Some words from me to you.
I'm sitting at a new window as the sun is starting to set. Warm spring air is rolling in like summer. My laptop is perched on the windowsill and I'm still learning how the light lands in this house. In the couple of months since I moved here everything has bloomed; big green leaves now entirely cover the patch of land I could see all of just a few weeks ago, and another even larger one now hides the last half hour or so of sun before it dips beneath the roofline. The light has shifted itself again, as it has a habit of doing.
I'm listening, for the first time in many years, to the self-titled album from a band called Conveyor, released in the balmy summer of 2012. I threw it on because it's the kind of album that opens a door, immediately, to an old version of my life. A few months before its release I visited America for the first time. This blog, GoldFlakePaint, had been around for less than two years at that point but I'd noticed that it had started taking on its own shape, that something was solidifying around it and, subsequently, within me. Ahead of the trip, the first time I'd ever left Europe, I was speaking to a record label I'd made friends with and, finding out that I was coming to New York, they organised a rooftop performance by Conveyor as a little treat. And suddenly I was there, so far from home in this expanding version of my life, that had barely made a flutter until this point. Sitting under a beautifully crisp March evening on a rooftop in Brooklyn, I watched a band I'd somehow stumbled upon by chance sing their songs into that earthy golden light.
The feeling I got then is the same one I get now when I reflect on the countless beautiful memories that have gathered since I started GFP back in 2010: pure and honest gratitude. What I realised on that rooftop, and have always tried to carry with me through whatever form this funny little thing has taken, is that I am incredibly lucky to have had the experiences I've had. And yes, a lot of those were hard-earned. I still don't quite know how I managed to sustain things for many of those early years, but I do know that it always felt worth it. That I had found something that gave sustenance to a life that had previously felt, quite often, quite roadless.
What I found and saw and felt on that rooftop – and also at gigs, and festivals, and on the growing beast that was social media – was the sheer power of connection and community. A communal heart is, was, and always will be what keeps GoldFlakePaint's blood pumping. We've always existed somewhat in the periphery because it's never really been about growth, or reaching as many people as possible. We just wanted to shine a light on songs we loved and hope they found their way to someone else. Just reaching one person on one day was (and remains) enough.
In this odd and fractured version of society we live in, that relationship remains a really powerful thing: to carve out a few minutes of a day to share something you love with someone else. It's how we live in colour. So without you here reading these words, and listening to the songs, I would have to find something else to scratch the itch that gnawed away at me for so long before I found a way of calming it. Thank you for that, sincerely.
The difficult part, when you throw yourself so fully into something, is that there will always be splinters along the way. I have found my very best of friends, gathered up my very favourite memories, because of this blog. Because our winding paths of warmth and love for songs and sentiments were able to wrap around each other for just long enough that a bond formed - and held. What magic that is. That overwhelming kinship means that, from this evening's fading light, it is so hard to look at the timeline of GFP and not be aware of those who lingered for a while but are no longer here or by my side. People I was so lucky to meet through this site, that I miss very often; people who helped to shape me and my writing, who put energy and passion into this thing. Who championed us and held us aloft and forced life through still veins.
GoldFlakePaint exists in a quieter space now – but it still exists and I'm so happy that it does. Through the journals we made we took a physical form but it's all real, even if we can only reach you now through a screen. I'm often feeling like I should be doing more with it, that opportunities are slipping past, but this is how we exist right now. And that's ok. Existing requires more energy and willpower than we ever really talk about.
GFP still has its amazingly special and unique way of introducing me to new sounds and ideas and escapes, and it's still able to bring new people into my life who share stories that shape the way I see the world. And you! You are still here to listen and read - and so we carry on.
Most importantly, for me, I still get the same deep-seated and wholehearted thrill when I find out that one of these posts has managed to reach through all the noise of this relentlessly noisy world, to fall into the lap of someone who took the time to listen to a song that changed the shape of their day. That's all I ever wanted to do, and I don't know that I could ask for anything more than that after all these years of hard work and wonderful adventure, after all of the listening and writing and sharing.
Since before I even knew what a blog was, my very favourite thing to do with my time has been to sit down at a windowsill and smell the evening taking shape, and to reach out through that to simply say: here's a song I like, I think you might like it too.
We launched on May 14 2010, with a live review of my favourite ever band, Frightened Rabbit. GoldFlakePaint is fifteen years old today.
So with a shiny badge and a warm smile, I'm gathering up all the sincerity I can in these heavy limbs of mine to say thank you for being a part of it. To everyone who has helped along the way, to anyone reading this: your time and attention has shaped my whole life. I'm still grateful for that every day.
And before you go, here's a song I like. I think you might like it too.
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