More about me and how I got into this music stuff...Part 2

PART TWO

However, I was craving a guitar, I needed to play one. I started looking at pictures of six string beauties and wishing I owned one. I started thinking about saving for a Squire Strat...
I also started buying records of the Beatles again (big bro's had long since been sold) and I was connecting with the music. The songs were great, made me so happy. But they also left me depressed. Why? There was some level that I couldn't connect with, I needed to feel more. I wanted to touch the music, to see it. As good as it was, it just wasn't enough. And then I realised that I needed to create it. I loved the feelings of those other writers but I had to explore my own feelings and convert them into music. As much as I loved those songs there were places I had to go to which no one else would. I had to get inside it and do it myself, and so I decided I'd be a songwriter.

So I tried without a guitar, writing stuff in my head. God most of them were so bad. But I had to. I was going to be in a band and I knew I was never going to be a great guitarist, so I thought let me just learn as many chords as possible and I'll play rhythm and write the songs. After all what if you're in a band and no-one else can write? Your band goes nowhere. At this time as well as being obsessed with the Beatles, I was buying early Bowie and other great artists, I was going out and finding records myself including bits and pieces from the Who's catalogue, they were probably already influencing me.

So one year when I was 16, I'm staying with friends at Christmas and they get a guitar. I'm itching to have a go but I'm nervous about playing in front of anyone since there's not a single song I can play, so every time I'm alone I pick up the acoustic.
My brother tries to show our friend how to play different songs including "Patience" by Guns N Roses and "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who. So I have a go at playing them, and it actually sounds OK.
For the first time I could work out songs easily, and I was learning stuff every minute. I was playing 6 to 8 hours a day, and I wasn't practicing I was just playing.
Not only that but I was writing furiously, and the songs were sounding good. Music was flowing out and each song got better.
For my 17th birthday I got my first electric guitar, a Les Paul Deluxe goldtop. I got it from Andy's in Denmark street. God I was in love with that guitar, I used to sleep with that beside me.
Amazingly, my guitar playing as well as my songwriting was getting better. I now felt I could write lovely ballads but also ballsy rockers, and I could have the lead guitar chops to bring them alive.
I was now getting into The Who. I'd been aware of them for ages but now I was buying the albums. I was also listening to Cream, The Yardbirds and Peter Green and trying to play lead guitar.
just short of a year after getting my Les Paul I enrolled in the Guitar Institute college in Acton. Really I should have waited, I didn't know enough yet, but I still did well. In college we tackled different songs live. I always felt nervous before getting on stage but as soon as I finished I wanted to get back on. I loved it but I was frustrated that I couldn't play how I wanted to.

While at college I saw the Who for the first time. I'd wanted to see them for a while but hadn't been able to get tickets. The Who spoke to me more than any other band. I'd been writing all these songs dealing with issues of growing up, self esteem, identity and topics like these, when I realised Pete Townshend had already written them. I'd always felt out of step with my fellow humans, always felt that they were all better dressed, better looking, more charismatic, more interesting and better equipped to deal with life. When I listened to certain Who songs I felt it was being said for me and someone understood. For instance, my social discomfort, my desire to get away from groups of people because I felt unable to fit in and function within that situation seemed to be spoken for in "The Kids Are Alright"
I still feel out of place even within my own family which probably comes from being 10 years younger than everyone else, you know sometimes everyone talks about family events that you weren't even alive for...
Anyway seeing the Who live had an amazing impact on me. I'd never heard or seen live music like this before, the energy and power of it were incredible. I had wondered whether the Who could still cut it live and I just wasn't prepared for what they unleashed. I was utterly blown away. I knew I had to play live music.

So I tried to form bands - they broke up. I carried on writing and performing with varying success. Again I'm trying to form a band while at the same time I play in another with a college friend.
But I've found it hard to find good musicians who really want to work at it and actually like good music instead of wanting to be in some arty band so much that they forget to write any music which requires any talent, or even sounds slightly good. I can't stand those acts who want to be different and modern but can't write a decent song. For me the song is king, so if you don't have any good songs no amount of strange noises and odd singing is going to make you sound good. Not to me anyway.

oh well, what a depressing end to this blog... But on the upside - in contrast to my acceptance of the fact that I'd never be a good guitarist, I am now a pretty good one. Well at least I'm a good cheat. I can make it sound like I'm f***ing brilliant with just a few tricks. But that's more than I had hoped for.