Music:
Ahh the big one music. I believe that some of us are affected by music in a way that is unfathomable to others who do not feel the same way. For me listening to music is an activity in itself, music is not just background noise for doing something else to. If music is playing it is very difficult for me to pay attention to anything else.My first love is rock n roll. Like most people I got into it through Elvis (was and ever is The King), I soon discovered the other greats Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis etc. When I started going out to Rock n roll clubs in London in the late 70’s I was introduced to Rockabilly and soon was in awe of Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Charlie Feathers, Mac Curtis, Johnny Carroll, Johnny Burnette and a thousand and one other wildmen. I took a side step and spent a few years exploring the wild and wiggy world of Bo Diddly, Esquerita, Larry Williams, Jerry McCain and all them cats. I have had a scratch at the deep deep mine that is vocal group harmony and am quite proud to say I love the Five Keys, The Cadillacs, The Coasters, The Drifters, Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers and Dion and the Belmonts amongst many others. Country music really moves me and a high wailing southern voice and steel guitar gets me every time. Early country and folk is fantastic and many field recordings are capturings of souls. These people were singing because it was what they did and a part of who they were not for money.Of course the music that surrounded me as I grew up stays with me and growing up in Ladbroke Grove that means Reggae and punk as well as the celtic music of my ancestors that went on to create US folk and so they wheel spins.Recording of course changed everything in music. What was free and constantly changing became set in shellac. Music from before recording was possible is fascinating but without performance it really is just dots. Some of it is amazing and classics tend to last for hundreds of years for a reason. Lugwig Van’s Ode to Joy would be in my top 7 for that Desert Island but for me the soul in a performance, the capturing of a moment is what counts. Real folk needs to be live preferably in a wood around a fire.I believe that in every form of music there is good stuff to be found if you listen for it.
Books:
I love reading. The written word is mankind's greatest invention. A system for transfering thoughts, facts, fantasies and feelings from one mind to another. Reading allows one to come as close as possible to experiencing things that one does not actually do for one's self.I read all sorts of books for all sorts of reasons. My favourite writer is Tom Wolfe. He explains things that I never knew I needed to know, so thoroughly that I feel I have a deep understanding of basic truths. This understanding wears off in time so I have to reread. I love to find out the story behind music that is central to my life and turn to people such as Nick Tosches, Peter Guralnick, Greil Marcus and for Sun Records, Escott and Hawkins for this.I found hard boiled crime through an unusual route and am now an acolyte of the masters such as Hammett, Chandler, Irish and Cain. Jim Thompson should be in this pantheon. His hypnotic style and flint hard stories are always masterful. He does not always make it easy for the reader, he invented cut up. You cannot always expect to understand what has happened by the end of one of his books but you will be enthralled all the way.The first genre that caught my attention was Science Fiction. I went through the classics, Asimov, Clarke, Wyndham, Dick, Matheson, etc. I read Gibson when he was new. I came across Alfred Bester and although he only wrote 2 books and had one book of stories published he is a favourite. His book The Stars My Destination may be the best hard boiled Science fiction book ever. Another genre I was obsessed with as a spin off of Rock N Roll Culture was Juvenile Deinquency books. I even did a fanzine about them. Authors such as Hal Ellson, Harlan Ellison (not the same person at all) Wenzell Brown, Evan Hunter Irving Shulman and the supreme Edward De Roo filled my shelves and were hungrily read along with all sorts of one shots published by the likes of Ace, Beacon, Digit, Avo and other companies who vied for the most outrageous JD cover.And I read a lot else beside, Heart Of Darkness is the deepest book I have ever read, the Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte's Flanders Panel affected me the same way. I read each Jasper Fforde book as they come out and I have read masses of Buffy The Vampire Slayer books. I could go on and on but I think you probably get the idea.