Apologies for the distortion. The Mickey Hart Band plays Hamilton, Ontario's 38th annual Festival of Friends Aug. 11, 2013 at the Ancaster Fairgrounds. Here's what the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper has to say about him: The Mickey Hart Band consists of Grammy winning percussionist and longtime band mate Sikiru Adepoju, Tony Award winning vocalist Crystal Monee Hall, singer and multi-instrumentalist Joe Bagale, drummer Greg Schutte, guitarist Gawain Matthews, bassist Reed Mathis (Tea Leaf Green), and keyboardist/sound engineer Jonah Sharp. His new tour marries art and science as Hart's brain activity is displayed on a projector screen every night for the tour for the debut of the Mickey Hart Band's latest album Superorganism . Using an electroencephalography (EEG) cap to read his brain's electrical voltage, the neural oscillations that are created by his every drum hit are transmitted to the screen creating a light show that's brain-powered. The goal of this project is that, "hopefully it will lead to some kind of language" to help researchers understand rhythm's effect on the neuroplasticity of the brain. With the help of neuroscientist Dr. Adam Gazzaley from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), Hart may assist in enhancing and preventing our cognitive abilities from declining. He calls his work with Gazzaley the "rhythm genome project." Together they hope to understand how brain waves act in the minds of people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and autism. In 1991, Hart appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging to discuss rhythm and how it affects the afflictions associated with aging. More than 20 years later, his work on the Rhythm and Brain Project at UCSF with Gazzaley is beginning to prove that "Music is medicine," he says. "That's what this is really all pointing towards." According to the Rhythm and Brain Project's website, brain function is dependent on complex rhythms of activity that guide interactions between regions in each hemisphere to generate synchronized neural networks. "The connections of the neural pathways get disconnected [for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's sufferers]," explains Hart. "Vibration stimulates that at the weakest level." The project and Hart's nightly performances hope to point to the right frequencies and amplitudes for rhythm to positively affect the brain's neural connections. Hart's role in all of this is to provide a kind of musical therapy to the brain or what he calls "rhythm central." "Fortunately, that's my job and drumming is the best way to make rhythm because it's an instrument we devised to cut time," says Hart. It was with the healing power of music in mind that this album took shape. Researchers and scientists provided Hart with electrical signals from brain waves and body rhythms that he turned into the music and rhythm of his new album due out August 13th. "Hopefully, it will push the boundaries of both art and science." Pushing boundaries is what the album Superorganism and its lyrics, written by Robert Hunter, are all about. The central message of the album and one that Hart repeats on stage every night from the song, Mind Your Head , he repeats, "A happy brain is a good brain."
