If you like my piano music, or you have an interest in contemporary piano music, or just fancy something nice in the background when youre chilling or working, can I suggest giving my online radio station a try?

OK, to be fair, I should explain that I havent gone to a lot of painstaking effort to create my own station – this is a feature of the excellent LastFM.com.  If you dont know Last FM, I’d strongly recommend trying it out – its a superb music resource – bit like Myspace for grown ups if you dont mind me saying so!

Antway, one of Last FMs features if that you can listen to tons of music – streamed and for free – and one of the ways you can approach that is to click on the “play artist radio” button, clearly shown beneath the picture on each artists’ page.  The radio feature then launches, first playing one track from the particular artist you have selected and then, using Last FM’s clever software, continuing with selections from other similar artists.

Very clever and very effective – you can skip any track you dont like and theres no adverts – check out my station here if you fancy it – happy listening!

My first gig for top Birmingham music promoters Capsule was a great pleasure yesterday.

For my set, I was a little taken aback at first by how quiet the audience were – very attentive and polite.  Probably because it was in a pub – albeit in the venue room of what is certainly one of Birmingham’s very bext music pubs – I suppose I expected it to be more lively – but actually the gentle mood suited the line up very well.

If the Capsule ladies ask me back, I may well with what was my first thought for this gig – since attendees at a Capsule gig are likely to be fairly seriously into music -  and take the chance to do a fully instrumental set, but instead I played what is currently my established set for acoustic nights and such – mostly my songs, with just a couple of my instrumentals.

Next Up – Friendly Fire built on the chilled mood, with moments of intensity and neat combination of modern, geekdom and classic 70s American folk rock.

Finally Phosphorescent took the stage – not totally at their ease for several songs, perhaps in part due to having travelled down from Glasgow in the day and arriving a bit late – but their relationship with the crowd progressed as the night went on.   Some superb musicianship was on display from all six members, comprising piano, soulful lead guitar, beautiful and haunting pedal steel as well as bass, drums and rhythm.

The sound was amazing – a great PA in there with Bartram ably and assuredly handling the controls as always.

Here’s a good review of the show, with pics by Katya Ogrin (one of which Ive borrowed for this post) over on brumlive.com

I recently sent a copy of my album Valentine Court to a lady in the US called Rebecca Johnson, who writes regularly on a website called Seasoned with Love.  She is also a key player in the growing army of people with an interest in music, books etc who contribute to our growing global cultural wealth my regularly reviewing music on Amazon.

Its very hard for indie artists to get coverage in papers and magazines, so its very important both for the artists themselves and all those who are interested in discovering new art that might appeal, that people like Rebecca give their time and make their voices heard.

Rebecca’s certainly been hard at work, writing no less than 3,795 reviews on Amazon so far, placing her as one of Amazon’s  “Top 10  Reviewers”.

So what did Rebecca make of my magnum opus?  Happily, she has entitled her review Exquisite and Magical and goes on to write:

“Rich Batsford has created a relaxing and at times a profoundly beautiful moment in time for the listener. His timing is impeccable and his melodies are original and compelling. The entire time I was listening to this stunning album I felt a sense of happiness.

“Valentine Court” also awakens delicate emotions that enliven the soul. Rich Batsford seems to be completely absorbed in the moment as he plays. His music also has meditative qualities at times and can awaken the heart to beauty. If you love solo piano then this should be in your collection.”

Rather a wonderful review – I found it quite moving in fact – it means a lot to get this kind of comment and Im proud of Rebecca and everyone else getting on Amazon to make some critical comments which in her case at least, are undoubtedly seasoned with a little love.
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