Spacing Out

Resting on a sofa alone in a dim room, the faint sound of heartbeats layered over the ticking of a clock broke the silence of the night, subtly begins a musical journey of an iconic album from one of my favourite bands, Pink Floyd.

Being born in the second half of the 70s, the age of this record playing on the turntable is older than myself; as this piece of vinyl record belongs to my father and he probably purchased it before my arrival into this world. "The Dark Side Of The Moon" recorded by Pink Floyd is a concept album, released on March 1st, 1973 which makes it half a century old. 

This is the album I turn to whenever I feel somewhat lost or need to just lay back and relax. In my personal opinion, it contains the heart and soul of music-making with a touch of art. 

Taking a sip from the glass filled with single malt whiskey, sounds of clocks ringing filled the room signalling one of my favourite songs "Time" is about to play.  The words from this beautifully written song sparked thoughts through my mind, describing a reality we still face today; something which Roger Waters could foresee fifty years ago. But, I shall leave the interpretations to listeners as the meaning of the lyrics may differ to everyone. 

This song made me ponder about the past achievements in my life if there were even any. Now let's explore…

Nothing significant happened during my childhood days. I was a normal boy growing into a teenager, just like any other kid. Time was spent studying at school, taking Electone classes at Yamaha Music School, occasionally playing games on those old 386 and 486 personal computers and of course having innocent crushes on girls as well.

Skipping forward to 19 years old. That is the age when I wanted to accomplish something which I really love to do. So here are some of the things which I have put in effort to try. 

1) Forming a band - It is everyone's dream to be a rock star, isn't it? With the knowledge I learnt from playing the Electone organ, I formed a band with some friends. We spent time playing music inside jamming studios, recording the sessions on cassette tapes to be used as material at a later stage, thereafter adding words to the music after some re-arrangement. Several recorded demo tapes were sent to local music magazines as well as event organisers but we did not manage to score one single gig. Probably we sucked. LOL!

2) Be a DJ - This is probably an achievement for myself and maybe the most memorable one. It took me a while to learn the art of mixing - making the transition from one song to another as flawless as possible. The genres I played were house, deep house, progressive house, minimal techno and down-tempo music. I ended being more successful with DJing than playing in a band as I managed to perform at events, clubs, lounges, private parties, record stores; both in Singapore and overseas. My friends and I even did some internet radio shows as well. However, as the years went by, the technology supporting DJs has evolved using computers with software, making turntables turning into antiques. During this period, I also became focused on my business and gradually faded away from performing at gigs.

3) Start a club in university - When I was a university student in Brisbane, I got to know a fellow student who is an Australian, through an advertisement he posted in the university's newsletter looking to start a new club for collectors of vinyl records, regardless of the genre. Although he wanted members who only collect vinyl records at first, I suggested to him if we include DJing as an activity of the club, more students may find it interesting to join us. Furthermore, DJs collect records as well. So, we met up a few times discussing how we could attract students to sign up. Approval from the student council was granted for us to hold events inside the university's compound to advertise ourselves. He was in charge of distributing brochures and at the same time using my knowledge in DJing, I played music using vinyl records and succeeded to gain some new memberships. There were not many members in the first year but grew to about 50 members upon my graduation and departure from Brisbane.

Besides the above, things I have or have not done which bears the weight of regret whether light or heavy still lingers on my mind. 

At this point, the album has already finished playing. The night is still early for me and shall continue to indulge deeper into my thoughts while browsing more music which suits the current mood in this comfortable little space of mine. 

Some final words for this post… This is not a review of "The Dark Side Of The Moon" as detailed reviews are abundant available on the internet. A small point I would like to add is if anyone's interested to give this album a go, please do not listen each song individually as this concept album is produced with the idea to be listened from the first song to the last in this particular order, similar to the telling of a story.

A friend ever asked me which music albums I must listen to on my deathbed and "The Dark Side Of The Moon" is definitely one of them.

Have a good night and great weekend.