Comments & Discussion About This Session

Recorded in 1319 Olive St. Living Room, Santa Barbara, CA on February 14, 2009.

On February 14th, 2009 One Night Music celebrated its beginnings with a very special Valentine’s Day Launch Party.  In our first living room concert, an audience of about 30 close friends, supporters, and contributors of One Night Music enjoyed performances by Mike Conway, Betsy Wise, Adam Bianchi, Mike Ballan, and Meghan Lehman while sipping wine, munching on popcorn, and sharing conversations.

Twenty-eight year old singer songwriter Mike Conway opened the show accompanied by cellist Betsy Wise to sing songs focused around love, life, death, and past relationships.  His first song,“I’ll Remember You,” is a reflection on the loved ones that have gone in and out of his life. Mike’s second song “Funeral” was one of the first he wrote during his time at college and explores the concept of a part of a person dying in the wake of a break up.  

The last two songs reinforce Mike’s subject matter of life and death, which, as he notes, can be applied to a diverse set of past experiences in his life. “Rose Petals Are Gone” describes the passing a friend’s father and the closing song “I Dreamt of You Last Night,” is a juxtaposition of his insatiable desire to travel with the sad news of a friend’s mother who is diagnosed with cancer.  

Mike began playing drums at age eleven and continued for thirteen years until he sold his drum set and bought his first guitar. As he moved away to college he began writing his first music, finding inspiration in his personal experiences. As he sees it, “Writing a sad song is the only way to get some kind of compensation for going through a sad experience.”  Mike is currently his second annual Bike and Surf California trip in which he bikes and surfs his way across California to raise $10,000 for the American Cancer Society.

Read Ryan Andersen's blog about recording Mike Conway's One Night Music session.