Apple

So I went to The Apple Store in Leicester and had a chat with the Genius guy. He was actually very nice and helpful. He seemed fairly certain that it was a problem with the hard drive, and said they could fix it for about £140 and 10 - 14 days. But he also said it's not that difficult and that I could probably manage it myself, so I'm gonna try that.

It was very refreshing to hear someone talk me through all of the options - not just the ones that are beneficial to the company they work for. He could easily have told me that attempting to change it myself would be very difficult and would most likely end up with me electrocuting myself and frying my iMac and that I should definitely pay Apple to do it - I'd have believed him! But when I got home I had a look and it does look fairly simple, I've ordered a new hard drive that should come tomorrow, will let you know how it goes!

While I'm on the subject of Apple, today a new youtube channel was launched by the RNLI - it's called Shout! and is the latest initiative from the charity aimed towards changing the perception of the youth in today's media. We are going to be setting some challenges for all of you people in internetland to take part in, which will hopefully result in us raising enough money to buy the RNLI a lifeboat! At the same time we will be trying to get the story into the papers - our own positive headlines.

'What does that have to do with Apple?' I hear you ask! (I don't) WELL, for the first challenge we decided to lobby a well known company, and we chose Apple. The idea is that so many people, young people especially, spend their money on this company's products that they might be willing to give a little something back, if we show them how much we love them. So we're asking for video responses, but here - it's all better explained in the launch video.

I hope some of you will be able to get involved by spreading the word and/or making a video response. Hopefully I'll be able to do one soon... Depends how tomorrow goes really!

xxx

Changed my mind... Already

I've put the songs together and I think they do work with some of the instrumentals in there, so the track list right now looks like this:

Piano from the 'my day' blog - Needs a name!
Don't Go
Dance On
Ideas
What Did You Do Today?
Open D
Alaska
When I See You Again
Burn Forever

I think I'm just going to call it 'Rarities 07 -09' Because then I can do a similar thing if I have a bunch of unreleased songs in a year or two, and continue the name so they will all appear next to each other and in order in people's itunes.

So all I'm waiting for is a good version of Alaska which hopefully I can get tomorrow either from Jack or off my external - can't link that to my PC because it's firewire, but I'll take it to the Apple Store and do it there.

Jack is not well

Tomorrow I head to Leicester where I have an appointment at the Apple Store so they can take a look at Jack who is not well at all. I fear the cost of fixing him may turn out to be more than he's worth (economically... He will always have a place in my heart as my first ever mac!) Which means buying a new iMac. On the plus side I was planning on this purchase so it's not come out of nowhere and it needed to happen anyway, but I don't really have the money for it yet. However I have decided that I want to get the best that I can even if it means being poor for a while, because the iMac is the centre of my studio and over time I want to build the best studio that I can, which means buying the best equipment, even if I can't afford to get it all at once.

So I need money, and I've been thinking of ways to get it. People have suggested setting up a 'chipin' which basically means people donate money to you... I don't love this idea because people are giving you something for nothing. So what I think I'm going to do it release some of my songs that so far have been unavailable to buy on this new site I've found. It's called bandcamp and you can set it up so people can download songs or albums for any price. So I'll put together some tracks, put it up there and people can enter the amount they want to pay for it, which will basically be their donation towards my new iMac.

What I'm not sure of is which songs to use. I was thinking of using all of the instrumental tunes I have, there are four so far and I could do another one to put in a promotional video, but I wonder whether people would pay much for instrumentals. I do have a few full songs recorded - Alaska, Don't Go, Dance On, Burn Forever, When I See You Again... I was planning to release these properly at some point but I could use them for this? Do you think more people would go for that? I could do both separately, or I could put all of them together. I actually have a video for Alaska ready to go... If I can get it off Jack.

Right. I think I'll start with the instrumentals, I'll do one more - obviously I can't record properly, they will all be just camera recordings, but the mic is pretty good. Then I'll have five instrumental tracks, I'll put them together as an EP and people can buy it for any amount. Then later I still have the option of doing the same with the full songs, if someone donated a load for the instrumentals they can always get the songs for 1p so in effect they have made the same donation and have all 10 tracks.

Sound like a plan?

If anyone has any thoughts on this, or has any other ideas for me to make some iMac money (inb4 get a pc instead... Get out of my life) then feel free to comment or email me.

xxx

Tired / Broken

Right now I'm just tired of being happy.

I'm all broken.

Waiting for warm water.

I just went to have a shower and the water is freezing. So while I wait for it to warm up I thought I'd write a little blog (and watch the football).

I've opened the online store, so The Blackout Sessions along with the t-shirts are officially available! It's strange because I sold a load at Summer in the City which was ages ago, and I've sold some over the last couple of days to the Street Team, so it's not really having a big release day. But to be honest it's bad enough taking 15 to the Post Office at a time! I'm always worried that everyone in the queue is going to hate me!

So I think I'll hold off making a video on my main channel until Monday/Tuesday as there's no post tomorrow. I might make something for the ScratchThatRecords channel though... I want to build that up so I'm going to give it the announcements first!

So if you want to get the CD and/or a t-shirt you can do so at blueskies.bigcartel.com

Thanks!

So long

It's been so long since I posted anything on anything.

But at least I have some CDs and t-shirts to make up for it. I'm actually going to be selling things on the internet for the first time tomorrow, it's quite big/exciting/scary.

Right now I'm having the same problem that I always do, which is that I have new songs and ideas that excite me more than the old ones, but what is old to me is new to everyone else! A part of me is really excited about the whole process - from writing songs to recording, designing the artwork, getting CD's printed and finally selling them to people... But another part of my just wants to keep moving on - I've had a song in my head for the last few days but have been unable to get it recorded and start building it up because I've been working on the website and the online shop and stuff like that.

Still, it should settle down once everything is up and running. Then it'll only mean sticking CDs in envelopes and a walk to the Post Office every day or two, and that's only a few minutes away. So I'll be able to start on the new stuff. My next plan is to make an album - a proper studio album, with the best songs I have. A few from The Blackout Sessions and some new ones. The EP was quite a full sound but they weren't my favourite of my songs... The Blackout Sessions is full of my favourite songs, but it's not polished or layered - which was entirely the point - and I'm thrilled with it... But I really think I need a studio album, something I could, for example, send to radio stations. So that's next.

But back to now. I posted a video on my second channel about what's going on, you can see that here. But basically I've set up a street team on reverbnation, and people who join it are gonna be the first to get the album and I'll sign those ones too. You can join here.

The idea behind this is that 1) a street team will be useful for word of mouth advertising and this will encourage people to join and 2) I can test out the online store and make sure I know what I'm doing while I have relatively few orders.

Then once I'm happy with it I'll make videos to promote. Oh I'm also building a website for www.scratchthatrecords.com with Jon. It's looking great and I'm excited! Especially as I told Tom and he reckons he's not far off finishing his album and I actually can't wait to hear that.


There; new video, new blog... BACK IN THE SWING.

Summer in the City

Months of organising, planning, pulling out hair, persuading Tom that some things are very important and some things are not at all important, recording music, making CDs on which to store and sell said music, finally led me this weekend to driving to London to actually do all of the things that had been organised, planned, etc, etc.

On Friday we had a day for the tourists, looking around some of the famous landmarks. This went alright, but it's certainly something we'll tweak or totally change next year. Moving around is always a problem at gatherings in groups any bigger that 20 people, and there were a few spots of rain. But everyone was pretty excited to see each other and that feeling pretty much superseded everything! After food the majority of the people who were left went to a pub that we'd been to after some other gathering. Not that I'm an alcoholic, but that was definitely the best part of the day. It was the first time I could really relax and talk with friends old and new, just like we were normal people that saw each other all the time!

Friday night went on very late, I didn't sleep much and so I was pretty drained by Saturday, but we managed to get to Hyde Park not too late. The gathering was just big enough to attract the attention of the police, but fortunately nothing came of it. We had talked to the council beforehand to check. So I played some giant frisbee, met some people, sold some CDs, signed some CDs (lol), played the biggest game of pass the parcel you've ever seen in your life and drew on some postcards, but unfortunately after that I had to leave to go sound check for the evening. I really didn't want to go because it was all so nice and chilled out AND SUNNY! I can't even tell you how thankful I was for the sun that day because that could have fucked everything up and it was totally beyond our control!

But anyway, I had to go so I did. Went to The Luminaire and met the guys who would be running things, they were both really nice, helpful and good at their jobs, which are all things that I'm very happy to find in people I work with! So I checked sound, then met Greg and got him to start checking some sound, then I went back to the hostel and slept for a bit! Sounds like something I would regret with all the stuff that was going on, but that hour or so saved my life.

I got up, ate, had some red bull and got to the venue. I was in equal parts, surprised, relieved, excited and scared when the bouncer almost didn't let us in because it was 'packed'. A 300 capacity venue, packed before the first act had started! The fear was for the possibility of people coming from the gathering and not getting in. I'm hoping that didn't happen but have no way to know. I've convinced myself that it will have been alright because with people getting trains home throughout the night all you'd have needed to do was get a drink downstairs and try again in half an hour and I'm sure you'd have gotten in.

As Tom and Mhazz played I began to realise that I hadn't practised my own songs in months, which got me ridiculously nervous. I never usually get too nervous before gigs, and big ones like this I find easier than small ones because it reinforces the idea that you have the right to be on the stage! But I think that was the most nervous I've been since passing my driving test. I even had to miss half of Greg's set (and I fucking love Greg Holden) to remember words and learn songs. I literally had Tom (Prod) on ultimate-guitar.com on his phone finding out how to play that Julia Nunes song 20 minutes before I was on stage. Mr Milsom helped me out by walking in after Greg finished and saying something along the lines of 'He was so good, I would hate to follow that!' Oh nice one, brilliant!

Of course this was all my own fault for going to Malta for three weeks and then having to finish the CD in the week I had back in England, leaving me no time to play through the songs.

But anyway I got on stage and played untitled because 1) it's one of my most recognisable songs, and it's good to start with something people know, and 2) I could play it in my sleep so I wouldn't forget the words! After a couple of songs I finally started to relax. Not only had the nerves of backstage faded away, but the stress of organising was a distant memory. I was just a musician again, on stage with a great audience and a confidence in my abilities no matter how little I'd practised!

It turned into the best gig I've had (from my perspective anyway!) I remember little things like Sophie holding up the card to the audience telling them to sing 'Ahhhh Ahh Ahh Ahhhhh' during the Nunes song, sharing a round of whiskey with some people I don't think I knew in between songs, watching drunk people dance... I won't name and shame Mhazz at this point because I'm too nice.
I'd only written about 30 - 35 minutes worth of songs down on a set list and then I just asked what people wanted to hear. Those last 10 minutes were probably my favourite, I made it though the songs well enough to keep the flow, but there were little things that made me laugh, for example Cheekychen shouting out his version of the line 'I'd have to fall for a singer', which is of course, '... for a minger!'

After my set people were very nice, but then they usually are - it's not like youtube- this real life thing! I'll have to wait and see the footage, but I felt it went pretty well and the audience really responded so I think it was good.

The rest of the night was just fun times, drinks with friends and hanging out until we got kicked out, laughing at stories of a certain male friend who was apparently standing in the women's toilets, "swaying", or at Myles' text explaining that his absence was due to him being at a rave in a car park, which Jon's iPhone told us was an hour and a half's walk away. That was lucky because I was packing up my stuff to go meet him and that would have meant bad times for Sunday!

Even so everyone was pretty tired on Sunday, something that we had foreseen and thus hadn't really planned anything solid. It turned out to be a nice enough day but nothing particularly interesting happened so I'll leave it there.

So the weekend finished with no major catastrophes and a lot of positive feedback. Literally the day after I got home I was discussing next year with the other guys and we already have a facebook event up. We must be crazy.

Still, one of the best weekends ever.