28-01-94

Brixton Academy
I check my pocket for the second time, the third time and I have the tickets. I’ve already spent the time from Beckenham Junction to Gypsy Hill unable to find them. Losing things is kinda my thing. But I’ve got them. It’s OK.

We get off the train at Brixton. We turn right, and right again. It’s dark, cold. Some men pogo out of the door of a pub as we walk past. We follow them. One has an Iron Maiden jacket on. We know we’re going in the right direction. We think. Matthew taps him on the elbow, that’s as far as he can reach. Hey you going to the gig? He is, yeah. We know where we’re going now. Matthew says I like your jacket and the guy says cheers, it fucken rocks, dun’it? And Matthew says something about Blaze Bayley or something and I zone out, I’m not metal, I’m indie, and I really don’t know what they’re talking about.

We walk down the road in Brixton, the main one, the high street or whatever, on our left we see the lights and the entrance of the Academy, skulking on a side road, and we cross and see Natalie and Jenny and Marie, who are in the year above us a school, and their already in the queue and we say hello, but then we realise that we’re not really being encouraged to jump the queue with them, so we skulk along the side of the building to the end and we wait for the queue to start moving.

Inside we get served, and get served again, and a grunge band play and we get served again, and we’re kinda tipsy, and we go and stand with Natalie and Jenny and Marie, and we stop being so shy, and Jenny starts getting off with some older guy near her, and we’re kinda jealous but we don’t say anything about it, and then another band come on, and they are PUNK and me and Matthew run down the front and jump up and down and up and down then they’re finished and it’s all too quick and sudden, and fuzzy, and we buy some more pints, and then we wait and wait and wait and the anticipation is turning into anxiety and impatience and someone says something about fucking Welsh wankers and too busy shagging sheep backstage and Matthew, who has been to some gigs before, he reckons they won’t be long ‘cos the roadies have sorted out the stage and it’s all ready and then, finally, 50 minutes, an hour, three pints of lager and lots of nervous jumping later they deign to walk onto the stage and we forgive them. We love them.

We push, spin, jump and shove: praise, incant, respond. We recite lyrics learnt by rote, by devotion. I hit the floor during Motorcycle Emptiness. I don’t think I care anymore.

Short Story: Hearlumination

It’s the same song, the Ohrwurm of a hundred bored days and every sleepless night. Danced to it at discos, set it as your ringtone, he played it at his wedding and she put it on every compilation tape and mix CD she made for the best part of five years. Fell in and out of love to it, with it.

Every strained lyric, every compressed handclap, every plosive breath and derivative lead guitar riff, they’re all so familiar, too familiar. I contend: familiarity breeds nostalgia and apathy. Viscerality and vitality is replaced by comfort and conditioning, it’s all learned reactions and automatic programmed emotions.

But: on different speakers, different headphones, in someone’s car, you hear, she hears a backing vocal, a bass-line, a phased melody, pushed to the forefront by bad wiring, poor equalisation, and suspect speaker placement.

It is a new calling sound amongst time-wearied notes of remembrance and recognition. It is a long-lost half-sibling, an accidental chance body of happenstance that inspects and dissects everything that was once so beloved.  It's hearlumination. It's hearluminating. And it sings and it shines and it makes you so very happy and in love all over again.

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Neologism and story inspired by the following tweet:

There should be a name for suddenly hearing a detail in a song you've listened to thousands of times.
— Mic Wright (@brokenbottleboy) August 28, 2012

Thanks Mic.

A First at the Second Time of Asking

I first went to university in 1996. It didn’t go well. Many games of pooh sticks have been played, yeah?

So anyway, I started again 10 years later in the most low falutin’ of ways. Yep, I traded in some supermarket loyalty vouchers for an online academic course. 

And after six years, five courses, last minute credit transfers, some desperate grant requests and essay extensions, I come to say farewell, it's been a blast, thank you and goodnight Open University.

Now I emerge, older, more cleverer, and relatively unscathed, with a First Class Honours BA degree in Literature. Cor blimey! eh reader?

I owe an awful lot to the OU. The lovely (and I really, genuinely, mean lovely) tutors I was fortunate to have, coupled with the accessibility and anonymity of the online courses have rebuilt my confidence as a student, as a learner.

The courses I have studied have given me a terrific new opportunity, I wouldn’t be blogging on this website if I hadn’t realised, hadn't learned, that actually, you know, I really can write.

As such, come September, I'm off to Cardiff University to take a Taught MA in Creative Writing.

I had an interview at Cardiff back in May, and was offered a conditional place shortly after. I was so shocked to be accepted (it’s a very small course in terms of student numbers), and then spent so long post-offer waiting to confirm my place it all seems a little surreal at the moment.

I’m trying to acclimatise myself by flicking around the Cardiff website, but it feels like I'm cheating on the OU. So I pop back to my alma mater from time-to-time, mainly to argue on the student forums about how and when to use commas.

New adventures afoot – not only this, but I have a slightly new job, and my wife is expecting baby #2 this winter – and in the meantime I’ve taken up running. I know, right? Me, running? Hah!

So thank you, The OU. You changed my life. Ta. I’ll see you for gowns and mortarboards and a cheeky snifter next year sometime.

And bore da Caerdydd ;)

Finally, massive thanks to my wife, the OU widow as she was, and to all the awesome people I met and befriended along the way.

Love,

Jamie Woods BA (Hons) Lit (Open) :)

A Brief Interlude

I've so much to say, but I can't right now. It's all very exciting.

I wrote some short-short stories on some Post-It notes the other day. Definitely a work-in-progress kinda project in the making there.

I started a positive blog. http://jamieheartsstuff.wordpress.com/ It's rather cheerful.

I've written an essay for a forthcoming anthology of essays, all about Courtney Love and Hole. My friend Claire says it's factually accurate.

Erm... and yes, this is still the greatest album in the world. Even if it is 18 years old this year.