Who's the geek at the back?

Mike's Blog

In me ears, son.

This week I have mostly been listening to Muse, and fine they are.  I'm sure you've read of the reviews, so I won't even bother, other than to say if you haven't got the new album, do it.  Now.  It'll make me happy.

Mercury

So, the mercury music awards then.  The Arctic Monkeys have won it, well bugger me sideways, there's a surprise.  Now I know it's cool to be cynical about the merc's, but I like them, as far as self-serving, pompous awards ceremonies go.  They do tend to award real music, and at least make a vague attempt to showcase a variety of music.  Which is nice.  And they do like to try and come up with some surprises, although you are left wondering where Dizzee Rascal disappeared off to.  Somehow I don't think a nice house in deepest Esher.  But the ole Monkey's wasnt a suprise no matter, what some in the press say.  Now the Guillemots, that would have been a surprise, and a fantastic call.

On a different note; Snow Patrol: Coldplay lite? Discuss.....

Local Talent

Now I don't know about you, but I've never figured Worthing to be a hotbed of zeitgeist changing musical talent, but it could be I'm wrong.  Of course it could be in actual fact I'm right and Early Morning Soundtrack are a one off.

But that, combined with some great acts at Prism the other week, got me thinking that maybe there's more talent than we know about buzzing around under the radar, or stuck faceless in amongst the millions of others in amongst that global monolith in Myspace.  Now I've nothing against MySpace, it's fantastic to hear what's new in Inverness or Moscow, but when you want to see new, live music it ain't much cop.  I'm not sure though what to do about it, maybe I'll start a listings website.

Nah, I'm far too lazy.

Do you know of any new talent we should hear more from?

Where have the audiences gone?

I was at the final prism on Tuesday night, see reviews, and got chatting to some people about the reason for this being the last one.  While a change in policy at the Sanctuary may be partly to blame, the root cause really would appear to be a lack of audiences.  Which kinda surprised me.  For a start the Sanctuary is a lovely little venue, small and intimite, it's perfect for one man and his guitar or small jazz/blues groups.  So why does nobody go?  Is it the connotations associated with it's above ground sister the Cella bar, thoughts of tree hugging, tofu eating and don't step on my blue suede sandals?  I hope not.

But it would appear that while Brighton has something like a million bands, there is nobody left to be in the audience.  Brighon is the only place I've found where music is a participation only event.  Nobody wants to be stuck at the back with us talentless hangers on, rather they all want to be on-stage performing.  But the irony is that without us talentless ones enjoying the sounds, the gigs are really missing something important. Well paying punters for a start.

OK, this might be a tad of an exageration, but a number of venues have closed down or been changed to normal pubs recently.  And with so many talented people in this town, that just seems like such a waste.

And another OK, and admission, I'm supposed to be out seeing the great Republic of Heaven tonight, but, well I'm not.  Sorry Toby.