Danny J Lewis is one name this blog has quite a lot of time for. Aside from his videos on music production on YouTube, his sizeable catalogue of music – and even his successful spearheading of a campaign to get garage recognised on Traxsource as a category – it’s the fact he comes across as being a man of integrity.

And sadly, they’re in far shorter supply than I ever expected in the music world. I first came across his name in 1998, thanks to a bout of pneumonia, of all things. I was off school for two weeks – on doctors orders – and spent a lot of time watching MTV.

Remember, this was back when MTV played music and this track called “Spend The Night” was getting played on some of their dance shows. And besides, if you knew what the internet was like in 1998, you’d have chosen to watch MTV as well.

But I digress. Mr Lewis has launched his own blog recently, and asked a very pertinent question. Namely, how the hell do you pronounce “garage” anyway? He links to a video showing no less than four different ways of pronouncing the word – go and read it!

I have two thoughts on this one. Having spent my childhood in rural north Wales in the pre-internet days, I used what the video referenced as the “working class pronunciation” – and that was because I was totally unaware of any other ways of saying the word. I just assumed it was pronounced the same way as a garage you’d take the car to.

Infact, I only became aware of different pronunciations of the word on a trip to London back in 2005 – when I heard a very posh interpretation of the word from a former female friend talking about her own musical tastes.

And my second thought? I wish I’d thought of this for an article first…

By The Editor

Editor-in-chief at Amateur’s House.