Getting My Mojo Back

Tales Of The Unexpected Spectrum: Part Three

The magazine was Mojo. It was the next best thing to hearing my mother’s stories of her recording with Jimmy Page in the 60’s, or dancing at The Scene Club with The Beatles. Her portal to the decades I missed out on, was now an actual monthly magazine I could disappear into, and I often have.

Compulsive Creation: Undiagnosed Autism And The Music Industry
During that time, I’ve released 25 albums independently, but none of them have been in Mojo. A combination of undiagnosed autism and ADHD meant that, without professional representation, there wasn’t anyone taking care of promotion or career development. And I couldn’t.

I just kept creating. Like a rocket on the loose.

But my compulsion to make albums never diminished.

Super Connected: The Seven Year Itch
For seven years, I’ve been working on an album that you might call a ‘special interest’ album.

A hungry beast of an album. Songs about mental disorders, consumerism, family trauma, human connection and more than a nod and wink to The Dark Side Of The Hunky Dory Hounds of Love. Seven years is a long time to work on an album for me. And there have been several moments on the journey when I’ve thought “I wonder if this one might make it into Mojo?”.

Writing music has never been about ambition. It’s been about restoring balance in my mind. Like not walking over the cracks in the pavement. But my approach is so hyper-detailed with endless fixations, that I write imagined futures in my mind when I’m making the music: performances, collaborations, interviews and even reviews, in my favourite magazine: Mojo.

Everything In It’s Right Place.

So, I wrote a screenplay for the characters I’d written about in the songs. Based on a true story about a teenager who locked herself in her bedroom suffering with social media addiction. I plunged into the study of mental health and made a feature length film drama about her, and her family.

But I still couldn’t release the album.

A Silver Lined-Lockdown
Like many of us, the pandemic began to shed light on my own mental health, and during lockdown I realised I needed professional help.

It’s changed everything for me. Including my music. My inability to handle admin turned out to be a result of my undiagnosed condition. The cycle of regret and relief went on for a while after this revelation, as I began to understand there had been neurological reasons for not being able to manage so many parts of my life. I finally accepted myself.

It was only on making a record about other people’s mental health that I got the chance to understand my own.

After diagnosis, I started to let go, and saw my music was a wonderful accident, and unconscious coping strategy for my undiagnosed autism.

Mojo Magick
As I was finally preparing to release the album, I looked at one of my lists and saw the word ‘Mojo’ with a huge question mark highlighted in red…

I‘d been trying to contact Mojo for a while, but the legendary woman who handles reviews was already the target of a plethora of post-pandemic albums, with Mojo being run remotely for two years. I wasn’t surprised I couldn’t make a connection. They cover the biggest acts on the planet.

But I thought I’d give it one more try.

I felt a panic attack coming on. I’d read Mulvey. But never met Mulvey.

I knew I would blather and get my words wrong, so I did what my doctor said I should now do when I meet new people — I said:

John Mulvey was one of the first people I ever said that to.

He was amazing. We had a really lovely conversation. Mostly about how a DIY artist might submit an album to Mojo.

As we said goodbye, I felt the same relief that I had after my diagnosis.

Momentarily, I forgot all about promoting the album. I was happy to feel connection in the sound of a friendly voice. Balance restored.

As any autistic person will tell you, the info-dumping about themselves they give you is not self-absorption, it’s an innate desire to connect.

Nick Cave said something about song-writing which resonated with me in terms of autistic unmasking:

When I look at my past, it feels like a worn-out husk of a version of me. But the future feels pregnant with possibility to understand others, and finally be understood.

Being on the spectrum is also a disability though. Physically smashing my arms against my head and my brain bursting out of my skull when I can’t fill out a form or failing to be my own manager isn’t a superpower.

It’s a nightmare. That I finally have tools for.

Until now, it’s been like climbing a slippery mountain with the wrong shoes and falling down with every album I’ve made.

Read Part One of ‘Tales Of The Unexpected Spectrum’

Related posts:

Although millions of people are trading bitcoin on different crypto exchanges and are making profits, only two countries have openly declared bitcoin as a legal tender. How come? How is it that the…

The ever-evolving relationship with parents as an ‘adult’ seems like a complicated dance where you never seem to catch the rhythm, the step changes with every beat, and even after all your efforts…

A server runs on a particular PC and contains a socket that’s certain to a specific port range. The server simply waits, paying attention to the socket for a client to create a association request. A…