365

just an excerpt from this years project..I'll put a sample up here every month or so..

January 1^st. New Years Day and all that entails. The fear of a blank page, both literally and metaphorically. I know I have to write something, it is gnawing away. Having pondered for a while –well, for about an hour or so-it’s going to be 365 chapters (or is it 366? Is 2012 a leap year?).One per day.  500 words each and every day. This may seem like a diary and may run the risk of running into one. But it won’t. This is the plan.

My iPod has 9553 tracks on it. It is stuck on this as I cannot sync it and therefore is set. Fixed in stone so to speak. Preserved in electronic amber. I will set it to shuffle and write about one track per day in a type of Dice Man style just to see where it ends up. It may be solely a critique of the track, random musings about the artist or more autobiographical. It will vary each day depending on what track turns up, how I am feeling, if the track is any good (there are some stinkers floating around),if I am all music-ed out.

Sitting here on a rainy New Year’s Day think I should set some very basic ground rules. Whether I stick to them is another matter. But this is the start.

The first track each day that comes up on shuffle. Even if it’s a b side that I have never heard before. There is so much on it that I have downloaded and forgotten about and never heard, let alone properly listened to.

The exception is below. Then, and only then, will I skip.

Only one track per artist. There is, I think, a definite preponderance, a significant weighting towards Bob Dylan, The Fall and Bruce Springsteen and therefore that it could well end up being a bit of writing just about them alone. There has been enough stuff written about Dylan that I don’t need to add anymore.

Compilations of various artists are fair game though, even if the tracks are very similar in style. I may just go off on a tangent if there are seven consecutive tracks from the Goodbye Babylon 6 cd gospel anthology.

It will be in some ways, a bit historical, being that the iPod is stuck and filled up with what was I up to listening in early 2009. Being hip as fuck though this will not stop me slipping in references to what’s going on now in 2012.

I pondered upon a system more structured than this. Maybe alphabetical i.e. start at A on Jan 1^st then B for Jan 2^nd etc? Too regimented. Maybe tie it up with the months then i.e artists whose names being with J for January etc. But that is too calculated and anyhow bearing in mind we have June and July to contend with that would be a quarter of the year gone on one letter

So. Stick to the original plan. 365 (366?) tracks out of 9553. That’s enough to be going on with. Let’s see where this journey leads to.