WMG

Went on youtube this morning and saw this large and intimidating pink box...


So five of my videos, including two of my three most viewed, have been blocked. Bad times.

Twitter is over capacity and facebook won't update... I can only assume the reason for this is the mass outcry from thousands of adoring Blue Skies fans chastising WMG for this move. The twitter servers didn't stand a chance!

Due to all of youtube's 'improvements' over the years, my channel has been growing more and more slowly (or maybe I've just got worse!) and I'm sure this will hold it back even more. Every day, those videos were a window into my channel for about 1500 people, that's where the majority of my subscribers came from.

It seems these days you either have to do something stupid that goes viral, or you have to be in one of those groups who whore each other out with those little boxes on their channels. Of course the whole world is about who you know, not what you know - so why should youtube be any different? But for a little while I felt like it was... I thought if you were really good, that would be enough.

Ah well. At least I got in early enough to build the audience that I have. If I was starting out now I wouldn't get anywhere.

Oh and if in a few years WMG are trying to sign me, please remind me of this. I think we see the music industry in very different ways and it would not be wise for me to work with them.

Just got this message...

"hi there,

im so sorry for disturbing but can i get permission from you on something ???

i want to use your videos for my affiliate programme .like this:-

I download your video on youtube , then I upload it back in youtube with additional advertistment in your videos..means for my affiliate programme...

but i dont change the content of your videos , just add my advertistment there.

*And beside I can help promote your video as well.

so can you allow me to do so ????? please reply...thank you........"



Hahaha! At least they asked.

A year ago

I just thought 'I wonder what I was doing this time last year' and then I remembered I had a blog where I wrote stuff down.

Turns out I'd just had a massive house party, put a hole in my floor, raved to The Blues Brothers and then got really ill with 'That Bastard Ginger Chris's Disease' and lost a stone in weight. And I was about to go to Ireland.

I was also about to start the free download folder I have, so I was a long way from selling music, which is good because it shows progress! Selling music is not now a scary idea that one day I will hopefully put into practise... It's a thing that I do. It's... Fuck, it's my job!

Overall I'm fairly happy with the last year, but I hope and think that when I look back at now in a years' time there will be more of a difference. I have so many plans right now, I just hope they work out!

Boo!

Set up an Audioboo so I can do this...

Video Tutorials

Hello there! Just writing this to get some feedback on an idea...

At the moment I'm looking at moving south, which will mean my outgoings will be considerably higher than they are right now. This means I need to be making more money. One way in which I intend to do this is by making video tutorials - basically teaching guitar online.

The idea is that people would pay around £1 and get a video, probably about 10 minutes long, and a tab to refer to. I could give them all difficulty ratings and each lesson could include one song (most likely something I've covered on youtube). There are a number of advantages over real life lessons - the ability to pause, rewind and replay the video would mean you could get an hour's worth of lesson/practice time out of each video, you could come back to it in a year when you'd forgotten it, and it would cost 10% of the price of a normal lesson.

And from my point of view, It'd probably take me an hour or so to make the video/tab, so then I'd only need to sell about 10 for it to pay better than a regular teaching job, plus I wouldn't be stuck to a timetable - I could make the videos whenever I had the time.

Any thoughts, problems, improvements etc. please let me know in the comments. And if you play guitar (or want to!) do you think you'd consider paying for lessons online like this?

THANKS!

xxx

London

Hey good news, my hearing seems to have fixed itself!

Moving on, tonight I'll be heading into London and then tomorrow the whole RNLI / Apple thing will be happening. We're gonna meet up outside the Apple Store and deliver the message to the employees. Ben has even made some little paper mache apples to give to some of the people with big job titles that might be able to help.

If you're in London you're more than welcome to come along, we'll be meeting around noon. I'm gonna take my guitar, though I'm not sure how well that will go down with Regent Street shoppers. Or the police. I guess we'll see. I only plan on playing it if there are a lot of people there, if it's just the six of us I'd look like a right plum.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing people again, it's been a while.

xxx

Update

Just thought I'd post a little blog to tell you what's going on... That's the idea, right?

Well I'm staying in Essex for a while at Paul's house. I've brought down the majority of my recording stuff and we're gonna try to be productive over the next few weeks. We're both working on websites, we plan on producing some kind of music/art project, and there are a few other things in the works.

This is all well and good, my only concern right now is that I woke up this morning without being able to hear very well! It hasn't changed much all day, my left ear especially feels weird. Things sound really bassy - like I'm underwater. It's not fun.

Hmm, I thought that would take a lot longer.