Wednesday 18 April 2012

how time flies when you're....you know

Hello friends,

I don't want to sound like an old geezer while I write this, but, doesn't time fly? I mean, come on! It seems like only yesterday that I was leaving school ready to face the world with all my super amazing GCSE's which proved I was capable of adding some numbers together, remembering some dates and knowing the difference between a bunsen burner and a text book (science lesson year 9, 'books are flammable and some of the ink used to print them is highly toxic when subjected to full power bunsen action').

Perhaps years of toxic text book sniffing did something to my internal clock. When I was a kid, I remember days feeling like they would never end. An hour felt like a mini eternity that was holding me back from achieving something really important like getting ice-cream or smashing up my brothers pirate fort with a hammer made of play dough. The green and red hammer of justice felt like it was forever locked in a time matrix from which it could never be freed to perform it's fort smashing duties. Waiting for anything for as little as 5 minutes felt like some biblical trial of endurance, as if God herself were casting me into the pit of eternal suffering.

Where did that eternity go? What the funk happened here?
Cast into memory, along with everything else. Life happens and you can't slow it down. Also, as each year of life comes and goes, it feels like it's getting faster and faster. As if you are test driving a super awesome car (add your own model, make, fancy car image here) and at the beginning the course seems confusing and long, so for the first few laps (years) you take it slowly, learning the corners and sharp turns, getting to grips with the controls and the different weather conditions. Once those first sixteen laps are done, you are forced to press on the accelerator, and with each lap press harder and harder until the whole course is a blur and you forget which lap you're on. If you are lucky enough to reach 70 or 80 laps then you really start losing control of the car, bits start falling off, leaks occur, but the accelerator stays firmly pressed against the floor, getting faster and faster. To round off this analogy the car either runs out of petrol and screeches to a halt, or control is lost and the car is smashed into a wall.

Ahh, what a beautiful metaphor. Anyway, there was reason behind all this pontificating, it has been five years since I released my first proper album. I was 25 at the time, with the second half of my twenties all gleaming in front of me. Fame, fortune, success, riches, bitches and extreme living...err, hmm. What happened? None of that stuff, the fame and fortune and stuff. None of that happened, instead the album just disappeared into the ether with all the other albums made by unknown artists. I wish my story was a unique one, but it isn't. In fact, it's a way more common story for musicians then stories of riches and success. So for the past 5 years I have continued to work, putting out free music on the internet, doing podcasts of music, playing in the streets, doing gigs, blah blah blah...

Now I sit waiting for my second proper album to release...will it be the same story?

Peace and infinite love to you all

[adj] - Andy D Jackson

No comments:

Post a Comment