Stories written by Simon Persey
‘Rock Your World because then you Rock the World of Others’ is what a young lady once said to me as we danced to a montage of Beatles songs on Bastille day – the French national holiday. I believe this message could also interpret to stay true to yourself, do what you enjoy as long as it brings no harm to others and this will resonate throughout the world. Music is what brings people together despite vast geographical and cultural contrasts. I have seen this happen many times at music festivals, events and on the road whilst travelling; smiley happy faces bopping in time and sometimes out of time to sounds and vibrations. I am an aspiring writer who has been influenced and is still being influenced by many great writers, Jack Kerouac- the king of the beats, Aldous Huxley- Brave New World and Hunter S Thompson- Hells Angels. Music has been the backbone to the way I view the world. The first big band that I saw during the mid 90s was Primus, and since then I have seen many bands and musicians spanning many genre’s; psychedelic trance, rock, metal, classical, blues, jazz, folk and much more. I studied Journalism, film, radio and photography whilst at Glamorgan University where I met some wonderful people and made a few useful contacts. The parts of the course which stand out so vividly were an interview that I arranged with Timb Harris from Estradasphere – (an experimental band of multi-instrumentalists from Santa Cruz, California), Pete Fowler an artist/animator who had previously worked with The Super Fury Animals and the Gorillaz; and also an interview with a group of engineers that created a nitrous oxide rocket powered dragster that was run on cooking oil. Another highly enjoyable part of the course was a trip with a couple of friends to Valencia, Spain where I did a black and white photography project on ‘Las Fallas’ fire festival, a celebration in praise of St Joseph. During the festival the city becomes an explosion of entertainment though colourful processions, live music, firework displays during the day and night and giant outlandish effigies which are shortly lived when they are destroyed by fire with the sounds of Himno de Valencia, the national anthem as the death march. My previous work experience comes from a collection of journals I kept whilst travelling and then re-writing. I also worked for a year for BCB International, a military manufacturer; writing press releases on equipment used by survivalists and the US and British army and other military organisations. The work involved interviewing the creators, testing the goods in the UK and Portugal and then writing between 300 to 500 words.