A home for creative work by Nick Parker’s incredible band The Impulse Powers

That Night with Golding

This is a home for music and writing by The Impulse Powers… which is also to say creative work by me, Nick Parker.

The Impulse Powers are a truly incredible band– one where almost all the writing, performances, tracking, mixing (and even sometimes mastering) is me, buried deep in my home studio space. There’s quite a bit of poetry too.

All this writing and music is driven by my desire to mine my memory, so I can reflect on 3 big themes that I feel have always circled me, and I want to decipher.

As a shorthand, I’ll call them STONES, ROOTS, and GLIMPSES

Me playing guitar in front of a microphone

The Impulse Powers has been my main creative project, of writing and music, for over a decade. “Being” The Impulse Powers has built up momentum over the years, and I can honestly say it has changed the way I look at my life, past, present and future, as both a celebration and an exorcism.

I have had my dark times, as we all do. I’m sure I will have more. If I had listened to and read all the stuff this band has produced that finds some light or hope or comfort amongst painful things, in those times when I felt most bleak, I’m sure I would have been completely dismissive. This whole project would look embarrassingly trite, or even delusional.

I feel a bit sad that I can’t reach back to me at 7, 17, 27, and give him something like this to turn to.

Friends sometimes wonder why I’m not fussed with heavily pitching this various creative activity, or even doubt that I’m being honest when I say that I’m ok without being “successful”. Really though, what bigger success could I have than finding my way to contentment?