Makin' Latex

I’m not re-blogging this as a favour to my buddy James who composed this song.

I’m re-blogging it as a favour to you - who should listen to it.

He’s got a Morrissy / Red House Painters / Woody Guthrie vibe going on, and he’s lovely.

“Some time has passed and now I know it
I ain’t done growing up
Nor do I expect or will that I ever will
I’m hooked on fuckin’ up
I wanna spend some time on you”

Back Story: James taught himself guitar in grade 10 on a rusty, bent and broken, horrible classical acoustic guitar that he found in his mother’s crawl space.  It was strung with steel strings instead of the nylon that should have been there, and the neck was badly warped.  That combo made for a year of bleeding finger tips, and crippling hand cramps… but he had a rabid dedication to his craft.  

Then he finally saved enough for his first electric guitar (from bussing tables at a breakfast restaurant) and his music began to truly blossom.  That day and he turned right around, handed me his crappy acoustic guitar, smiled and said…

“Your turn”
What do you say to that?   You say “Ok” and start working at playing that damned thing. 

I don’t get much oportunity to play guitar nowadays, but it’s still one of the most zen things that I do.   The result of learning guitar for me was finding a love of singing… that eventually led to being in musicals, which lead to dropping out of the “becoming an engineer” job pathway, which (eventually) let do working with latex for a living.  Guitar skills transferred over to a Ukulele also played a big part in sinking my hooks into Archean’s heart.  (El’ Scorcho by Weezer on Ukulele doesn’t work for everyone, but when it does… oh, boy does it!)

So… thanks James.

jamesfromthesongs:

I wanna spend sometime on you. I ain’t got no map to where I’m heading.  I don’t know where I’m heading but I know I want to go with you.

(via jamesfromthesongs)