I feel like this sometimes..

I am angry and pissed off.  Not something I am usually either of very often.

Sitting here with the music playing very loudly and very fast.  The choice of listening material is probably not a very good one for climbing out of this mood, but Iron Maiden is suiting me very well at the moment.

There is a certain requirement on my part to maintain a number of ‘faces’; normal, work, karate and mine.  Each of these having a time when they come out and to compartmentalise what I am really thinking, to switch off, to almost ignore the realities of some situations.  What’s probably a little worrying is that the private ‘face’ is starting to look like Eddie in the picture here; angry and more than a little unreasonable.

It’s probably a good idea to find a little ‘steam venting’ diversion somewhere and get back to a more sociable face.  Maybe just after this..

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uq6Ax-zzkQ&ob=av3nm

…maybe

As mentioned in a previous post I am now subscribed to Last.fm, and it seems I am keeping a bit of a sly eye open as to what others would think of the bands and tracks I choose to listen to, and not those I actually enjoy… which is somewhat daft to say the very least.

I joined last.fm to help me find bands I may not have heard of before but are similar in style to what I listen to now, not what I think others would like – I make a feck awful DJ at the best of times.

Ah well, as I sat back at my appointment and received the unpleasant medicine due to me I tuned my headphones into all those classics that got me bouncing around like an eejit in my oh-so-long ago youth… and stuck a mental two fingers up to anyone who might disapprove of my eclectic choices;  Long may I continue to listen to Genesis, The Jam, Bob Marley, The Specials, ZZ Top, etc…

However there I was.

Not intentionally.

Sitting with the car door open, whilst waiting, watching the rain come down.  Not a deluge, just a gentle pattering now that the cold snap has let up a little.  I love the smell of rain, the sound of it as it hits the trees, roofs and other objects, the peace of it.

The melancholic background music probably helped the aesthetics of the moment… before reality decided to rudely interrupt.  

I must do that again. Inner karma, at least for a little while, has been restored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOAFmDgAlKg

Now whilst being an open embracer of the “social network”, and admittedly connecting all my music playing devices to last.fm; such as MixZing on my android phones and exaile on my linux desktop, the decision was a little more practical than just boring the t’interweb with yet more information on me.

For the past six months I’ve been downloading at least 2-3 new albums per month from Amazon, preferably from artists I haven’t heard of before, or at listened to in any great degree.  Why?  Well most of the music I’ve been blown away by recently has all been blindly stumbled across.  Bands such as Archive and The Goo Goo Dolls.  However recently the “misses” are starting to outnumber the “hits” in this admittedly haphazard way of choosing music.

Enter Last.fm and its ability to look at what I am currently listening to and, from analysing what other people with similar tastes are listening to, come up with recommendations on what I may also like.  This is what social networking should be all about and really starts to be “social”.

…and the results so far? Admittedly it’s only day 1, but I have found two bands I hadn’t heard of before and am currently wearing the proverbial needle down listening to ‘em; Matchbox Twenty and Rob Thomas.

Being the sociable animal that I am, you can now see what I’m listening to by looking at the shiny new column on the right, under the “Listening to..” heading.

See, you can find more on the series of tubes than LOLCats and porn!

…but not enough.. or way too much.

I’ve spoken before about how a song, a snippet of lyrics taken out of context, an image, or some other medium, provide a far more accurate and personal reflection of self at a point in time.

I won’t try and put into words what the mental image is, inoffensive as it is, as that seems counter intuitive. Maybe later, when I have some personal time, I will search for something that matches it on the big, bad, t’interweb… or, god forbid, put my artistic abilities to the test and actually translate from mental image to physical medium.

Until then I’ll share one of the ‘lyrics out of context’, that I mentioned earlier.  It’s from a song by Madness and perversely it’s probably the one bit that makes the song sound darker than it’s actual intent – which is exactly the opposite;

Standing up in the falling down
In so much rain I could almost drown.

If I ever do manage to scribble the image down I’ll make sure to add it to the blog… maybe.  However now seems a perfect time to plug in some headphones, hit ‘random’ on the playlist, and see if I can either create some new audible monuments or just lose self in the moment.

…not a unique sentiment at the moment!

There is something deeply satisfying to me when the fogs of December come rolling in, especially in the early evenings, and the street lights flicker into life and cast the scenery with eerie punctuations of light and shadow.

I am also at my most reflective during these shadowed evenings, especially with all the dramas of life at the moment.  Sometimes just stopping by Abington Park, after karate, pumping up the mood music, opening the doors and taking a calm moment before continuing the journey, is required.

There’s probably a hundred reasons why it’s not a good idea, but there’s just as many as to why it is.  I think next time I try it I’ll source a good cup of java from somewhere.

A trip up to Scotland, especially at this time of year, has been too long a time coming and my batteries are in sore need of some recharging.

My karate, as with other things, has stalled.  Despite putting in what I feel is 100%, the execution seems to fall far short of the expected standard and the appearance of going backwards more than forwards is somewhat disheartening.

Maybe it’s just a recurrence of what a good friend once called “Blue belt blues”.

T’would seem my old managers favourite dictum, muttered every pay and bonus review time, has come back to haunt; “Remember, Andy, that 100% of nothing is still nothing”.

Wallowing, angst and other inglorious forms of self pity will of course be accompanied by some very loud music, in the Marilyn Mansun and Iron Maiden flavours methinks, and occassionally interspersed with some comedy genius.

…buggar!  Still not sorted this out either!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ag8J2NMYmc

Methinks I will need to seek some guidance from my learned colleagues on this one, in a discrete but painfully embarrassing (for me anyways) manner.

….and no, this is not anything serious, just cause-n-effect mitigation!

“Someday” indeed..

Songs have a powerful influence on all of us and we choose our own soundtrack to reflect that which we feel important, highlighting defining periods in our lives.  Revisiting those audible monuments does sometimes give you pause to reflect and wonder at what was, could have been, will be..

Listening to “Again”, by Archive, and appreciating the lyrics as well as the mood generated by the music.  I am an absolute sucker for guitar and drum heavy music, and as blogged about not so long ago, this one still has the ability to give pause.

“..now you get me down” to complete the lyrics began in this posts title.

Good times, bad times, shameful times, and those times where you shone beyond yours, and others, expectations; all are, or should be, encapsulated within their own musical punctuation, usually via an artist or group that seemed to talk to you specifically during that period of your life.

I can’t change those times, I can only revisit them and reflect on the person that they helped develop for better or worse.

I now find myself in the position where I am seeing the seeds of this process starting to develop in my two young boys.  Both of them, and more so the youngest, are beginning to develop their own musical tastes and creating their own ‘audible monuments’ as they grow ever upwards physically and emotionally.

I do wonder how their own internal playlist will sound, and also whether my own musical tastes will influence them as they grow.  We can only watch… and listen…