Musical Pioneering

The girl in front of me has her iPod on really loud, so much that even I can hear 'Post Break-Up Sex' by The Vaccines, earlier on in the car park, a girl was dropped off at the train station car park and 'Shadows of the Night' by Pat Benatar was being played really loudly in her mum's car. Taste is one of life's intangibles and there is so much stuff out there - music, art, food, sport, clothing, cars etc. that we are bombarded by it everyday and as much as we are in danger of becoming the society that the film Minority Report predicts, there has also never been a better time to be creative.

Every single piece of music is made from the influence of a previous piece, the '50's rock and roll era is the best example of this and god knows how many varieties of 'Louie Louie' exist or 'Johnny B Goode'. As the world gets communicatively smaller the greater impact different cultures have on us and I would say that one of the single biggest impacts on my musical life has been 'Kashmir' by Led Zeppelin. The cross-over of moroccan string arrangements with an African flavoured drum part and a vocal melody that has blues bends in it, for me is just perfectly mysterious, add into that mix some Crowley-esque, Thelema imagery and you have all the components of music that is creepy and compelling yet gorgeous and powerfully emotive.

The reason that I'm talking about this is partly down to something that I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, 'how do you create music?' Well aside from the technical answer I gave there is also the social aspect too. I came back from Ibiza earlier this year inspired by some of the hypnotic Balearic grooves, so much so that I started to delve into some of what the Ibiza music scene has to offer (apart from the drugs of course). That took me through and beyond Ibiza and into Nero and Skrillex, a few months later and I've got the new Muse album 'The 2nd Law' on and there is the same dubstep sound and groove I heard earlier in the year. Furthermore, I've been listening to John Mayer's latest album 'Born & Raised' with a heavier emphasis on country music and blues music, this in turn has worked it's way into some of my playing, not intentionally, I'm just being inspired by him. The cultural mash up is fantastic and to be honest, without it we wouldn't have System of a Down, Sepultura, Ojos De Brujo, Sigur Ros, Youssou N'dour, The Mars Volta etc. neither would we have Gangnam Style opening the door to more music from the musically unchartered Far East, it's all good stuff and without it music would just go stale.