It’s Saturday night in West End and I am outside ‘The Music Kafe’ about to swallow the musical bait. I am being lured from the street into the packed bar through the harmonious sound of an electric harmonica, keyboard, drum kit, base and lead guitar all melting together to form a jazz/blues/funk/swing band.
I was experiencing the ‘Connor Cleary Band’ and these guys were kicking some seriously musically talented arse.
Connor unlike so many popular artists of today has a deep, rich, full voice that penetrated through my skin and vibrated off my bones.
Nikolaine, the self taught keyboardist, could stand alone in a smoky Chicago Jazz Club and have people begging for more. It was as if the music was being sucked from the depths of her soul and pumping out through her fingers to form notes.
The band has only come together in the last couple of months and this was somewhat apparent, as they at times seemed deeply caught up in their own sounds. Criticism aside, they were brilliant, and if a few months together produced what I heard on Saturday night then I shudder to think how good they will be in the very near future.
Next up was ‘Mr Speaker’. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think they had it in them to outdo the last bout of music to my ears and with a name like Mr Speaker… I was expecting a DJ set.
How fucking wrong was I? They were jazz, they were funk, they were swing and they had a whole lot of soul.
They started off a little slow – I felt like we were trotting: that they were finding their feet, but by the time they found them the gallop was seriously race-worthy!
The barefoot Byron Bay based band consists of five extremely talented men who gel together so well that you can only consider them one entity when they are playing. They are not people: they are a sound, they are a feeling, they are pure fucking music.
The lead singer (Greg Corcoran) seriously needs to be witnessed! Listening to him was like a flash back in time to when music had guts: the sound resonated from deep within, it was real, it was passionate, it was primal – it was exceptional.
Saxophone player, Matt Brooker, managed to swap from tenor to soprano when the music called for it. His sound was so deep and honest, he exuded audio sex onto the completely entranced crowd. Seriously, women wanted to pull his clothes off, he was foreplay to the ears.
Mr Speaker pulled off Muddy Waters like nobody I have ever heard! They went from swing to reggae, English to Spanish and they did it with absolute awe-inspiring grace.
The crowd consisted of some of the coolest people I have seen huddled in one space. They just let go, nobody gave a shit, they followed Corcoran and they danced their arses off: they shook, gyrated, jumped, twisted and punched the air; they were musically hypnotized, as was I.
I was impressed, seriously impressed. These guys are so much more than a Saturday night gig, these guys are the big wigs and I truely hope they get to where they are destined to go!
To check these guys out on myspace, click the links below
http://www.myspace.com/theconnorclearyband
http://www.myspace.com/mrspeakerbb
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