Quite early on in the project I came up with the idea of making portraits of people who I knew and liked. I became interested in using Jon Glanville and Dan Dunstan as models, as I find them to be thoroughly decent people. However, the main thing that made me want to use these characters was that they are both in their early twenties, a time which I found frustrating, confusing and heartbreaking. In interacting with Jon and Dan, I felt that I was frequently confronted with behaviour that I could relate to myself at that age. I found this frustrating, and felt that I wanted to feature both characters heavily in my piece, maybe to try to come to terms with the awkwardness I feel in communicating with these two gentlemen who I admire a great deal.

Through talking to my models I came up with the idea of forming a band with them to do a one off performance of a song. I began thinking about my relationship to music, not only listening to popular music, but being in garage bands since being a teenager. I have always been passionate about music, but recently I have been considering what music has meant to me in the past.

The performance of 1999 by Prince was about us playing together as friends and as ‘musicians’. We got into character for the piece, and these characters reflect the way ‘real’ bands confront with the issue of playing live to people. The way each character deals with this awkwardness is in keeping with their personalities. The films focus on a character each and are shown simultaneously, but not in time. The cacophony caused by this highlights our incompetence as musicians.
Each film is shown with a full on painted portrait. These portraits show Jon and Dan looking into the distance. In the shoot I made them look at a baroque painting and listen to ‘Green Manalishi’ by Fleetwood Mac and asked them to ‘contemplate’ both. This is how I got such serious expressions. They are supposed to look like ‘Rock gods’, elevated to a position of power and stardom, but still producing a serious, powerful piece of musical entertainment. My painting in the middle is the first time I have shown my character staring into the ‘lens’. This is a semi ironic gesture about how I have confronted something deeply personal, that I find awkward, in this project.

Incidentally I chose 1999 as the song as it is about the end of the world and partying to music, which fits in to my original intentions for this project, and also reflects what I believe about music (the party’s over, all the interesting people have gone, but there is still beer left over, so lets drink that and carry on enjoying ourselves, but accept that its already got late. This means the music industry is about persevering with someone else’s left-overs. Like the metaphor?)

I realised that there were a lot of issues that I had been quite strict on regarding popular music, so I decided to explore some of these. One thing that I have been quite stern about over the last couple of years is Johnny Cash. I have always seen him as an icon from the same era as musicians such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, who in my opinion had infinitely more talent and stage presence than this hero of country rock.
I bought all the Johnny Cash CDs I possibly could and set about trying to understand what it was people liked about him. This felt positive as I felt like I was ‘confronting a demon’. When I had developed an appreciation for his music, I set about recording an interview about his music. Listening to this interview made me see how unintentionally bigoted I could appear when discussing popular music. I decided to type the interview so that I could analyse the way I communicate about this subject. This felt cathartic, and felt like an interesting document. So I set about interviewing a lot of people who I know, about music that I had some kind of knowledge about.
The document of interviews is set in a boring essay manner to underline the ‘geeky’ attitude that seems to become apparent in me when I talk about music. Did I become less bigoted as I did more interviews? Am I giving interviewees leading questions? Do I seem to listen to the answers?
By contemplating this, people who see the piece can build up an understanding of part of the artist’s relationship with music.

The sound piece is a selection of music recorded from tapes made by myself and other ‘musicians’ since the age of 13. These recordings were quite a moving thing to listen to again, and I feel that by sharing them with the audience I’m partly sending myself up, but also demonstrating my overblown pride I have in these recordings. When ever I have recorded music I have been genuinely proud of myself, but on reflection I have always also felt a sense of tragic shame about what I have previously felt so positive about. The music is a lasting document of friends I have grown up with.
The track listing is based on a Pete Frame rock family tree, showing in black and white information about personnel in the groups and recording dates. This is supposed to look like I am deluding myself into thinking that something this shoddy can be turned into something that other people maybe interested in following. The type style is based on letters I used to write to people who I traded tapes with through the post as a teenager.

From doing this piece I feel as though I have confronted my awkward relationship with music. I feel more comfortable about discussing this relationship now as I feel that I understand it a little bit better through thinking so hard and producing so much work about it. The piece is a grim acceptance of having to live with what I think about music, which I love so passionately that it causes me awkwardness and frustration. Long Live Rock n Roll.