Eating Brains

I’ve just worked my way, gleefully, through Season One of the hit TV series Heroes, in which evil villain Sylar wades through the storyline, popping off the tops of people’s heads, removing their brains and absorbing their amazing abilities. It put me, bizarrely, in mind of my own progress through my music listening career. Maybe it’s an eyebrow thing.

 

You see, I’m not cut out for the mainstream. I’ve had my dalliances, historical and continuing, with “pop” music, but it’s never been quite me. I was one of those annoying teenagers who stopped listening to bands when they made it. I never much liked what my friends were listening to  - well, maybe I did, but it would have been so uncool to admit it. I used all those bands as jumping off points to push back into their influences. As a musician I always felt that to get to where my heroes were, rather than imitating, I had to unpick them and find out how what their musical DNA contained.

 

You know what I mean – Nirvana just had to be better before the mega-corp. of David Geffen got its hands on them, so I pushed back into a whole world of obscure sub-pop records that I would never have found, and from there to Bob Mould, The Pixies and other ear-opening treats. Gary Moore took me back to Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson and other old blues players. Alice in Chains took me back to, bizarrely,  Elton John in his “before he got middle aged and boring” good period (see – everyone has one…) and Mike Waterson took me back to Joseph Taylor. It becomes an addiction, peeling away layers and years of influences to find where your heroes are coming from.

 

When someone presented me with one of Peter Bellamy’s home compiled mix tapes of what he listened to I found a treasure trove of influence. The music hall of Gus Ellen, the otherworldly harmonies of Georgian table singers, Jethro Tull, the Stanley Brothers and Chris Smither all wedged together on one tape alongside the expected trad stuff. How did anyone mix such eclectic influences and not burst? Time and those who knew Peter may argue that it was not an easy task, but it was a reassuring, vindicating and thrilling gift that set me off on years of further digging, listening and singing – absorbing, changing, regurgitating perhaps, but evolving.

 

I wonder sometimes what the DNA sample of my own musical tastes might be someday – we all seem to muse on what we’d choose for our Desert Island Discs selection. What would linger on the mix tape/CD/MP3 playslist that outlives me? Will it confirm or refute the opinions of those who hear us making our own musical marks in the world?

 

What will my friends/children/random recipients really think of Hank Williams the 3^rd, Malicorne, Nusrat fateh ali Khan, Peter Bellamy and the yet to be cemented stars who’ll share the digital walk of fame.

 

The least I can hope is that they’ll oepn their ears, take a chance and that it provides someone else with jumping off points to a bigger world of listening.

Sorry about track four...