And speaking of tracks, I'd like to chat a little about music.
See, I'm often asked "What sort of music are you into?" and "What's your favourite band?" but in fairness, I've never been able to obliquely answer those questions.
I generally think I have an incredibly broad musical taste. I'm a fan of various wide ranging genres, rock, to pop, to spoken word, to classical, but we all know music delves deeper than that - sometimes a lot deeper.
Alright, so my newly developed taste for a bit of dubstep can sometimes delve deep inside your ear canal, but I'm not really talking about that. As a young child, I was quite the fan of classical music. I almost always listened to Classic FM before going to bed and had a very, very limited knowledge of modern music, up until I listened to the Foo Fighters on Radio One on a rainy Sunday evening. My memory isn't that good, but I think the song was "Learn to Fly", and I do remember it putting a smile on my face and actually making me want to get up from lying on the bedroom floor doing nothing. Course, there's more to that particular strand of my musical story coming up later.
As I said, as a child I enjoyed listening to classical music, and I was never ashamed to admit it. Once, a teacher in our junior school put on some classical music during a lesson - I knew what the song was immediately but me being me I just smiled and wrote away. I also remember getting fairly emotional once, sometime before my grandfather died, at one piece of music but again, I just can't remember what it was; I'm sure if I heard it again I'd know. My grandfather was one of the main people who influenced my musical taste back then, and I can remember being sat in his room, most weekends, listening to music such as Verdi's Anvil Chorus and talking about football and all other things under the sun. That suited me, I love wasting my time talking to people. It's perhaps a vague link from my childhood to the stirring desire within me to become a journalist.
In fact, thinking about it there's probably more to that link than I first thought, as I can also remember, when listening to classical music, picking up on the tone and the tempo and writing stories in my mind to fit what I thought it sounded like. It probably explains why that one emotional piece of music affected me so much and why I was such a better writer then. Of course, it didn't help that there was a television show which set it's sketches to Boccherini's Minuet that I watched every day after school, which probably infected my mind and allowed me to make some good associations with music and being happy (the generic post-day-at-school happiness everyone got in those days).
Nowadays, I find classical music to be a effective relaxant, and sadly in my life it's most often used to get me to revise or study or sleep. It's also interesting that the appreciation for classical music I had as a child has come back to help me somewhat as I now know people who are and were interested in it, not to the same degree but it always helps to have a conversation piece, doesn't it?
So that's the basis of my musical knowledge as a young child, and only towards the very end of the 90's did I even dip my toes in to modern popular music, borrowing my brother's "Now That's What I Call Music" albums. Suffice to say I didn't call it music.
I can't really pinpoint the moment when my taste in music became broad. As I said, I took to listening to the chart show on Radio One on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and that probably contributed to it because you're subjected to a very general, 'poppy' style of music when you do that.
I have various friends who have more musical talent than me - although I'd say everyone I know has more musical talent than me - and their interest in the subject kept me locked on when I was in school. I had little other choice - learn to like music or suffer in silence while everyone talked about these strange bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica, which were alien to me for a very long time. So I took an interest in various bands during my education, borrowed CDs from friends and progressed from there. My liking for Iron Maiden has flourished to the point of seeing them play live at Twickenham, which is an experience for a whole other blog entry again.
My first live gig was at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff (where else would it have been for me of all people?!) and it was a something of an all-day event, called Noise and Confusion. The Millennium Stadium never fails to enthrall me, but this was the first time I'd seen it without turf, so it sticks in my mind even more. That I went with the girl who remains to this day the best female friend I've ever had also helped considerably. If I hadn't been with her, I would've been uncomfortable to no end. The smallest of things, like the lasers that were aimed at the closed roof and being able to see Dave Grohl's breath materialising on the big screen in the "f**king cold stadium" as he so delicately put it are specifics that I remember so well from the event. Of course, the more powerful memories will always be from the music itself: 45000 singing along to "Golden Touch" with Razorlight's Jonny Borrell topless and leading them all the way, the sheer adrenaline that accompanied the Foo Fighter's "In Your Honor", and walking down Westgate Street singing "Don't Look Back in Anger" with various strangers doing the same. It was pretty powerful stuff for a lad of 15 going to his first ever live music performance.
And that was that really. From then on I bought Oasis's Morning Glory, and progressed from there. Nowadays, my album collection features Kasabian, Bob Dylan, Guns n Roses, Kaiser Chiefs, Santana, Stereophonics, Johnny Cash, AC/DC, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Goldie Lookin Chain, Futureheads, Queen, Kooks, Bob Marley, Marina and the Diamonds, Little Boots, Manic Street Preachers, and a good few others.
Right now I'm listening to Dream Brother by Jeff Buckley, which you can hear on this Youtube video and whose music you can discover more of and purchase on the official website for Jeff Buckley which can be found by clicking this link. If this doesn't demonstrate how widespread my musical taste has become then nothing will. We have to thank my old media studies teacher for my discovering of Buckley's work - whoever said media studies was a pointless subject?!
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| Dan le Sac (left) and Scroobius Pip. Thanks to Last.fm |
Dan Stephens was formerly a DJ, whilst Meads worked in HMV for 5 years before recording a self-financed spoken word album - only 1000 copies were ever produced of "No Commercial Breaks", which eventually proved the backbone for the pair's debut album Angles.
The reason this pair of Essex gentlemen have had such an influence on me is down to their wonderfully "right" musical chemistry - and the fact that they will happily dish out meaningful and serious lyrics by the ladle-full, though not at all afraid to laugh or sing and dance as well.
As I've doubtless said, growing up in Bridgend meant suicides were a fact of life, but when you're in the midst of it all, the Magician's Assistant, a song about the selfishness of suicide and self harm, really comes to life and it was literally like walking into a wall when I saw them perform this live. It was like being in a bubble, because I doubt many people there that night shared the experiences I have and so - as all music does - it affects different people in different ways.
That is probably the reason I'm so bored of "pop" music these days: "Most of these kids can get their guns out and kill me/ But how many have got the skills to inspire and thrill me?"
Good question Mr Mead. The answer? None from the world of pop thus far in my life. That's only 20 years in yet though - with any hope there's a fair way to go yet, and I'll get to the age where Dan and Scroobius are less 'cool' than Cliff Richard is now. You can't buy taste mind!
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