Marking the first landmark....50th blog post!

Does anyone celebrate such a thing? I think we should, why not and I intend to right here, right now and I want to do it with a bit of a personal insight into this whole mission of mine, so please bear with what might be a bit of a personal indulgent blog tonight.


I started this whole thing off back in late June as a way of writing down my muscial thoughts and recommendations with the world in the hope that it might spread the love of the music I enjoy not just with my native UK but to every corner of our amazing little planet. I wanted to help promote unsigned or unheard of artists a little so that they become more well known or at least build up enough of a following to provide them with the income and inspiration to keep them doing what they do best...producing amazing music.

The past 4 and a half months have been totally amazing. In that time I have seen more live music than the rest of my life put together, met an abundance of people I am proud and honoured to now call friends, been blessed with unspeakable acts of human kindness and hopefully inspired a few people along the way to go and check out some amazingly talented people.

I think in this short space of time I've already achieved a lot of what I set out to do and I will keep doing it today, tomorrow, next week, next year, forever...because I passionately believe in good music and I hope that by doing what I am doing I am making a difference to someone's life somewhere in the world, be they a music lover or a musician.

So tonight, in my 50th blog post I want to thank the artists who have inspired me enough to sit down and write about them, post videos, tweet, recommend and to talk about them. You are all truly amazing talents and I hope you are reminded of this every day! If you ever for one second doubt it, pick up your music, listen to it and know that people out there love and respect what you do and are inspired and moved by it! What you do for a living matters so never give up or get dis-enchanted.

I also want to thank my great friend Dave who it is a privelege to share my musical experiences with first hand, all of you who have taken the time so far to stop by to read my blog, view the youtube videos, add me on twitter, send me emails, send me recommendations...it just makes me even more certain that what I'm doing is worthwhile and that hopefully you're finding music you can enjoy as much as I do.

Finally I'm going to leave you all with a final thanks to someone who is totally awesome, truly amazing and who doesn't believe it despite me constantly telling her. So to that end and in recognition of my 50th blog I'm making a special recommendation tonight here is a first original song from the wonderful and totally beautiful Kamila who I am honoured and blessed to have in my life...



thank you all so much, in your own ways you all inspire me xx

Music and the flips sides to the internet...

I have little energy tonight so this will be slightly all over the place, sorry!

The internet is bad for music, there I've said it...no course it's not but it does have a few down sides. File sharing poses potentially the greatest threat to emerging musicians today depriving them of the money they deserve and need to live and produce music. Well the greatest threat apart from "made for TV" talent shows which elevate mediocrity way above its designated place in the musical food chain and snuff out real talent.

The other big downside and maybe this is just a personal thing. I love CDs. I love album work, I love the physical nature of a CD and the excitement of opening a CD, taking out the artwork and flicking through it, reading the lyrics whilst you listen to the music for the first time. It's such a nice thing to do...you just don't get that from iTunes, maybe that's just me and I'm getting old, am I alone in the world?

On the plus side, the internet has allowed unheard of and insanely talented musicians to find a voice outside of their own town/state/country and reach a much wider musical audience. One such musician is a guy called Kevin Montgomery who I discovered last night with a friend. This guy has produced some of and I don't use this term flippantly..."the most mindblowingly beautiful music I have heard in years!"

Some of his stuff is very Country and maybe a bit too Country for me but some of his other songs...wow, I actually can't describe the level of beauty in the music. Check out his myspace and in particular check out and listen to the songs Nothing, True, Angel Tonight and She Don't Wake Me Up.

And how did I find him...in short....fan of Counting Crows (who owns CDs - yes folks CDs of all their albums) years ago found a guy called Kid Lightning (Dave Gibbs - friend of Adam Duritz) promoting and talking about his solo album on countingcrows.com messageboard. Purchased said album, met and saw Dave Gibbs perform live. Dave Gibbs teamed up with Chris Seefried (who's solo album Denim Blue I also own and who produced Jay Nash's album The Things You Think You Need - which I also own along with other Jay Nash music), Jude Christobal and Jeff Russo to form Low Stars whose album I also bought. Kevin Montgomery is listed as a top friend on Jeff Russo's myspace page and that is the history behind it.

Confused? You shouldn't be. My love for one band years ago has spawned so much more music I adore and I keep finding more connected to it like a tangled and intertwined musical spiders web...and that people is why the internet, whilst being in some ways bad for music and potentially damaging is awesome in so many others and maybe just maybe we all need to stop taking it for granted and commit to stop filesharing music and give something back to these amazing artists before we lose them.

Happy listening world xx