Nuances

"This very familiar recital of the musical experience suddenly takes on, as I can tell it, the aspect of a very hazardous undertaking. It is hazardous because at no point can you seize the musical experience and hold it. Unlike that moment in a film when a still shot suddenly immobilises a complete scene, a single musical moment immobilised makes audible only one chord, which in itself is comparatively meaningless. This never ending flow of music forces us to use our imagination, for music is a continual state of becoming."

Aaron Copland, Music and Imagination

I thought a lot about that quote during a train ride between Salzburg and Hallstatt. The untouchable, ephemeral nature of what he had described moved me, that it was never possible to capture or evoke music in an instant. I reflected upon the nature of the musical imagination, writing quickly in cursive hand, free of any fear that I would ever read what I wrote again: "I hear a recording of Freddie and the detail of it, the nuances of his tone make him seem so incredibly alive still. There is life in its recorded expression and it is addictive, that ability to access that voice, that detail of expression..."

Yesterday, I recovered some demos that I thought had been lost and gone forever. They were covers of Ricky Nelson's Garden Party and Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down that we had recorded before he returned home for Christmas that year. It made my heart leap to discover that they had lived on in my Sent Mail all this time, existing as MP3 attachments to my estranged co-collaborator. The guitar was lowly amplified, the hushed vocals wavered in occasionally perfect unison, with each phrase adopting some imagining of a Southern twang. The recording features innumerable stuff ups, giggles and apologies, with dialogue in warm, low tones: impossible to ever decipher, impossible to ever recover.

Speech, like music, can never be properly immobilised. You can't capture it in an instance, time is necessary to replay those recordings where the inaccessible speak freely, laughing and utilising the expressions they use too much. There's a real joy in becoming reacquainted with a lost voice and I've been finding it more and more, as I've been making a radio documentary for Olli's departure from the hostel. I've sought out contributions from countless guests and they've come back with these voice recordings. Edited together, the finish is rough and the quality variable, almost every detail of their delivery remains intact, close and alive.

As Olli prepares to leave, I feel grateful that I've managed to share this passion for reflection, sentimentality and documentation. In addition to verbally sparring almost constantly, we've both kept our respective notes, continuously writing down quotes and ideas. He looks at my Twitter from time to time, loudly bemoaning the absurd misattributed quotes. It's been a joy to exist alongside him and I know there'll be more to uncover when he leaves. It's odd to think but perhaps it's that method of recovery which will add to that sense of the past being recaptured. Maybe it needs to be distant, it needs to be thought as if it's lost and maybe only then, you can have it back.

Precision

I knew it was the end when I saw that photograph of your smashed up steel-blue Fender Precision Bass. The headstock was roughly decapitated from its thick neck, the strings were severed and hung loose across the bruised body. Fans cooed dramatically, commenting on how rock'n'roll it all was. You never addressed them, but I know you would have loathed that suggestion. You only ever said: "Goodbye old friend."

I imagined your relief that came from that violence. How it must have felt for you to destroy the object that had kept you away for so long. It reminded me of our first conversation, when you told me about how you saw Richey Edwards' last show with the Manic Street Preachers. Years after his disappearance, you still seemed so shaken by the determination of his violence, diving head first into the drum-kit at the end of the show.

I hope you've managed to return to the life you wanted, free of old friends and draining obligations. I'd be lying to say that I didn't miss your hysterics, they were always so poetic. I still think of the world in terms of us and them. There are those who will swoon over the rock'n'roll gesture and then us, those who will try to derive some meaning out of it. I think we live differently to everyone else.

Experts

Whenever we would have guests around, my Dad would boast about my ability to identify the year of any photograph, film or song. I would be sheepish, downplaying my mad skillz, but I've always made a point to ask the year of everything. Whether it's a deteriorated red hardcover book by Arthur Mee or a DVD of a J. Arthur Rank film, I want to know where it all fits historically. I need to develop this narrative in order to make sense of the past.

When my Dad and I watch old 1950s English films together, he always remarks about how sad he is to learn that all these actors have since died. Together we contemplate what they would have been like in real life, whether the cast were friends with one another, whether they were warm, kind or funny. We often know that they led tragic lives. They were either alcoholic depressives or else closeted homosexuals who would later commit suicide.

His knowledge of this particular genre of film is astounding and whenever we sit together, I encourage him to document all his observations in a blog or even a zine. I urge him to get in touch with his old English teacher, who coincidentally has written two encyclopaedias about the history of British film. He puts it off, expressing anxiety that he needs to learn more before finally making contact. I tell him to hurry up: we don't have much time.

I suppose we share not only the desire to be experts, but also that fear that we may never know enough. I wonder if we'll ever be ready enough to reach out to the establishment. I wonder if we'll ever spar with those we admire, in such a way that might suggest that our views might even carry some kind of authority. I look forward to that feeling that might fill me one day, that satisfaction that would come from knowing enough to finally move forward.

Highly Dangerous