I haven't always made music. Some would argue that I still don't. Don't listen to them though, make your own mind up. Have a listen - https://losdave.bandcamp.com/music - I'm not saying they're wrong - it could all very well be crap, but so what.
Like quite a lot of kids, I started to learn about music when I was little. I still remember a music lesson in junior school when the teacher put on Emerson Lake and Palmers' 'Pictures At An Exhibition' (prog!). I had (a few) recorder lessons, and even graduated up to a clarinet (with my mum's encouragement). I always loved listening to the music on the radio, and eventually started to buy records and tapes of my own - (ELO - Mr Blue Sky). I loved to drag the speakers off the shelf and lay down with them either side of my head in lieu of headphones. I still love my headphones. The viscerality of getting the music right into my brain case.
I got to know some kids who played in a metal band at school, and still remember the first time I went to watch them rehearse in a small backroom in a church in St. Albans, or Watford or somewhere. After I left the sixth form, me and my mate 'Sweeney' would go over to the Headstone in Harrow, a metal club in an old church hall, and spend the night with our heads in the bass bins...
When I was earning enough to afford tickets, I started going to live gigs. Must have been around 1979 - 80. Local bands, mostly rock/metal around the Watford/Rickmansworth/St. Albans areas. Clientelle were top favourite. One of the earliest 'big' gigs I went to was Angel Witch at Rickmansworth with Clientelle and a couple of other bands in support. I still have albums and tapes that I bought at those gigs. The first big venue gig I went to was Supertramp at Earls Court in 1983. We were waaaaaaaay at the back. The band were tiny...
When I was eighteen I worked at Sellotape. The guys there took me under their wings and my education began. Real ale and prog rock. Fairport, Led Zep, King Crimson, Crosby Stills, Jethro Tull, Yes... All added in to the mix of metal, punk and post-punk I was already attached to. At the start of the '90's I got a job in a record store in Hendon. I stayed with the same company when I moved to Portsmouth for Uni and Bristol as a post-grad. I was with MVC until '99/2000-ish. Almost 10 years working in that environment had a profound effect on my listening education and musical taste. Jazz, hip-hop, ambient, world music, classical, new age... Anything except the 'main stream'...
I've had a few significant gig-buddies. More, I think, than actual relationships... Sweeney, Stainer, Ben, Andy, Gav and Eddie... Wherever they are, whatever they're doing today, I hope they're all still well and happy. I still have nearly all of the tickets from the '90's/2000's until venues stopped doing physical tickets - which is shameful and they really ought to bring them back in some form.
I am also extremely blessed to have spent a very significant proportion of my life surrounded by proficient, legitimate, educated, talented, creative musicians. They have all been incredibly open, encouraging, facilitating, and generous. They've also put up with my bullshittery for many years, which is not insignificant, and for which I will always be grateful. With their enablement and encouragement, I've found myself on a few stages performing in front of audiences. I'm gotta mention Rusty, who's put me in front of more people... And we have done some very cool things... Dude. Watch this space...
I have been lucky enough to live through the most significant technical developments in the performance, recording and reproduction of sound. The seventies, eighties and nineties gave us access to the totality of aural cultures that exist on the Earth. We got portable, then digital equipment, software, the means of playing, recording, producing, publishing and distributing at home, in your bedroom. And equally unlucky to see all of that poisoned by capitalism, greed and deteriorating ethics. Oi, BOSS pedals - fuck subscribing to a pedal on your fx rig! BUT, I've still got a guitar and an amp and a smartphone I can record on, so fuck them.
Everyone's an artist... Except they ain't. Not really. Just because you got a camera in your smartphone, don't make you a photographer, and just 'cos you passed your test, don't make you a talented driver. I'm not an audiophile. In the same way that I'm not a musician. In both aspects, I consider myself "aspirational", pretentious, a dilletante... I do however, as an artist and self-publishing creative guy, I do have a significant obsession with music.
I gave up driving over fifteen years ago, essentially 'cos I'm shit at it.
I was told a decade ago by an NHS mental health counsellor that I should give up chasing a career in art, grow up and get a proper job. I was also told by a GP that taking up a sport would help with my mental health problems, despite commuting a hundred miles a week by bike.
I ain't giving up my music. I don't care how fucking shit it is.
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