Music Competitions in Essex blogged by Mackley Drive

Live and Unsigned Music Competitions in Essex, have uncovered in the best original, unsigned talent in the Region, such as Live and Unsigned Area Finalists Mackley Drive, who have created a blog about their competition experiences for the chance to win a great prize.

Live and Unsigned Area Finalists have been asked to write about their progression through the music competition to be in with a chance of winning a prize of £500 worth of recording studio time. The best blogs from the acts involved in this year’s Live and Unsigned music competition are going online for a chance to win. The best blog will be decided by which act receives the most likes for their blog on the Live and Unsigned Facebook wall.

We’ve had a great response from bands and acts wanting to share their experiences of Live and Unsigned, and now they will be shared with you for the chance for acts to win time in a recording studio.

Throughout the week we’re going to put up an act’s blog entry for you to join in the fun and read, if you like their blog, vote for them on our Facebook page by pressing the Like button or commenting positively on their work. The act with the most support for their blog within one week of it being posted will be the winner of the recording studio time prize.

The best of luck to all of our bands and acts who have shared their stories of the Live and Unsigned music competition - get voting for your favourite!

Blog 1: Mackley Drive

Mackley Drive- Live and Unsigned

Reporting from the clandestine headquarters of Mackley Drive, I am James Moss- drumming extraordinaire.

Mackley Drive are a four piece alternate rock band, plucked from the skies by Apollo, and flung together through circumstance on a balmy summers day of 2010. Like mere pawns in an ever-growing chess board, Mackley have truly sacrificed their minds and talent to the medium of song, a trait that has so far gone un-recognised until recently…

But to truly weave the tale of triumph I have to backtrack to mid-November- a simpler time, where the snow, like our very hopes, was mounting. Discussing how we could worm our way out of the industries bowels, our very own oriental Thom Yorke (Joshua Woo) suggested Live and Unsigned, a national music competition that culminates some of the finest artists in the country, who melodically brawl it out for an assortment of phenomenal prizes.

Leaping head-over-heels into the Mackley-Mobile (Renault Clio), the band wadded their hopes and dreams inside the hatchback and set off to Basildon’s community-centre for preliminary auditions. As the omnipresent buzz of energy filtered through the hall Mackley began to bask in the momentary belief that our chance had come, the world was truly at our budding feet. With time transcending into fragmented moments of pure unrefined excitement our name was eventually called, to which we hesitantly entered the judge’s suite and ripped into Josh’s classic- “Time and a Place”- a jovial tune based around ones disposition in life concerning annual seasons.

As pre-conceived notions go, we ultimately expected our greatest efforts would go unregistered, yet to our wide-eyed astonishment, the panel embraced our song among the likes of our ever so proud mothers, clicking and tapping their feet along the way!

Like an elusive flash in history, the experience had swept into the past, fallen between the cracks of our memory, yet remained poignant all the same. The incident had momentarily injected our musical faction with hope; a moment that would be further intensified once informed we had reached the regional finals!

Bellowing out of the centre like X-Factor hopefuls, Live and Unsigned had presented a pathway to prominence, a World in which we longed to belong, a life we yearned and would strive for. But like anything in this world, the going gets tough, a raw, gritty fact we would face at The Towngate Theatre- Basildon…

Out of the fire and in the frying pan, I, your humble narrator take you to the 26nd of February. Very much like our chances of proceeding to the area finals, the winter’s snow has liquefied and vanished into thin air. Staring upon a vast expanse of vacant seats and musical seekers, the sheer mutual pulse of adrenaline ran through the Mackley disposition. This, my charming audience… was the real deal.

Towngate Theatre was the platform on which we could vault over to prominence. Everyone to their own dressing room, protruding light bulbs enveloping the dainty mirrors, a cupboard for clothing! All things we didn’t necessarily require but loved all the same. Live and Unsigned had really pulled the event out the bag, a day I shall ultimately never forget…

As we ineptly formed a quaint circle in our voluptuous dressing room, life backstage began to resemble the likes of a doctor’s surgery, hordes of people would come and go, some crestfallen, some high on life. Until Mackley were called, a fairly composed James turned to slurry; the broken remnants of a fleeting rock star had to pull himself together before facing what seemed like the world.

Unable to speak on behalf of the band, the actual defining moment on stage was tremendous; never before have I felt such a mutual fusion with an audience. Entwining the likes of our very own “Bermuda Triangle” with Radiohead’s “Creep”, the ‘world’ I was so frightened of stopped, embraced and commended our sound, our very sound! Ending on the climactic refrain- “But I’m a Creep”, the crowd bellowed like an urban jungle, with newly formed fans raising their arms in open mouthed wonderment at our musical splendour.

Due to this simple act of nature, I deeply praise Live and Unsigned for giving us the confidence to believe in our own material and truly persevere. The resonating success of this performance has seen us secure a chain of gigs that echo to mid-summer, a freshly updated fan base, as well as a place in the area finals. Everything is truly looking up Mackley!

Here’s to Live and Unsigned, from your humble narrator- James Moss (Drummer extraordinaire).

If you like Mackley Drive’s blog, you have a week to vote for them on our Facebook page  by pressing the Like button! Watch out throughout the week ahead for more blog entries from bands and acts sharing their experiences from Live and Unsigned 2011.