“Hey, mom where is my bass and guitar?”
“I took them to grandma’s; you’ve been playing way too much.”
This is how I woke up one day in grade 11 because I wasn’t doing much of anything other than making up random melodies and recording them on a tape player. I loved the fact that I was in control of making these things up and that they were not being graded or picked apart by a teacher or whatever…
Listen to the EP while reading the text.
Since I was young, I always seemed to like music and bands. The first few were Hewy Lewis, Michael Jackson, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, CC Music Factory, Jimmy Hendrix, The Beach Boys, The Troggs, The Kinks, The Beatles, Nirvana, Dick Dale, Jeff Buckley, Sonic Youth, Primus , Mike Watt, The Flaming Lips, Ween, The Beastie Boys, Bjork, .etc etc etc.
I’ve played in many bands and have many friends that have done well. For me, though I really couldn’t grab hold of what it was, I wanted to sound like. I’ve experimented with songs that have crazy chords, acoustic cartoony songs. Songs based around one note, songs only written on the keyboard, songs made for vocals, songs made with crazy rhythms, songs made with only vocals, songs for other people, only slow songs, only fast songs, songs on a left-handed guitar after playing right my whole life, and songs on just bass. There is something about only writing on a bass guitar that feels so limitless and free.
I feel like I can do anything, I feel like I could write in a million different ways and still find new ways to write a song. I also feel that learning to play the drums opened my mind beyond belief; it’s just so fun!!! But still I don’t feel I have found what my style is and at this point, I don’t think I want to know, I just love to play and come up with new things. Even if I don’t get paid, even if not many people take an interest, I will continue to do it.
Anyway …
After two weeks, my mom gave me back my bass and guitar. I think it only made me want to play more!
