Award-winning singer/songwriter Mike Criscione juggles over ten instruments on this, his first, solo release commanding a tuneful mix of adult alternative thatâs as rich lyrically as it is musically.

9 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, FOLK: Folk-Rock

Show all album songs: Balance Songs


Details:
Two-time winner of "Best Original Guitarist" at the Buffalo Music Awards, Mike Criscione's tenure as a musician has taken him through a number of angular phases. In his unlikely evolution from progressive rock guitarist, to singer/songwriter, to the live looping artist, right angle turns have been the norm. âIt's kind of like juggling," he says of his current style of live performance. "You get in the rhythm of doing a number of things at once and it just turns into one big motion." A typical performance of this "big motion" entails balancing singing, playing guitar, stomping on MIDI foot pedals (functioning as a bass) and controlling live digital loops with his feetâ¦all at the same time.

A guitarist since age 12, Mike's musical tastes have changed considerable over the years. He started out, like just about everyone in the rock genre in the mid 80's, as an Eddie Van Halen want-to-be. "I was lucky enough early on to cross paths with two great teachers, Dave Whitehill (who later went on to become one of the world's premier guitar transcriptionists for Guitar World Magazine and Hal Leonard Music Publishing) and (GIT legend) Tony Scozzaro," says Criscione. "Tony and Dave really helped get me on the right track as a player. Dave's ear training and Tony's jazz background showed me how to step outside the guitar and think like more of a complete musician." While in college at the University of Buffalo, Criscione cut his teeth playing with a variety of western New York rock bands most notably was the critically acclaimed Riley, winner of 1998's "Best Original Rock Band" at the Buffalo Music Awards. "Riley was a huge learning experience for meâ¦my first serious foray into making original music. The whole process of writing, recording, and playing live took a long time for us." Their first and only release, Blueprint, was self recorded/mixed over a two year period in the band's home studio. "I learned a ton from those sessions, most importantly I learned that I loved recording." Propelled by the regional success of Blueprint, Rileyâs progressive rock stylings garnered some Buffalo radio airplay and earned the band a 1999 season opening slot in Buffalo's "Thursday at the Square" concert series.

After parting ways with Riley in December of 1999, Criscione began to pursue a more acoustic direction. For the next four years he performed regularly at coffeehouses in the Western New York area, nurturing his songwriting and developing a somewhat unorthodox approach to solo performance. "I liked the idea of sounding more organic but still didn't want to get rid of the electronic side of things. The medium ground I came up with was to use live digital looping and MIDI bass pedals as support for my guitar and voice." In the end, this enables Criscione to sound more like two or three people playing, rather than a solo performer.

In 2004, Criscione returned to the studio to record "a stripped down, honest documentation" of some of the music he had written over the preceding years. His intent to hammer out something simple over a few month period of time never materialized as envisioned. Instead, three years and a number of life changes later, he emerged with something quite different - a fully realized, uncompromising studio recording: BALANCE. Completely self-recorded, mixed, and mastered in his newly designed project studio, this, his first solo release, features Criscione performing on over ten different instruments. With only the aid of a drummer (Tim O'Connell), BALANCE covers an impressive array of styles interwoven with an acoustic/rock foundation. "Once things got rolling with BALANCE, it turned into a personal challenge: How far could I take things on my own?â The result was quite far away from his original vision, but with impressive result. Some of the tracks on BALANCE not only resonate with the full spectrum of modern instrumentation, but also complete orchestral scores and world percussion.

Presently, as Criscione looks to bringing the music of BALANCE to his live performances, heâs faced with a number of challenges. âSome for these songs have so many layers in them, Iâve had to do some reinterpretation to bring them into a performance. So essentially, Iâm putting together two versions of a live show: One that I can perform solo and one with a band.â Switching styles, instruments, and arrangements, Crisicione has mapped out this latest challenge. But if the juggling act he did on his latest recording is any indication, the outcome will land firmly on itâs feet. Completely balanced.