You absorb more than you think, even on dry land.

Reading a message board I belong to, I've been inspired to reflect on some of the minor details which have had a major effect on my life.

Things like music, art, nature, friendship, family, illness and so on. Every little thing has an effect in the long run. Whether its a song you cant get out of your head which puts you in a good mood, or a thought which leads onto bigger and better things. Maybe its a colour you see in a painting and you decide to paint your house that exact shade, right there, on the spot.

Your subconscious is a powerful tool. Something you see out of the corner of your eye may not focus you conscious, but your subconscious will remember it, and lock it away until such a time as its needed. That's the theory anyway, but not always the case. This applies to everything around you. The smell of the cut grass on a warm summers evening. That last pint you had, and how it tasted. What two people were talking about opposite you on the train. Its all there, inside your mind, just waiting for the opportunity to come out.

This happened to me today.

On the aforementioned message board, there was a thread entitled "Songs that changed your life" or something similar. Now, I'd never really thought about it, but there are a few songs and bands over my short life that appear to have affected me, without me knowing it.

In the spirit of utter laziness, allow me to cut and paste the answer I gave:

"Pretty much all my dad's music. He's an aging punk. So it was mainly things like Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash and that sort of stuff. The first song that I really listened to, because it was on every single tape my dad played, was Teenage Kicks by The Undertones. I must have been 7 or so and that was my first major exposure to good music, given that my mum has a tendency to think she's from the Caribbean and play endless Reggae. The twunt.

My own music fandom came in the form of hearing things like Oasis and Blur and other Britpop heavyweights(were there anymore?) at a mates house, and his older brother had them all. Maybe about 12 years old.

I didn't seriously start getting into music, and listening to the radio for new bands until I was about 14 or 15 before I knew of piss like MySpace or whatever. The Von Bondies were my first "discovery" that was all my own. None of my friends had heard of them by then, so when I played them the first few seconds of Lack Of Communication they didn't have a clue.

I suppose that in effect, my big push into the music world was being competitive, and finding the Next Big Thing™ before they did.

Shame I was never quick enough to get a grasp on it all though."

Reading over it before I sent it onto the internet for all to see, I noticed something I'd never thought about before. My dad and my friends have seriously pushed me into music. I need to thank them all for that, but to do that individually do that would involve tracking down lots of people, and I wouldn't know what to say to them once I had.

I think that if I were going to break down the specifics of each persons role(not that I could) I'd have to say my dad brought me into the rock scene. Mainly punk to begin with, but I've since evolved my own tastes, but I still hold a candle for a bit of punk now and again.

I think my friends pushed me to play guitar. If I'm correct in remembering, I was the first of us to get a guitar. But I left it to gather dust for the most part, the thought of playing it being daunting. I think Colin was the next among us to get one, and as he progressed, my competitive streak came out and I wanted to get better at the instrument. Sadly, I have not. I'm still useless, but I can play one or two things with confidence. So maybe I'm not so bad after all. I was in and out of bands in High School, once I'd learned how to shape power chords. Smoke On The Water was always a nice easy one, no matter what your age.

As I got older though, I've started embracing more and more types of music. At one point early in my listening career, I was staunchly rock music. As I sit here and type, I'm listening to a song which is based on a piano riff. Before, I was listening to bluegrass. Last night, I was listening to dance and house.

I've even made a few attempts at writing as I've grown up. It was all about how I could never get a girl, and the usual teen angst stuff, but out of a few thousand little ditties, I've got maybe 8 or 9 that could make it to radio, with the right adjustments. And I ran the radio station. Who knows, maybe on day I will hear one of my compositions on a station I listen to.

To end tonight's musings, I wish to thank those who have had any minor effect upon me, in the long and the short terms. It is in no small part to all of you that I have gone in this direction in life.

So if I get to radio, its all your own fault.