This dance -
- The “last dance” that I used as a metaphor for my character as holding out for the best til the bitter end -
may go on all the way til I’m 40. When I’m 40 I still want to make beats, but if I got a family I have to put that before making beats and getting high and making dumb videos which are absurd and meaningful but actually not.
I thought about that, what I’d want when I’m 40. Sounded probably like the same things I thought I’d want when I’m 30.
“oh I’ll still make beats, but y’know, probz have a wife and kids and all that . . .
. . . cos y’know, I’ll be OLD.”
Oh yeah sure.
But that’s what I was thinking, how weird. Y’know,
No, it’s coming back to me . . . I definitely remember thinking how by the time I was 30 I’d be finished up with music and getting into my writing career.
oh wait, maybe I am? I mean the whole youtube thing is a adoption of the whole narrative concept, and how with Reality Compound I learnt stuff about an ongoing based on real events as they unfolded which became basically character driven.
Ever since then it’s about distilling the character into more of an essence of me, rather than just being a dickhead, and looking at how to combine absurdity, cynicism and true authenticity and meaning,
But even originally I realise, man, there’s problems with things in my head I can’t solve until I turn them into a story, whether that’s a drum and bass track or a beat or an actual story, a novel.
I remember that I wanted to have $100,000 by my 30th. I guess that’s pretty sweet that I got there, obviously because well I made most of that in the last 2-3 years working like an animal, and giving up on my driving desire to be in the gigs and part of drum and bass.
I’ve rejected it before, but now I reject it more thoroughly than ever, I’m to old for that bullshit. I too old for some messageboard forum nonsense that some 23 year old kid is living night and day for. It’s . . . what I was doing when I was 23. Trolling some forum.
But I thought by my 40th, y’know what do I want? To still be cool. To make beats. And do my video . . . kinda like, an afterglow. I should hope by then I got the girl, I dropped some artistic statements, and whats more it was all documented, the very documentation was art.
I hope to have arty friends, other dudes who have worked in their lives or in their heads or whatever like me on having come through. Being serious about making art happen without an attitude. That’s for kids.
Sure, think you’re awesome, but only if you’re ready to lay down. If you just want to get wasted and talk . . . then look, just don’t tell me how great you are unless we’re about to go to work, unless you’re about to demonstrate how you come through.
and parties. It’s deep in me that I want to have parties and – y’know even though I understand now that I kinda don’t really like people, I don’t feel obliged to like people any more, but I like party vibes, and I think a great party is a great achievement.
I think I wa stalking about starting to forget . . . the best parties I went to were over 10 years ago.
No club has really come close to the early rave scene and I feel like I’m one of few people still in the scene that remebers back that far. It was a whole other vibe on a whole other level to any club I’ve ever been to.
So yeah. Afterglow.
I woulda done my shit. Done music, done video, I won’t be finished with it, but it will be the afterglow.
I’ll still want my friends and want to have great parties and probably get wasted. Still want to tour and gig or whatever iteration of that my art has reached.
Maybe I will be doing my bass and decks dynamic show. Maybe I will have refined the art of the flexible touring DJ, maybe I will have lived on the road for parts of the year, wandering around.
Travel overseas, sure, whatever, but y’know music continues to be the lead. spending 6 months travelling the world? I’ll do it later.
which just goes to show probably nothing will change. This is what I thought I’d be like at 30.
Always takes twice as long as you think it will, my father always said.
So hee’s to my hopes for my fortieth:
Perhaps the peak of my art behind me, but still enjoying music, friends and parties.
A happy lil family and a million bucks. Not to much to ask but more thsn enough to be grateful for.
