I’m overly opinionated about music and I’ve got lots of ideas about what is right and proper. As a youngster, anything that went main-stream was a sell out and I swore blind I would never compromise. As I entered my thirties, I was so desperate to play drums again that I was playing an electric drum kit in rehearsals with a Blondie tribute band! In my early teens, if it didn’t have guitars and live drums, it wasn’t music. In my late teens I was having more fun DJ’ing and trying to write drum n bass than playing drums. So its fair to say that in a few years time this list of musical turn-on’s will probably swap places with tomorrow’s list of turn-offs, but here goes…
5. Sex drugs n Rock n Roll
Any band that are a bit naughty, off the rails, and generally anti-establishment will automatically get my interest. I’m a 32-year-old husband and father with a solid family, a clean criminal record and qualifications. I’m happy with the choices I made in life, but there’s no harm in a bit of escapism now and then.
4. Dirt
Clean perfectly produced music turns me off. Singers who hit every note, drummers with all the chops, DJs who never clang a mix, all highly respectable, but boring. Life is more interesting when you don’t know when the train is going to come off the rails. Same goes for production, a break with a bit of dirt, some distortion, just the crackle that vinyl makes, that to me is soul.
3. Bass
I grew up in the UK. The UK seems to produce a new strain of bass-music every other week. The combination of the Punk DIY ethic, and a legacy of sound systems and bass music has to led to some truly exciting moments in musical history. I honestly don’t think Drum n Bass or Dubstep, to take two examples, could’ve come to be anywhere else.
2. Depth
With guitar bands, I always secretly enjoyed the big epic ballads more than the balls to the wall rock riffs, same went for Drum n Bass. The Nine by bad company is great for going mental to, but Universe by Marcus Intalex left a much deeper impression. I worked for Good Looking Records from 2000 – 2002 and loved the nights at The End. You’d look round at some random point and everyone would have their eye’s down, away on one.
1. Groove
Ironically, it took making music on a computer for me to really understand groove. I drummed since the age of 13, but I was more concerned with cramming as many fancy fills and tricks into my playing than anything else. Its only when you listen to how sterile a perfectly quantized beat sounds in Logic, that you realise how important groove is. It’s hard to explain other than to say if I tune comes on and you find your neck snapping from your furious nodding, or your feet bouncing up and down, then that’s groove.
P.s. apologies for this rather lack-lustre post. I’m shattered from staying up late watching TV and spending all day doing book-keeping. Sex drugs and rock n roll eh!
all 12 inches 