I'm currently sitting behind the desk at The Robin 2 for the monthly session. The standard is very high tonight, which I am of course very pleased with.
I've covered some miles over the past couple of weeks, hence the title of this blog. It started off with a trip to Huttoft, near Skegness, for seaside fest. It was a good laugh, and nice to be able to walk on the beach an hour before my set!
Almost a week later (I know, a week off! Lazy, I hear you say) I travelled to Hull to play at a wedding. This was a bit of a landmark gig for me, as it's the first booking to come directly from my wedding musician website. It went really well too, though leaving the house at 9am and arriving back at 3am the next day is a long day by anyone's standards!
The third road trip was modest in comparison, as it was 'only' to Bakewell for one of my yearly highlights, Bakewell Music Festival. The gig was great, I had a really nice audience and sold a fair few CDs. Like I said in my last post, it's not about the money, but it is a decent barometer as to how much people enjoyed what I was doing.
My next gig is at The Old Stags Head in Penn. I was booked today via Twitter. I'm pretty sure it's the first gig I've ever booked with a tweet, and I've never been there before, so I've no idea what to expect. It's going to be an adventure though, so if you are around on Friday night, come down from 9 and check it out.
I'm having a go at posting from my phone. If this works and doesn't look terrible it could spell more posts for you in the future.
...could.
So I'm pushing my mailing list quite hard at the moment. Everything I have been taught and everything I have read about the music industry tells me this is what I should be doing, I just always thought previously that a facebook 'like' was just as good. But with facebook changing their policy so even if you like a page you don't get all of their updates (unless they pay for every post!) It's time I found something more reliable. I won't go into why I think this policy is harming small businesses. That's a rant for another time!
So anyway, I'm finally coming round to the idea that my mailing list is more important than I previously gave it credit for. Question is, why should you sign up?
Well, you know me (at least I think you do), and I don't expect something for nothing. So to make my mailing list more appealing, I'm going to give away as much free stuff as I can think of and create through it. That means free downloads, exclusive content, offers and competitions. Add that to the fact that its only a once a month thing (everyone hates spam, right?), it takes less that 60 seconds to sign up and the form looks cool, and I'm hoping you are convinced.
So, here is the link to get involved - http://samdraisey.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=2a634ae6efc2a856ef15332b5&id=ebbf07137d
Make sure you get on it before the end of this month so you don't miss the first installment :)
In other news, I've confirmed some festivals over the past few weeks. I'll be heading back to the wonderful Bakewell festival for another year, and also have slots booked in Appleby, Birchover, Hottoft and Worcester through the summer. And then there is Codfest, of course :)
I've also got some cool solo gigs booked AND I might even be able to convince The Replicas to do a few more public viewings. I'll save all those announcements for the mailing list though.
Finally, I took my first deposit for a wedding package today. I'm really looking forward to it, playing at peoples weddings is really special. I might even do a cheeky video of the new song I'm playing for their first dance, but again, you'll have to sign up to the mailing list to find out more!
Until next time.
Sam.
