If I could travel back in time I'd go see myself at the age of 13 and kick my own ass...
The best cliches are surely written by old, battle weary campaigners whilst taking stock in vein attempt to justify their lack of achievement in life. "It's better to have loved and lost...", "Everything is character building in retrospect" and "It's better to regret the things you have done than the things you haven't" come to mind.
Memories are great but they don't pay the bills.
At the age of 5, I remember my mum (ex folk singer) playing the guitar and singing "Where have all the flowers gone?" and other tankard-quaffing, pipe smoking, "beards and sandles" folk hits.
At 6, I was playing the recorder. At 7 the piano. By 10, I was bashing hell out of my drum kit and at 12, trying to stretch my eager fingers around an old nylon-stringed acoustic guitar.
When everyone else at school was seeing off the dying embers of the disco era, I was spiking my hair with soap, donning my studded leather and jumping the tube to get my T'shirt shredded at Damned gigs... or GBH, or the Subhumans... and hanging out on the Kings Road or in Ken Market. Pogo'ing on stage with a shit Les Paul copy around my neck cranking Jeff Beck power chords was easy then...
I blinked.
It's '87 and we're 6-up in a knackered Ford Escort, hooning around the M25 at 1am following the car infront and looking for some farm in the middle of bleedin' nowhere...
More bands. An album. More gigs playing everything from charged agit pop-punk to sinister country and western...
I blink again and I'm reaching for the lazers... Binary Finary's 1998 is playing and it's the best fuckin tune ever! Water mate? Sorted.
Next thing I know I'm off my tits at a squat party in some filthy hole in Hackney and I'm musing over the old times with ex-punks that are now techno DJ's. Full circle.
So here I am... up until 4 years ago all I'd earned from music was a reputation for playing great toilet gigs in the arse-end of nowhere, a play on Radio 1 as Steve Lamacq's band of the week and a poxy royalty cheque for £2.56.
I write music for a living now... but, occasionally, I still have to eat beans on toast for supper. Wouldn't have it any other way. I can't do what everyone else does. However, if I could go back in time and meet that 13 year old kid, I'd kick him up the arse and tell him to shout about what he's passionate about and make people listen instead of.. no.. as well as just loving it and living it.
I always smile at the suckers that think I'm 10 years younger than I actually am.
My back aches.
Against all odds, I'm still happily married to music. It keeps me alive.
Cliches? Yes. Older and a little bit wiser? Maybe, who's to say?
I've loved and I've lost.
My character is a matter of opinion.
Right now, it more than a little worrying that there seems to be more retrospect than future.
And, admittedly I have a few regrets - not least of which is that I didn't get where I am today...
By the way, there's far too much music waiting to be written for me to spend all my time on one genre - which is why there's always an eclectic mix of tunes in my repertoire (everything from ambient to punk, from film scores to jingles, from hip-hop to techno!) Anyway, I can't stay focussed for long enough to write two tunes that sit together. Still, there's vinyl, digital downloads, commissions, whatever - as long as they keep letting me do it, I'm not complaining.
