Presently I live with a young rockster called Gary Edwards.
He is around 24 years old, small fellow with long blonde hair and quite feminine looking in general, kind of androgynous in appearance I would say.
He wears the leather, wears the fancy rock clothes, tight jeans, black boots, eyeliner, nail varnish, tattoos that have meanings, as they all seem to do these days, no one likes to take a chance these days and live dangerously with tattoos like they did back in the day, when you didnt care what the tattoo represented, it was just something you got done when you were smashed out of your mind, or maybe you needed proof you were eighteen in order to get served at a bar when you were a kid. The tattoo was your I.D.
Anyway back to Gary, he is really into his music and spends at least 5 out of 7 days a week in his room writing generic rock songs that aren't that special as far as I'm concerned. But I guess he's a young kid and needs to do it, as we all did when we were young. I'm totally 50 / 50 on his pursuit of a musical career. He wants to make it big, he's into old fashioned rock / punk, and loves lots of 70's music. In fact he looks a little like a 70's throwback rocker.
The thing that gets' me is the fact we share the bills, electric and gas, we use the key meter top up way. It grinds on me because he's in 5 days a week 24 hours, but I'm usually out working whilst he is using up the electricity. He's working on his new album he tells me. he promotes it on facebook and twitter and for all the effort he puts into it, he only receives 5 likes at the most. I think that's pointless. He is trying to be his own business, by promoting himself with social media, in other words going on facebook every two hours and giving updates about his album, or news of a new album, dates of his tour (usually 4 dates in cities all over the country that end up being a bar / pub in front of 3 friends , 3 fans and 5 neutral audience members, pointless) and he also sells merchandise, that less than 20 people buy if that. I admire his drive (if you want to call stopping in all day on your P.C. ....drive) he certainly knows a few things about promotion and computers and so on, but as far as I can see, no one is really interested! Sure there might be family,friends and some real fans he has met over the years, but really there aren't that many, I'd say less than 100 for sure, but realistically probably 50. Now to me he's doing something wrong.
I think he needs to get 'out there' and I mean physically out there, he needs to be gigging in the city we live in. At the moment we are living in London. It's a great city, there are bars, and music venues and festivals, and competitions he can do as well as the cheesy dreadful open mike nights. If he is promoting his music, I think he needs to hammer it, he needs to get into every opportunity in the city until everyone knows him or is sick to death of seeing him. He should take a bag full of his merchandise, like t shirts, albums, business cards and so on. He needs to do this just to get more fans, more interest in his music and build up a following. Why not do this in the city you live in first. Then yo can move onto the next city and so on.
Because at the moment as far as I can see it's not working out that well. He does gigs as far as Scunthorpe, he will drive all the way there to play in front of 5 people and he sees this as a success, whereas I see it as totally pointless.
He tried to get me to drive him on his 'tour' we were going to go to Devon , Margate , London , Newcastle what a ridiculous assortment of gigs, you couldn't get those places further apart for starters, and secondly, the gigs would just be little pubs, run down pubs, again you would be playing in front of 5 people, and he sees this as a success, my god, maybe I'm totally wrong, maybe he's deluded.
I keep forgetting he is a young kid, he's enthusiastic, the world is his oyster. I think Bono once said, when you're in a band you feel like you can take on the whole world, Yeah that's true, and for any young musician you can relate to that, we've all been there. The truth is not all of us did take on the world, 80% of us didn't and we ended up old without any skills in a run down council flat drinking frosty Jack cider and washing the taste of that away with bleach. That's the reality for many failed musicians. We just couldn't take on the world, we barely had enough money for a van.
When you're old, you get sick of the conversations of younger people mainly because you have heard their stories before, you have experienced most of their experiences, and after listening to 20 years of this, you get a little sick of it. You know about the rolling stones, and the beatles, and the stories that go with them, and after 20 years of repetition, we dont care anymore, we are not that impressed. We can lip synch pop culture if we wanted to. So every day Gary tries to educate me about pop culture, and I don't give a fuck, it's boring, so what Keith RIchards has done a lot of drugs, we know this, ow what? where do we go from there? where is the progression? What's the point? He's an old man who has done drugs and still rocks out? He's a survivor? Yes he is, he's also a millionaire. What about Liam? My local tramp? He's a real survivor, spends 12 months outside in all the elements. He can;t afford drugs, he's too poor. He is a real survivor.
What's my point? I don't know, I guess I'm just sick of hearing the same stories over and over again, give me something new.
At the moment I'm listening to Gary edit his new live video from Scunthorpe, he did a promotional gig there with his father on accordion. As I type I can hear it, and it sounds absolutely dreadful, in every way. The singing is awful, the guitar sounds awful and the songs sounds like shit. I imagine there's only 10 in the audience, why the fuck would they listen to this? Maybe because it's got a punk attitude and rawness to it, they think it's exclusive in some way. As far as I'm concerned it's sounds like generic shit played really badly. Sorry Gary, it's just boring to me.
Listening to this shit reminds me of all the shit garage bands I've been in, nothing new.
At the time of writing this fucker is ripping me off with the bills left right and centre.
I am sick of him doing this, really am. I cant even explain the bills, it's pointless, basically he's got no money, he's trying to live from his art. His art is mediocre, he doesn't know that. It certainly isn't paying that's for sure.
We used to pay £95 a month for council tax.
FIRST MONTH : HE TOLD ME HE WAS SKINT SO WOULD I LET HIM BUILD ME A GUitaR TEACHING WEBSITE INSTEAD.
I gave into him and said yes.
second month : HE TOLD ME HE WAS SKINT, SO HE SAYS HE'S DOING THAT WEBSITE STILL.
I gave into him and said yes.
Third month, he applies for council tax rebate because he doesn't earn enough as a musician, he says he isn't eligible to pay it therefore, because I'm working I SHOULD pay it ALL myself.
I dont' believe this for a minute, it does not feel right.
I've written to the council to try and shed light on this, but it does not sit right with me.
ON top of this we have the internet which costs, £25 a month, it's only £12.50 each but he's not willing to pay for that at all, and I can't figure out why, he seems to think it's mine therefore wont pay a thing.
THis is driving me wild, it's not the money although when I think about him being in the house all day using electric, using the internet and not willing to pay, THAT grinds on me....
I will snap when he asks me to buy toilet roll. It will be something pathetic like that, that will send me into a rage.
It's the fact that he is not willing to pay that's it.
HOw can someone do that to me?
Sure, I've let him get away with stuff at the beginning of the year, and he's trying his luck all the time, pushing it, seeing how far he can go, and getting away with it.
He loves it, it helps his image as the rocker who roughed it, blagged it to get to the top, it's the story he wants and needs. His fans will love him for it, all three of them.
I'm arranging to leave here now, whatever it takes, I want to shift my gear in one full swoop probably before midday, he is usually asleep until then.
Just leave him with a BOOM, I'm GONE, You should have give me some respect. It's a shame, only then will he realise.
He's a parasite, a virus dragging me down.
Or perhaps it would be better to sit down with a cream soda and discuss my issues with him like a man.
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