I’m sitting in the spare room at house in London. I call it ‘house’ as opposed to ‘home’ because I’m a believer that home is where the heart is, and my blood just ain’t pumping around here. I’ve come back to settle the score with the two essays haunting me until next Wednesday and then I’ll be free from this pretty eventful term of being homeless and well on my way to going to California for an ickle break from the weather and work here. Today marked the day that I finally got myself a room in Central Brighton for the next 6 months for a very fair price indeed. Things are looking up!

For the most part, my area of London is uneventful and boring and I always resent coming back here because of it. Having whiny and bitchy parents around, having none of the wacky characters and independence makes me feel pretty grateful for living in Brighton, which I always neglect until I come back to this shithole. I’ve come back to blitz these essays and get away from couchsurfing for a while so when I come back to my new home, I’ll be loving it. Also, there’s the free food being put on the table all the time, which is a plus.

Other than proper food, a bed and heating, there’s one thing I’ve missed the hell out of since I left my first term at University in June: music. MUSSSIIIIICCC! Aarrrgghh! Everyday, the first thing I would do is jump out of bed and flip on my harddrive, select my favourite tunes on my laptop and out of my speakers, feeling the base through the floor and forcing my feet to move as I brushed my teeth. MUSIC!! Before I came to University my playlist consisted of about 15 songs from the 80’s, but after moving in with a DJ and making friends with a fiend for Funk music, I bought a harddrive which now has over 1GB of music, which for the less geeky means over 100 days of song and sound. I discovered a whole new world of rhytm and beat, artists and genre that in my past life of being acoustically retarded would never have been able to comprehend. It was like some kind of drug, giving me a tremendously scary amount of energy and drive, from when my eyes fluttered open to the sunrise, bouncing through the day and getting down at sunset.

When I packed up my stuff at the end of term, my laptop, harddrive and speakers went with all of it. Staying on campus was amazing and although I could dig Suria and Robin’s leftover tracks which we played on the sound system we found in the trash and set up in our kitchen, it was missed greatly when Robin moved out. Now on my own, I spent a lot of time going down to the computer rooms late at night, which was empty apart from a handful of mature students emailing whoever and doing whatever. I would plug in my earphones, get on Youtube and browse for some of my favourite songs, obviously in the mainstream as the more obscure songs I liked were nowhere to be found.

I remember my friend from Mexico, Juan, inviting me to a bar to listen to his singer and songwriter friend, also from Mexico. The language barrier prevented me from understanding the stories his soft and soothing voice told the audience, but it didn’t matter. Like a starving dog, I sat tapping the floor with my feet, the table with my hand and my head nodding in sync with his guitar. Deprived of music for so long, I had fallen completely under his spell. I recall having so little money that I couldn’t really afford to eat properly, yet I was so happy to hear good music after so long that I shelled out around £20 for a foursome of his CDs.

On the occasion that I went to a club during this time I went mad, my favourite place being the basement of Jazz club Casablanca with their live bands. Karaoke nights in the campus bar were infectious; I a drunken haze I swayed side to side, miming along with the squealing of intoxicated students screaming down a microphone.

I left Brighton’s endless buffet of clubs, bars and music whenever I needed it and I ended up in India, where good music was literally a million miles away. My time was spent in a house where electricity went out for hours at a time, in a developing city where there was no sign of the sound I wanted to seduce my senses and ease my eardrums from the constant onslaught of car horns. The five star resaraunt we frequented quite often for good food and beer didn’t rescue me; they usually had only one song on a constant and eternal loop, including strange variations of Christmas songs (in INDIA… during AUGUST) which coupled with the gale force air conditioning, made you think you were in some kind of fucked up version of the North Pole.
Taxi drivers most often played Indian songs which featured the most disgustingly high pitched singing in the world and I struggled to understand how anyone could take it seriously. Sometimes they had songs of prayer (also disgustingly high pitched) which were completely montonous and lasted for 15 minutes, making it sound like the CD kept skipping. The latest Bollywood film, ‘Singh is Kinng’ featured a ridiculous cameo at the end from Snoop Dogg who struggled to rap for an Indian audience. Despite this, kids would often walk around with their phones out, blasting out the song and trying to look ‘gangsta’ because for the first time in their life, they were listening to music by a black guy. More often than not, men and teenage boys were trying to win a trophy in being the most annoying prick in the world by playing the music on their phones as loud as they could on bus journeys which lasted over 5 hours for everyone to hear. Surprisingly, nobody minded but I found it amusing how they thought it was cool and hip to be listening to the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.

Then I got back to Brighton and found I forgot to bring my cable for my harddrive and so, deprived once again of my precious playlists. Clubs once again put blood in my empty veins, as did trawling through the computers of my friends and listening to their music. Now back in London, I found the cable and hooked myself back up to my harddrive…

YES! It was well worth the wait! MUSAKKK! This music, this feeling, it’s been way too long!! When I hit ‘play’ I was hit with a hurricane of ecstacy which takes me back in time to over half a year ago, back to my room. I can actually feel myself sitting in that chair, leaning back, chilling and relaxing. It’s Summer at last, there’s no pressure, no stress… the time is around 4PM, the sun is slowly climbing across the sky to the east, slowly setting and hiding behind the trees in the far off distance. It’s not as hot as earlier on in the day, but there’s a pleasent, warm breeze winding through my open windows and into my room. Outside, people are sitting on their roof, their balconies, on the hill and chatting away, laughing and taking in the atmosphere. Music plays loudly from the bar and people are sipping on their beers and Pimms. Today was good, tonight looks great and tomorrow holds a lot of promise. Life is good. I got music, I got sun, I got everything and it all. This is living!

I might seem a tad overexcited and extreme, but this feeling is amazing! Makes me realise how good my first year at University is and how good my second should be… and will be, henceforth!

When I look back at all this, the simple thing to do would be getting an MP3 player, I guess. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about never having my music collection more than a button push away at any time. But I’ve been quite against the idea of buying an MP3 player for a long time.

It just seems to impair my sense of hearing and focus, which I love. It’s not just that I would prefer to hear a car coming at me in the middle of the road or a knife wielding maniac coming at me from down the street. I just love being aware of everything. I just recently ordered an MP3 player because it was cheap, but instantly felt guilty as if I had paid a £2 whore for sex. I didn’t understand why I did it, so I asked all my friends why and where they listen to their MP3 players:

“When I’m on the bus/train.”
“When I’m walking to stuff.”
“When I’m in bed.”

I still couldn’t understand. When you’re on the bus or train there’s plenty to see or think about, that’s especially true when you’re walking to stuff. And when I’m in bed, I’m usually there for a reason: to SLEEP. I don’t know, maybe I’m just so in love and into the world around me that I want to take it all in. When I was India there was so much to see and do that I would have hated to have Kanye West telling me his lifestory as I walked the streets aimlessly. More often than not I’m with friends, who I love to talk to… and I have to admit, I get royally pissed off when one of my friends refuses to participate in conversation and instead opt to listen to their frigging MP3 player. I might be arrogant enough to say I prefer listening to my own thoughts, trying to make sense of the world during the day instead of listening to music.

I also like the concept of deprivation. Too much of a good thing is bad for you, as they say. Today - right now - is the first time I’ve heard this music in a hell of a long time and it’s amazing. I’m not sure if I’d get the same kick out of it or the build up if I had it with me at all times. I enjoy relaying the rhythym and lyrics inside my head, humming it and looking forward to getting home, laying back and listening to the music. Perhaps I’m being a little overambitious in thinking even in everyday life, there’s too much to see, to hear and discover to be rendered semi-deaf because of an MP3 player. I can’t imagine in the next few days being able to listen to music what with all the work I have to do, all the people I need to catch up with… on the plane journey to California I’ll probably be too excited/nervous and excited to be on my way to the States. I want to take in everything, remember it all.

But the MP3 player is on its way to me as I type this. I’m not sure if I’ll risk having this effect the music has taken on me being worn off by having all the music in the world at my fingertips of continue my old fashioned ways.

MUSSAKKKKKK