Everythings cool?
Somehow not quite adjusting back to real life yet. After the last month of constant intense learning and really pushing my ability it's strange to find myself back in the world I left behind. Strange and a tiny bit demotivating, which is ridiculous because what I need to do is get better at what I do, so I can eventually afford to do it less and do more of the things I love.
Also I'm feeling time's arrow somewhat- a night or two before my birthday I had a dream in which I was terrified of getting old and everything that goes with it. I don't know why because I don't think I am particularly afraid of that but it was very odd. I can't believe that dear, crazy, shanks01 is thirty. That's hit my idea of myself as someone even moderately young pretty hard because Stu's kind of a whippersnapper to me and even he's hit that wall. Still, there's life in these old dogs yet, I guess we'll just pick up our guitars and show these kids how it's supposed to be done.
This is another thing that is bothering me- and I think this is a consequence of getting old- there just isn't much new music that is blowing my mind. I can remember hearing bands when I was in my first intense love affair with alternative music who were just playing music that was, to me at least, stunning and original and interesting. In the last five years I haven't heard anything that even approaches the scale and imagination of Giant Steps, the cynical perfection of Now I'm A Cowboy or the brutal soulfulness of Gentlemen. Do people just not make music to push on things any more or have I lost the capacity to respond to it? Has being settled and married and generally kind of content with how things are somehow compromised the connection I once had with that music? Or is it the fact of having been in the band, witnessed a bit of what goes on in the back rooms, the working of the smoke and mirrors to charm the audience- have I become so sceptical of the music industry that I can't enjoy it's output any more?
The answer I'd like to have, I guess, is that the music is out there but I'm just not finding it. I mean, I've found some good albums in the last year or two- Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, The Gutter Twins, they're all fine, but none of them have managed to astound me. Perhaps nothing since maybe the first British Sea Power record or the Arcade Fire one I can no longer safely listen to have really captured my imagination and those are getting on a bit by this point.
Also I'm feeling time's arrow somewhat- a night or two before my birthday I had a dream in which I was terrified of getting old and everything that goes with it. I don't know why because I don't think I am particularly afraid of that but it was very odd. I can't believe that dear, crazy, shanks01 is thirty. That's hit my idea of myself as someone even moderately young pretty hard because Stu's kind of a whippersnapper to me and even he's hit that wall. Still, there's life in these old dogs yet, I guess we'll just pick up our guitars and show these kids how it's supposed to be done.
This is another thing that is bothering me- and I think this is a consequence of getting old- there just isn't much new music that is blowing my mind. I can remember hearing bands when I was in my first intense love affair with alternative music who were just playing music that was, to me at least, stunning and original and interesting. In the last five years I haven't heard anything that even approaches the scale and imagination of Giant Steps, the cynical perfection of Now I'm A Cowboy or the brutal soulfulness of Gentlemen. Do people just not make music to push on things any more or have I lost the capacity to respond to it? Has being settled and married and generally kind of content with how things are somehow compromised the connection I once had with that music? Or is it the fact of having been in the band, witnessed a bit of what goes on in the back rooms, the working of the smoke and mirrors to charm the audience- have I become so sceptical of the music industry that I can't enjoy it's output any more?
The answer I'd like to have, I guess, is that the music is out there but I'm just not finding it. I mean, I've found some good albums in the last year or two- Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, The Gutter Twins, they're all fine, but none of them have managed to astound me. Perhaps nothing since maybe the first British Sea Power record or the Arcade Fire one I can no longer safely listen to have really captured my imagination and those are getting on a bit by this point.