Rawk ‘n’ roll

Living with musicians is a funny thing. When my parents left for sunnier climes, my brother and his band mates (the drummer lives here, the singer and the guitarist don’t) turned the dining room into a music room. It was already a music room of sorts, in that it has the piano in it (a very old and slightly battered Challen which belonged to my grandmother and which really needs restringing and which will be got rid of over my dead body) and it had a couple of tin whistles and things too.

The ‘dining room’ now contains:

my beloved piano

a Yamaha keyboard which does lots of funky things

a classical acoustic guitar

a not-so-classical acoustic guitar

an electric guitar

my brother’s first bass guitar (white)

my brother’s proper professional bass guitar (wooden)

a practice drum kit with plastic discs instead of drums

my good violin

my mum’s old violin

my brother’s rubbishy-sounds-like-a-shoebox violin

my viola

some fancy recording equipment and mixing desk stuff which I know nothing about

and a partridge in a pear tree (a very musical partridge)

…and of course the dining room table is amid all that somewhere.

Right now, my brother is playing his bass. Earlier I was playing the piano (badly). Drummer Matt drums on anything and everything in sight (he’s very good) including the floor so when you’re in the living room you can hear him tapping away upstairs.

Best of all, there’s always something to listen to, and it’s always good – be it guitar, bass, new recordings that the band have made…it makes for an interesting life. If you are really lucky, you might even hear me playing my fiddle, and I’m not that bad either, I don’t lower the tone too much. And I’m proud (and amused) to admit that in this household of musicians I’m the only one who can read music!

I’ve been rediscovering some old mix tapes of late – one made by a friend of mine (thanks Chaz, if you read this, which I doubt, you are a busy man) back when we were teenagers, and two made by a guy I used to date who was very particular about his music (thanks Paul – one, two, three, four, take the elevator…). Paul’s were made with strict rules in place, not unlike the rules outlined in this book. These rules should be adhered to at all times. Most of them still apply when making a mix cd. Unfortunately, since I am a modern lass and move with the times, I no longer own a cassette player.

How can I remedy this? I thought to myself. And one thing came to mind. iTunes!

It is magic. I got everything on both tapes, including all the weird things that I didn’t think I’d be able to get at all. So a total success! Well done iTunes.

Here are a few songs I am listening to at the moment, and you should too:

Seven Day Mile – The Frames

Mr Banker – Lynyrd Skynyrd

My Sundown – Jimmy Eat World

Given to fly – Pearl Jam

Memphis, Tennessee – Chuck Berry

Angeles – Elliott Smith

Romeo and Juliet – Dire Straits (I love Dire Straits!)

Hotel Yorba – The White Stripes

Messiah Complex Blues – Clem Snide

…so there you go, an eclectic mixture for an eclectic kind of week.

Awesome. What is life without music?