Photo courtesy Mike Cummins

Well, the dust has about settled on my concert at mac back on June 11th (2011). Im glad to say it went really well.

To be honest, my main worry – stemming from many years experience of small time music and comedy promotion – was getting a big enough audience to make it worthwhile playing in such a big venue as the main theatre at mac, but happily, at 8.05pm on the big night, I could look nervously over a crowd of no less than 150 fans, friends and family and I’m very grateful to all that attended.

Although the nerves were building, I had the pleasure first of watching Jules Gray’s support set – he’s such an intense performer, in contrast to his casually charming between song chat with the audience.   Have a look at this video of  Jules’ rendition of the Neil Young classic “Southern Pacific”:

The track is also featured on his eponymous debut album alongside nine excellent original songs combining great melody and really insightful lyrics.

I started my set with a playback of my new track “On til Dawn” giving the audience a teasing sample of the lush backing vocals that charaterise the Mindfulmess album before taking the stage to start with a performance of one of my warmest and most uplifting piano pieces Gudonya:

(videos courtesy Marc Reck, to whom Gudonya is dedicated.)

I then launched straight into a sequence of songs from Mindfulmess and followed it with more select highlights from Valentine Court as well as a couple of pieces from what will be my third album when that comes out in 2012 and a nice rendition of Brian Wilson’s God Only Knows.

My friend and long time collaborator Leon Trimble (aka VJ Chromatouch) was, as always, doing some really fine work with the visuals, displayed to great effect on the big mac stage.  Leon’s currently putting some finishing touches to a video to my new track  On til Dawn, so watch this space.

I also took my life in my hands and, for the first ever time, performed an improvisation live on stage.  Im not sure the result was one of my best or most adventurous efforts, but it went pretty well and, in what will hopefully prove to be a long term tradition, I recorded it directly into the memory of my digital piano and will soon be sharing it exclusively as a thank you to those who joined my email list at the event.

Being an independent musician is certainly hard work and is no kind of a route to financial gain, but when an event like this comes together, it really is a very satisfying experience and a good stimulus to keep on being creative and putting what I do out there.

The album wont be in all the usual online retailers until the Autumn (to give me time to try and get some reviews), but its available to listen to now (and purchase as CD or download) exclusively from this site, so do please visit www.richbatsford.com/music/mindfulmess and have a listen.   Thanks.

To give you a flavour of whats to come, below you can listen to and download a special 3 track demo EP.  Some of you may already have heard Listen In from an earlier message, but Easier for Her and Your Thing are published here for the first time in any format.

Just click to listen:

1 Easier for Her demo

2 Listen In demo

3 Your Thing demo

I hope you enjoy the songs, I think there’s often a really lovely, intimate feel to home demos.  Im also very excited about the studio recordings, particularly as Im doing lots of lovely, rich* backing vocals.

Please remember that Saturday June 11th is the date when I will be performing these tracks and many more at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham – please click here for more info or to buy tickets – it should be a great concert with beautiful visuals and a very talented special guest – Jules Gray.

The finished album will be on sale at the mac and also via this website.

thanks, Rich.

* pun intended

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Some of the songs on Mindfulmess are very personal and (I think) kinda beautiful, so the chance to share some of them with some friends and fans is going to be very special indeed.

The album will be ready by then and Im planning a special limited edition CD release – maybe as few as 150 copies – to mark the occasion.

I’ll be joined by VJ Chromatouch who is working on some special visual delights and another friend who is a very fine singer/songwriter will be joining me as a special guest.

Tickets for this very special evening are on sale for £7 or £5 concessions – please order online via the mac box office or call them on 0121 446 3232.

Photo by Wayne Fox

I’ve been hearing good things about these guys and looking forward to checking them out as part of the Honeycomb Club – a monthly event at, where else, the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath – home to so much of whats good in terms of the smaller end of the Birmingham live music scene.

The Honeycomb clubs offers a blend of guest bands, with resident VJs and DJs, each night being headlined by the Alternative Dubstep Orchestra and whilst the whole night was very well put together, its the ADO whom most of us have come to see.

First up were Velvet Texas Cannonball who got the crowd warmed up, toe tapping and even some serious rockin out (Im looking at you Bernard Davis!).  Style-wise it was pretty much time warpsville – we’re talking 70′s blues rock, but if that doesnt bother you (and why should it) theres lots to enjoy in the form of classic rock lead vocals, psychedelic hammond, bluesy guitar and a great drummer.

So to the Alternative Dubstep Orchestra (ADO).  These guys floated my boat in a number of good ways – first up its a lovely to see such a diverse bunch of musicians on a stage together in a loose and yet clearly pretty tight collective (this makes me proud of being a Brummie and reminds me of my excitement at early encounters with the Destroyers).   Second I like to see that combo of traditional and modern – a three piece brass section alongside big electronic basslines and the bass player switching from stand up to electric.

The music I thought for the most part very good indeed.  Theres a few places some editing could help, but these are early days for the group so thats entirely forgiveable.  As someone who personally isnt a major reggae or dub fan, I found it a little disconcerting at first when a big build upwould lead to the slow, deep dubstep beat rather than something quicker, but after a little while, I let my knees bend a little more and sank comfortably down into the groove.

Visually the guys look great, the guitarist in particular is a bit of a livewire.  The live percussion really added something and the laidback vocal lines over the top of it all work well.

All in all, an exciting new addition to the thriving independent Birmingham music scene so do check them out at their residency at the Honeycomb, on youtube or before long at good venues and festivals everywhere.

Personally Im something of a reluctant marketer – I certainly dont want to push my music down the throats of random people, but I do relish a chance to share my music with someone who I have a reason to believe might enjoy it.

And so Ive been on a continuing quest to pick a suitable genre. Many websites Ive uploaded music to only allow you to pick from a short list, but if you want an idea of the full gamut of options available, look no further than the perenially excellent resource that is wikipedia and their list of no less than 1650 different musical styles!

Interestingly, Wikipedia offers a short series of genres and movements – Art music (Classical music (European) · religious) · Traditional music · Electronic · Popular music (Blues · Country · Hip hop · Jazz · Reggae · Rock (Heavy metal, Punk rock)) · Folk.   Within that list I think for my music I would plump for Art Music for my solo piano music – given my classical influences and spiritual leanings and also that I cant see it fitting under any of the other headings.

Now to go through the 1650 listed styles and see if I can find the perfect fit.

The album, Mindfulmess will be coming out later this year – but in the meantime, Ive been practicing the songs to get them up to recording scratch and using my little home recording set up, Ive now produced a demo of about two thirds of the songs (the rest need more practice first).

Have a listen to one of the first results, a nice little number about one of my favourite things to do: Listen In demo and let me know if you like it

Meanwhile, I’ll keep practicing – more news on the album soon.

I hope you like it – if you do, please let me know what you think and please do share this with your friends using the various social networking buttons below this blog post, or liking or commenting on the youtube page, or simply emailing the link on to a friend. Thank you.

Also, dont forget there are some other videos of my piano music on the video page of this site.

Of course that doesnt necessarily mean that Im doing more work than any other time, but it feels like heavy going. In fact, you could argue that Im hardly working at all – Im well ahead with my main work at the moment (as a booking agent in stand up comedy) and have relatively little to do on that score just now.

Consequently, Im seizing the opportunity to spend some quality time progressing my music career which, altho it doesnt currently make me any money and so usually takes a back seat compared to paid work, is something I am very passionate about. The strength of my motivation to succeed in music is a good thing I think – without it I’d have very little chance of making any headway amongst the (literally) millions of other musicians in the world today.

Im finding myself pretty stressed tho, so alongside my musical and promotional efforts I’m doing some spiritual work – that is, trying to maintain perspective, bring to my efforts a lightness of touch, trust in the process and hang loose to the outcome and recognise that doing whats important to me matters more than whatever the results of those efforts might be.

Examining my motivations also helps – when Im acting out of a pure desire to create, develop and share I feel positive and enjoy myself whereas when Im feeling stressed and worried, looking “underneath the bonnet” often reveals egoistic efforts to create financial security or gain reputation and success for my own benefit.

As with all things, its not easy finding the right balance and its all too easy to be self critical – setting arbitrary standards for myself and then feeling bad for not meeting them seems to be a favourite of mine.

Maybe this is a stage Im going through where my musical career feels like its scrabbling for a foothold in my life and once its more properly established as an equal partner alongside my comedy work, perhaps I can relax a bit more.

Or have I just set myself another arbitrary standard again..?

Anyway, thats all for now, I better get back to work