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[nathjonesey-75]

Memories Of An Xpansive Day: 25 Years Later

“Sometimes you will never know the value of something, until it becomes a memory”

Dr Seuss

As we age, we are constantly reminded of “special” dates. Those pieces of history which relate to ourselves, our families and friends – yet more often, nowadays have nothing to do with us individually, more so with the domination of information via the daily torrents of technology’s titbits. So, it’s perhaps more so satisfying when an actual special date occurs to the mind via simple, pure memory rather than the swathes of nudges regarding famous, renowned dates, which are mostly repeated “oh yes – that again” scenarios, from social (and the desperate need of a more appropriate word to “social”) media.

For this reason, the value of this particular date which arose in my eroding mind archives a couple of weeks ago, holds such a sparkle over time, for me. While I believe time merely continues rather than loops in any way, it’s a rare speciality to be able to connect two periods of time – for context and value. Plus, this was the most unlikely combination of elements, linking to form a day: an elderly grandmother, rugby union and late-night raving. Hardly linked, in the mind of a young nineties graduate.

Twenty-five years ago, on the 6th of March 1999; I was living in Cardiff, at a bit of a standstill rather than at a progressive time of my life, at twenty-three years old. Sharing a house with three Cardiff University final year students – with very little in common – two were younger than myself, one older as a “mature” student. Although, again a crassly inaccurate describing word, mature – regaling tales of his mates mooning in bars on nights out - was always his weekend’s highlight, at the age of twenty-seven. One of the two girls living there made more money than me each month – and she wasn’t even working. Had she been a part of recent generations, she would no doubt have been an applicant for – if not a regular face on a “reality show” based in Chelsea. Silver spoon and all that…

Thankfully, looking back – it may have been the beginning of the end of the most testing two years of my younger life. A near life-threatening accident during my final year at university which resulted in late graduation, but the first really challenging experience of mental health difficulties from the head injury. Living in a twistedly imperfect house share, not earning a great deal of money, but making connections. Valuable connections, through one of the part-time jobs I held at that time.

I worked part-time at one bar, Bar Essential - just before the swift gentrification of the capital’s high streets began over the following two years; then part-time at a British Gas call centre. It was there which the links were formed – and as what I would designate myself as “a pretty shitty networker”, it helped me over the following two years while I lived in the city.

Me, Circa 1998-99

Having been a DJ for all of fifteen months, my Soundlab Belt Drive decks had become my best friends and my own miniature bedroom family at the smallest room in the house on Robert Street. We weren’t a loud bedroom family – my house “mates” made sure of that – in fact, retrospectively I should have had a sign on my bedroom door with “The No Charisma Bypass Room”. In other words, I connected with my records, turntables, speakers and guitar – more than I did with the other human members of the household. In the days before most people had mobile phones (mine came a year later in the new century) and certainly way before smartphones, we continued to make our own entertainment. Or not - as while I worked evenings, the excitable “evenings with Titanic, cheese and biscuits” was a consistent thrill for the others. In the adapted style and words of the period’s new television comedy icon, Jim Royle; “Titanic, my arse.”

However, what I was so far unaware of – was an undercurrent of rave culture bubbling among the desks and offices at British Gas; or “Gas” as many called it – the high-rise administration centre on Churchill Way. Over the remainder of the year, as I left the bar job and moved from part-time to full-time there, I joined what was memorably a collective of party animals who looked rough on a Monday morning, giving one another knowing smirks in the lift to the upper floors about the crazy nights on the tiles at either The Hippo Club or The Emporium (or both, or one of a few other clubs) over the weekend. So, to be invited to Gatecrasher at the Que Club in Birmingham on the evening of March 6th – by my own line manager, Suzanne (and a few others), was exciting. The complication was; that I was also going from Cardiff – to Llanelli, my home town, that day – for my grandmother’s eightieth birthday.

       Music Week, February 6th 1999                         

    

Maybe it’s the realisation that – at my current age of forty-eight – that the proposition of now going that fifty miles to West Wales, then back in one afternoon, then another hundred-and-twenty miles to Birmingham, then dancing until dawn – would be as preposterous an idea as thinking at that time; that Wales – who lost 0-51 at home to France the previous year in the old 5 Nations tournament – could possibly win at the new Stade De France in Paris…on the same day…

The thing about memory is that it can be one of the most rewarding and powerful assets left in the body when you’re nearly hitting a half century in years on this currently deranged little planet. That era; that decade, a golden time for music; one for which I’m eternally grateful for having been alive and old enough to live (and survive – in more ways than one!) through. I can’t honestly say the same for Welsh rugby as far as linking it to the word “golden” in the same decade. Nevertheless, another possible turning point, this could become for what was then seen as the national sport. Those who were there would surely argue so.

March the sixth. I’m sure that the selective memory process in my mind has muffled the dreariness and cramp of the late morning shuttle bus to Swansea, then the connecting Swansea-Llanelli bus (or maybe on that day there was actually a Cardiff-Llanelli shuttle, we all know how inconsistent public transport has always been, especially across South Wales). The highlights and fondness of that day’s fragment would have begun with sandwiches and tea, which would have coincided with the 2pm kick-off at Stade De France. Even the faint memories of chatting with my then-only remaining grandparent on her eightieth, while the previous year’s whipping boys – produced an astonishing, astonishing win in France – in the days where international comebacks away from home were far less frequent as they have become since those early few years of the professional rugby union era.

   France vs Wales, Saturday March 6th 1999

   

Dynamically, that day was just about to shift up a gear, as the unglamorous nature of reaching the next target – rushing for a bus or train, often in wet conditions in South Wales – was the next step. As I bade my grandmother a happy birthday in a common early twentysomething “hi, bye” fashion, then a happy farewell to my family under the smiles of a shock Wales win in France (the first since the year of my birth in 1975), it was game on; round two – let’s have it!

I reached Cardiff and Robert Street Glowers (for “Towers” would be the most undeserved word of all undeserved words so far in this anecdote), with a scant hour in which to get to my cave, sharpen up, have a “livener” drink and reach the pickup point (which I think was somewhere on Newport Road) and join Suzanne, her friend Rhian and a chap whose name I have sadly forgotten – in the petite Ford Ka on the rainy road to Brum. Here is the sharp contrast which has been a quite definitive feature of my life. Day, versus night. The escaping from Llanelli and its narrowing shackles, “tout-suite” and the running to a city where a rebellious, darkened culture emanated from post-rave antiestablishment gave me more of an identity. A culture which was so synonymous with the nineties, the music and nightclubs of that time – and one I learned ever so gradually over the years, was the sanctuary (remember that word for later) for neurodivergent people. More on that after the dance.

Anyway, Gatecrasher at The Que Club. A majestically used ex-church, which became legendary for dance music events – and a lineup epitomising the sounds of the near-millennium. Sasha, Judge Jules, Scott Bond, Guy Ornadel and Seb Fontaine formed the main amphitheatre’s DJ arsenal. While the second room was also a quality ensemble of more funky house music DJs – the first two hours under the massive dome of the main room became seminal for me, without knowing its powerful longevity, at that time. This meant that the majority of my time was spent between open and close, 11pm until 6am; either on the principal auditorium or dancing among the seated area to the right of the stage. Even looking at the picture of it now, the seated area felt considerably bigger twenty-five years ago!

                                   

The sublime personal connections for me around the whole day, coming from a strictly devout religious family and going to The Que Club, which was originally built as a Methodist Church. As many have professed, music has become a form of worship or a place where folk have found their own souls in different statures. This evening, then into early morning and beyond – for me was seminal in three ways. Not only was it the first time I had seen Sasha (who was already an icon to me, but would become a greater icon of electronic music and DJing inspiration for me over the years) DJ live, but added to him actually opening a main room; playing first on the bill, between 11pm and 1am – and exactly what he played in that slot - and its legacy. Once again, the value of a memory – and the relevance and personal value of that moment; reached an ecstatic and transcendent high (or trance-cendent) – here.

In The Que by Birmingham Music Archive

After the previous twelve hours of zipping cross-country, meeting and greeting family; followed by excitement, time stopped – in the middle of the giant open, yet bustling dancefloor at Que, sometime around 11:45 to midnight. What…was I hearing? A breakdown, which although inebriated, I may have been – now ethereally-entranced, something wonderful just hit me. A moment which has stuck me forever. Xpander. When serotonin is passed like an adrenaline shot through the body, you feel like you’re in outer space – this was the pinnacle - of the sixth of March. Forget the heroics of the men in red at the Stade De France, this (also unbeknown at the time) Welshman behind the decks – along with his studio wizards behind the scenes, Charlie May and Duncan Forbes (and the engineering of Andy Ford and Gaetan Schurrer) – had created a track which became one of the tracks of the club era – and I’d just heard it for the first time. For the rest of the night, I was in dreamland.

Sasha - Xpander

Five to six years previously, I had been playing rugby with - and against some of those victorious players in Paris for Wales. But the game, its politics and its sewn-in machismo which I’d always lived around but never felt part of; increasingly unfulfilling. For someone completely in the dark about a condition such as ADHD which in parallel continued to affect daily cognition, while thinking there was an inherent problem with themselves. It’s a positive change that professional sport now does support mental health issues in a more open manner.

France v Wales, Stade De France 1999

Yet, in the famous words of a dearly departed poet of these nearby parts of South London where I write, as Maxi Jazz of Faithless said:

“This is my church, This is where I heal my hurt It's in natural grace, Or watching young life shape”

Only released six and a half months before this event, the words of God Is A DJ hold more value for me now than they did at the time - and no, I never subscribed to the Mixmag poster boy ideology of Sasha being “Son Of God”, just an incredible influence and musical force for me as a DJ and producer. The fact he’s also Welsh is a bonus. Now, for me as a faithless man – the inspiration as much as healing on a regular basis for me, over the last twenty-five years for me has been mostly via music, having lived in varied, distant parts of the world and learnt a Bible-sized volume about life, but still not quite any closer to understanding much.

I couldn’t remember a heap of tracks played after 1am, other than the final track before Sasha departed into the shadows of the Que Club – a Perfecto remix of Grace’s Not Over Yet. Probably the first time many inside the venue would have heard it. After dancing with vigour, enjoying the company of my travelling troupe until the event closed at 6am, Seb Fontaine played the final track. A track which – at that time, if you had it, it was gold dust among the DJ fraternity. I’d just happened to purchase said 12” vinyl a few days beforehand, as a limited release on the LCD label at Cardiff Queen Street’s HMV. It was called Sanctuary, by Dejure. It wasn’t released for wider purchase until the following year on Fontaine’s Spot On Records label, so when I played my first respectable gig in Cardiff at a decent venue, Po Na Na in July or August 1999, I had a supportive crew from British Gas with me. I played what I would happily call “a blinding set”. Be that as it may, what I learned that night was one identical thing Sasha learnt via a proverbial “bollocking” from Hacienda maestro DJ Jon Da Silva around a decade previously. DO NOT PLAY YOUR BIG TUNES WHEN WARMING UP FOR THE MAIN DJs. I was told. Almost in a Michael Caine in The Italian Job voice when he blasted “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”

It was one lesson I may have learnt via a verbal slap around my face at the wrong time regarding my record-spinning naivety – but it stood me in good stead for the years to come as a DJ. Meanwhile; when I played Sanctuary during the set, I was suddenly offered an unlimited amount of money for it, while seeing a wallet opening figuratively like the Red Sea from Moses’ arms. Bank notes, like waves rippling with the flick of the thumb and parting the leather on either side. By one of the resident DJs who then became a clubbing and DJ mate for my next few years in Cardiff and beyond in my music affinity circle, whose name I shan’t mention. I’m glad I kept to my guns that night, despite my low income and bank balance. “Nope”, said I. “Not for sale”.

One feeling which stuck with me from just after 6am on the seventh of March 1999 – I do have the taste to choose the right tracks, even if I haven’t really started the performing journey yet. I have had the night of my stumbling young life, at an incredible construction, in a community of people who want feelings of liberation and identity. I left the magnificent, although by then, dishevelled expanse with the echoing words from Sanctuary’s sampled breakdown playing, ringing in my ears as we stumbled through the morning damp-dark of Digbeth’s streets. I knew when I’d reach my cave I’d have to listen to it immediately. Quietly, but immediately.

“Something for your mind, your body and your soul”

Dejure - Sancutary

[nathjonesey-75]

Where's The Awareness?

Well, here we are again. Although; I’d be very surprised - if no headline were used – if anyone knew to which “here” I was referring.

To clarify, it’s October; in other words, ADHD Awareness Month. Yep – who knew? Before the eyes start to roll with “not another ADHD whinge” whizzing over the scalps of some neurotypical and untroubled minds, if you happen to work with, or yet – have children with the condition, there may be a bit of a tremor on its way to you, as there is currently a shortage of ADHD medication around the world.

While the primary intention of this piece was to focus upon the need for more events in Britain for this supposedly supportive awareness period, if there is to be a widespread behavioural problem incoming, it may well make up for the silence in awareness promotion. Earlier today I was revising my blog site’s content. The first article I wrote following my diagnosis in 2021 (https://www.tumblr.com/nathjonesey-75/662840205569556480/all-day-he-dreams-a-work-in-progress) urged me to pen once more about my learning and experiences since the diagnosis. In-keeping with current political climate on this volatile, twisted little island in 2023 – it’s not a pleasant personal report.

Last year, there was a noticeable vitriol in the press towards trans people – with regard to the particular public spike in those identifying as transsexual. While I can’t comment as to that predicament having seen any improvement in public acceptance and media coverage since, there has been a definite flurry of air-headed, entitled, right-wing finger-pointing towards the ADHD condition – for similar spikes in diagnoses. Following this surge in particularly the celebrity community, it’s not surprising that tongues have wagged. Sadly, reverting again to the current climate of misinformation and assumptions from the wider uninformed masses, shock horror – we are the 2023 witches.

On that note, let’s clarify some blatant truths and some uncomfortable facts about this neurodivergent category – and a huge thank you to #AttentionUK for these facts.

HERE ARE SOME STATS ABOUT THE COSTS OF UNSUPPORTED ADHD:

Children with untreated ADHD:

• 46% of kids with untreated ADHD have been expelled. 35% drop out • Kids with untreated ADHD have problems with peer relations and end up with fewer friends • ADHD is very heritable. If one kid has ADHD there is a 30 to 40% chance that a sibling will have it as well • Kids with untreated ADHD have 2 to 4 times more fights with their siblings than their non-ADHD peers. • They also have 50% more bicycle accidents. …and 33% more A&E visits • More than half of all parents with ADHD will have a child with ADHD

Adults with ADHD:

• It shouldn’t come as a surprise that adults with untreated ADHD have problems with low self-esteem • Young adults with untreated ADHD show 2.6 times the number of sexual partners and 9 times the number of pregnancies compared to their non-ADHD peers • Likewise, they show 4 times the number of STD and are 2.5 times more likely to have been tested for HIV/AIDS • People with untreated ADHD have 2 to 4 times more car crashes than people without the disorder. And, they are usually far more likely to be the ones at fault • In fact, people with untreated ADHD are 7 times more likely to have had multiple vehicle crashes than people without ADHD • They are twice as likely to have been fired from a job [60] and 9 times more likely to end up in prison than people without the disorder • They also have higher rates of smoking and illegal drug use as well as higher rates of divorce, unemployment and underemployment • People with untreated ADHD end up costing at least twice as much in terms of medical care than they would without the disorder

It should come as less of a surprise, given these statistics – that adults with ADHD are five times as likely to have attempted suicide than those without (14% to 2.7%). These reasons should be adequately acceptable to justify ADHD Awareness Month going ahead annually for the foreseeable future.

From the ground level perspective of adults with ADHD, while the condition is a certified disability, medication is certainly not free – along with counselling and therapy as an alternative or bolster to medication. Neither is medication available on a quarterly payment basis, as is almost every other pharmaceutical health drug in England and Wales. So, having to order repeat prescriptions each month, when it is a government-controlled drug, is not the most practical or convenient. This may be understandable as an abuse control measure, yet for those who live in solitude; with added health complications – now emphatically with the current shortage, suggests that there must be a more supportive framework.

It would be a welcome surprise if a right-wing government were to reshuffle, restructure and bolster the mental health act positively – while boosting the budget for mental health medication. I’d however expect Brighton and Hove Albion to win the Premier League before Westminster Corruption FC shows compassion to the increasingly diagnosed neurodivergent population.

As for my findings over the past two cycles around the sun, since September 2021 – while I had hoped to balance a highly active day job with my creative spare time; learning the longer, more emotionally “scenic” way of the neurodivergent – proved that consideration and support in the workplace was as hidden as the condition’s effects are in the wider labour market.

The first position seemed ideal – working with a young, exciting brand and team; and my recent diagnosis disclosed to my superiors within the first three months following some unexpectedly nervy moments. After all, the physical, hands-on role had nothing in the contract suggesting “thou shalt train to become a brewer” (and no desire from my part either – just to balance work and my music and writing career, which was clearly divulged). Yet as I was inadvertently expected to perform tasks way above my position and job description, despite being clear with one clever, yet ignorant line manager that these were things I could not do – this continued until big, dangerous mistakes were forced. Clearly, awareness was ignored and even refused, when I offered to install a work mental health safety programme. My resignation came within nine months and I was not invited to the Xmas staff function, with each and every other ex-member of staff who remained connected.

With the following role, only finished nine weeks ago – any hopes of seeing improvements to the previous chimera of work progress sadly went the way of extra business revenue for the company before the indications of support were again hot air in the cold, yet lucrative event hire warehouse. Without harping on, the conclusion of the past two years is – small upcoming company or not; modern and educated or not, the support of ADHD in the workplace is not an informed, aware and defined model. For what isn’t apparent from my description of frustration – is the overhanging, overburdening expectation of equilibrium from every person's performance – as though there is a proven physiological and biological balance between everyone. Informing people about having ADHD, then receiving tentative nods of support, in other words - has made very little difference to my work environment in the past two years.

Elements which bring and often overload pressure – and the ADHD way is very often to grind the way through the job; to complete tasks and to accomplish expectations, these invite mental health problems, which can become extreme. As in suicidal thoughts. But you couldn’t dare tell people that at work – because you’d be seen to be melodramatic, unstable and unreliable. Yet, ask many with ADHD and this will be commonly identifiable. Remember, too – the chief cause of death in men between 35 and 55 years of age – is suicide.

Which leads me to one vital piece which must be brought to awareness – burnout. As established, informing employers about ADHD has not, for me – kept me from the chronic effects of being burnt out. Again, it’s one relief that this is another side of life which is becoming increasingly common – and documented. One clear definition, published last year is from

https://augmentive.io/blog/adhd-burnout-adults

"Burnout was first coined as a term in the 1970s by an American psychologist called Herbert Freudenberger, who used it to describe the symptoms and feelings of the severe stress felt in professions which involved helping people, such as doctors and nurses. More modern studies have suggested that in the medical profession, turnover and absence due to sickness are some of the effects of burnout.

Today, the term burnout is used to refer to not only the stress felt within someone’s profession, but to describe the feeling and consequences of doing too much, or “burning the candle at both ends”, as the saying goes. This could mean doing too much physically or mentally.

Symptoms of burnout are unique to everyone; however you may notice general stress symptoms such as:

• Sleep problems • Trouble focusing • Stomach issues • Fatigue, both mental and physical • Becoming sick more often due to poor immune function • Headaches • Feelings similar to depression, such as worthlessness • A loss of interest in doing things you once enjoyed • Burnout can affect anyone, but those with ADHD may find it hits them with very specific symptoms."

Some final pivotal pieces of information which are not as widespread as they could be are - that those with ADHD do not necessarily have the same characteristics as one another. Particularly adults who have received late diagnoses. While the condition can lead to mental health struggles, not everyone is negative in outlook – it’s a common trait. Not everyone is taken by every passing squirrel, cat or bus while in a conversation they can’t focus upon – it’s the overstimulation from being too interested in many things which often distracts. Yes, ADHD is associated by creativity but the hyperfocus so widely connected to us, does not mean we can accomplish everything we attempt to create. Hence the knuckle-duster lesson of having a late diagnosis and trying to balance a creative side hustle (as promising as it may be) – and a physically demanding full-time job with overambitious; corporate-owned, ignorant employers. As liberating as it may be to find out that there’s a reason for why you’ve always felt like a square peg in a changing, morphing shaped space – is that so many are not clued up about what it all means.

To close, one inspirational point which has become clearer in recent years, since my aforementioned blog from September 2020 where I discussed balancing DJing, day jobs and ADHD; is the sharp connection between neurodivergent people and nightlife, particularly DJ culture. An upsurge in conferences, festivals and events drawing attention to; and discourse about neurodivergence, as well as marginalised social groups in music have occurred. Harold Heath, whose book “Lost Relationships: My Incredible Journey From Unknown DJ To Small-Time DJ” which has resonated with a great number of readers within the dance music community – is currently writing a book about this relationship between the dance floor and neurodivergence. In the past month, DJ Magazine published his article with recent findings.

https://djmag.com/features/why-are-there-so-many-neurodivergent-people-electronic-music

I anticipate the extra reading to come, once the book is published – it was great to meet Harold, his wife and a number of DJs speaking about marginalisation at last month’s Liberty Festival in Croydon. Thanks to Ifeoluwa and the Intervention crew for organising the discussion.

As a parting shot, I have to focus on the sublime and absurdity of life, as inspired by Irvine Welsh, Danny Boyle and John Hodge, as stated in Trainspotting and adapted in Trainspotting 2.

Choose life.

Choose your own type of life.

Choose being a hermit.

Choose being a social butterfly.

Choose being relaxed about everything, or full of energy - depending on what day it is.

Choose fitness and wellness.

Choose drinking and drugs to mask your own self-loathing.

Choose jumping between social groups in trying to fit in, but feeling that it’ll never really happen.

Choose relationships which won’t last because – they never do. Do they?

Choose late nights.

Choose dancefloors with other alternative types of people who may or may not feel the same as you.

Choose trying to act a little bit like someone else successful whom you’ve worked with, because if it worked for them – why can’t it work for you?

Choose all the personal project ideas which come to you until you run out of steam with each one - and move on to the next.

Choose trying to find the forever happy job where you are always progressing.

Choose low-paid jobs to make up for your inability to sustain the burnout.

Choose smiling bravely, as you always have - because you can get through all of this.

Choose the cycle of thinking that you're not worth it, then taking your time to rebuild your confidence so that you think you are worth it again.

Choose working as hard as you can, again and again and again - until you burn out. Again and again and again.

And then revisit all the times in your life where nothing made sense, other than you have this diagnosis – which makes you feel slightly better, but not all the time.

Choose ADHD. Choose life.

[nathjonesey-75]

Hipping and Hopping: I Was Raised By Hip-Hop

Today is a vitally important day for me in many ways. I am playing tonight as a launch party for my first track being released in collaboration with my friend, Ranj Kaler. It’s his EP and I played a part on the title track, Break The Chains. The pivotal link between another huge importance of today is that the sample I used in the track would not have come to use, were it not for the big birthday entity, Hip-Hop - which has turned fifty today.

So, what you read is not a test, I’m celebrating this feat.

I remember vividly the first time I was really exposed to the deeper side of Hip-Hop and the irony of it all. I would have been 12, with my more youthfully liberated friend Ceri owning an Ice-T cassette. Now, as a highly impressionable and sheltered kid - this was vastly different to Walk This Way and My Adidas, which would have been the only other tracks of the genre in my hearing experience. But while Ice-T and so many rappers of that generation were so scalded for their lyrics - the whole package was something I got hooked upon immediately.

And once one can was opened, I wanted to try all flavours of this new and edgy style of sound. After all, all I ever heard at home was a mixture of the Rocky IV soundtrack on repeat, ABBA, plus the fresher angle hip-hop’s sampling and verse. There was more to life than small town vanilla 2.4 family existence – there was a bigger world out there. Yet the South Bronx and the five boroughs which gave birth and rise to Hip-Hop may have been Mars in comparison with Llanelli in South Wales.

It opened my eyes to DJs and the whole relationship between them and MCs. Although in those days, the MC was always the more revered, my path to turntablism had already begun years earlier, as I had quite a record collection - my grandmother used to give me 7” singles, donated from the DJ at the local RAFA club. There was no Sugarhill Gang, nor Afrika Bambaataa - clearly South-West Wales wasn’t ready for that in the early eighties. But The Jam, Madness and Blondie were the more reputable of the small-sized vinyl stacked in my bedroom.

By 1989, I was already ordering Hip Hop Connection magazine from the newsagent next to my grandparents’ house, plus my journey into the collectors’ category began by buying 7” releases of Hip-Hop singles. Then, recording tracks from the radio onto tapes via Jeff Young’s Big Beat Show on Radio 1. Yet it was a broadcast on Channel Four that year which scratched the DJ life into me. The annual Technics DJ Competition was broadcasted one night. London’s Cutmaster Swift and his amazing styling, cutting and scratching was one routine I watched over and again in wonder.

So, by the age of fifteen, I had already been encouraged to think differently about life and music. Already having seen examples of culture - obviously not all positive - in fact learning the way of the sword about slavery and inequality wasn’t something which went over my head – it made me want the world to be very different. Hence the sample used on the track, from an outspoken civil rights activist of the 1960s (you can do the research on this one – wink-wink), which many will recognise – many may not.

“To be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a man; in this society, on this earth, on this day, which we intend to be which we intend to bring into existence…”

The words following those used in the sample and not used in Break the Chains – are the ones with which this great leader of the people became most synonymous. Public Enemy, one of my idolised bands along with KRS-One from Boogie Down Productions were the ones who made this recognition possible.

Since then – many versions of myself later; I’ve developed and merged my taste through a myriad of ages, of styles and from travelling and relationships; but the gravity of the most influential musical form from my own childhood remains. Alongside the invaluable memories – it took me until 2013 to finally see De La Soul live and until 2014 to see Public Enemy live. Both were done while living in Melbourne. The former saw my copy of Say No Go signed by the band, which is now up on my wall of frames. The latter was a sublime memory of seeing Flavor Flav play the saxophone during the set (many will still not know that he’s a multi-instrumentalist). But the politics, the samples, the effects and legal wrangles; the cutting, the scratching and the controversial law smashing – will always be a big part of my musical armoury.

Thank you Hip-Hop and a happy birthday to everyone in the community.

Peace, love, unity and having fun is what Afrika Bambaataa and James Brown sang about in 1985. We need it now as much ever.

[nathjonesey-75]

Ticket To Ride

There’s something to be said about moments in time which seem to matter to individuals. Alone, wherever in the world – sometimes, things; whether occasions, milestones, realisations or simply – just moments, simply have to be recorded.

So, as we hurtle and hop to the mid-point of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the solstice approaching only three days away, today the pen in my hand seems more powerful to me than any object I currently own. While I’ll tick off any box in my head which reads

“Is this a midlife crisis?   Y N

I awoke at 5:44am having fallen asleep just under eight hours previously; tired physically and mentally drained after consuming a Greek vegan gyros and the final accompanying glass of wine. Today, Sunday the eighteenth of June is my only day off this week and the busiest day of 2023 so far – has finally tripped me up with its 158-day leg, as I feel unnaturally emotional and reflective. Having had a lot of inspiration to move ahead with personal projects this year, but with the common “park them until later” clause attached because of work duties – it all had to end sometime.

While I have six weeks remaining of the leaving notice I gave my employers a week ago – in spirit, I’ve already departed. Completing this week was the toughest physical test so far. With insufficient full-time colleagues it was always going to be so. It was the mental test which is the small victory which I’ll claim, having come through a gruelling seven months with a stomach ulcer, wisdom tooth abscess which together created chest and stomach infections and actual health scares. Sometimes you don’t recognise your own health until you can accomplish things which – eight weeks previously you’d have struggled, even failed to accomplish.

Conclusively, as I found myself welling up from feeling overcome by everything humanly possible, I felt the urge to listen to Blur’s “Modern Life Is Rubbish” which recently turned thirty – and like a classic neurodivergent flicker-frame of memories in my head, I remember the times surrounding 1992 and 1993 when I listened to it while going through a tough time, studying for A-Levels and having just lost my grandfather.

Now, at least with the experience if not the wisdom of age, I can see a way forward. A path clearing. Not a clear path, but light opening. Which in a way explain the emotion, suppressed for the better part of a year while in a health compromise. I’ve not disliked my job – more the location, the work framework and its trimmings. Like the health battles for the majority of my time there, the London south-circular road and obstructional rail strikes, forcing me to drive among the overflow of banshees and Neanderthals. Plus slaving for my modern yuppy bosses whose business model – from my perspective – encapsulates Britain in these ghastly Conservative days. Austere, while gluttonous, self-serving and socially numb.

Mitcham Junction reminded me on several occasions of Mos Eisley spaceport in the Star Wars trilogy. A week on the roads surrounding it would be proof enough of the “scum and villainy” in its demographics. Sceptical? Well, only yesterday in the anti-glamorous industrial Wandle Way area a white van (say no more, maybe?) was accelerating aggressively behind me in a 20-miles per hour zone, then overtook me and while I beeped in bewilderment, it swerved onto the main road without looking – with the driver ensuring he gave me the customary “wanker wave” for anyone questioning his right to drive like someone in a Starsky and Hutch chase.

Escaping, into hyperspace, hopefully – I will. Like the Millennium Falcon away from dirty Tatooine, into the great creative space which is London. All of these years of non-belief and unawareness surrounding my neurodivergent condition has seen me passed from pillar to post, from dormitory to den. Now; it’s time to create. While art and culture have been violently minimised by the government in the last decade, like the days of punk in the 1970s and the breakout of rave in the late eighties and early nineties, people need to use their voices.

My Glastonbury ticket finally arrived on Friday. Inadvertently and fortunately in time to go, for the first time. The shambles which is Royal Mail has been sending my mail – even the special delivery mail, like the ticket, to my ex-neighbour’s flat where he moved a fortnight or so ago. Because we share the same surname and lived in the same building, but in different flats. Keeping up with the Joneses is clearly not a policy adopted by our failed national mail delivery service. Thus, the condition that the ticket has reached me kind-of sums up the way I’ve felt this morning – a possible hot ticket which has been stamped in the incorrect places, gone the longer way around but is ready to go. I hope the sun keeps shining and that this festival – not just the biggest music festival, but this crazy carnival called life – will be living up to its promises.

Naturally, I have to give what I have to make it complete. As Shakespeare once said – “what’s past is prologue.” As Jack Nicholson’s Joker stated, “Commence au festival”.

I’m just getting started.

                                                            “Over hill, over dale,

                                                             Thorough bush, thorough brier,

                                                             Over park, over pale,

                                                             Thorough flood, thorough fire;

                                                             I do wander everywhere…”

                                                                        From A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

[nathjonesey-75]

THESE ARE THE DAYS

These are the days

Of black and white greyness,

To be totally shameless

Of your actions, words or ways

These are the deceitful days

Where duplicity and hypocrisy

Flood from low gutters to the sacrosanct monarchy

And leadership’s a myth as democracy’s in decay.

These complex, corporate lead-cast walls

Where scents of unity reek unreal

For nowhere is anyone free to feel

The liberty to walk so strong and tall

These days

As we look around and clamber to adjust

Who can honestly smile with knowing eyes

That these days of layered endless lies

Will blow to winds of change and trust?

These are the days of discovering friends

Or who they actually are

Personalities can be close but so far

From individual, needs and ends

These days where culture’s bought and flogged

For future populations’ existing space,

With no thoughts about this mutating race

Over-making itself into a tyrant’s dog

These hollow voids between high and low

Where worlds of unknown networks ploy

As slavery constructs for moguls’ toys

And the business crush in population’s spiked growth

These are the days when youth knows best

Wisdom and skill comes from online stats

With a little pouting, you’ll get where you’re at,

So finance pours in while taking rest.

When days are so fickle, so fragile and fast

And they flicker like strobe lights at night

To rubbish peaceful seconds - undermines your plight

For no faith or experience ensure your days last.

[nathjonesey-75]

Where Are We Now? Clubbing In 2022

Twenty-eight months into the unshakeable effects of COVID-19 and the nightlife – or what we used to know as the nightlife industry is seeing social shrapnel and after-effects more similar to the film 28 Days. While I’m sure many would disagree as they walk out of a super-club in a major city, but what we are seeing is more than the pandemic’s ruinous legacy.

I, along with many other industry colleagues – whether clubbers, DJs, promoters, producers or venue owners – have signed petitions over the years in protest at closures to places such as Printworks, Ministry of Sound and so on. As we all know, nightclubs and music venues have always come and gone – much at the thrifty disposal of governments, councils and property developers; most of whom would not recognise the words “cultural value” if they landed on their heads in the way of a dancehall sound system.

Somehow, despite this – we as an island of music lovers and blessed consumers of modern music, have always found a way to rebirth communal dancefloors in other guises and forms. Whether it be new musical sub-genres, venues, new movements; such as the rise of festivals, or even club nights merging; over time there has been regeneration, albeit in decreasing numbers.

By now, with that tsunamic, globally arresting virus added to the eternal circus -come-pantomime of government changes – both to those in office as well as to the policies and actions made, affecting live music – there is a desert between club nights and what was once known as a thriving network.

Those super-clubs we all wanted to save when more offices or flats were planned to be built over them – currently, they along with well-organised events assembling groups in the name of diversity (such as Homoelectric) are the only venues seeing consistent crowds on their dancefloors. From conversing with promoters of smaller events than those powerhouse brands and clubs, the bombshells left are that tickets cannot be sold to even the more discerning clubbers, unless they are at the fully-established places.

There have been ample examples in the last year where all of the promoting, efforts and collective posting from those involved in tantalising events – where few or painfully insufficient tickets have been sold. It is a wholly soul-shuddering fact of now. So many talents – widely uncelebrated or appreciated – in the British Isles have synchronised their refreshed goals to reignite smaller, more intimate venues are being shunned. In the past month, I was involved with an EP launch from a highly-regarded international label with names performing which should be drawing in crowds. In an area of London long-associated with late night debauchery, hiring a venue with no real intent to cash big fiscal rewards from the event – but to establish a sound. Essentially – this should be a given success.

Yet, that hurdle reappeared. When we as DJs, promoters and hopeful visionaries spend hours, weeks and months searching, assembling and paying out for the lower end of available clubs – but with enough performing firepower for full dancefloors in major cities, then to have hopes dashed in financial losses and less-than half-full spaces – we’re merely left to look around and scope what’s competing. The answer is usually a huge festival somewhere, or a completely inanimate population. This is not the world we created – yet an abstinence in voting, an indifference in political knowledge and a very confused population – at least regarding whom to trust has led us to this point. All with the help of puppet (some would argue, muppet) politicians being paid heavily by uber-corp businesspeople.

The phrase “bigger is better” has never been more evident. Either go big – or don’t bother. Corporation World has come out on top of the virus-crushed world as the tyrannical winner. Where once Shoreditch was the cool, grungy suburb where night-time playfulness was a rule – now, it’s akin to Dubai. High-rise glass offices and apartments with coffee shops and brand restaurants, giving as much edge as a tepid decaf latte.

What were our perceived ghettoes until only recently are now also the new play-havens. Previously negatively connected to knife crime, Hackney now boasts more of a hotbed of club culture than anywhere in London. It is quite impressive. There are more diversity-centric events causing a buzz than most non-minority group gigs. This is great to see, as far as events really “going off” and unification of people is concerned. However, in conjunction with the apparent “bigger is better” train of thought, plus the coincidence of a pandemic, the smaller nights have little hope if current trends continue.

There is so much unrecognised and numbed musical talent among us. Yet, the brand-herd mentality of the masses – hand-in-hand with “business development” closures of music venues, Spotify’s playlist culture and post-pandemic streaming have all made nightclubbing the whipping boy of tourism. Our younger generations’ fresh-yet-undefined take on DJing; emphatically since lockdown, sees an almost empty seat at their table for any other DJs other than the big names of techno, or those in residency at current super-clubs. If I’m wrong about this, I’ll happily take correction. These issues are widely unspoken and have become another stage in the asphyxiation of clubbing on the scale even recently – in the past five years – of which we knew. So, if it generates discussion, please let’s talk.

Underground dance music platform Keep Hush recently posted a survey, collected within the Generation Z community about their attitudes about nightclubbing. Whether fear has entered into the bloodstream of the 9-24s age group, or other – it could not be further away from the fervour of the youths in that bracket when the supposed Gen Z timeline began in the late nineties. Both generations Y and Z have reportedly been “Less interest in drink and drugs” since the pandemic. “Going with mates” shows to be a reason for going according to the survey. Whatever the reason – 2022 paints a very cracked picture about clubbing at each of the last three generations’ points of confused view.

We knew governments and anti-progressive; conservative thinking have always had an agenda against DJ culture. We knew anything not inspired by the mega labels does not join the algorithmic patterns established by Spotify – thus are overlooked. Still, when sweat, blood and tears are spilt by the efforts of campaigned and veteran producers to sustain this wonderful movement known as the “rave generation”, it pains to see such indifference and apathy from groups and individuals who seemingly had their best times on dance floors.

Most importantly, if anyone states that it’s the same everywhere in the world – this is untrue. While legendary DJ names, booked for events in this country have seen nights cancelled – as close-by as in the Netherlands, this is disproven. In May, I had the honour of DJing alongside progressive and tribal house pioneer Harry Lemon (Lemon8). After his set with us on an afternoon in Amsterdam had ended, he had to dash away to Rotterdam, where he played on a larger scale with far more numbers awaiting him. Germany sees the same results, according to very reliable sources.

Generations young, ageing and even older – must work together for the sake of not ploughing the land into either a complete cultural wasteland, run by technology only – or giant nondescript coffee shops. One pivotal line from Trainspotting as a movie saw Renton declare - with the romance of Bedrock’s “For What We Dream Of” playing in the background at a nightclub; “The world is changing, music is changing, drugs are changing, even men and women are changing. One thousand years from now there'll be no guys and no girls, just wankers.”  If we can’t stop the acceleration of this beigeing-out of live events , then why do we bother at all?

[nathjonesey-75]

The Dam

A grid of concrete, canal and green

Evenly share a city’s lazy charm

No excess, no bulge

No bursting tidal tension.

The monotone magnificence,

A modern history, made excellence

In the ‘Dam’s sprawling cycles.

Such whispered welcome,

While clear and unique

For willow-draped pavements

And rivery walkways,

A heart-warming capture -

Going Dutch could evoke a sudden rapture.

[nathjonesey-75]

Stylus - International Women's Day On AATM Radio

It’s a funny thought – that I find myself excited for the day of a long radio DJ event for International Women’s Day in 2022. While not being someone who makes – or even believes in New Year’s resolutions, this year was a little different; in that having finally tested positive for COVID-19 on the morning of New Year’s Eve, 2021 – then waking up slightly frustrated on the first day of the year, there appeared a feeling of resolve.

Having kept patience for twenty-one months since virus issues took over the world and created a non-normal lifestyle, it was finally time to start planning. 2022 has to be better, surely? So far, you wouldn’t believe it. Yet, planning ahead for radio shows and live events allows for freedom of thought. So, inspired by my radio colleague and friend Eddie Paradise’s show for International Women’s Day 2021 made me think it had to be a must-do event. Holding a big event with an all-female line-up on AATM Radio – plus the fact that at that point, we had no female DJs involved at the station.

Names began jumping into my mind for guest DJ invitations. Ideas for a fundraiser came to me – after all, for all the drives for gender equality over eras across my life, we are still in the position of a highly male-dominated society. Thus, in the privileged position of having a broadcasting platform – to not use it would be a waste. My own show, Stylus – was heavily influenced by listening to two of my own radio heroines, Mary Ann Hobbs and Nemone’s shows over the years on BBC Radio 6 Music. Freedom to play all tasteful genres of electronic music, intermingled with rock and other genres is what I loved so much about their shows.

As for this year’s theme on Tuesday’s global occasion - #BreakTheBias, the world needs more recognition for women and gender diversity in music. We need individual expression, not predictable, systematic masculine role delegation. It is refreshing that there are more female DJs than ever before, so we must celebrate that. Without people such as Delia Derbyshire and her pioneering electronic work of the last century – we may not be in this position today. Without my significant other, Katherine’s encouragement to retain my passion in music and DJing when I had retired it, I wouldn’t be able to hold this event or be involved in the music industry.

Here are five tracks from women who have inspired me in different musical ways through my life – via encouragement, messages, energy or significant track composition.

1. Ella Fitzgerald (with Louis Armstrong) – Summertime

Between Ella and Billie Holiday, it’s so hard to separate the best versions of this as both are queens of jazz in my view. But for what it’s worth, for the racial history connected to the song and the period, it’s a stand-out song for me and a thing of beauty.

2. Mazzy Star (Hope Sandoval) – Into Dust

One of my favourite songs of all-time. Just one which stops time and Hope Sandoval is my favourite female vocalist. The haunting, moody feeling it gives is just so special.

3. Portishead (Beth Gibbons) – Glory Box

At a time of such amazing musical diversity and during my first term at university – this album (Dummy) dropped. And stayed as one of my soundtracks to the three years which followed. And the rest of my life. Beth Gibbons just made herself a legend with the whole album and this track is timeless.

4. First Choice (Loleatta Holloway) – Let No Man Put Asunder

Possibly the most sampled track in House Music history, Loleatta Holloway’s voice would have been in so many club anthems in the nineties when I first began clubbing and DJing. Such an influence on the music world.

5. Janet Jackson – Rhythm Nation

This track has so much – energy, a message which is still relevant today and the groove which is still so spine-tingling. “With music by our sides to break the colour lines, let’s join together to improve our way of life. Join voices in protest to social injustice, a generation full of courage - come forth with me”.

[nathjonesey-75]

FOCUS AND CHANGE

For the purpose of clarity,

To collage correctly the fractures -

A jigsaw of a million memories

Thrown like hay over pastures,

Hay fresh, old and rotten;

Hay yellow and bright.

A scattering of life, top to bottom -

Straws of darkness and light.

For since this resurgence of hours

From earliest dreams until now,

These secondary mindfiles of weakness and power

Explain definition, and how.

In revisitations of forty-six years,

Of hope and of horror In manifold life,

The jigsaw repeated brings sweetness and tears.

In a fast flashback slideshow playing emotional strife -

Unexpected, the juggle of now and of then,

Particularly as answering questions, it should -

Not cloud daily life with the greyness of when -

Life’s long-swallowed hardships were cast to dead wood.

New starts and new confidence;

New company and eyes,

Not thrown to good riddance

For a new set of lies.

Attention to detail, so focused and fixed -

Being incorrect was really never a choice,

When real life alters your actions betwixt

Accidents, you scramble to recognise the weight of your voice.

Into the unknown, this dawn cries to me,

As always - each day will be seen as a chance,

To learn and survive in this weird humanity

As long as there’s time to laugh and to dance.

[nathjonesey-75]

ALL DAY HE DREAMS: A WORK IN PROGRESS

At a time of social bewilderment, where “normality” is a type of social holy grail, or at least – an unfamiliar place in 2021 – it would be a completely understandable idea for people to reconsider their lives’ paths. Eighteen months of standstill, stops and starts, redundancies, insecurities, questions and of course – deaths, it’s been a surreal time at best; a succubus of personal security and life, at worst.

It has, for me in many ways been an awakening. Not in any way a thrifty time, but as time can be cruel, it can also heal and return losses somewhat. So (if anyone did pick up on the title’s play on words), when I was diagnosed with ADHD in June; after many years of dealing, coping with mental health challenges, plus the old thing of getting older – it was not a shock, but almost a relief at first. A lifetime of questions – within myself, about myself and my own psyche, could possibly have relevant answers. Finally.

When I was referred in 2013 to a quack in Melbourne, from my own request – I then wanted to know if I had any Attention Deficit Disorder. I’ve never been a hyperactive person, but until recently, the public at large would instantly tie ADHD with a hyperactive personality. Not so. Having to accept that I suffered from depression from that diagnosis eight years ago was a learning curve, but also an aid to understanding so much about mental health. Until late last year, my wife was sent a link to newer findings about the condition. Findings more specific and more explanatory about traits in those with the condition – and of course, the rundown of those traits meant that – yes, you’ve guessed it – yours truly ticked all of those boxes.

Those questions about myself – harking back as far as early teenage, how I managed to go from expected A student to “you’ll never amount to anything” in the space of a year or two (that was my old form tutor, the quirky Miss Hutchins who told me the latter) – struggling to find any interest in anything at school is a very common teenage characteristic, so it was typically pinned to me being a disruptive little hormonal bugger.

Yet even my only interest at school – sport, or particularly football and rugby – I never really enjoyed the physical training part, just the playing part. This became more prevalent as I aged. But back then, no-one knew. Or even in my twenties when I wanted to do nothing more than get lost in partying but had no clue how to deal with my emotions, instincts and feelings which I tried incredibly hard to comprehend.

What this diagnosis this year did – was open up a whole new hormonal can of worms. At the age of forty-six, even after years and stints of counselling, the process of being examined was a completely unexpected mental probe. I’ve opened up to three or four counsellors in the last eight years in Melbourne and London. Yet, having to revisit dark patches of memory and having to ask my parents (who naturally were defensive and sceptical of me having ADHD) – was like having a vivid, randomly repeating slideshow of my whole life. The highs, the lows, the places, the people. Everything. Most surprisingly, during my consultation in June, the doctor informed me – only a few minutes into the interview that he would likely diagnose me with ADHD. The consultation was to check if I had any other conditions. At the end, there was “no hesitation” in my diagnosis. The difficulty since has been buried memories – chunks of mind which need not have been summoned, returning during a busy changing time in my life.

Another big, surprising element which emanates from me being a big bag of bizarre, mixed ingredients is what the doctors call a “superpower”. This is a comforting verb, so just humour me – I may be messed up, but I’m hopefully not nasty messed up! While I find paying attention for prolonged periods difficult or off-putting, the flip side is that I can “hyperfocus” on things which I like to focus upon. Music and DJing makes that category. While I recovered from a near-death accident due to partying on my twenty-second birthday, I taught myself to DJ. For many years I was a sucker for the party side of DJing, until sacrificing that whole part of my life for the wrong reasons and becoming a primary school teacher. However, as the old adage says, “ if you love something – set it free.”

In re-finding my way over the last decade – my passion and love returned. Yet this time, added ingredients came along – belief and purpose. One huge negative side of ADHD is that it can strip people of self-confidence. I was never ready to professionally DJ, twenty years ago when I became a full-time DJ. No street savvy, I was too anxious and scared of failure to take big steps. Plenty of ideas and ability, but never could let them flourish – along with growing through the age that DJing was still not widely accepted as a career. But the hyperfocus gives me special tricks which would probably annoy the living bejesus out of most. Like being able to listen to techno, or high-tempo music at any time of day. I know that because it happens at home now.

The fact I did get to finals of DJ competitions and play to large dancefloors back then in the early 2000s – when I wasn’t that switched on has to hold some significance for me. The fact I’ve always been a late starter in life is something has always been accepted. The fact that lockdown has given people time to consider their own paths is something I have grabbed with both arms and embraced. The fact I told my mother at the age of four – when my grandmother used to buy me singles – that I wanted to be a DJ when I became grown-up (when that growing up part happens - is still undisclosed) is a nice thought, along with the fact that my birth certificate was verified by one D.J. Dance (not a lie!). All the years of dark thoughts, feelings of uselessness, no worth or reasons for existing can be overturned. While I certainly don’t forecast I’ll be headlining festivals or club nights with big DJ names in the next twelve months (more so with the tenuous nature of the industry this year) – I also embrace the DIY nature of music and creativity. What you put in; you get back. In the past eighteen months, I’ve spoken to - and interviewed a handful of very globally respected DJs and producers, who all work jobs and would love to live comfortably as full-time performers, but cannot. This is the state of play in 2021.

So, the daydreaming I’ve always been guilty of – could now be turned to ideas. Work in progress. For someone who has held so many different jobs but not one ideal paid position – this one may be taking forever, but like good wine or whisky – becomes more valuable with age. As I mentioned in jest to one of my industry heroes on Facebook a few months ago – Steve Parry (whose skills I’ll be dancing to next weekend, incidentally), while he posted about never being too old to succeed – I joked that my first album of remixes would arrive when I am sixty. Maybe there was more substance in that statement, than I first realised.

[nathjonesey-75]

A poem I wrote in despair of badly informed people who refuse to take a pandemic seriously which has killed over 2 million people. It has been quite dispiriting for those who have kept their distance and tried to limit the risk of virus transmission - to see arrogant people walking into shops and onto public transport wearing no masks and giving staff abuse when questioned. Plus the anarchic so-called leaders of nation states who leave action too late.

[nathjonesey-75]

Blue Monday or Grey Saturday?

With all of this spare time supposedly available and in the midst of allegedly the peak of the most mentally challenging period of the Western calendar year (wintry January) – I thought maybe I should write about mental health once more. Having been reminded yesterday that next Monday, the eighteenth of January 2021 – is “officially” “Blue Monday” – it reminded me how much I despise pigeon-holing and generalising about how things affect different people at different times. Particularly when it involves mental health.

 Don’t get me wrong – I’m not claiming to have cruised my way through this never-ending pandemic with no anxiety, mental struggles or day-to-day challenges. Far, far from it. The past year has been the closest thing in all our post-WWII generational lifetimes to a wartime situation, with social responsibilities and public shutdown being necessary, while inadvertently highlighting the gigantic social cracks in our human setup in more of a way than we could have imagined. Viruses, governments and equally-important - people’s responses to these prevalent themes have been anything but inspiring.

As much as my friends roll my eyes at my “grumpy old man” sarcastic misanthropy, the one thing I do believe in is to at least try to fix ourselves as a species and our own approaches; to at least give us hope; if nothing else in finding the one thing which realistically we can never truly expect to have – harmony. The job that we as collective people can - and should have to face, yet in 2020 – while all of the finger-pointing and blame-mongering to other ethnic minorities has seemed the predominant method of approach from the dominant, Caucasian privileged populations of the world. We must remember how populated this planet is, in addition. For all of the thrills, build-ups, and with all of the excitement people fill their own lives from having children – in a world of gross overpopulation where social equality cannot be reached - as long as jobs are continually automated and yet the world keeps multiplying its numbers – we can at least try to consider where we must improve.

 One high profile death which did affect me last year was that of musician, DJ and visionary record producer, Andrew Weatherall. In talking about feeling misanthropic about pop music, he said:

  “the reason people are misanthropic about the human race is because they know the human race can be better.”

 If we can send people to the moon; if we can create the most incredible machines, if we can heal sicknesses; or write the most incredible books or music, or paint, or build the most astounding pieces of architectural work – then we must have the ability to learn, teach and improve ourselves and not retain this “I don’t need to be told anything” attitude. Therefore when we define our modern culture by “reality television” and how watchable it is based on extreme personalities – then I’d prefer to visit a zoo than engage in that culture. My mental health is always improved by learning from human progress than in regressing to watching adults acting like children, as an entertainment form. 

For mental health and the science of psychology and how cognitive behaviour studies – it has to be seen as one of the better, more progressive sides of western culture in the past twenty years – the ongoing development of techniques to deal with mental health issues. It has brought far more people together and the awareness of triggers for mental disturbance. Twenty years ago, society in general would never have been so open to the discussion of depression as they are today. Yet the state of the world today is more geared towards constant rises in suicide, with my own age group in England and Wales – the 45-49-year-old male being the highest in rates of people to take their own lives (equally the same age group with 35-44-year-old men in Scotland figures for Northern Ireland were unavailable), on this little island.

The ever-decomposing job market in areas away from larger cities is a red flag for affected areas. In an age of technological booms, stimulation is one of the most sought-after elements. It’s easy to say to the average person “read a book” or “go for a walk” to release endorphins – for those in lower educational living areas, where it rains regularly, how much choice is there, really?

 Speaking from my own perspective – the bizarre timing of moving from Australia back to Britain during this pandemic has been life-changing more than I could have expected. Seven months later, having ridden the waves of hope, health habitat-adapting and hydrogenised ignorance in the atmosphere – one of the sternest and most surprising difficulties of the last month for me – has been dealing with cold temperatures! Eleven years shared between Qatar and Australia (and not even the warmest part of Australia) must have melted my tolerance level for icy conditions! Which, in turn has made the January lockdown cabin fever – more a hurdle than ever before.

 In other words, while triggers for anxiety and depression are widely similar and recognisable in people (such as fear, social situations) – each person has their own personal ones. While I used to raise an eyebrow during Melbourne’s hottest month at the suggestion of Blue Monday in the heat over there – it is a stark shock to the system once you spend weeks on end  with only seven-to-eight hours of daylight back in London’s winter – and as much warmth as the top shelf of a fridge. This, of course before even considering the coinciding wild viruses, social lockdown - and anarchic governments with the hopeful leadership of confused lemmings. “Normal life” as we knew it before 2020 – would bring extra consideration and depth of life to our daily existences as well. 

 January in Melbourne – for all its sunshine and blue skies, could easily warrant restlessness and sadness for some. From Christmas week to the last week of January – a vast number of businesses close for summer holidays (not just factory fortnight, as we see in Britain!) Lack of daily tasks and routine is often a trigger for anxiety and depression, so whether “Blue Monday” could rear its ugly head – not only on a different day, but totally regardless of sky colour, or certainly the colour of one’s skin – is one characteristic of how these mental issues can be recognised.

One tactic I will be using as reverse psychology for my self next Monday, or perhaps even before then, if needs be – will be listening to New Order’s Blue Monday. Loudly and guiltlessly. Probably followed by other tracks of defiance. This is my way of dealing with the invisible, overhanging misery gas. Please look after yourselves and each other. We do know how to do that, remember?

[nathjonesey-75]

And When This Is All Over

[nathjonesey-75]

2021 in Electronic Music: A New Hope?

A long time ago in a galaxy far away…there was the nineties system. In that system, folk came together in happiness to celebrate together at places called nightclubs, where DJ masters would enthral, guide and entertain the folk by composing and conducting a range of sounds. The people would dance throughout the time of the stars, until the great star would rise – and folk would rest. Or they would fly to another dimension and be led by other masters to more happiness.

                                                ____________________

 It all sounds like a fairy-tale, doesn’t it? The world which was once a reality feels like it needs Jedi-style leaders to save it from the abyss, otherwise known as traditionalist business hell. The abyss which sees concrete futures made without character, without expression, art or creativity – where culture could be as one-dimensional as the spurious garbage emanating from the mouths of those supposedly in charge of moving nations to brighter futures.

 Also, without too much finger-pointing, 2020 in itself has been like a meteor which has hit the creative world like an alien rock with no direction. Furthermore, without conspiracy theorising (about custom-made laboratory viruses in secretive lands – oops, got sucked in there) and observing the hard, indigestive facts of October 2020 – where no end date is presentable as to when the uninvited virus will be vanquished. Can we either look to the future with hope for electronic – and indeed, all live music? Or are we to fight the good fight for as long as we can, to abate the ‘dark side of the force’ in corporate-led governments and cold business?

 During the damaged and lost eighties – socially and politically – times were hard unless you were a yuppie whose “enterprise” in the way of sole trading was rewarded on the stock exchange. Yet, what came from that mass hardship for everyone else – was what made us not only dream – but live out our dreams. Make dreams for others.

 Music was in the post-punk, electro-pop era. Hip-hop was sky-rocketing across the world, from New York – across the USA and over to every Western nation. As was House Music. As was Techno. The DIY ideal which once applied to Punk Rock in the mid-to late seventies now had been adopted by DJs. Is that a pair of Technics 1210s? Is that a Roland synthesizer? Ok, let’s do something.

 As Resident Advisor’s mini-documentary “How Punk Shaped Electronic Music” - about the two genres’ correlations – it says

      “The most radical part of it was an idea – if you want to make music, You don’t need a big record deal; a big, fancy studio – or even much musical talent. You just need the sheer force of will - to get out there and do it.”

This was never more prevalent than in both Chicago, where House Music was developed – and in Detroit, where technology’s advances in electronic devices saw Techno appear in the latter part of the decade. Still, the concept of not having to possess “much musical talent” was not necessarily true when it applied to some of the most celebrated electronic musical doctors. Larry Heard played several musical instruments from a young age. Underworld played instruments even before forming their first band, Screen Gemz – back in 1975. Sasha was a classically-trained pianist before ever seeing a DJ. I could go on.

So, in light of recent debates as to whether these performers, their industries and followings are “viable” for financial support during this degraded and destructive year  – I don’t need to revisit the figures of economic value for which our industry produces. As for The Stranglers’ Hugh Cornwell interview on Good Morning Britain on October the 9th – he said, “House Music is the worst song writing….there isn’t any song writing skills in House Music, for me.” Regardless of his own successes in the late seventies and early eighties – this is as moot a point to be found, as would be for anyone over sixty-five who have never understood – or tried to understand electronic music. Except by now, you must have been self-isolating from the wider world out there, where times have moved on from only guitars in song writing.

   Larry Levan was instrumental in writing music for Grace Jones, while The Stranglers were at their peak of popularity. Why did Madonna recruit both Sasha and Paul Oakenfold to help compose her tracks over twenty years ago? Why did Danny Boyle curate the 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony with the musical aid of Rick Smith from Underworld? Why did Kendrick Lamar win awards for tracks with lyrics which read; 

"Shit on anybody, I'm a rappin' Porta-Potty/And I probably gotta dump right now". 

Hardly poetry. You could throw mud and hit anything if it’s about “bad” music nowadays. Ironically, John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk magazine described that genre as "rock and roll by people who didn't have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music". Except Punk Rock lives on in this anthem-led society of 2020. 

While Cornwell’s empty shot at House Music was filmed seemingly at home in West London, I would urge him to use his ideal location and visit the Design Museum in Kensington, where the Electronic Music exhibition is held until February 2021. The opinion of lack of skills required in writing songs – would surely be under further threat at the display of Jeff Mills’ instrument engineering, or Aphex Twin’s multi-level track and video choreography. The words “out of touch” are, I feel – valid in this case. Granted, every genre has producers who don’t try hard but write cheap, catchy songs – think of all the one-hit-wonders in the seventies and eighties. “Shaddap You Face”, “Star Trekkin”, “Puppy Love”…

These were songs made for either fun, children’s television, or for undisclosed reasons by each composer – suffice to say that none involved House Music. Yet over thirty-five years of House Music walking in unison with the rise of technology and evolution of nightclubs and festivals – has meant that all instruments and now software are taught and developed at schools, colleges and universities across the world. I would be highly confident of being able to write a cheesy, tacky and bad track in one day – whether I wanted the financial profit from it or not – would be a matter for my bank balance after 2020 (wink-wink, nudge-nudge…)

For future reference, with mists of all colours being spread across the musical galaxy as we enter the last two months of what has been an abysmal anomaly year, the anger generated by punk was closed down quickly by the governments of the late seventies. It was beyond saving as a regular, viable movement by the time the eighties commenced. Its direct anti-establishment nature would have made sure of that, were it in the situation we now face. 

But that did not stop its musicians from carrying on making music. Post-punk continued its energy and old regime defiance through bands inspired by what came before. Bands such as New Order, Public Image Limited, Talking Heads and The Fall - all had messages and attitudes carried from previous years. Genres were reinvented and music adapted. Moving into the unknown may be unclear and unnerving right now. Yet, fighting for what we can recreate should be a binding motive for DJs, promoters, clubbers, electronic artists and everyone involved in our scene. 

From recently looking back at a haul of 1990s editions of Mixmag and Ministry magazines I had stowed away, it’s clear we had it “damn good” at that time. We may – and highly likely never will return to that level of hedonism, heights of being spoilt rotten for wealth of music heard for the first time, the talent and progress of the producers guiding us through, skills of DJs and grandiosity and grunginess of clubs which we visited. We do, however, have these imprints on our brains and know what works. Living solely from memories is not what I am advocating – using memories and what we have today, as a global community to post flagposts of how the “underground will live forever” – in believing our clubs can be reopened and that celebrating our own culture at future parties, is worth the time spent in doing so. Do it yourself can work, as was ever the case. 

[nathjonesey-75]

Heroes

As a sprog I yearned to visit

Your superhero streets, 

To wonder at the city heights

And your multi-cultures - meet.

For someone from a small town,

In the first of colonised lands -

Where industry was closed down

By our next-door neighbours’ plans.

As a boy, I watched your thrilling cop shows

Where everyone had a gun

And happy endings came to those

Who worked the law for fun.

I fell in love with many leaders -

In a myriad of different fields,

Sporting, singing, acting genius

With the magic they did wield.

Then, as I grew I saw horror tales

Of murder and oppression -

Where the so-called magic seemed to fail

In the case of equilibrium.

Those heroes who taught me to run

And rap and sing and deejay

Were treated as inferior ones

Like shrapnel on a freeway.

My heart bled like it lost a friend

A friend cheating me and lying -

Still, today the lying sees no end

While innocents keep dying.

Now, many years since my young days

Your superhero streets still need them

For your enemies in many ways

Which asphyxiate your freedom

Are so-called, leaders, charlatans -

Who still insist on defence

Being the most important thing to man

Our world needs to reject this nonsense.

For my heroes now are ones who fight

Each day against this bias -

Who lose their loved ones to the might

And corruption of white liars.

United - you can never be

As long as your stripes are bloody

From stars which shine infinitely

After losing life pointlessly.

My heroes are beautiful black

With blood the same colour as mine -

But respect for them my bloodline lacks

For privilege is part of white spine.

We can’t allow more lives to be taken -

Change must happen, action due

It’s not up to ethereal makers -

Must be up to me and you.

[nathjonesey-75]

A Decade Away

In August (which already feels like last year), I passed over an interesting date on my calendar, as on the 22nd – somewhat incredulously – I had been living abroad from Wales and Britain for ten years. A decade outside Europe. Ten years ago upon leaving, I had nothing to lose but a wide-open space in which to travel, discover and meet all variations of people, cultures and places.

  In this crazy time, I have lived on two continents, changed careers (a few times again); witnessed modern slavery, seen the remnants and after-effects of colonialism in new and old lands, learnt stuff, dropped habits, restarted those habits and dropped them again, realised what I missed while sacrificing those things for work; confirmed myself as an atheist, met someone in another land - who grew up, just a mile away from me – and married them; learnt more stuff - had young students die tragically, lost friends to cancer, worked under ridiculous conditions, made friends and lost acquaintances; had lots of surgery, seen equality rights improve but be violently opposed, seen my country finally qualify for a football finals tournament, owned my first dogs and love them like kids, seen the horrific, evil right-wing shadow cast over the world so bewilderingly subtle that I cannot recognise the world from ten years ago. And breathe.

 As I pulled away from the glamour of Llanelli railway station on that date in August a decade ago; parents tearful (I was thirty-four and had left several times by this point – go figure); it seemed like the adventure it was about to become. Like the Lord Of The Rings story, I was to travel through some questionable places but alternatively - observe sights I wouldn’t have imagined. In my first hour of Doha life, seeing a woman in different attire to the usual Trostre car park attire in 2009 – ordering a shop worker around like a slave. “Get me this…get me that…” while repeatedly prodding his shoulder. Mind blown. Like I was watching a rich Caucasian American family from the late 1700s - jump to the 21st Century with their shopping techniques (Just to clarify - it was the manner and behaviour, not the attire which caused the bigger shock). The aisles of Asda in West Wales suddenly glittered with freedom. Yet somehow I stayed in the dusty, humid backward land for four years.

  Not having record shops, comic or other book shops nearby – and the advent of a pub being a ‘membership only’ do – with very little else to do in Qatar, became a four-year strain. Although, the carnage of Friday brunch – paying the equivalent of £40-80, depending on the hosting hotel – for stuffing your face with all readily available food and guzzling sparking wine or beer for three-to-four hours until you stumbled out, into the hot sun – had a degree of rebellious sun about it. Away from the narrow lanes of daily Qatari constitution and archaic religious laws.

 Realising that Melbourne was an escape route (by this time both Mr and Mrs Jones were infused by the travel bug – a return to Blighty was not an option), we visited the city in February 2013; kindly subsidised by Katherine’s future – and previous – employers. Our first encounter starting on a high street (for more than one intended pun reason) being that of intoxicated-to-oblivion bodies being dragged out of both McDonalds and KFC on a Friday night. Now this is more like home. High streets with open drunkenness and debauchery. Sign us up.

  Not only that, but the self-appointed, clever social secretary – Mrs Jones – had organised what was to become my personal Australian favourite – its wine, through a vineyard tour of the Yarra Valley. If we could have been sold Melbourne – and Australia – any better in one week, I would be surprised. Plus the British and Irish Lions were touring here from June that year, so it could possibly be a dream come true, of seeing one of their test matches. It had to be Melbourne.

 Of course, when you’re itching to leave a spiritually toxic place, yearning for a new social catapult in a new home – positives are mostly what you’ll see. Which is why living around the world – leaving the rough times with hope; expecting – or at least wishing for the rough to become smoother – it can be the most exposing and openly blatant aspect of life as an expat. Not knowing what will come next can be an exciting part of an adventure. It can also be of huge personal detriment should you not hit the ground running and settle into the new environment. While I have lived with immense pride at how my wife’s career has glowed in Melbourne, to say my working journey in Australia has been stop-start is like saying a Tarantino move ‘may contain violence’.

  We can all live in a media-controlled bubble, wherever we are in the world. I would guess that most British people above thirty-five years of age would retain the idea that Australia is more alike the sun-drenched, ‘barbie’-having, beer-drinking eternal summers, as seen on Paul Hogan’s old adverts, Home and Away – as well as England’s Ashes tours are played in hot conditions. The thing with the validity of Paul Hogan’s Foster’s commercials – as good as they were, no-one in Australia drinks it. If it were the only thing available at a party, I’d have water. That’s always been my opinion of the uric juice. Australians have a joke about why they sell it to Britain because ‘Poms are stupid enough to drink it’. Thus, the irony and paradox of Foster’s being a symbol of Australia – it is not like Britain in the sun. You have to live here to know the hidden nuances. Sometimes, the hard way.

 For instance, no-one would have told you that despite all your experience in certain industries in Britain – if you haven’t got “local” experience in Melbourne, then you won’t be employed (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-29206260). Hundreds of my unanswered job applications are testimony to that. Not many people can identify a Welsh accent. People will guess you’re Irish, English and Scottish - then run out of ideas of where else you could possibly come from. Rugby is not important in Melbourne (despite Australia having won the World Cup twice). Neither is driving or speaking fluently. Just abbreviate everything and end each word with an ‘o’. First world problems for graduates of an English and Culture degree, who still value their own culture and wonder why professional instructors are not mandatory in a Western, developed country.

  First world problems or not – a decade later, third world problems seem to be entering the first world. Tomorrow, the general election of the four nations which are anything but united by royalty – and would certainly find it difficult to describe Britain as ‘great’ these days; regardless which side, fragment or definition of politics – you follow. It has become so depressingly divisive that it has split families – and societies right through those home nations. Politics across the world has become so murky and manipulative that no good comes of it. Social media, fake media, fake politicians, social tension – nothing is real. Apart from the poverty, confusion and disunity which has come from misinformation, lies and no real leadership.

 When I left Europe, I wanted to find both myself – and my home. As mentioned, I had nothing to lose at the time – had my country been a thriving place, filled with opportunities – very much how Australians feel about their country – I may not have felt such wanderlust in my veins. I wanted to find my place. A place of belonging. In my home land, not only is it an industrial corpse which has become increasingly depressing to see its degradation in the past decade with each visit – but now won’t trust anyone so will seemingly vote for the ones who have harmed it most. If I really believed statistics being published this week about voting trends; Welsh voters now have lost their own moral compass and found a new level of Stockholm Syndrome, it would seem. My fingers are crossed to breaking point – in hope that those figures were nothing but propaganda. In 2019, anything is possible.

    Wales – which has never had a Conservative majority – and rightly so considering its utter negligence of Wales - also now even being bandied as ‘West Britain’ by the future plans of the aristocratic parties, based in England – relies on tourism and the export of agriculture to survive. Universities help finance some aspects of the very few small cities we have, but outside of these urban entities, there is little growth. Considering the gentrification of larger cities (mostly in England) in the 2000s, isn’t it high time it happened in provincial towns?

 The fact that some of my family – have told me they would probably vote Conservative this week – shows the predicament and alienation which is comparable to that of the 1930s in Germany and brought forth intolerance of racial and cultural variations. “Let’s vote for those who promise the most, have the least recent blemishes on their vague moral compasses – and hope for the best” – seems to be the strategy of casting a vote. The state of the NHS alone should be enough to veer the vote away from Captain Buffoon and his Blue Bigot Army. Elimination should be purely by track record, or by granting new chances. Not by being duped by rhetoric which will be forgotten in six months’ time apart from when a journalist raises the point - when it’s too late. Being loyal to your punisher is such a classist, British trait which seems to be perpetuated.

 Now, at the end of the decade – it should be said that I probably still have little to lose. With no dependents apart from my little canine children, the next chapter now depends on what effects Brexshit will have on travel and work opportunities in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. As an ex-teacher, hospitality pro and semi-professional DJ and producer – using the “anything is possible” to my advantage is the watchword. With social and international reasonability at an almost-anarchic state of suspended reality, the “one life, one chance” motto has to be imprinted on my mind.

  In my mid-forties, it feels like that the wanderlust needs to be summoned again. I’m finding it harder enduring bad road rules, taking orders from millennials who think they know everything, missing watching my teams at reasonable times, missing festivals which only happen up north, missing comedy such as Vic and Bob; time zone difficulties and being so far away from my interests, as well as friends and family. Coming to Melbourne with a completely open mind was something I’d repeat, should I head for a new habitat. Bearing in mind and researching cultural differences is definitely something I’d do, emphatically and thoroughly. The older you get, alarm bells ring louder with each situation. You just don’t want those bells to be a daily chime, after a while. So the most liveable place for me - would have an essential checklist of being – tolerant, multicultural, musical, a maximum of 3 hours’ time difference to Britain, with an effective infrastructure and not over-expensive. Now, where could that be?

[nathjonesey-75]

A Day In A Life

They say retrospect is a wonderful thing. To be able to review; objectively and honestly – moments, times or even periods of time. Critically or loosely. Positively or negatively. Sometimes that essential clarity of thought cannot be granted until enough time has passed, as the mind (it has been known) to play tricks on us. In this particularly unique instance it has taken me this long – twenty-two years, in fact – to be openly able to absolutely look everything in the eye and be brutally frank. To the point where it’s almost completely written in the third-person, about another individual.

 I suppose it could be as much the self-therapy I’ve wanted to gift myself, as it is hopefully a document of mental health learning for others. Tomorrow I will turn the grand, fuddy-duddy, middle-aged, wrinkle-washed age of forty-four. Double the age of probably the most pivotal and instrumental birthday anniversary of my life. Those who have known me forever will know why – but as I try not to assume that I know everything about everyone – this is a story from a very jittery life journey. Having lost people; friends and acquaintances from my generation to mental health struggles and coping mechanisms which didn’t work – “every little helps”, as Tesco says.

 On Wednesday, May 7th, 1997, I travelled back to Nottingham; to my university life, having visited my mother after a write-off, nasty car accident had broken both her legs. She used to tell me up to that point “I’ve been driving twenty-five years and had no accidents, so don’t tell me how to drive!” When the time had clearly come to blemish the self-prognosed perfect driver’s record – it was done in destructive style. Anyway, having left my pin-legged mother in Llanelli, I returned to pre-arranged birthday drinks in Nottingham. A month or so away from completing my BA (Hons) Communication Studies course, this was to be probably the last big celebration before a month of coursework was to be completed. Life was good (apart from the aforementioned Mrs Damon Hill-Jones’s road exploits).

 After a few hours of not paying for any drinks, I felt on the brink of being annihilated - should I drink any more. So, after running into my work colleague from my part-time job at the Beatroot nightclub, the two of us diverted from Sam Fay’s late bar – to his nearby flat, near Nottingham castle, so I could chill out for an hour. The plan was to return and see the night out until 2am. Whether the walk and fresh air had helped or not, I had a semi-second wind. We got to his flat and my ideals of birthday grandeur got the better of me. I wanted a bottle of bubbles. At that time of night, the only place I could get one would be a nightclub, so we ordered a taxi to take us to…sigh….The Black Orchid. A cheesy, yet huge club in the enterprise park which had Wednesday student night on. Did I need the bottle? No, yet the cab was booked.

 It was at this point that my mental hard drive crashed. My next memory was waking up in a hospital bed, the following afternoon, with not only my friends around the bed, but my father as well. I opened my eyes and asked; “What happened?”, as if I was in a scene of a film where the character had woken up in heaven – only to be sent back to earth with a completely abstract life narrative to the one which was being played up to the Wednesday. Turns out I had probably had another drink at my friend’s, at some point of the night consumed a small amount of amphetamines, then passed out on the first-floor landing, but falling sharply down the twenty feet of stairs on my head, all the way.

Now, with music playing loudly, my workmate and his flatmate heard nothing. It was their neighbour who heard a large ‘thud’, who rang the doorbell in concern which alerted them, along with the taxi which had arrived outside. There was blood everywhere. I had fractured my skull, torn nerves while breaking my nose and had a slight haemorrhage on the side of my head. Five days were spent in Nottingham’s QMC Hospital, mostly sleeping. On the Saturday, I remember getting out of bed in a complete fuzzy daydream, wearing only one of those crappy bed gowns; walking to the toilet with the nurse calling after me “Nathan! Where are you going?” “Home!” was the abrupt, muddled answer. I urinated, went back to bed and proceeded to enter hibernation once again.

 Doctors said I was lucky to be alive. There was a dent at the front of my cranium, around an inch long. Had that been an inch higher in position on my skull – I was told I would have died. Those nerves I severed were my smell and taste nerves, so I’ve had very diminished senses in those departments, since. Most pivotal – was my doctor, back in Llanelli; once I returned and spent another five days in Prince Phillip Hospital, he said “You will experience some depression and levels of fatigue.” Immediately, in my head I decided – no I won’t. Not the depression, anyway. I’ll find a way of keeping lively and feeling good. The fact Being ruled out of playing rugby or football for at least nine months became a huge problem. My penultimate match played before the incident was for Wales Students Rugby League team against Scotland. The previous summer I had trained pre-season with my beloved Llanelli RFC, with the likes of Stephen Jones and Ieuan Evans; taking my fitness to a new level. I was twenty-two with the world at my feet. There was no way I was stopping. Unsurprisingly, it took a very short space of sleepy, anxious time to realise I’d have to succumb to the doctor’s prognoses.

 Panic attacks began, embarrassingly in public while visiting a friend for their birthday in August 1997, having seen out three months of ‘no alcohol’ from my doctor’s orders. I had no energy. Not even enough to complete my coursework, so Nottingham Trent University gave me an extension of three months – to the end of August, to submit my work. However, I was living away from the university and my beloved friends. What the hell was happening? No energy; forced to live with my mother and brother while my father and sister both lived in Cardiff; both studying for their new careers. Here beginneth the hardest years of my life.

 By the end of 1997, I had managed to graduate successfully, but I was by then suffering heavy depression and anxiety, fuelled by the loneliness of having no friends around; not knowing why I was on earth and wanting to die. I had lost all tracking of whom I was, what I was doing and where any of it was going. Plus, glandular fever had bitten me hard, taking a month out of my glorious, progressive freezer job at Asda.

In January 1998, I was charged with drink-driving, having driven home on Christmas week with no care for repercussions; caught on camera making a U-turn in a forbidden area. While living at home with my mother caused all sorts of tension, arguments and vitriol, the only thing which kept me partially sane was my first set of turntables. With very few points of company around in a reversal of vibrant, university life – it was me; and the decks. Over time, it became a slow, fearful return to “normal” life. I have never been a naturally confident person – easily intimidated in the past by louder, overconfident characters, but this new anger in me – for what I didn’t know – became something, someone – I had to allow to be played out. Not a villain, but an even more insecure little boy to that one on the morning of May 7th, 1997. Unapologetically cavalier, which only cost me at times – and those who suffer depression will know how past mistakes can eat the soul of those who made the mistakes.

For many years I refused to accept depression and anxiety were a part of me. My mother has since told me she believed it began with my grandfather’s death when I was seventeen, but I know from looking deeply inside myself, from exploring instincts I’ve always had, but with which I’ve had to become accustomed – questions I’ve asked in early teenage years, that my fears and those scared instincts – must be tied into my neurological wiring. Throughout my early twenties, from that point I lived out wild teenage years – years locked away inside the vault of a strict upbringing. Partying. Having to surrender, also – any instinctive passion or talent I had for playing rugby, from being oversensitive to knockbacks and increasing lack of confidence.

 Seventeen thousand career changes later, I find myself at almost full-circle completion point. Only now, a bit of maturity (which I appreciate) makes the Peter Pan in me; hopefully a more reasoned character and person. I went into teaching (having told myself at eighteen I would never become a teacher) to try forging a predictable, 9-to-5 life for myself in a past relationship. To try proving to myself I was a virtuous individual (ironically omitting the thought that there are vile and immoral teachers out there too – luckily not many, but there are!) among the clouds of twentysomething decisions – without realising I didn’t have to almost burn myself out a second time, by becoming something I was not aligned with - to prove I could be virtuous and good. Back, now; working in hospitality and trying to revitalise my DJ career (as that’s what I always wanted to do), playing music I love and believe in – rather than what I fooled myself into thinking others wanted, in those hazy days.

 Personally, visiting a psychologist in 2013 (my own choice) to try fathoming whether I had ADHD – which could explain these seventeen-thousand career changes, as well as lack of interest in my later school days – may have given me the road signs I needed. Being told it wasn’t attention deficit, but depression – being medicated has been like having a carbon monoxide fan for the air I breathe. It can always seep back into the oxygen channels, but I have now the ability to blow it away. The ridiculousness of life is something I have to laugh at – I don’t believe in staying miserable (despite being the younger Victor Meldrew). I appreciate the chances I have now and my family life. The point being – the imbalanced brain wires may have always been there but became violently exacerbated by this accident. I cannot stress enough how important it is to consult a mental health professional. Drop the pride, the façade and ideals of grandeur – everyone has some kind of something going on. Some are better are dealing with it than others.  Some can’t hold on in the battle.

 In one of those seventeen thousand careers – twenty years ago, in fact – I worked at what was, pretty much – an abuse line, call-centre; at British Gas in Cardiff. One reason I didn’t last there was because I am not a salesman. Plus, I’m an impatient non-salesman. In this job, the department had to deal with calls from people who had been mis-sold contracts by field agents, selling gas and electricity. On one memorable occasion an English man called, calling me a “f***ing c***” for asking him to explain – a little slower – what exactly happened and how he was conned. When I told him I’d hang up if he didn’t change his abusive tone, he replied “Sorry, I haven’t had my medication today, have I love?” To which his wife, shouting in the background answered, “No, he hasn’t.”

 I still laugh at that, knowing that’s the bar of communication I’d prefer to stay beneath.