MaFt's Musings

Generally I’m a relatively shy, quiet person and I’ll (usually) keep myself to myself. But stick a guitar and microphone in front of me and that shyness gets blown out the window. Over the years I’ve played in a number of bands and groups, joined in at countless jam nights, entertained kids at nursery and parent/toddler groups and had many drunken laughs doing bad karaoke. Random fact: my karaoke song […]

The Offspring have been a staple part of my musical diet for nearly 2 decades. They’re a band that have changed enough that they don’t get boring but not so much that you don’t recognise them anymore. I’ve followed them through their steady rise in popularity, from smaller venues to playing sold out arena shows in front of 15,000 people. This was around 1999 with their number 2 song ‘Pretty […]

I never got to see Nirvana before Kurt blew his brains out just before my 14th birthday. In fact I only started to listen to them a few months before that fateful day. But their seminal album, ‘Nevermind’, is one that I still listen to on a regular basis. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what gives it such longevity, there are probably a lot of better albums out there too. […]

Love it or hate it, Facebook is here to stay. Well, it is for now at least! They recently hit the news with their emotional manipulation experiments but that’s not what this post is about, well, not quite anyway. When you post a status you have the option of saying how you’re feeling: So I decided for ‘M’ I will use the first 25 Facebook emotions and give the name […]

Following on from my last post about live music, here’s a list of all the bands I’ve seen live. It’s taken a while and a lot of remembering but I think this is pretty exhaustive. Although I have a feeling I’ve missed a few from festivals or support bands… So, here’s a list of the bands I’ve seen live: 3 Storeys High 4ft Fingers 999 A A Man Down Adicts, […]

Fact: you can’t beat live music. Nothing comes close to the atmosphere that exudes from a bunch of musicians playing their hearts out on stage. These days getting to a gig is a rare treat (childcare and money usually being the main obstacles) but from the late 90s to early 00s I was a regular gig-goer. I’ve lost track of the bands I’ve seen live but I might attempt a […]

When I used to like dance music no one ever asked my why I liked it, I was just allowed to get on with it. When I saw the light and moved into the church of punk-rock and metal I found a growing number of people would ask me why. Odd questions like “why do you like that style of music?”, “isn’t punk dead?” and “do you like The Verve?” […]

My last post was about my band at uni, Space Monkey Three, and how we acquired our name. For today’s post I thought I’d continue that theme… In the last week of uni, around June 2001, we eventually got around to recording a bunch of our songs at the local studio, the Lancaster Music Co-Op. We’d already recorded most practices onto tape just for listening back, but decided we should […]

I started Uni in Lancaster on 28th September 1998. I was nearly 18.5 years old and I was ready to put away childish things (like being called ‘Maff’) and become an adult (called ‘Matt’). During fresher’s week I was chatting to someone at a nightclub about Green Day and got onto the subject of their album “Kerplunk!” and, in particular, the song “Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?”. Neither of us could […]

Warning: this might get a bit deep, personal and emotional. I’m not going to re-read it or edit it. It’s straight from the heart and I have a feeling it’s going to be quite a long one too. Music has always been a big part of my life – I can listen to a certain album and be reminded of a specific time in my life. For example, MxPx’s “Slowly […]