I like plonking about on my guitar at the weekends. I’m not exactly a proficient guitarist but I do enjoy it – have done since my teenage years. The rest of my family may disagree about the benefits of me strumming away and without going down the road a full blown ‘social return on investment’ investigation we’ll just agree to differ… Don’t get me wrong I know my chances of ‘rawk’ superstardom are way behind me but sometimes little reminders of my musical youth pop-up. One such reminder was a Saturday evening when my wife & I had the pleasure of attending a 40th Birthday celebration in fancy dress… 1980’s fancy dress…The 80’s – the decade that time forgot…
On the grounds of good taste I’ll keep to myself how we were dressed that evening but a friend of ours was ‘Dj-ing’ and in his cut-off shirt and Robert Smith of ‘The Cure’ fright wig he looked just like he had done 25 years earlier. People at our table included ‘shell suit’ couple and a generic ‘blues brother’ guy. Adam Ant and Cyndi Lauper were also floating around.
Our friend who was spinning the music decided at one point to play a song I wrote in the decade we were celebrating. Now, please don’t get excited, my music was never on general release (thankfully for all concerned) – this was just a ‘demo’ (as us musos call it) but it sounded pretty good at high volume and hearing it unexpectedly like that took me back to old rehearsal rooms and gigs in bars. Frankly, it was hugely enjoyable recollection.
The next morning l was speaking to my wife about hearing the song and my fond memories. ‘Yes’ she said ‘I heard it…why did he play it?’ ‘Well’ I say ‘perhaps he likes it and thought it would go down well’. ‘I suppose…’ she said not convinced… and then followed up with ‘Och I know why!…it was during the buffet!.’
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Thanks for listening – till next time…
Alan
Alan@Engage Renfrewshire 