The Story Behind My Music Background & the Creation of Poor Jinx & The Silent Crickets.
So, for starters, I'll introduce myself. I'm Tom, I grew up and currently live in a small, rural, very old, Welsh speaking town in North Wales, UK. I am in my 30s.
I got into music from when I was a very small child back in the 90s. On the way to school in the car, my Mum would listen to all kinds of stuff from punk to ska to rock, pop, rap.. and I remember she had one of Tiësto's amazing albums 'In My Memory'. And I remember loving the music. So my head was banging before I even walked through the school gates! 😂
My maternal grandparents were both into their music too, as well as my uncles. My little brother had no choice as he was in the same car on the way to and back from school! He ended up playing guitar and forming a band, which sadly split up when love life, college, work etc took over. They named the band 'The Asbo's' (an acronym for Anti-Social Behaviour Orders), which was quite fitting at the time as one of the band members ended up getting slapped with one!
I self taught myself piano from around the age of 7. I remember going with Mum to pick my brother up from his friends house where they had a piano and I remember just sitting by it and I began to play just something I made up in the moment. I played a lot of classical music on the piano, which spun into me playing in school concerts and at the local cathedral. I attended piano lessons, but because I was so used to playing my own stuff without written music, I got bored and gave up on the piano lessons but I carried on playing. My Mum's best friend was getting rid of her mum's old, out of tune piano, so I ended up having it, as finances were hard: my mum was holding down several jobs to make ends meet, so couldn't afford to buy a new one. When I turned 10, my Taid (Welsh for Grandfather) helped her to buy a Yamaha Clavinova digital piano. Almost 26 years later, I still have it, although a bit bruised and worn, it's still going strong!
One of my other hobbies is keeping a pet lizard who I've named Mr Jinx. I feed him crickets, locusts, cockroaches and the like. He lives in my bedroom. When I was doing up his enclosure, I got into researching his wild habitat of Pakistan, South Asia. When I was posting videos about it on Instagram, I added in music that had a deserty kind of wild vibe. Then I really got into this music more, so I started making a playlist on Spotify. Linking the tunes together so one would flow into the other. Fast forward a year or so, my playlist turned into a whole compilation of music from around the world. Featuring a vast range of genres weaving into and out of each other with beautiful and intricate melodic vibes appearing throughout. So, then I called it 'Poor Jinx & The Silent Crickets'.
You can access it via this link.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6dsuyaahSJcFABXgX4htiS?si=FEGLHKEYRm27Ty7ti50HeA
For best effects, use headphones or good Bluetooth speakers and (most important) cross fade to maximum via the Spotify audio settings.
Enjoy!
Staff / Moderator/ 3 years ago in Social & Random