I like the word “muso.” My music teacher in secondary school (DJ LONY 4EVA!) called my best mate Charlotte and I muso’s and I guess the name stuck. Tbh I think it’s fitting really, can’t say why…but it should definitely be in the dictionary!
Muso: [mju:zəʊ] Noun: Person(s) showing a great affinity and often talent for the art of music in all its forms.
And yes, I did just write the phonetic pronunciation of it. All you Acting students out there can eat yer bloody hearts out! (that and check whether or not I got it right…)
Or National Geographic bio online…
The muso or the ‘Musical-loverplayerus’ is a music-loving creature with, as of yet, no discernible origin we can pinpoint. Muso’s are commonly found alone or in groups loitering around school music-blocks, outside local venues (such as rebuilt public toilets if you grew up where I did…) or in the corners of specialist music shops sharing the latest artists/instrument models/set of new guitar strings with anyone and everyone who cares – which is often not a lot of people…
Within the term “Muso” lie a series of sub-species, much like differing breeds of cat or dog. These include the classical-muso or ‘classicofalus’, rock-muso or ‘dio-hornipus’ or the much rarer and often overlooked theatre-musiluvagaypus’.
However, the only true Musica-loverlpayerus is the genre-bending and grammy-defining "”musolextra” often known as the “hippy muso” who is a lover of music as an entity in itself, in all forms.
Well that was odd.
Soooooooo yes. I am a muso. Self-professed, self-confessed and often self-loathing I am a lover of all things music and as I mentioned in my last blog I will be writing the occasional music-themes post soooo, here’s the first one.
As I am now on not-so Easter Holidays I have had the opportunity – for the first time in baaaaaare months – to put up my kit again! Yes, that sexy piece of ass is currently taking up the significant portion of my room downstairs, for the first time with all its tomtoms. And it looks beeeeaauuuuuuuuuuutiful!!
Don’t believe me? CHECK IT OUT!!
I’ve also just managed to get my voice back after epic germs over the past few weeks and started revisiting my vocal warm-up scheme a la Brett Manning (Ok, so I’ve done it twice thus far, whatevs I’ma keep going!) which should hopefully bring my technique back on track after a couple of weeks without any regime.
So, I’m all musical right now and wanna share with all of you via this blog!
First-off: Black Nazarene.
As I mentioned in my last post we played “THe Pitz” in Milton Keynes the other day and it actually went really well! UBER thanks to El from “November Fleet” who filled in on bass. She did a cracker of a job and she can be seen in the latest Black Nazarene video “System Failure” which has clips of the gig we played.
System Failure is one of my favourite Black Naz songs and the footage came out really well so take a gander at that if yer fancy… [18 seconds is my personal favourite moment – none of us knew she was gonna do it. HA!)
System Failure is also available on our ep which you can buy off itunes for a very small amount of coins!
And to any of you comic book geeks out there, you might recognise the name of the artist whose work was used to create the design for the ep. He is none other than David Mack, creator, author and artist of KABUKI – a really popular set of cult comics. David is also the writer and artist of “Daredevil.”
There, knew you’d have heard of that one. He’s a bloody MARVEL! (HA Comic humour…) 
http://www.davidmack.net/
http://davidmackguide.com/portfolio/cd/blacknazarene.shtml
Ok, so on with the show. The mate I mentioned in my last post…
Friendz in da biz…innat.
So I ran into him the other week when I was down in G-town (yes it was on the first leg of my 360degree journey.) and he told me about what he’s been up to. He’s doing pretty good for himself (woooo) and I said I’d take a look at his songs and give him a shoutout on the blog so without further ado…
If ya like yer Hip-Hop, RnB, Electro, Dubstep, House, Dance, Jazz, Neo- Soul…then producer/songwriter Cold Fever is one to watch!
The interesting thing here for me is the use of rhythm. A lot of music of this genre simply sticks with the same pounding bass-drum beat the entire time but there’s an almost-funkiness to the beat here which is cool.
Perfect for a car advert no..?
Pick o’ the post!
Ok, so I listen to a fuckload of music almost continuously and the choice changes depending on my mood.
Recently I’ve been finding myself listening to a lot of Amy Macdonald, in particular her 2007 album “this is the life” which is a truly astonishing piece of songwriting! Every bloody track is a corker and really emotive.
The song that first intrigued me and is the reason I bought her CD in the first place was the track “The Youth of Today,” a gutsy callout to the so-called “grown ups” who like to put our generation down and tar us all with the same brush of dishonesty and blame.
Many of you will know I am forever one for the pro-youth agenda even going so far as to pen a musical about it, so with lyrics like…
”And maybe if you had a true point of view I would listen to you,
But its just your one sided opinions getting in my way,
And you don’t know a single thing about the youth of today”
I was always gonna be a fan! Not to mention one of my personal favourite lines…
”And we are the youth of today – change your hair in every way.
And we are the youth of today – we’ll say what we want to say…”
Pretty much about me eh? Ha.
But anyway, that’s not the song I’m gonna share with you guys. The song I’m gonna share is called “Run” and in looking on youtube I just found out it was a single of hers which is EVEN BETTER!!!
This song is absolutely brilliant and so beautiful. And I know I believe it. And I know I’ve felt that way before.
And I hope I’ll be brave enough to fight for it again one day…
And Finally…
Well I’ve still got plenty of stuff to write about, plenty of friends’ music I’m just dying to share and plenty of newbies to expose to the internet masses but frankly;
1. This post is getting long enough. Even I, a muso-supreme understand the boundaries between interest and blog music overkill…
2. I’ve just uploaded a new video onto Youtube (after almost a year…) and want you to check that out before you go/before I link you to my most-likely superior friends 
At least I’m honest…
So this is me playing a song from my To Apathy project called “On Letting Go…” which I wrote last summer.
It ain’t happy, it ain’t sad…It just is. Eventually I’d love to record it properly, maybe even add some strings or something, but for now, it’s just me in my room in front of a bookcase.
Enjoy…
And thanks for reading, I love you all.
Not as much as I love music mind…
xxx
