Music Equals Friends

December 15, 2015 by Ray Morgan

Music Equals Friends

I don't usually repost those inspirational quote images online, because newsfeeds and timelines are saturated with them anyway, but one struck a chord this week. It said 'It's amazing the number of great people in my life that I wouldn't have ever met if it wasn't for music'.

Think about it for a moment. If you're a music lover (presumably about 80% of the population; that's not an official stat, don't quote me) I'm sure you will understand. At school in the 90s, I was a Steve Lamacq devotee. I would sit in my bedroom as a teenager and scribble down bands he played on his Radio 1 show, then buy their albums from Fives (in its original Broadway location, 10 points if you remember it) and then scrawl the band names on my school folders/pencil case/hand - yes, like a pretentious idiot.

BUT - it meant that by showing my love for alternative bands, I could bond with the people at school who dug them too. I must say at this point, the number of people into the same bands as me at Westcliff High School for Girls in the 1997-2001 period was scant to say the least. Kayleigh Clark, I'm talking to you!

Then, at college, I was suddenly surrounded by new friends who loved the same music as me! There were more of us than chart music lovers, and it felt great. I went to my first gigs without my Dad (though we still went together and do to this day) - with friends, where there was cheap Carling and moshing and feeling like we were grown up. Band tshirts were worn at college as a badge: this is who I like, therefore it represents who I am.

At uni I went into a black hole of culture, also known as Roehampton University. Everyone was into pop - I'm no snob, I love great pop - but only a couple of flatmates shared my love of alternative, guitary music. But it was here I was sent mix CDs by my now partner (excellent wooing) and discovered new music outside my usual tastes, from electronica to Tom Waits.

Then, I got involved with Sundown Arts, a voluntary-run arts organisation where we put on bands and poets and comedians, and I discovered a wealth of talent from Southend, Leigh, Basildon and Billericay. Good lord, what a plethora of brilliant musicians! And from booking them at Sundown, and seeing them perform there, I am now lucky enough to call a lot of them my friends.

Music is a glue in my life. It was something that bonded me and my Dad from a young age. He took me to my first gig in 1999 (Beth Orton, Northampton), we still love going to gigs together and frequently exchange band recommendations. He gives me his Uncut magazines when he's finished with them (after he's taken notes of which albums to buy next, legend), which I devour. I recently made a Spotify playlist for him which I guess is the equivalent of a mixtape these days.

I can walk up the road in Leigh to Squeeze, or Ten Green Bottles, or Peggy Sue's, or further into Southend or down into the Old Town, and see some brilliant musicians AND always run into friends. This was represented perfectly the other week when I went to see the supremely talented and ridiculously humble M.G. Boulter (again, Sundown alumni and top pal) performing at the Fishermen's Chapel in Old Leigh. As there's no licence, people tend to gather before and after shows in the Crooked Billet. And sure enough, when going for a pre-show pint, I must have bumped into at least 15 friends, all there doing the same. How cool is that?

I think about all the people, just like the quote says, who wouldn't be in my life if it wasn't for music. My life would be very empty indeed.