write something and then not follow through..(I'm not going to talk about best friends, nor am I going to do anything alphabet related. At least not today, I'll just wait the topics out).

I'm in a weird head space tonight. I'm going backwards into musical nostalgia and wanted to just get all this stuff out of my head about growing up with artists, and what that means. And how fucking rare it is to have an artist that sticks with you.

Everyone has music that reminds them of something, a place; a person; a feeling. Music has this strange power to pick you up and put you somewhere else - hearing the songs on the debut before the second album that got big; hearing the translation of those songs into a live show; hearing the rough cuts and the finished mixes. It grows. The music grows. When it grows along the same timeline that you're headed there's a different lock on the relationship you have with it. This is not to say that you're confined to the music that evolves within your generation - half of my life is mapped from compass points in too many decades - it's just that a different relationship develops. You get to be completely present with an artist of your generation; you get to take home the ticket stubs and close your eyes in a crowd.

When you find an artist that grows up as you grow up there's a unique element of symmetry that seems to appear - not a set of parallel lives, but more a case of patterns. Those patterns seem to weave into and out of your own life and the music pins them to the walls. It works with artists that are almost gone by the time you come round to them - hearing a live version of B.B King's 'Worry Worry' works two-fold, first I'm in a crowded theatre in November '64 and then I'm lying on a bed in an in Argentinian coastal town in '06. The music gets pulled through the years, into your lap.

I feel it works like a family does. The music you get in your generation is like a sibling, or a best friend. The music that comes before is all shades of your parents and their peers. You love both but for different reasons - with your parents you get to hear about how things were, why they happen and how to solve them but with your peers you get to figure it all out for yourself. Your parents might steady you with their advice but it's your peers that you get to share it with.

Can I count on you if I fall apart?

Can I?
What does that sentence acually mean?
Count on you for what? To not run, to not judge, to stand back or jump into action, to let me figure it all out, to listen, talk or neither?

Is this the definition of friendship, in the sense that if you can answer yes to the question you're a definite, full-bodied friend? Really?

Want to talk about this a bit more and about the alphabet. But! I have things to learn and dinners to cook and singing of Pearl Jam to do.

Also, I cannot stop listening to this song today. The Notwist are brilliant - find them and love them.
Consequence.m4a

Is it wrong to start with the new?

I've been thinking about this for months, well, years in fact.

So much of my music taste shifts backwards and forwards and around and under.

I can remember having a conversation with my uncle about not really listening to much Bob Dylan but raving about Bob Marley, Tom Baxter, Jeff Buckley... he said to me "How on earth can you justify liking these artists if you don't listen to Bob Dylan? You can't possibly know what a songwriter is."

It stuck to me. I spent ages trying to figure out if he was right. I don't think he's right.

Everything I listen to has an influence - an influence from the past or the now or a vision of the future. I didn't buy a Led Zeppelin album when I was 9 years old. I'm nowhere near that 'cool' nor did I even have enough money to do any such thing. In 1989 I think I owned Starlight Express and a Belinda Carlisle album on cassette and had worn out all three of my Wham tapes. I didn't own a Nirvana t-shirt, nor did I even listen to a single Nirvana track until I was at least 14 at which time I was also in love with Robbie Williams. I collected Blues cds from a Blues magazine that my dad bought, but I think I listened to about 10 of them.

Music was always there, but it wasn't there big until I knew a little more about my own tastes.

My first gig wasn't Faith No More at the Astoria, or Eric Clapton at The Royal Albert Hall. It was a Take That concert and I was 10 years old. I believe I screamed quite a lot, my Mum took me and she had ear-plugs in for the whole duration. I then started to go to gigs with friends, my first being a trip to Wembley to see the Stereophonics where we spent the whole journey home dreaming about being in a band and making up band names. I have no 'cool' claims to fame. I did not sit on my dad's shoulders at Van Morrison gig, I didn't seek out music with the curiousity I do now until I was 17 years old. I bought a lot of cds, I overplayed 'Pocketful Of Kryptonite' and some really bad R'n'B. I listened to everything, I made radio mixtapes and cut pictures out of 'Smash Hits' and stuck them to cassette cases with purple UHU glue (not Pritt Stick).

Anyway, am going totally off point. I'm constantly discovering old and new music. I meet some older music after all members of the band are dead, I will never ever see them live or have access to the original vinyl. I meet some music that I should really have known about earlier but for some reason... don't. I didn't know about Cream before I knew who Eric Clapton was. I couldn't name the members of Pink Floyd when I was 15. I had no idea who Buffalo Springfield were. Joni Mitchell? Who? You get the picture.

I've come late to the party with lots of my artists and I've wrestled with what that means. I feel disappointed with myself when someone brings an album to my attention that I should own, why? Musical guilt. Ha, that's a good one. I think I'm just aware of the shallowness of coming to these acclaimed/celebrated/niche artists after all their successes or failures or early beginnings. You can take a shortcut via their 'Greatest Hits'. I'm not a 'Greatest Hits' person. It feels like I've cheated the evolution a bit, almost like opening a jar of jam - it's been passed round, and loosened by everyone else, so when it gets to you it's just a case of lifting the lid. Is there anything wrong with this? Is there something wonderfully right about it too?

On the flip-side, for every new thing I'm exposed to I get to re-trace the steps of influence or even become introduced to more. Through Ben Harper, I got Bob Dylan and G.Love. Through Jeff Buckley, I got Nina Simone. Through Counting Crows, I got Van Morrison.

I've never had so much fun playing catch-up in my life.

Hearts.

"Half of my heart is a shotgun wedding to a bride with a newspaper ring/Half of my heart is the part of a man who knows he's never really loved a thing." JM.

Welcome to my heart, too. I'm not going to labour on who said this but this is what I've been feeling like. It's that emotion where you're fit to burst when you're not sure if there's enough time for everything you want to learn, read, write, experience but there's this nagging part of you that thinks that you've not got enough ambition for your dreams. It's that emotion that tangels itself into a battlefield when you're scared that you're never going to be able to love anything for long enough for either yourself or for the person you're with, yet you let yourself love far too easily. What do you do when you lose love? Where does it go? I was talking to a friend a few days ago about being in love, and he said that love was a choice. If you choose to stop loving, you'll stop loving. If you choose to love, and keep loving that person there's no reason for it not to last. Is it a choice? A decision you make to love one person.

source: le love, as always. thank you.

Who needs a title?

I'm wondering how much you can gleam from someone, about how much of a person needs to be exposed before you settle into a friendship. Degrees of friendship. Human relationships are so endless, so transient, so powerful, so shallow, so shy of any easy definition. Do we all really just want to connect? How many points of connection are there? Blurgh.

There's a post on a webzine (shit word) I follow about the 15 albums 'Important To You'. It got me thinking about snapshots, or rather it got my commitment-phobic self thinking about snapshots. I can give a list of albums that are important to me now, but I can't narrow it down to a 15 all-time list. How do I know that there won't be a #5 that I haven't come across yet? Or a #11 I'll be bored of in a few years? Then surely, they wouldn't be on the list in the first place if they could so easily be usurped.

How about I remove the 'The'? Just 15 albums that are important to me.
Aaah, that's better.

In no order:

Otis Redding - The Definitive Collection & every album that came before.
I borrowed (stole) this album from my mum about 12 years ago and it's the most worn cd I own. I've given it first-aid a few times, and it still works. I'd listen to this album in my room, lying with my head hanging over the edge of the bed watching myself sing the words in the mirror.

Counting Crows - August & Everything After.
This was the first album I loved listening to as a whole. I was just 14 and listened to it for a whole week, non-stop, on my discman. I used 8 pairs of batteries and I never skipped a track. There are memories I have of falling asleep to this on the cdplayer by my head whenever I stayed at my friend Sasha's house.

Ben Harper - Welcome To The Cruel World.
My senses got opened up when I first started listening to Ben Harper, it was in 2002. I was playing catch-up because I'd heard 'Live From Mars' first and that made me backtrack to the orignals. His mucic made me start to feel again, I could hear it... feel it... taste the dust. I've got two Ben Harper songs dedicated to me, too.

Jeff Buckley - Grace & Live at Sin-e.
Jeff gets two, because they overlap and because he is lots of important. I didn't know he had died when I bought my own copy of 'Grace' - in 2001 - and I cried, openly, in the middle of the record store when I read the liner notes of the Deluxe edition. Live at Sin-e saved my soul at university. His music just puts me in a different place, a different time, a different head-space. There are certain lines, in certain songs, that just stick themselves to me.

Nizlopi - Half Of These Songs Are About You.
This album, plus the songs born from their live gigs, had such an impact on what I wanted for myself. I think it had something to do with the proximity of them, and the feeling you got standing in a room with their music. They helped me remember why I sat on a plane and flew to Brazil.

Damien Rice - O.
Urgh, heartbreak and beauty all at once. This album seemed to connect across all the people I was friends with - from school, from uni, from gigs - and it came along at a time when I could understand it.

No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom.
This album made me want to be in a band, made me want to cut off all my hair and dye it blonde, made me want to sing at the top of my lungs into a shampoo bottle. I will always love 'Spiderwebs' and 'Sunday Morning'.

Pearl Jam - 10.
I used to sing to this with my head turned upside down, drying my hair. The fact my chin was drawn into my chest made me sound a bit more like Eddie Vedder, or at least that's what I thought. I'd initially liked them to impress a family friend, Aimee, but my love-affair has outlasted such fickle tendancies. This band introduced me to Dave Matthews, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Soundgarden... the list is endless and full.

John Mayer - Room For Squares/Heavier Things/Any Given Thursday.
Ha. JM gets 3 on his bill, and I'll just keep adding. He's all compass points. He made me dig out all my dad's old records. He made me look for different pieces within music I'd been listening to for a long time. He makes me write better.

Biffy Clyro - Blackened Sky
This album set me on fire. I will sing so many of the songs on this album until my throat burns. This band, mixed with friends, is an experience to behold.

William Fitzsimmons - Until When We Are Ghosts.
The new love of my ears, I can't get enough of the voice, the words, the guitar. This man is in a mould unto himself and I'm so glad I've found him. I feel lucky to have him.

Jason Mraz - Waiting For My Rocket To Come and other MP3's.
I've never fully got into the produced versions of the songs that first found their way into my cd collection. I listened to clusters of Napster-sourced MP3's of live recordings and just tumbled into Mraz's head. It's all about them words. Over numbers, unencumbered words.

Jimi Hendrix - Axis: Bold As Love.
Hendrix extended my vocabulary of music. He makes me think I wasn't born in the right decade, and makes me want to be able to know all the technical terms you use when talking about tone. He's made me discover the 1970's from a 1999 standpoint. I have him to thank for Van Morrison, The Police, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, BB King, Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughn and on, and on.

Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American.
This album has memories escaping from the seams, I'd bought this before hearing Clarity & Static Prevails in an HMV in Bristol having spent 20 minutes talking to a sales-assistant (who I'm pretty sure I fell in love with there and then) about the Smashing Pumpkins. This has summer dreams and travelling buses written all over it, along with Futures.

Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place.
Changed the way I heard instruments, listened to instruments, heard words in unravel in instruments. Owing in part to a huge love for Sigur Ros, Aereogramme, Mono, Godspeed You Black Emperor. They all came along at the same time for me, in the middle of my second year of University. They kept me sane, over and over and over.

Honourable mentions:
Deftones - White Pony.
Hundred Reasons - Ideas Above Our Station.
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream.
Ben Folds Five - Whatever And Ever Amen.
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness.
Coldplay - Parachutes.
Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism.
Derek & The Dominos - Layla.
Fiona Apple - When The Pawn...
Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours.
Muse - Origin Of Symmetry.
Radiohead - The Bends.
Rufus Wainwright - Poses.
Ryan Adams - Gold.
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow.
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings From Michigan....
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman.

post-script: I'm aware that this list misses out lots and lots of my musical influnces and possibly the influences that lead me to picking them in the first place. It's hard to pick an entire album that moved you - I've got bundles of songs, but there are some albums that just changed the path I was on, or showed me others.