The Voices In My Head.

 So, this morning as I strolled out of bed and made myself a cup of tea, I heard an acoustic version of The Gaslight Anthem’s The 59 Sound, followed sometime later by Bastille’s Pompei I begin to think “what happened?” which is never a last night type question and more in general. It was followed by “well, five years ago you reluctantly walked into a bar and made some great friends out of it and now you have to go get one of em an iPhone.” Which is actually pretty much what happened. Hearing Gaslight Anthem makes me reflective anyway, especially so when it’s acoustic and I am clutching a cup of tea first thing in the morning. It gives my brain time to run without me filtering it.  I consider myself pretty lucky for several reasons, but mainly cause I had a friend who dragged my arse to a gig despite my deep insistence that I wanted nothing to do with that crew. Who knew? I went to Springsteen as a favour to my mum and look at what happened there.

 

Ohhh, I suppose you wanna know how Friday went cause you didn’t go?

It was great and you missed out. Big time. Daryl’s started including I’ll Be Gone in his set too and despite the fact that it is done out of respect and that he does a bloody good (although somewhat different) version of that song, it still breaks my heart to hear it and there’s probably not enough tea or cola in the world to fix that (but hey, if you wanna try, be my guest). Other songs included were Forever The Tourist (from the new CD) and Not Too Late (also on the CD). There was Sherbet stuff, there was solo stuff, there was David Campbell walking into a mic and John Corniola starting to retell a cruise story which sounds like it involved violence and possibly one too many Daryls. There was audience participation and Slave, sans James Reyne. Do you feel like you missed out yet? This is because you did. It’s okay. I had enough fun for both of us.

 

Anyway, I’m off. I have an iPhone to help buy and some cupcake containers to get back. Enjoy the sun.

Joy

I seem to be falling in love with music all over again. I spent last night youtubing different clips and I found some beauties. U2 and Bruce at Madison Square Gardens was amongst my favorite. I kinda wish you could buy YouTube clips so that you could download em, same way you can with iTunes. It would be kinda cool, like iTunes for video. Someone should get on to that.

Anyway, aside from Bruce and U2 I found (or was directed to) Bruce and John Fogerty which was great and I generally just enjoyed exploring. It’s always struck me – the way that music can change a mood. It can change the feeling in the room in a second. There is nothing better than walking into a shop/pub with a song that you love playing. It’s great.

There are certain songs that convey perfectly. Is This Love by Bob Marley is a perfect example. Higher and Higher by anyone who wants to sing it is another. These songs are perfect in every way.

The flip side of this of course is that music can change a room for the worse. Yesterday I heard I Want You by Elvis Costello and stood there with my head hung, like a naughty kid being told off by a parent. Maybe it’s because I have a personal connection with the song (have you heard it?) but still, it proves my point. That song makes me feel so horrible and more than a little guilty. Do I have anything to be guilty about? Nope, not a thing, but the tale of someone trying so desperately to get the attention of someone who looks through him to see someone else – well, you gotta feel at least a bit bad for the guy who has to stand there and watch the one he loves give their love to someone else.
It’s one of the most moving songs ever written, I recon. Like the movie Schindler’s List, it’s probably too moving to air most days.

Another one that falls into that category is Joy Division. I claim they should be listened to in small doses at best and right now, I don’t need any, thanks. I never thought I’d see a week where I walked into a store looking for Joy Division and walk out empty handed. I especially never thought I’d follow this with “nah, I don’t really need to listen to The Smiths” the next day. Either my music taste is changing, I’m in a really good mood or I’m becoming less of a hipster. Who knows? I’m having fun finding out though.

Btw, Bastille’s album Bad Blood is really good. You should buy it – because illegal downloads are bad, m’kay?