mick's blog

Musicosity is partnering with the Bull and Gate on our second night at the famous Kentish Town venue. 7th March is again featuring new and interesting talent in the form of Queen Orlenes, ALASKA from Leeds, and The Standards from London/Portsmouth. Check out their profile pages on Musicosity to see their latest videos and get an idea of what they're about and see you at the show.

Eclectic? More like Perfect! This is instrumental music with everything - jazz, rock, groove, dub, cinematic themes, great musicianship and damn good fun! The Anthologists themselves are all experienced rock players, interested in exploring a range of genres, and have created a repertoire of original and semi-original pieces designed to appeal to audiences who a looking for a little more - but like to rock out occasionally! So the jazz never get's intellectual, the rock never too heavy and between them never "fusion" - rather, the Anthologists do a kind of mashup, blending Nirvana with Miles Davis, Pink Floyd with Tom Jobim, Roy Budd (Get Carter theme) with AC/DC...

Sounds crazy? Sometimes it is - but brings a smile to your face as that tune that seems strangely familiar suddenly reveals itself - you feel you know this repertoire but your ears get an education too! Justin Bryant is a formidable guitarist - a professional "sound designer" by day, Justin is constant writing music and creating soundscapes, and he brings this craft to the Anthologists set. A single track will often morph through a series of textures, feels and rhythms, ably delivered by the dynamic duo that is Richard Scarr on Bass and John Baker on Drums. New keyboardist Johnathan brings his wizardry to the band, contributing Hammond, Rhodes and acoustic piano to the line-up.

The Wilmington Arms makes a perfect setting with table and candelight ambience and retro feel for the Anthologist's show - if you're looking for a different, interesting, entertaining and memorable music experience - the Anthologists will deliver!

Brought to you by Musicosity

Well....... Some of it was great - I really like the chord progressions in Charlie's tunes - but that's the music. As a performance, the pianist Alan Broadbent was awesome, soloing in 2 handed style as if composing a Bach 2-part invention on the fly. Classical meets Jazz improv with verve! Saxophonist Ernie Watts and drummer Rodney Green played admirably, both inspired soloist and very entertaining to watch.
The singers didn't add a lot in my opinion - in fact the opposite - although Charlie's new album is called Sophisticated Ladies the addition of 3 singers for 1 song each could well have been seen as token. Liane Carroll was probably the pick of the bunch but Ruth Cameron and Melody Gardot detracted from what was otherwise musically strong enough on its own. Have had better jazz concert experiences at the Barbican... MC

Anyone can start an Audience - Artists, fans, promoters, venues, labels - anyone who wants to get together with like-minded people to talk about music they're into, upcoming events etc
It's better than having to log onto 50 different websites and read countless emails to share opions and find out everyone's hot tips.

As Audience Manager you can send broadcast emails, and invite others to be administrators too. You can even share a calendar for your audience which will show the most bookmarked events. Check it out now by clicking 'Create an Audience' in the navigation menu on the right.

Tip - every Artist home page is already an Audience!

Well, my first time to see the Herb - has to be done - gotta see the legend. I had heard that most of his gigs in the last few years have been straight ahead jazz - don't know whether that's true or not but this one had the old fusion tunes! So Chameleon, Watermelon Man - could not believe my ears when those tunes started up. That made the night.

However it has to be said, that while it was great to see 'the ledge', the show was somewhat not quite as expected. There were plenty of moments of brilliance, totally amazing solos, that made you grin from ear to ear at how he does it, but there's a problem with this kind of music I think...

I'm thinking, Herbie Hancock has to keep being "Herbie Hancock", or at least what everyone expects that act to be. So a few million notes hit your ears, from 2 keyboardists, a slappin/funkin bass player, hard hitting drummer with arms as wide as most people's legs, a guitarist from Benin whose guitar sounded like a keyboard, and a singer from Savannah (Georgia) who also plays violin.

Not so much "light and shade" as "light and bright light" - so there's no relief - how do you do "less is more" when more is what you do - more or less...

Fast, furious - this is as rock as jazz gets - not even sure that jazz is the right word, but given they were presented as part of the London Jazz festival, well who am I to argue...

There should be another category for this middle ground of people who don't want their jazz to be square and for beret wearing afficionados, sipping a glass of red at the front row of Ronnies. Nothing wrong with that, quite like a night a Ronnie's myself, but I mean there's a 'jazz crowd' who like jazz to defined just so... and I don't think they were at the Rudder gig.

We had front row, so full audio/visual experience - a team of 4 totally in lock step - note perfect, structured yet loose, and masterful on the dynamics - professional, perfectly mixed 4 piece from NYC.

OK - more detail - there's no guitar so the rock comes from a pumping bass, and at times grinding organ, loads of energy from sax and a metronomic drummer - and what a drummer! This guy also plays with Steely Dan, and you can see how much work he's put in to perfect his craft, matching the others 'compression' and effects, with only a natural acoustic instrument, perfectly mixed.

Came away inspired, Rudder from 'Noo Yawk Ciddy" are awesome!

It was great to see Bob - ole Planty - doing his thang, struttin' his stuff, as only he do...
I quite like the bluegarssy thing he does these days, and smart to play a style befitting of a veritable gent of the stage. He even did a few Zep songs in the style, like Gallows Pole...

But I can't help thinking that TV views might have got a better deal - like cricket - you get the subtleties. For straight ahead rock and roll, there's nothing like being there. And I was there! Was where you say? Where else but THE concert of the century - Zep reformed at the O2. Ah, even if they do it again it won't be the same...

Anyway, saw Mr P again on Jools Holland, and again a masterful display of musicianship/songcraft etc - really connected with the band, maturity really showing, as they manage to convey a slight 'in the now' tension, showing up few of the youngsters...

I think this man SHOULD still be playing because he is genuinely contributing to the landscape.

How many music industry emails did you receive last week? For me about 30, excluding any that got trapped as spam. I bet you every one of them thought they were the only ones I received...

Let's think about it - you have a friend on MySpace, you send a broadcast - how many other friends list are they on? What percentage of emails the friend received was yours? for me, if you were number 31, yours would be 3% of just my music emails, let alone all the other emails I get.

Spam - the reason why mobile phone companies and banks don't spam, is because there's so few of them, and you tend to only have one relationship at a time with them - they have managers who's job it is to ensure no-one is spammed e.g. they will have a policy that says no-one is to be emails more than x times a month.

In music we simply can't do this on our own, because we don't know what each other is doing. Being in the audience of music industry emails is like being in a mega musical instruments store, listening to people trying out instruments for the first time, making a whole lot of noise, al playing at the same time.

We think about the audience at gigs, because they're right there - for the audience to have a good experience, a lot of factors have to come together - the band must be well rehearsed, playing in time, mixed just right, lighting, the right performance energy, well thought out set list, strong songs. In short, the music makers must be highly coordinated to ensure that the audience is having a good experience and would want to come back.

People are always asking us 'Whats the difference between Musicosity and Facebook?" What's the difference between making good music and simply having a guitar? Good communication, like good music, takes practice, and you need the right instruments for the job. Social media are designed as domestic tools for 'friends' to chat about random stuff, to keep each other online so the company behind the social media can sell advertising. Increasingly, social media are being seen as time wasters (see article) , so use whatever tools you want, but think about whether you want to be associated with adding to the noise.

Musicosity is purpose built for communication about live music in order to help people get to more shows - we all benefit from having a 'nice place' for the audience to come to where the 'music' of the communication in it is coordinated, where the audience won't feel ambushed, and the bands work together to create a good experience the way they do when playing their music - which after all is another form of communication. We have the opportunity to create somewhere a bit more special for the audience...that they might be more inclined to listen!

Sometime I forget what I've done - a good mate Jason Kain recently sent me a video of an early 90's performance by The Jackson Code with me on keyboards. Ah those were the days...

Slick, stylish, moody rockers with a mix of some bluesy retro cool, and UK 80's post punk influence. Went to the show expecting a full rock fix, but have to say while I enjoyed the general vibe, it lacked something for me in the music department.

Seems they opt for style over substance too often, relying on production - more about the 'sound'. Lot's of effects, drony washes to basic beats, but just not enough notes and chords for my ears. Bass was sometime busy under the washy guitar, and might have provided this but it doesn't work when the volume is too high in some pretty rough boomy acoustics. Couldn't distinguish bass notes sitting upstairs with the lower mids bouncing off the roof.

When it did work, it was because the bass player switched to guitar, and provided some extra rhythms, all in one key, but it lifted the energy and was quite a bit of fun. Slide guitar against almost an electronic beat for their signature tunes.

Still looking for my rock fix!