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A Magazine for Sheffield
Sound

Rock Your Age

I’m always astounded when I hear the likes of Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters still touring, traipsing the world and playing their hearts out while pushing their seventh decade. I just saw Courtney Love live on her UK tour, still ronching and shouting out that timeless passion and rage, pushing fifty. My point is, at fourty-something, I still want to make a life-long dream a reality and sing, write and perform songs. So I recently put out ads, pounding some of Sheffield’s streets to pin them to notice boards, and I answered an ad. Both came to nothing. The landscape of popular music is typically and traditionally dominated by twenty-something males, clinging onto cool like a life raft. The lads I responded to sent me clips of their punky stuff. It was fine, but after they had described themselves as ‘All between 24 and 26, I thought ‘Hmmm, not sure’. All I said in reply was that I’m slightly wary of my age, which maybe I shouldn’t have said, but the result was, ‘Thanks for your interest, but we don’t think it would fit with us’. Okay, so I’m a late bloomer and no, I don’t really want to tag onto kids when I’m old enough to be their mum, but should age be the ultimate defining factor in considering the dynamics of a band? I think not. We all need to creatively connect with like minds and commonalities. I want to sing about the constant barriers I face – loneliness, political decay and life experiences. While I’m not held down by marriage, mortgage and keeping up with the Joneses, I still have a life and want to keep it more colourful and vibrant than my eyes can see. I won’t be adopting a folky, gently gently, strummy guitar persona with a flowing skirt, the caricature often taken on by more mature female singers. I won’t be blagging it with the shallow rinky dinky winky the younger girls seem to be happy with in what is so flippantly dubbed pop music. No, I’m a die hard, set in my ways and opinions, yet could diversify and cross genres. I just want to sing, rock and write the truth. I have all the pent up passion and rage, moody melancholy and zeal that the big well-known die-hards possess. Anyone care to join me? I won’t hold my breath. I still need a drummer, bassist and guitarist – preferably mature with some commitment, willingness to work, real and ready to rock. fieryred.dawn@gmail.com )

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