I would lock myself up in my room and listen to every CD in the house for hours. Find some songs I loved, play them on repeat, dancing around by myself and recording myself or mixes on a tape player. My parents would find me sitting on the floor in a pile of albums from wall to wall. I’d take the tram downtown to spend the entire afternoon digging through CDs, trying them on for fit, spending my entire allowance on a small selection. I sent mix CDs to my friends around the world, who had moved a lot since I went to an international school where the average stay was 2-3 years. I spent weeks deciding on which 30 seconds of music would accompany me on my high school graduation walk up to the podium (I went old school, “I am what I am” by Gloria Gaynor. Yeah, my taste hasn’t changed much, and it’s one of many reasons that made me just as popular a kid in high school as you might imagine, hahaha…) 

Now that I’m “grown up”, nothing has really changed. If I fall in love with you or we’re good friends, you’ll still get music from me left and right. I spend evenings listening to boxes and drawers full of my old compilations, discovering quirky songs online, bombarding my poor Tumblr and Facebook friends/followers with them, seeking out small, intimate concerts, large music festivals and great house music gigs to spend my weekends at. I even plan vacations around concerts, spending a weekend in LA, or, hell, London, for a good show. And now, after over quarter of a century of tip-toeing around the waters, I finally started taking singing lessons and trying to understand recording and all that. 

I’ve had a few people ask “how did you know about this?” in reference to events, songs, etc. The answer is simple: I live for this stuff. You know how everyone has that thing were they look at the time and wonder where the last five hours went? Well, all of the above —- that’s my “thing” that makes time and endorphins fly. 

You know the theory that what you should do with your life for total fulfillment is not something you are going to stumble upon in some a-ha moment when you’re an adult? It’s lot like I am going to go try rock climbing or yoga tomorrow and suddenly the heavens will open in clarity and I will know - yes! This is what has been missing all my life! This is what I want to do! No, bull shit. What you really want to do with your life is what you’ve always done.

I love music, and I think it was about damn time I started really doing something about it. Not that I have some sort of delusion that this will easily go anywhere. No, but… I’d be damned if I die with this passion living only behind closed doors. If I fail, ok, but I am done with letting the fear of failure stop me from trying. That’s no way to live and die. So, here goes!

2012, the year of stopping to be such a timid dip-shit about my passion.