Stephen Roesler | Ewing & Associates

A pleasant surprise at the Canyon Club

By: Stephen Roesler

The Canyon Club, at least the way I know it, remains infamous for burn out bands, crapped out voices, and sometimes repugnant personalities. Occasionally, however, the most unsuspecting groups prove they deserve infinite praise. This was the case with John Mayall.

Walking in a few minutes late, I observed the thinly spread crowd calmly reclined in their chairs, imbibing the sounds as if they were spraying through the room. I grabbed a drink and casually strolled to the center of the venue, noticing the notably older crowd. John Mayall, known more for his blues days in the late 60′s and 70′s, certainly attracted a well seasoned bunch. Scattered about, however, remained a healthy crew of up and comers, as Jeff Biebyuck, former singer of Bad Blood commented. It became clear that these young artists were around to receive an education.

I immediately noticed Tom Canning on keyboard. Standing as if he was straddling a horse, the slender artist known for his productive relationship with Al Jarreau captured me with his violent solos. Canning handed his solo off to guitarist Rocky Athas who spontaneously stole the show. Acclaimed as the guitar lead for Black Oak Arkansas, Athas slowly faded into a rhythm as he lost his inhibitions; for moments he seemed to be existing in an entirely different reality than the stage of the canyon club.

Mayall, known for a multi-instrumental music career of over 50 years, is most praised for the founding of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Mayall was influential in shaping artists such as Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Peter Green of Fleetwood and Mac. Mayall’s long history was no mystery during the show as he and bass player Greg Rzab passed solo’s back and forth. Mayall, who is a sensation on harmonica, controlled the movement of the crowd as they vibed to the inherently pleasant blues rhythm. Long bass riffs followed by Mayall’s freestyle harmonica/beat box pseudo singing overtook the audience. There were people playing air guitar, women dancing, and one dude playing the drums with one hand and the bass with the other.

Despite my past Canyon Club failures, this event certainly revived my interest. Here is a taste of John Mayall:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwGL5LDb4u8[/youtube]

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Mobile Internet’s correlation to Social Media

By: Stephen Roesler

With the rise of the smart phone, users are spending more time on the internet.

Let’s be honest, most of us desperately cling to our smart phone. We rarely spend a waking minute without the temptation to fiendishly flip on our phones and check our texts, missed calls or voice mails. Or maybe you’re a weather fanatic, constantly updating the weather app to see if the 10 day forecast in southern California has changed. Believe me, it didn’t. I am THAT weather fanatic. It’s almost impossible to get away from the constant desire to maniacally scroll through the latest facebook posts or to aimlessly scour your tweets. YouTube is not easy to resist either. I mean, auto-tune the news is simply superb.

Recently, a study by Ground Truth revealed that 60% of all mobile internet time was spent on social media sites and applications. Portals are the second most popular category with only 14% of time spent on mobile internet. Observe the statistics below.

Deconstructing the study revealed that social media platforms like MocoSpace and AirG, which are designed for mobile use, maintain higher engagement levels than Facebook and MySpace which were designed for PC access. Thus, Facebook and MySpace are considering ways to improve their chat functionality to mirror the platforms receiving the highest user engagement.

As we consider the shift in hardware use from PC’s to mobile devices, we’ve responded by offering property YouTube videos to our agents. Anytime we receive a new listing, we create a YouTube video. With people spending more time watching video on their phones, this is another way to expose our properties. Our in-house social media team is working to give our agents the needed edge in a changing market.