I was around 26 y.o, living in semi drug addled magnificent squalor, in a cosy little bedsit when I first became aware of this brilliantly crafted example of unashamedly executed melodic pop song. I'd been awake for around an hour which at the time meant that i'd rolled out of bed, brewed coffee and made toast and consumed a nice fat joint. The television was moaning at low level in the background and the mid winters gentle sunshine danced off the slowly rising flumes of smoke that filled the room.
A generically trained voice broke through my far off unfocussed consciousness and a name familiar to me jolted me out of my daze, '' Up next we have Max Fredericks who's here to perform his new single '' Happy ''.
What was to happen next stuck to my mind like white on rice, Max ploughed gracefully through the only rendition I'd ever hear until now of his song '' Happy ''. The song, like any song that has a deep affect on me, caused the visceral effect most common to my self in a state of pleasure, goosebumps.
From this one three and a half minute performance I was able to glean the essence and structure of it and had learnt it right there on the spot, bashing it out on an old nylon string guitar i kept close by for just such occasions. Having appropriated it and transposing it to fit my take on it, I then proceeded to inject it into the set of every band i've been in since. For the next five years it was always in the one set shows, the big support slots, the golden 12, a name given to the 12 best songs that a band has in it's arsenal of 30-40 possible songs.
These days it's still there albeit an essential rarity at times, but it's always remained. My reason for this stream of historical revery is very straight forward, through a series of events i've just gotten hold of two recorded versions, original Happy and Happy 2 and it's opened the flood gates to the aforementioned and caught me falling for it like a teenage girlfriend all over again.
We are talking of collaborating imminently and recording a '' Happy - Mark 3 '' blending a synthesis of it's original vision coupled with some of accidental but artistically valid aberrations that have been added to it whilst being nursed by anothers creative bent.
In the end, isn't this what it's all about, I think so......
A generically trained voice broke through my far off unfocussed consciousness and a name familiar to me jolted me out of my daze, '' Up next we have Max Fredericks who's here to perform his new single '' Happy ''.
What was to happen next stuck to my mind like white on rice, Max ploughed gracefully through the only rendition I'd ever hear until now of his song '' Happy ''. The song, like any song that has a deep affect on me, caused the visceral effect most common to my self in a state of pleasure, goosebumps.
From this one three and a half minute performance I was able to glean the essence and structure of it and had learnt it right there on the spot, bashing it out on an old nylon string guitar i kept close by for just such occasions. Having appropriated it and transposing it to fit my take on it, I then proceeded to inject it into the set of every band i've been in since. For the next five years it was always in the one set shows, the big support slots, the golden 12, a name given to the 12 best songs that a band has in it's arsenal of 30-40 possible songs.
These days it's still there albeit an essential rarity at times, but it's always remained. My reason for this stream of historical revery is very straight forward, through a series of events i've just gotten hold of two recorded versions, original Happy and Happy 2 and it's opened the flood gates to the aforementioned and caught me falling for it like a teenage girlfriend all over again.
We are talking of collaborating imminently and recording a '' Happy - Mark 3 '' blending a synthesis of it's original vision coupled with some of accidental but artistically valid aberrations that have been added to it whilst being nursed by anothers creative bent.
In the end, isn't this what it's all about, I think so......