Random musings

Books to newspapers, pens to baguettes, wallets, phones, and Thoreau. I say 'tomato', you say 'tomato', screensavers to phonecalls, shorthand sentences and longhand sentences. Musings take you abroad and back, in moments shorter than seconds. Time travel is only a theory though thoughts can say otherwise. No money to travel, too much money to share. These are my musings, thanks for listening...

Damien Rice, O (2003) - is its music colourless like its cover?

This debut album from Damien Rice is certainly out to make a lasting impression. 'O' will leave you clenching onto fractured emotions as you gaze with a pensive and contemplative stare. As the acoustic tension peeks, it is released at moments of extreme suspense.

Damien's acoustic guitar quietly opens the album's first track, Delicate, and initially hopes are somewhat subdued. Very little is revealed about his style of music in the opening track. The gentle strums from his acoustic guitar hides any room for direct criticism. The smooth cello of Vyvienne Long consistently provides streams of warming melodies against the sustained chord progressions from Damien's acoustic guitar.

Damien's folk style, laced with an Irish accent, tells a less obvious tale. The words "What am I... darling," bellowed on Cheers Darlin' portrays a harrowing fable of a man love-struck, lonely and drunk.

I Remember gives the album an epic overtone in contrast to an overall mellow distinction; a 'must see' live performance. The deathly slow Eskimo closes the album and acts as a pleasant relaxant from some spin chilling moments experienced in previous numbers.

Ages like a fine wine - Faith Venus electro/acoustic

How do you know if two years down the line you won't be forced, on your own accord, to smash it into bits? Well it's hard to know how the sound of the guitar will change but it certainly will be different to what it is new. It is, like this title suggests, a fine wine that simply matures with age. The wood gets tarnished with sunlight and the air does somehow deepen it's voice - it's like it smokes when your not around.

I might be talking gibberish but it makes sense to me. I own the Faith Venus electro/acoustic and I brought it for its looks. Costing little over the £300 mark and as long as the rusty strings that it fashioned in the shop sounded okay I took it.

My focus was on it's size. This guitar has a smaller body then most, although not the size of a travellers guitar, I got uncomfortable wrapping my arm around regular acoustics for long enduring practise sessions.

The rewarding aspect to holding onto one guitar for years is seeing it's character grow, like the wrinkles of wisdom on a persons face, the guitars marks and scratches are signs of its honesty and intent. It now has a preference.

Clash of the Titans

Inside the ether of insecurity and hangovers, young adults begin building those rocky blocks called 'social preferences'. Although all is not what it seems to the prying eye.

As I slither home on one quite low-key booze-up, battling the windy rain, words started forming, echoeing inside my head, although they weren't echoes of my imagination they were voices of my friends. It went something like, "Poole number one, Bournemouth is poo," hopefully you've got the gist. Drunken chants can certainly explain a lot about a student's psychology, and expel revelations worthy of writing them down. Especially if they're of the personal kind. Although following that 'chant', it also went something like, "But I bet it's not raining in Bournemouth."