What is my music identity and what ‘baggage’ do I bring with me on this journey? How do my musical experiences shape my perception of new music? I don’t know if I can answer these questions until I take a trip back in time to when I was first developing a love and deep appreciation of music of all genres which culminated in who I am today. These first little memories when music changed from at first being just something with a good tempo you heard on FM radio to something far more important that it’s a way of life, you live and breathe it, even taste it in your throat, can smell it in Smokey bars where people go to drink and be entertained by some voracious covers band, it’s the passion, the energy that brings music to life. Its individuals that give music such power to soothe the savage beast, to turn dreams into reality, to make something from nothing, to have songs caught in their throats that can only be expelled by opening ones mouth and letting the songs converge apon arenas, concert halls, opera houses and the like, the primal screams against repression and the mundane started in times when the ‘man-monkey’ first discovered sound, ‘cos it was all around him’, then realised he had the ability to create his own unique sounds, from his own voice- at that time many howls and screams-then discovered the ability to fashion instruments from bone and the bodies of the dead maybe, but in any case this is irrelevant unless you have a healthy imagination and a love for music; because this is the true abstract language of the world.

When you have to think back years ago, even decades ago, you soon realise that the topic shifts from the music specifically, to the ways in which you listened to and heard music. For example everyone wants to know whose concert you went to and what big super stars you saw when they were in their prime. I always use to pester my parents about how many Beatles gigs they went to, but they may went to some much better Moody Blues shows, we only seem to care about who we deem fit, in that respect music is very subjective. You do notice the old trends make a comeback, fashion, music, films, retro valve amps and most importantly vinyl LPs. You know, that’s how my dad listened to his music, on a huge stereo with record player and big booming speakers. Then decades later I find myself doing exactly the same thing, but not with retro albums but new ones from artists who like me know that the bass sounds better on vinyl. In fact I was quite the avant collector of vinyl, my first vinyl LP was ‘Hello Nasty’ by the ‘Beastie Boys’, from there my tastes and collection continued to grow and got more eclectic. When I think back I had some really experimental albums such as ‘Ciccone Youth, The Whitey Album’ and ‘Sideways Soul: Dub Narcotic Sound System meets the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in a Dancehall Style’ just to name a few.

Experimentation is the nexus point, a vital link in the machine; a point of departure from the normal archetypes of ethnomusicology. Experimentation allows us to express ourselves while also learning, for it is through trial and error that we succeed in our learnings.

The epiphany was the discovery of multi-genre music, encompassing many different styles, varying time signatures and free-form structures.

Multi-genre music is simply starting a song or composition in for example a jazz style, then moving on to afro Caribbean, or swing, you are free to include as many different genres within the piece as you would cross-genre within literature.  This is a vital link to becoming more progressive musically. It sums up my style of music as a performer and as a listener. My musical tastes are varied and diverse, I can accept and draw inspiration from many different genres of music. I see music as like a blank canvas for which you need to add musical colours and textures in order to give music depth and space for all the elements to work together.

Early 1996 I heard an album from Beck Hanson with inspired me to look at music in a different light, to reassess the things I once knew about how music was written and performed and theme that are included.

I started learning the guitar in high school and subsequently learnt the rules of music theory. The dogmatic sense of foreboding within the theory seemed to halt my sense of enjoyment and pride in accomplishment.