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stuck in a rut

2008-04-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

so, lately ive realised that over the past year i seem to have slipped into a weird realm of consciousness. i really dont like it. its like, everything in life just seems really strange and almost alien. like, all things in life that used to be normal.. dont make sense. I mean, how the hell can we all be here? why are we here? we don't exist one minute, then we're born the next.. we live a life.. then we die and do't exist anymore. People in our life are here one minute, then gone the next. How is it we all look the way we do. I mean, how the fuck can we just evolve into these 'ultimate' beings? Why am i so conscious of everything, myself, the world around me, other peoples thoughts and feelings? I have these memories of when i was a kid, when i was at school.. but wait, now i'm almost 24? How did that happen? I feel so detached from myself. Who the fuck am i?

On top of this feeling, whatever it is, i just feel this overwhelming sense of.. 'whats the point?'. You know? I don't want to come across as this person who's lost the will to live and is just feeling sorry for themself etc because its not like that and the whole point im trying to make is that all i want is to feel alive.

I don't WANT to feel this way. I know i'm lucky to be alive, in good physical health, still relatively young, have enough money to support myself and put a roof over my head. I could be on the other side of the world, homeless, hungry, dying. But for some reason i just have this continuous stream of negative thoughts clouding over me.. and its frustratin the fuck out of me. I just want to be normal. i don't want to have this perspective on life that noone else seems to have. I want to be naaive to it.

Because i feel like my life is just disappearing before my eyes and as i do things and time goes by, i feel more detached from myself and the things i've done. Its a very strange way of thinking and a peculiar feeling which im finding quite difficult to explain. Its almost like.. i was pulled out of my life when i was 18 or something.. and have been dropped back here now. I've suddenly landed here at 23 with these vague memories that i KNOW are mine.. but don't feel like mine... and am like.. what the hell? How did i get here?

I hope i can get myself out of this because i dont want to still have this feeling when im older. Because that would really fucking suck.

I think maybe my lifestyle at the moment may be feeding this. I've gone from having a pretty active and social lifestyle.. to suddenly being pretty cut off from the world, friends etc. After university finished, i went traveling for 6 months in oz, did so much stuff met so many people.. then went to america to tour and record an album with a wonderful musician... then when i come back.. i move back to the place where i went to university... most of my friends had gone back to their hometowns and lost contact.. but a couple are still around. I move into a 2 bed place with one of them.. who i end up hardly seeing because of his devotion to work and ladyfriend... i realise after a while we're not really on the same wavelength and friendship becomes a chore.
Most other people i meet through him, but are all a little bit older so i find it difficult to be around them. I have a couple of other friends who i get on better with.. but dont get to see them that often. I recently fell out with one of my good friends.. and can't really see that one righting itself.

So basically i just feel like im stuck in a rut. I want to get out of here.. but anywhere i go i'll be starting from scratch again. I could stick to my original plan and go travelling again.. but then am i just gonna be lumbered with the same situation when i return home ???

fragile

2008-04-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

life is so fragile.

we could not exist in a second. poof. gone.

where am i?

right or wrong?

2008-04-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

which one belongs to me this time?
if only i just knew these things
maybe i'd have a better angle.
where does one find so much faith in themself?

im sick to death of being told im wrong.
maybe i'm actually right?
maybe i just have to believe that.

but then isn't that just arrogance?
which brings me back to square one.

this isn't a poem, i just hit a new line after each thought.

so detached.

2008-04-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's like you're starting all over again; You're not who were anymore, a line's been drawn and there's nothing holding then and now together. So it feels like you have to start from scratch.

What do you do? What do you become?

overwhelmed

2008-03-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

hmm.

it's surprising sometimes how there can be so much going on in your head, your emotions are all over the place, not knowing where to settle themselves.. feeling overwhelmed with the result of too much thinking about.. well, everything.. and yet, you try to write about it and you draw a blank. You'd think it would be the perfect time to write a song or poetry or even just try and write down what you're thinking. But somewhere between my mind and pencil.. something gets lost. Its like when you try to remember something that you forgot.. there's just nothing there but blank space.

I guess in someways i don't want to share everything in my head on here.. which makes it harder to write. Maybe i could just be vague?

I don't know. Ahh.

I tried to start writing then and all these thoughts just piled to the front of my mind like 50 school kids in a classroom going "ooh me me me! pick me! pick me!"

Where do i start?

Ok well. Lets start with this one. Recently, i read a post in a blog that talked about being content with feeling sadness. ( :o) ) Reading it reminded me of .. me. I go through these periods sometimes (maybe more than sometimes..) where i just feel.. sad. For whatever reason. And.. in weird kinda way, it feels like i sorta like it. I'll have some alone time, listen to some sad music that i can really connect with.. and just sorta ride it out. I guess i like to listen and [try to] understand whats going on in my head. It seems a lot of people don't do that, they might just stick on some happy music or do something to get themselves out of the sad rut. I do it. But sometimes i feel like i dont want to ignore it.. you know? I've wondered myself whether I have clinical depression. A lot of websites seem to think i have.. ha ha.

But, i'm not so sure. I mean, as far back as i can remember i've always been a thinker. I like that i'm a thinker. But i think sometimes it can expose you to sadness spurts. I don't know.. maybe your mind just gets overwhelmed with all the thinking and just thinks.. jeez, there's so much shit in the world. Ya know? But then maybe that only happens if you're a pessimist? Maybe if you're an optimist and a thinker, your mind goes into hyper-happiness spurts from all the thinking and puts you into overdrive.. thinking "jeez.. life is great!". Well, i'm an optimistic pessimist.

The only thing i will say though, about thinking too much.. is that it seems to have this weird side effect which i've been aware of for a while now.. and thats feeling quite detached from 'reality'. Its a horrible feeling. And apparently it is basically a result of thinking too much. Your mind gets tired and slows down giving you a bit of a dreamy experience of life. And the worst part is, the more you try to think and understand it, the worse it gets. So i'm screwed!

I don't know. This is who i am, you know? I like to think. I just wish i could write in a way that really describes my thoughts. I feel i have some interesting perspectives on life, hiding away. If only i could find a way to communicate them.

Anyway. long post. Not sure what else to write at the moment so i will leave it there.

I can't wait to sleep tonight.

unknown

2008-03-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

have you ever felt like you don't know how you feel?

tonight i feel like.. anxious.. or something. but i've no idea what about. its quite confusing.

photos

2008-03-18T15:02:00.000-07:00

sometimes i have a strange imagination. and explaining it is like [insert simile here].

sometimes i think about how whenever someone takes a photo, they are capturing a whole second of time.. and everything in existance in that exact one second. everything, locked into a pause.. forever. But we can only see one little squared frame of that second of existance.

lines

2008-03-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

everything around me is growing old.

home?

2008-03-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

"You know that point in your life when you realise that the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore…all of the sudden even though you have some place to put your shit, that idea of home is gone…or maybe it's like this right of passage…you will never have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, for your kids, for the family you start. It’s like a cycle or something. Maybe that’s all family really is; a group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

- Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff) Garden State

amoxocillin

2008-03-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

kidney infection.

lots of aching. pains. sleeping. thinking.

shot glasses and eggcups.

2007-01-02T02:52:00.000-08:00

Happy new year all.. hope you had a gooden! Tis hard to believe this time last year i was in Sydney standing in awe of the fireworks firing off the harbour bridge and all around. This year i had friends round to stay at our cottage and it was great fun!

I forgot how fun hide and seek was.. only thing is you forget how much you've grown since you last played it and realise you can't quite fit in to those small spaces anymore. In saying that, we managed to cram 10 of us into a cubicle-sized loo.. haha. We made pizza , we played twister and drank some siberian? concoction out of shotglasses and eggcups..Colin decided to hide outside for a couple of hours which sorta turned into a murder in the dark-type game..we tried to play poker but when we realised we'd only played about 3 games in the space of 2 hours we gave up. By new years day i was thoroughly monged and quite screwed in the head yet somehow still managed to manouver lisa's car out of an impossible space so she could leave. Oh yeah.. night before new years eve, dave demonstrated the power of his honda civic type-r - which reminds me i still need to go back to that long straight road and collect my stomach.. haha.

But anyway.. we all had a wicked time, was great to spend it in a cosey little cottage with a sound bunch of people. Now i feel like i could sleep for a month.

a salmoon winter

2006-12-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

hewoo. so it's not really a good time of year to decide to start getting fit.. when everytime you go outside your ears and nose feel like they're about to fall off like icicles.. (well, when you can still feel them that is). but to be totally honest, i am loving it. Minus a few blips in Sydney and Idaho, I've pretty much followed the sun round the world for the entire year so a good old wintery winter at home is right up my street.

Nothing like coming in from the cold to a classic cup of quality english tea and watching a christmassy movie. Oh arn't i just an old softie. yesterday my neice and nephew came round to play and seeing them get all excited when they saw our tree kinda brought back some of that magic of christmas that somehow dies away as you get older. fortunately i think they left some of it behind..

anyway. no other real exciting news.
oh if you like illustration, check out kozyndan - my new favourite illustrators. I recently bought a piece they used for Daedelus's album artwork.. it's awesome.

soothing.

2006-12-15T04:59:00.000-08:00

Today the parents have vacated the building for the day.. woohoo. S'good to have some space for a change.

So for a while now i've been pretty confused.. contemplating my future and all that shiz. I'm not really any further than where i started but i'm just trying to not let it get me down so much now and just go with the flow of things. There's not a lot i can do until i move out so until then i'm just gonna have to research into things and carry on working on projects to help me decide where things are going. But after feeling like this for a while i think im beginning to realise that this is just part of life. I mean, thinking about it I am completely new to this feeling of uncertainty with my future because ever since starting school i've always had the security of knowing what's coming next. Infants, Junior, Secondary, College, Uni.. travelling. But now i'm at the end of that list and anything could be next.

On the plus side though, i found a pleasant review of one of the shows i did with Emme in Spokane.. (Washington i think?) :

"Emme Packer brought with her a handsome British man who accompanied her on vocals and guitar for a soothing evening of acoustic music. Good stuff, if not a bit understated."

Handsome :D *breaks out the napolean dynamite impression* Yessss.

Anyway. Time for a microwave chicken curry and chips. oh boy.

christmas poker

2006-12-10T16:12:00.000-08:00

spent the weekend with friends, had a christmas meal, gave presents, got merry, played poker. fun time had by all.

and my car battery is dead. i am stuck here for eternity.. yay.

knowledge

2006-12-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

Lately my social life has been suffering quite badly.. living with your parents in the middle of nowhere, hours from friends who work full-time is tough.. especially when you've spent a year travelling. I'm just so glad i have a car.. at least i can retain a tiny bit of independance with that.

So anyway.. i guess because of this my brain is in overdrive all the time. I feel overwhelmed by how much I don't know about the world... how nearly everyone i know has already started their career and knows what they want to do with their life... how most people seem to have strong views about general things.. or at least opinions... and they have interest in lots of random yet exciting things. Then i look at my life and just feel so overwhelmed by how different my life is. All i seem to know is music and design.. and even with design i feel out of the loop and passionless with now. So that leaves music.. but then i think, even with that.. i don't really know THAT much. Ask me about the history of music / bands in this country and i'd probably only have no idea as to what happened and what caused what movement in such and such era etc. And to be honest, i don't feel compelled to find out and read about it.. i feel like it would just go in one ear and out the other. What the hell sorta musician / music producer am i suppose to be if i can't even name the big names behind artists these days? And have no interest to find out?

Why do i love making music? I don't know, i just do. I can sit down with a guitar and have no problem with writing new pieces of music.. but when it comes down to lyrics.. i find it SO hard.. i just sit there and get so frustrated with myself because i don't understand why words can't flow as well as my guitar writing can. It slows the whole process right down. I'm not a big reader of poetry and to be honest a lot of it i don't understand.. unless it's metaphors or similies or a play on words.. i couldn't tell you why this or that is so beautiful. I wish i could. i don't know why, i've never been able to no matter how i hard i try.. it's like i was born without eyes or something. and so i'm left thinking, what the hell am i doing? How could i possibly have a career in this. But then i think about how i love it when i finally get something.. it feels amazing when i know i'm on to something good and can finally get to the stage where i start recording and making things sound good. And then of course when I get good feedback.. it's so rewarding. I see pictures of studios in magazines and get excited imagining how cool it would be to have my own studio and know so much more about recording.

But.. then i wonder if perhaps this is a dead end. Although i've recorded my own album, i've toured with a musician in America and recorded 2 albums with her.. and i still don't know if this is my calling. I love music.. but what part of it am i meant to choose? Musician? Engineer? Producer? Band? Songwriter? Film / TV Composer? Time is running out and i need to find out sooner rather than later. I'd love to be part of a band.. that would be awesome. But i don't want to waste time with something that isn't going to work you know? And because i've never been in a band before.. i know before i'd find the right band i'd have to go through several.. but by that time i could be in my 30s or it might be too late! And i want to be part of something big, something different.. something that will last for decades.

Ah dude.. i dunno. I go to bed every night thinking, right tomorrow.. i need to get up early and start learning something new. Start to figure things out. And every day is the same.. i try and get on with something and before i know it, the day has gone and i've got nowhere. I want to read more, i want to learn big new things and know everything about everything but instead everyday is filled with someone telling me something i dont know (usually my father..) because i don't watch TV.. making me feel so tiny and insignificant and naiive in this world. So i think.. right, all i need to do is start reading about things.. start building up this knowledge dictionary in my head.. but then i think about exactly how much information is out there and so i just sit there feeling like i just got hit by a train. It's impossible to know everything.. so you should choose what you're interested in.. obviously.. otherwise you're learning it for the wrong reasons and most likely won't really remember it. But then what the hell am i really interested in? All i ever do is waste time getting frustrated with music. I just want to be an interesting bloke to talk to, you know? The sorta guy people can learn from.

And i'm back to the start...
I dunno.. maybe this is what life is like when you're cooped up at home every day. Maybe this will all change when i move out in the new year. I bloody hope so.

Would like to read some thoughts on all this if anyone made it this far! :D

43 things

2006-12-02T13:13:00.000-08:00

Just found an interesting website.. www.43things.com. S'kinda cool to read other people's opinions on random topics or to find comfort in things you're questioning in life. Even if you don't find the answer it sorta reminds you you're not the only person in the world.

So i'm pretty excited, i've come up with a cool idea for a music project.. and new songs are pouring out of my ears left right and center. Struggling with lyrics as always but musically i got some good things on the way. Only other thing i'm having an issue with though is my tendancy to turn everything i write into a pop song. I'm fighting desperately though to try and write more organic and free-flowing tunes.. which is generally working in my favour but i find adding lyrics defines more structure in the music, giving it more of a pop sound. I'm working on it though... been experimenting with orchestral samples and things which will hopefully take my sound in a different direction. I'm trying to listen to as much different music as i can though.. came across an independent artist called Kelli Rudick.. (experimental.. folk maybe? hear for yourself here) who's guitar style is absolutely mind boggling.. it's really inspired me.

Ah yes so i didn't talk about my music project idea.. well. I don't want to give too much away at the moment as it might not happen.. but it involves a series of CD's and new moosic. ;)

films and stuff

2006-11-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

gawsh im so tired. spent the weekend with friends.. was good to get out the house for a change. I'm moving out in January.. time to get a life going now i think. Watched a couple films over the weekend, Fearless and Thirteen. Definitely recommend the latter.. it's really interesting. It's french subtitled, modern yet displayed in a rich black & white. The movie itself is about russian roulette and how a guy gets caught up in it without realising what he was letting himself in for. Once you get into the story it keeps you on tender hooks, i really liked it. Fearless was good too, although a little predictable but i liked the way it ended.. and i think it sorta rescued the film in a way.

ooh got some nice new shelves for my monitors today.. so now i got tons more space and i can angle them better :D

Joy. The Machine.

2006-11-23T22:15:00.000-08:00

Ooh so here's my new blog. Wonder how long i'll keep this up to date for.. haha. I really liked the look of this template.. but it was a bit bare and unfinished so i made some tweaks. The artwork in the top right is by an artist called Blaine Fontana. He worked on Emme's new album artwork actually. Check out his work at totembookmedia.com.

Yeah so.. anyway for the past 4 or so months i've been working on Emme Packer's new album - "Joy. The Machine." which is now finished! Sent the master CD's off to her today. While i was in America, I spent the first couple of months recording all the songs with Emme on my portable 8 track - a very tedius little piece of equipment, at least when you're recording a full-length album and can only use batteries..we ended up getting through around 3-400 no joke!

On the album there's 3 songs whereby i wrote the music and Emme put lyrics to them - i really enjoyed that kind of collaboration.. Emme was so quick with pumping out good lyrics so those songs came together really nicely. She wrote the rest of the songs and i wrote my guitar parts for them. So overall.. working on "Joy. The Machine." was a great experience. Working on her 2nd album "Better Luck Next Time" was good too, but having to do the entire album over the internet was time consuming and hard to communicate ideas through. It was just a case of recording something.. emailing it.. waiting for the approval.. etc. Come to think of it, that's what ended up happening with this album too... nevermind.

But anyway I think this time.. actually being there with Emme allowed us to bring more out of her songs... continuously bouncing ideas off of each other etc. My visa for the states ran out at the end of September so it was time to leave and finish off the album at home in England. This is where i was really able to get my hands dirty and bring the songs to life a bit more, by adding basslines, piano, strings, percussion.. and re-working the mixes. And that's pretty much all i've been doing these past couple months. I think the album is a huge step up from her previous one. The songs are better, her voice is stronger - this time round she reveals more diversity with her voice and harmonies and everything just sounds more.. complete :).

There's a preview of "Joy. The Machine."on her myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/emmepacker) so check it out! Release date will be sometime in January.. probably early to mid.