Walks along the beach at night this week have got me reminiscing.
Back in late 2010, during my first year at university, I went away with two friends on a weekend trip to Tenby. I spent a lot of it stoned…
Wales was caught in the midst of dubstep fever and if it didn’t have bass it wasn’t worth talking about. On the radio on the way over we listened to this late night Radio 1 show of “bass, jack and house”. I can’t remember who the DJ was or anything else about it. I just remember her insistence that her show was the home of “bass, jack and house” and that those genre signifiers seemed totally empty and meaningless. But I do remember they played Christian Martin’s track “Ghosts” and it was in my head all weekend and for much of the year afterwards.
During the day, we’d walk the beach and one of the few things I remember is sparking up in a cave. That same evening we went to the pub. The rugby was on but I can’t remember who was playing. Sick of the crowd and the noise, I went out for a cigarette and soon found myself down on the beach with the tide out. You couldn’t see a thing.
I had a film camera and a tripod with me and so, after half-burying to tripod in the sand to stabilise it, I decided to take a self-portrait. A few weeks later, in the cavernous darkrooms, I couldn’t believe it came out. I joked it would be my debut album cover. Instead it became my “logo” for the next six years. I had it on business cards and everything.
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