Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this Love Letter To A Record series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Dalton Tripodi, The Paddy Cakes – Arctic Monkeys, Humbug(2009)
Initially, my first thought was to write to Arctic Monkeys’ debut record Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not or even their sophomore album Favourite Worst Nightmare because that’s what made me want to pick up a guitar in the first place, but I just couldn’t go past Arctic Monkeys 3rd album Humbug.
The reason I picked you, Humbug, is simply because no other album had inspired or driven me more to become a musician.
The year was 2009, I was 14 when I first heard a much darker type of guitar riff than I was familiar with, on the opener ‘My Propeller’.
Laying down in my bedroom, headphones in as the album progresses, I find myself noticing keys and different types of percussion for the first time. I remember playing the record to my dad and asking what all these sounds are that I’m hearing and he’d say, “Oh that’s a tremolo, or that’s synth” or something along those lines. It made me hungry to learn.
Your dark twisted hooks and riffs replicate sounds that could be used in old horror movies. Turner’s use of lyrics had me forever looking up meanings in the dictionary, while Helders was still beasting on the tubs on ‘Pretty Visitors’. You taught me how to appreciate bass and opened up a new romance for slower/softer songs such as ‘Cornerstone’ and ‘Secret Door’.
If I have to show you off with a couple of tunes they would be track 4 – ‘Secret Door’ and track 8 – ‘Dance Little Liar’.
Forever grateful,
Love ya
Dalton xo
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Gippsland rockers The Paddy Cakes today return with new single ‘YOURS’. Listen here.
