Me in the foreground - Dan snuck into the corner! Many thanks to Julie Bacon for this photo. |
If every town had a couple of places run by people with the same attitude as Mike and his family at The Cycle Junction, I have no doubt whatsoever that a culture of live, original music would be thriving.
Some of the typical problems facing artists today are that all too many venues expect them to play as a sort of privilege, free entertainment for them but resulting in significantly increased bar-sales, with complete disregard to the many hours of work that go into that one performance let alone the countless hours in total that have lead to it. I think you, dear reader, might well be very surprised how little even household-name artists go out for, making a living yes but many are probably making a lot less than say a junior manager in an organisation - the love of, passion for and ultimately the undeniable compulsion to write, make and perform music is far greater than those to earn an easy, steady income for the musician, as with other types of artist. I'll stop moaning about this now but if this issue interests you, it's worth having a read here.
Back to the super-positive, and as I say the Cycle-Junction folk do it so right! Yet another sold-out show and as a headliner on my previous appearance here, it was my turn to support this time as per another cool policy of the place. Once again Dan played percussion for me, bringing quite a large kit which he incredibly managed to wedge into a corner of the tiny space available, we were supporting the stupendously entertaining Baxter. As an opener, owner Mike as half of the duo KwalaParla with Ryan, played some of their engaging tunes, beautifully played and you can download them for free via the link below! The audience, as always here, listened intently, did lots of spirited joining in and were just bloomin lovely!
If you were there and are reading this, thank you so much! You are what makes all the effort that goes into this so worthwhile! xxx
Check out the hugely entertaining, brilliant vocals of Baxter HERE.
Free downloads and more from KwarlaPara here...
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