On Books I’ve Read (Dec 2018 – Jan 2019) I’ve been on tour across Australia/New Zealand for the last six weeks. During this time I read a lot. Here’s some thoughts. … I consume ridiculous amounts of information. Life is a constant stream of stuff coming in: emails, social media, websites I frequent, books, music, conversations. Everything constantly streams in and I find myself,Continue reading “On Books I’ve Read (Dec 2018 – Jan 2019)”
On Where I Began (part 2) If I got my musical ability from my mum (see part 1 here), then I got my entrepreneurial spirit from my dad. But which has served me better as an independent musician? … Many of the greatest musicians, the world-changing artists, the enduring inspirations that have shaped and defined the world we live in failedContinue reading “On Where I Began (part 2)”
On Where I Began My parents have always been the biggest supporters of my music career. When I was ten, they bought a 2nd hand drum kit in Melbourne and had it shipped 12,000 kilometers to Yemen. A ‘Boston’ branded drum kit with ‘Dolfin’ cymbals was, in hindsight, a pretty laughable start but enough to kick me off onContinue reading “On Where I Began”
On electricity firing in the void (or, what my mind does when I’m alone) The mind is a wild thing. Bundles of electrons. A collection of synapses firing back and forth, little electric pulses that combine to form thoughts. Spinning out across my frontal lobe, I feel happiness and sadness, not as some mechanical feat of engineering, not as emotion, but as pure electricity. Electricity in motion as thisContinue reading “On electricity firing in the void (or, what my mind does when I’m alone)”
On man’s greatest pleasure My mind wanders. It wanes and winds and worries itself into knots. Tongue-tied and tizzy I find myself second-guessing what I’m doing. … I feel like this a lot when I try to write songs. Like a rusty tap, you struggle to turn it on, twisting and heaving and hoping it’ll give. Some days itContinue reading “On man’s greatest pleasure”
On What We Want from Life In another part of my life I work with children. All ages from five to eighteen. It’s interesting to see little people grow up, become big people at age twelve and then suddenly devolve into little people again. Life as a big fish in a little pond matures you, but beginning high school drops youContinue reading “On What We Want from Life”
On Freedom From Time I find myself alive. Healthy and happy and hopeful. Living out my parents fantasies of throwing the family into a campervan and heading for the great unknown. As a child we holidayed across three continents: a blur of thousand year old skyscrapers, families who judge time not by year but by generation (the first sonContinue reading “On Freedom From Time”
On finding inspiration I have to admit that some ninety percent of everything I create is stolen. … I’ve heard it said that you are an amalgamation of your five closest friends. You borrow bits from those you meet and recreate yourself as life goes on. Whilst we aren’t born as a pure blank slate (for surely there’sContinue reading “On finding inspiration”
On finding purpose I used to say that my purpose was to make people dance. A hilariously condensed version of an on-going life goal, but at the heart of it, a pure and achievable purpose. Every day I could evaluate myself: ‘did I make people dance today’? If not, why not? In a nutshell, a great reason toContinue reading “On finding purpose”