It seems a long, long time since I remember buying an album, sometimes two, in a haze of Saturday afternoon activity in Buckingham, or, on an exceptionally exciting weekend, in Milton Keynes or Oxford, and racing back to my room to listen to the Cranberries, Green Day, Weezer, Foo Fighters or the Offspring or some such on repeat until several things had happened:

(1) I’d worked out my preferred listening order (Offspring: Smash would alwas be track 8… folllowed by 4… and so on)
(2) I’d started to work out the chords or main riff out on guitar of the album’s signature single
(3) I’d annoyed the hell out of everyone in the immediate vicinity

A combination of general distraction, concern with real-life issues like women, jobs, family and other related (and, indeed, crucial) paraphenelia of life, has had me completely unable to find the same passion in music recently. The fact that I share musical taste with angry 15-year-olds may have also contributed to my general disaffection with the art form… Bbut the iPod nano, and the necessarry iTunes, which I recently mentioned, seems to have begun to change all that, and my life is once again beginning to have a soundtrack.

My Last.fm page is gradually being populated, iTunes has registed that I listen to Katie Melua and Weezer far too much at the moment, and I’m struggling to find new bands that strike the same chord of disaffected passion that I enjoyed in the mid-90’s without whinging my ears off.

Its getting exciting once again! But those who know me will know how painful an admission it is that something from Apple, a company I regard as being more steeped in marketing and design than in technological innovation, is helping my life in any way. And Gem will hopefully be gratified that she’s chosen a brilliant birthday gift which I appreciate enormously!

I just miss having the wonderful idle time to focus on music that I did in days gone by. *Sigh*. I’m properly getting middle aged now.