17

Well I've just finished 17. It was a pretty good book to read after my show. It was a good read full of interesting anecdotes, and as I've already said in some previous blog, provides an insight into the thoughts and motivations of a working artist.

I'm not going to say I agreed with everything he said, but overall his questions and explorations have given me a few ideas of ways of thinking, different approaches to making work and exploring music. Different ways of percieving work, music and where I am going. I'm not going to throw away every record I own, or restrict my listening tastes or proclaim that recorded music is at an end. The permeation, and the evolution of music tastes are something I plan to explore at some point, but not until I'm much older probably.

The whole autobiographical nature of the book got me thinking about my own life and things I have done. Probably added to the fact that this time next week I will be 25. I guess I've managed to fit quite a lot in, but theres also quite a lot I've missed out on, things I wish I had done but never, experiences I haven't....well experienced. It's not really that big an issue really, 25, but I don't like the thought of getting older. 25 always seemed ancient when I was younger, and now I'm here. Not that any of it makes any real difference, but it just feels a bit old. When I was a kid I thought 25 people were grown ups, and it just seemed so far away and never really though I'd get there.

I suppose I still haven't got there, to my idea of what 25 was when I was younger. When you're a kid you think that when you get older, when you get to 25 you have to be all sensible and settle down and have kids and jobs, wear a suit and have a haircut. Here I am at 25 and don't feel any more mature than when I was a kid thinking about the future. But there's always the thought that when George Harrison was 25 he was recording Abbey Road, having already gone through a massive pop career, spritual discovery and enlightenment and written While my Guitar Gently Weeps. I don't really know what I've got to show for my time here, other than a stereo on a bike and a record player stuck to a wall.