‘You should read my diary!’ exclaims my wife, as she runs away into another room of the house, and seconds later bounds back in.
I had just let her read parts of my 2009 normal diary that, only consists of the month of January, a little of February, and the odd bit in March. I did well with that diary of course. That has always been my problem. Love the idea of keeping a diary, but just am never able to keep writing.
So I sat with her big bundle of printed sheets, tens of them, and began reading from 2002. She had meticulously kept diaries from then until now. Not everyday was written about, but the diary was there. In the first few entries, there was a small introduction about her. And then I thought about my music diary blog. This blog. And I thought, I haven’t really described myself. I haven’t explained who I am, and why I do this. It made me think a lot, and decide I’d like to tell you more about me.
My background is not musical really. Yes, my mum played the accordion and my grandad played drums in a marching band, but my family were not a musical family. I was not a musical individual in the slightest. It took me a long time to appreciate music. The only time music was a part of my life when I was younger when I’d be in the car going to the caravan on holiday. We’d listen to ‘Fats Domino’ and other Jazz classics. Or we’d listen to ‘Queen’ and impersonate the scene from ‘Wayne’s World’. My brother John built up a CD collection of songs, which I ignored. My brother James began playing the guitar, which I also ignored. One summer however, I began listening to music on the radio. I don’t know why, but I did. I started recording songs off the radio onto cassettes. I started liking odd stuff like ‘Eminem’ and Baz Lurman’s ‘Wear Sunscreen’. I started putting lots of my brother’s CD’s onto cassettes and listening to them on my personal cassette player. But I still didn’t like anything in particular.
One night however, changed all of that. I was listening to the radio. In my room, all alone. A song came on, and I instantly loved it from the intro. This song and this band have made me who I am today. I used to be so quiet, with little confidence; and now I am loud and far more confident. The song was ‘Tsunami’ by the Manic Street Preachers. I would have been about 14 years old at this point, and this song hit me. I instantly ran down to my brother’s room after the song was finished, because I knew he had a Manics album. Turns out, he had the album with ‘Tsunami’ on it. This began the phase of listening to the same song over and over and over again. I must have driven everyone around me mad, but I didn’t care. It felt amazing.
One day I returned home from school, threw my bag off, and sat down and turned the TV on. No one was home, and we had 'Sky' at this point. The TV slowly blurred into view, and I put MTV on. As soon as the channel connected up with the TV, a music video was just starting. This song, and band would have the most profound effect on me musically, and teach me everything I know now. It was the US version of the ‘High and Dry’ video by Radiohead. The start of the song just caught my attention so well; and the video seemed to last forever. I thought Thom Yorke looked cool; I thought the video was very clever, with everyone singing his with his voice; I thought the song sounded amazing; and I thought his voice was incredible. I needed to hear more when the song finished. It was a need. I went into my brother’s room again, and again, right under my nose, was the very album ‘High and Dry’ is on. I took it up to my room, and listened to the song, over and over and over. However, I quickly came to love another Radiohead song, one that became my favourite song for years and still to this day gives me goose bumps when I hear it: ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’.
So as my music taste grew, so had my desire to play an instrument. In the summer of 2000, I sat playing tennis games on my Playstation and listening to the Manic Street Preachers. I had got a Millennium DVD of theirs, and some albums, including ‘This is my Truth, Tell me Yours’. I would watch the Manics DVD and impersonate Sean Moore the drummer. I wanted to play the drums. I use to impersonate the drummer all the time when I listened to the songs, and had no desire to play the guitar or sing really. I had asked for drums but I knew full well we couldn’t afford them or wouldn't have enough space for them. Still to this day, I am a bit disappointed about that. I think I’d have made a good drummer.
So during that year, my step-dad at the time had been given an old guitar by someone. They suggested that Andrew (my younger brother) should have it to learn how to play it. This was an adult sized guitar and he was about 8 years old. Not a great idea. So I picked it up and said I would play it. I didn’t have the greatest desire to play it, but I thought I would. Turned out that I learned quickly and began growing a passion for singing and playing the guitar together.
Another band appeared who influenced me greatly; however that I hated originally. It was one of this band's songs that was the first song I ever learned to play on the guitar....
Watch this space for more Biographies,
Wullae
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