I have adored music my whole life and I am constantly searching for new artists and genres, different musics produced in different time periods, and folkloric treasures from around the world.
I believe that music is very important to the inner life of human beings, and that the corporatisation and commodification of it for profit and cheap ideological marketeering has created consequences that have contributed massively to the current global mental health crisis. It is directly responsible for the general downward spiral of our unique identities and cultures into a trans-national blob. I am completely convinced that if any serious scientific study was done to validate these claims, they would reveal a direct correlation between the increasing ills plaguing our societies and the low standards of mainstream promoted music.
Music as a mere form of entertainment, which it is mostly promoted and seen as, is perhaps only 20% of its purpose, if that. The other 80% happens inside your mind, your consciousness, as music informs your outlook on life or soothes your fears of it. At least great music. Any true lover of music will know this already.
In my own journey as a creator of music I was fortunate to be at the birth of the modern computer aided production technology explosion that opened up possibilities only dreamt of before, and was prohibitively expensive only a few short years earlier. Big learning curves but great rewards. This burst the bubble of the expanding 80's tendency for overly produced tacky pop and paved the way for a new type of raw music to flood club culture.
The result was the last truly revolutionary movement of the late 20th Century United Kingdom - House Music, Acid House and the rave culture that they spawned. It was so revolutionary in fact that new laws were quickly enacted to criminalise associated behaviour (sound familiar?) and make it a serious offence for more than five people to listen together to repetitive music in a public space. Seriously! No joke. All because people were enjoying themselves dancing and feeling free in the face of creeping and punitive legislation imposed by an expanding Nanny State.
In the following pages you can listen to some of the music I made during this period and onwards from 1987-1998, my learning period, and soundtracks to videos I also enjoy making in more recent times. I still compose music but haven't got around to releasing any of my more recent compositions just yet.
From 1998-2001 I became deeply immersed in community projects to raise awareness of the great music being created in my home city of Liverpool. I spent thousands of hours designing digital infrastructure systems that could make use of the emerging power and speed of a new technology that was going to change the world - The Internet. With my partners we even lovingly represented the Liverpool music community at the international music convention 'In The City' in 1999.
Looking back at this period of my life I am grateful to the lovely people I had the great fortune of sharing creative experiences with: Spencer Wells, Ian Gordon, Eric Gooden, Melanie Griffiths, Trevor Taylor, Mark Curtis, Sylvia Mason James, Lisa Crosby, Karen Roberts, Denise Harry, Peter Coyle, Pete Davis, David Sellers, Jenessa Qua, Gina Tetteh, Tony Lawson, Paul Humphries, Robert Awork, Brendan 'Moon Rivers' Fahey, Dr. Roger Clarke, Frank Minghella, Richie McGuirk, Mick Hurst, Amanda Quigley, my groovemaster friend, collaborator and fellow producer Danny 'Hibrid' Bennett, plus many more whose names I can't recall (sorry if I missed you out!).
Music can change the world - I have no doubt, and like fresh produce it is best sourced locally and not from the global corporate marketing departments and their cheap sensationalist videos. Get out there, find and support the musicians (traditional or computer aided) in your own community and they will help you find the answers you are looking for. After all, has that not been the role of the music makers, the troubadours and keepers of the folk stories since the beginning of human history.
BELIEVE - MUSIC IS THE WAY
