November tour!

I'm delighted to announce that in just over a week's time I'll be heading out on tour! Check out the dates below, it would be great to see some friendly faces :)

 

I'm really looking forward to getting out there :)

3 gigs, 3 counties

This week I've got three gig in three different counties! Does that count as a tour??!!!

I'll be hosting the open mic night at The Clarendon in Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton on Thursday from 8:30. From there it's on to Village Coffee in Codsall for my resident fortnightly gig on Saturday and then another open mic hosting job on Sunday at The Crown in Bridgnorth. The last one is a bit up in the air at the moment because of management changes so make sure you come down while you still can!

more open mics!

More open mic nights this week! First it's the grand re-opening of Hogshead tomorrow night from 8, then my brand new weekly night at The Clarendon on Thursday, also at 8!

A brand new open mic night!

Got a brand new open mic night starting this week! The Clarendon has just had a posh new refurb and is really pushing live music. I'll be running the open mic night every week with different feature acts, so come down and check it out :)

I've also got my usual fortnightly gigs at Village Coffee in Codsall and The Crown in Bridgnorth :)

See you there,

Sam.

20/10/2016

More gigs coming up this week! I'm back for a Saturday afternoon session at Village Coffee in Codsall and then I'll be at The Sow & Pigs in West Bromwich on Saturday night. It's a fun venue and should be a fun night!

Sunday night I'm hosting another open mic night at The Crown in Bridgnorth. I keep saying it to my muso friends, but they do book acts, so come and show the what you can do :)

See you at the weekend,

Sam.

a quieter week

A quieter week this week. Open mic tonight was good fun (thanks to Matt Dooner and Faye Bagley for coming down to play) and I'll be back at Village Coffee in Codsall on Saturday for my usual residency gig.

I spent some time setting up the studio at home today and have almost got everything working and how I want it, so hopefully I can get working on the new album shortly. It's embarrassing how long it's taking me to be honest, the project file is labelled 'new album 2014'!

So, I better get to it then!

a weekend of festivals!

 

Another mega exciting week!

Tuesday is open mic at The Wharf. If any of my muso friends fancy it I can give you a lift, so why not come down and play some tunes? Depending on what time I finish I might head over to the songwriters' night at The White Lion too.

Saturday sees me return to one of my favourite gigs from last year, Music in the Valley at Habberley Valley Nature Reserve for Kidderminster Arts Festival. It's a cool 'semi' unplugged gig out in a clearing at the nature reserve, so bring a blanket to sit on a enjoy it :)

Two gigs on Sunday! First it's a morning trip to The Legendary Llangollen Faery Festival (Kayla has already bought Buddy's faery wings in preparation!) before heading back to The Crown, Codsall for my first gig there since it re-opened. Im hoping to put on some music sessions there in the coming months similar to the sessions at The Fox & Anchor, so it would be great to see you there showing your support :)

See you in the week :)

 

Sam.

Gigs this week!

Great week of gigs coming up!

Tonight I'm hosting open mic at everyone's favourite Walsall bar The Wharf from 8. Come down and watch or play :)

Friday night I'm playing at The Sow And Pigs in West Brom from 9. It's always lively in there on a Friday and it's a craft beer pub! What's not to like?

Saturday is a chilled afternoon at Village Coffee in Codsall from 2. Try the brownies. Trust me.

Then Sunday I've got another super gig at The Fox and Anchor from 7:30. David Young and Brains for Breakfast are also playing, so you know it's going to be great!

See you in the week!

Sam.

11/07/2016

 

Some cool gigs coing up this week.

After having to call in sick last week (massive thanks to Craig Pate for covering for me at the very last minute!) I'll be back at The Wharf in Walsall for open mic on Tuesday from 8pm. As always, everyone is welcome to come down and show their stuff!

Then on Sunday I'm returning to Brewood Music Festival. Two years ago I compered with local hero Will Morgan, but this year I've gotr my own slot on the main stage at 4:20. It's always really well attended, and I'm looking forward to playing. I'm also looking forward to seeing Pete Kent play again!

See you there!

Gigs this week!

 

Another really great week or gigs coming up this week! Three old favourites and a brand new and exciting one!

Firstly it's open mic at The Wharf on Tuesday from 8. Everyone is welcome to come down and sing, play, dance, tell knock-knock jokes. Whatever you like really! Last week was really cool because, even though I was the only one playing, I met a couple from Scotland who really liked my music, bought some CDs (and a T shirt!) and asked me to go and play at a festival in Bathgate!

On Friday I'm going on an adventure over to Stourport to support Bleeding Hearts at Worleys at The Swan from 7. Check out the stage, it looks amazing!

Saturday I'll be chilling out after Friday's antics with an afternoon session at Village Coffee, Bar & Kitchen from 2. I've started squeezing a couple of my own tunes into my set there, and haven't been kicked off yet!

Then on Sunday I'm hosting a superb line up at The Fox and Anchor including Dan Hartland, Alex Vann and Lauren Macmillan. It's always an honour to be able to book myself onto a line up with such talented musicians, and Sunday is going to be a perfect example of that.

It would be great to see you somewhere along the way :)

 

Sam.

Autumn Update

It seems that every post I write on here starts with an apology for not posting enough and a promise to 'be better'. The former is true once more, but I'm not convinced about the latter yet.

A lot has happened in the last 4 months since my last post, some of which is music related! I've started a new open mic night at The Wharf Bar in Walsall, booked some more cool acts to play at The Grain Store Live Sessions, re-started the Fox & Anchor sessions for this summer as well as booking in at some new gigs and festivals for the coming weeks and months. There are more details of these on the gigs section of my website :)

Off the stage is where my life has changed the most. At 19:49 on April the 2nd my son Buddy Costello Draisey was born! He is absolutely amazing and I couldn't imagine my life without him. He's already been to his first gigs at Village Coffee and The Fox & Anchor, though he usually gets more attention than me when he turns up!

We've also moved into our house, which should hopefully mean (after some more DIY jobs are done) that the studio can be put in and I can FINALLY get to working on this album I've been promising. I know, you'll believe it when you see it, but I promise it is on the horizon.

New gigs!

January is always a month of change for me. Quite often it's the month where, if a recurring gig is going to get cancelled, it will get cancelled. This January was not without its victims as the open mic night at The Rainbow and the winter nights at The Fox & Anchor both bit the dust. It's sad, but I do understand that January is often a lean month for pubs and they have to make hard decisions. At the moment it does look like I will still be back at The Fox & Anchor in the summer. I'll keep you informed about that.

The good news is that two new venues have come in to replace the two on the way out. The first is The Grain Store in Wolverhampton.

The usual host there is a guy named Andy Turner, who I worked with a few times last year (see my last blog post where I ran through the gigs I did in 2014). I guest hosted there over Christmas while he was away and he has asked me to help him out once a month. I won't always be playing, but I will be hosting what looks like the third(ish) Tuesday of every month there. I'm hosting next week's gig, if anyone fancies coming down and saying hi.

The second gig that I've started running came a bit more out of the blue. After getting a request for a covers band come in to The Replicas email account we booked a gig at The Plough in Trysull (it's on Friday the 6th of February and is free entry, if you're around). While another member of the band was on the phone to the landlord of the pub he happened to mention that they were looking to start an open mic night and perhaps run a music festival in May. Dan (from The Replicas) sent me a message telling me to get in touch so I arranged a meeting last week and went over to speak to them.

The result was a fortnightly new open mic night on a Thursday night from the 12th of February. I'm looking forward to playing in a new venue. We are also discussing the idea of putting the festival on during the May bank holiday weekend. The owners there seem really up for it, so it should be a lot of fun!

Outside of gig bookings I have been working on guide tracks for the new album ready for the drum and percussion parts to be recorded. I'm starting to get excited about these songs coming together now!

Exposure: another dirty word?

I've just seen this article from The Daily Mash pop up on Facebook and it got me thinking about playing for free.

It's very tongue-in-cheek, as everything for their website is, but it raises a valid point about playing, and asking others to play for this myth of 'exposure'.

'Exposure' is word that plagues hard working musicians everywhere. I see gig adverts all the time that all say the same thing; 'we can't pay you, but you will get exposure to a new audience'. That's all well and good if you know there are going to be a lot of people there who have never seen you before. I played at half time at a Wolves match last season for exposure to over 26,000 people (if you measure 'exposure' purely in terms of Facebook 'likes', I still only gained about 15 new 'likes' directly from that gig). I've also taken support gigs for more established artists who play similar styles to me because playing to an audience that enjoy similar music to mine is good 'exposure' for me and my music. These gigs were also great fun and in the case of the latter I've often sold more than my fair share of merchandise to cover the costs.

My main problem with this comes from the idea that all gigs are like this, that all gigs have masses of people attending who are all fans of the sort of thing you are doing and want to hear music that is new to them. We all know that this isn't the case and that actually most of the time you end up playing to an empty room and getting evil looks from the promoter for not bringing anyone with you. 'Why would I need to to re-expose myself to people who are already my fans?' I hear you ask. 'Surely if I was just going to play to my friends and fans, I would just put on my own show'. Well that's because in reality there is no 'exposure' on offer. It's just a buzzword used to mean 'the venue/promoter is doing this on the cheap and lazy and so can't/won't pay you'. I've ranted on this blog about promoters like this in the past so won't go into it again, but if you fancy a chat about it you can find the original post here.

I don't want to fall into the trap of this becoming another 'poor, down-trodden musicians' post where I sanctimoniously go on and on about how musicians don't get paid enough and it's all so terrible. I put on open mic nights myself where other musicians don't get paid to play. I get both professionals and people who just do it for the love of it play at them and they do it for a variety of reasons. I guess what I'm really getting at is that real, genuine exposure to an engaged audience of people who like the style of music you play, regardless of how big that audience is, is vital to musicians at almost all levels. My issue is that that, in the majority of cases, this is simply not what is on offer.

If you want to see me 'exposing myself' (in a musical way...) I'm hosting open mic at The Rainbow in Coven tomorrow night (Wednesday 29th October) from 8:30. See you there :)

Update

Ok, so we've established I'm rubbish at updating my blog...

I'm currently sat at a gig in Wednesbury (I'm posting in between acts, I'm not a prick!) and I thought I would write a quick update about what I've been up to recently.

I've decided I'm not playing live enough. At least not as much as I used to. So for the second Thursday in a row I'm at SOMEONE ELSE'S open mic! This time it's The Roost in Wednesbury hosted by David Young (check him and his band, The Midnight Chorus out). Needless to say I'm really enjoying playing to new people and seeing new and old friends play.

Any open mic nights going on near you? Let me know and I'll come down one of the nights :)

Oxygen Thief Tickets!

They're here!

That's right, the tickets for the gig I'm putting on with the mighty Oxygen Thief have arrived! You can order yours here.

It's going to be a great night. The line up is really ace and it's a really nice venue. Make sure you get your tickets and get involved.

2013 in review

New year is a great time to look back over the last 12 months and reminisce about what was good, what was bad and what was possibly missed all together! I'll split it up by month both to make sure it stays on track and to make it a bit easier to read (and write!)

January

Posing with Phil Lynott!

Exactly one year ago today I was jetting out to Dublin for a Christmas present holiday with Kayla. It was amazing! they have a completely different attitude towards live music over there. In what could and should have been one of the quietest weeks of any year, there was live music on in every pub and bar every night, and sometimes all day too. I'll never forget walking through Temple Bar at 10pm on the Saturday night and seeing buskers lining the streets playing to audiences of up to 50 people. If I did that in Wolverhampton... Well, let's just say I wouldn't expect the same reception.

After the trip January was quiet, though I did play at Tattoo Freeze in Telford later in the month, which is always good fun. It's always a bit of a surreal experience trying to drown out the sound of roller derby with American Pie!

February

The Replicas live at The River Rooms

February saw my return to The Robin 2 and The Replicas return to The River Rooms. It's actually the last
time the band played a public gig outside of Codfest, which is something that I'm hoping to address this year (we have what might be classed as an AGM coming up next week!). I remember thinking that, having been so busy in 2012 (I posted something on Facebook about the amount of gigs I had played in the year and how I had only had around 2/3 weeks without a gig throughout the year) I seemed to be lagging a little at the beginning of the year. There were a number of contributing factors to this in my opinion, ranging from less gigs to play due to 'the economic climate', to the fact that I was working more during the day in schools and planning a wedding (February ushered in the 6 month countdown!)

March

Celebrating my birthday

March was equally quiet. I celebrated becoming technically closer to 30 than 20, but on the gigs front it seemed things were starting to dry up for me. I hadn't played any gigs for other promoters for a long time, and it seemed that all I had left were my own open mic nights and coffee shop visits and the odd private booking.

The Pied Piper

April

However, as spring came around the corner it seemed to pick up a bit. I had a new open mic in Cannock to
host, the first of which went pretty well, The Replicas were back out for a wedding gig and I travelled to Worcester to support my good friend Brains for Breakfast on his UK tour to promote his EP. It was one of those gigs where I sit down after it and realise that I need to go and play more, for new people, in new places, just because of how much enjoyment I get out of it.

May

The Black Friar

In May I did just that! I played my first ever wedding fayre, which was interesting, if not particularly fruitful. I also finally got to play at The Madhouse in Burton Upon Trent after a verbal agreement with a promoter the previous year (when I supported Amy Wadge and Pete Riley at The Robin 2) and it was one of the musical highlights of my year. The place is perfect for the folky sort of gig that it was, and the audience were really into what I was doing. I never been called for an encore as a support act before!

I also played my first gig in a new recurring venue, The Marches in Ludlow. Again, it's a really nice place and just suits the style of music that I play. I've gone on to play there a number of times and have dates booked in for 2014 already (you can find them on my website - If you aren't there already!). The Replicas were out for a party in Coventry (on possibly the smallest stage ever) and I also played at The Jazz and Blues festival at The Black Friar in Newcastle Under Lyme.

The Cavern - before the drinking
started!

June

June was a little quieter, though I did manage a return to Compton in the park, which is always a good thing
to do as it's both a cool outdoor venue and for a great cause. I also had my stag weekend in Liverpool, which involved a great Friday which culminated in me getting far too drunk in The Cavern Club and missing the rest of the weekend! My best man called it a successful stag. I guess I'd have to agree. It did make me want to play at The Cavern though (potentially both solo and with The Replicas), so there is something to aim at.

July

Choosing just one photo
was hard!

Considering July was the month that Kayla and I got married and went on honeymoon, it was also pretty busy musically. The Replicas played a wedding a mere stones thrown from my old college in Digbeth and I played a couple of great outdoor gigs, including a sweltering Grassroots festival in Appleby Magna and Birchover Carnival, which was a brilliant little festival based on a campsite (though Kayla and I did wait for nearly an hour to get a pizza!)

I also played my first ever in store gig at Vinyl and Vintage in Wolverhampton. It's a great little place it you like vinyl (and vintage clothes I guess, though as it's not really my thing I couldn't comment on how 'good' it is for that).

Finally the day arrived, and what a day it was! Less than 24 hours earlier we had storms and thunder and lightning, but the day of our wedding was a scorcher! People actually went home in the evening to get changed into shorts and t-shirts! I couldn't possibly have imagined it going any better, not even in my wildest dreams. I know it's a cliche, but it was definitely the best day of my life.

From a musical point of view, there were some cool elements too! The Replicas (accompanied by Simon Hough depping on bass) surprised me with renditions of 'The Perfect Sacrifice' and 'Where We Came From', which was a nice touch by them. Then I got up and played 'Don't Forget' with the band as a surprise for Kayla, and frankly I enjoyed the full band version so much I might try and get a sneaky recording done of it if I can!

August

WMF @ The Horn & Trumpet

I had a gig the night of my return from honeymoon - no rest for the wicked! I also had what is possibly my longest drive for a gig to date, hitting the road for a nearly 8 hour round trip to Skegness! It was good fun (and good experience) for me to travel like that, and as I quite like driving and road trips, it was enjoyable. It was nice to walk out onto the beach an hour before going on stage too!

I did my first 'booked busk' outside Molineux stadium the day after too, which was really good fun. I had to shoot off straight after I had finished though, as it just so happened that it was the same day as the Codfest tickets went on sale. They sold out in a few hours, and thus commenced a few weeks of heartbreak, upset and arguments on Facebook. Though it all worked out in the end.

I then had the next contender for longest drive to a gig when I played all day at a wedding in Hull. I left the house at 9am and returned in The Small Hours (see what I did there!) of the next morning. It was great though, I was really looked after by the wedding party. I played before and after the ceremony, then put background music on while they ate, played again as the evening guests arrived, played the first dance (Ben Howard - Only Love) then DJ'd all night for the reception. It felt great to be working so much!

That weekend I returned once again to Bakewell Music Festival. I have to admit that I was a little worried about my act being stale there - I'd played each of the last four years and my set, at least the originals part of it, hadn't changed too much. These doubts were proven to be unfounded though, as I had a great reception once again and sold a load of CDs and merchandise!

Also in August, I had my first ever double up with The Replicas, playing myself during the day and then with the band in the evening at a wedding in Ludlow, which was great fun for me, and I also had my first gig at what has become another recurring venue for me, The Old Stag's Head in Penn. Finally, I returned to Worcester Music Festival to play once more at The Horn & Trumpet for Sun & Stars Management. It was another really great gig and fantastic reception. It still amazes me that WMF gets such a great response in every venue, considering that it spans the whole place!

September

The Replicas @ Codfest

September means only one thing for my musical year - Codfest! Every year after Codfest we sit back, relax and say 'how can it possibly get any better than this?' Then every year (so far) we have somehow managed it. This year's Codfest was, once again, amazing from start to finish. It also kicked off a run of 4 gigs in 4 weekends for The Replicas, which in itself was a great experience for me. You always worry about people in bands that spend too much time together and whether the fun will 'dry up', but it never seemed to happen over those 4 weeks. We just had great fun and put on some really good shows.

In other news, I started a new open mic night at Sunny Bank Caravan Park in Lapley.

October

Busking @ Molineux

October saw something of a wind down in terms of gigs. Due to an error on my part, the new open mic nights at Sunny Bank were cancelled and, other than trips to The Marches and Molineux for some busking, October was very quiet.

November

New website poster!

November was busier. The Replicas played two gigs in consecutive weekends and on the third weekend I travelled to Kenilworth for a private party, only to discover that my capo was missing from my guitar case (I won't go into details, but lest just say I won't be letting anyone pack away my guitar case for me after a gig again). After failed elastic band and pen botch jobs, I finally decided to just roll with it and see what I could do. I played all the capo-less songs I know, I played a few others a bit lower than they would normally have been played and I did a little bit of transposing on the fly! It worked out fine and the audience (luckily a particularly drunk audience) were more than happy.

I also launched my new website in November after a few months of planning, designing and editing. I'm pretty pleased with it.

December

My view of the stadium during the game. Look at all
those people!

The lead up to Christmas meant something of a busier schedule for me, with a last minute 'Winter
Wonderland' wedding my first stop in Stafford. It went really well, and with the venue making promises to recommend me in the future, I'm hopeful that more will come up there.

After a long absence, I returned to The Crown once again for open mic night. It's started really well, and has been booked to take place on the first Thursday of every month starting in February. I also made a return to the Birmingham music scene at TALK bar, where I once again met up with Brains For Breakfast and watched his set. We have to stop meeting like that!

One of my favourite gigs this month, and this year really, was my neighbour Ed's birthday party. I got to play a load of songs that I wouldn't be able to play anywhere else, some that I've not played for years and some that I've never played before! I also played on the pitch at halftime for a sell-out crowd at Molineux. According to official statistics, I played 'Where We Came From' to 28,598 people! Nothing like ending the year in style!

So that's it, my year in just over 2000 words. It's been that biggest and best year of my life to date, one where I've got married, seen and done new and exciting things, played at new places for new people. I've travelled further, played for longer and performed to more people than ever before.

2014, you've got a lot to live up to.

The Crown

As I'm returning once more to The Crown at Codsall tonight to host a new open mic night there, I thought it might be nice to write a blog about my history with the place. If you are interested in my past gigs, you can check the list I made on my website here. It's not 100%, but it's a close as I could get it.

The Crown has always had the reputation as the 'young person's pub' in Codsall, with The Bull being reserved for the older folk and The Station more for the beer connoisseurs. Growing up I never remember it being open, as it also had a reputation for housing certain shady characters and not many landlords stayed there too long.

Not long after I first started hosting open mic nights it was re-opened after a number of years of closure and re-branded as 'Butler's Bar & Bistro'. I think it was around the summer of 2008. I played a few gigs in there both solo for restaurant visitors and open mic nights during the week, which went ok. Unfortunately the venture didn't last long, and possibly suffering from its previous reputation, it closed once more.

This seemed to revive interest in the pub though, and soon a new landlord was in place, a guy named Charles. I once again approached him regarding the idea of monthly open mic nights, and right from the first one it seemed like we were on to something.

Those nights at The Crown were some of the most popular I've ever hosted, and brought through acts that are both close friends and excellent musicians to this day. The most memorable night I had in there featured a touring act at the time, a guy named Kev Fox, who brought his band and a support act down from Manchester to play after contacting me on Myspace (I think that tells you how long ago it was!). There were over 100 people in the back room there that night to watch the performers! Kev now lives and gigs in Poland, and is doing quite well for himself I believe.

But he isn't the only one to have benefited from the exposure and practice that those nights gave people. Under a Banner, The Ratigans and even my current band The Replicas all cut there teeth there, as well as many, many solo artists who still gig today.

But all good things must come to an end, and after a fall out with the brewery over funding, Charles left. The pub once again closed for a while, re-opening briefly a few times, only to close up again soon after. It wasn't until Jim & Anne-Marie took over in 2012 that I finally got the opportunity to go back to a venue that I always felt I had a little bit of unfinished business with. The new open mic nights there started quite well, though a weekly slot there, while good for people's knowledge of the night, really stopped us from managing to put on anything like the shows of the scale of the previous regime. Then suddenly, just two months after starting, the landlords got promoted to a bigger pub in Wednesfield and took me and my nights with them. The Crown closed again, and I moved my weekly night to The Albion in Wednesfield, with little success.

However, Anne-Marie and Jim are now back at The Crown, and my journey starts again tonight at 8:30 in that very place. I'm excited about it, I must admit. It looks like they may want a monthly night again in the new year, which suits me down to the ground. I just hope that, with some hard work and a little bit of luck, I can get it back to where it was over five years ago.

Now that makes me feel old!

New Website!

It's been nearly two months since I posted a blog, so I thought it was about time that I got back to it! The places and times I would normally be writing a blog just haven't materialised lately, not that that is a good excuse. But anyway, here I am and here it is :)

I've been planning a 'new' website for a while now. I say new, I don't currently have a website dedicated to my own music, and so calling it new doesn't really feel right as it has nothing to replace. But it has involved elements of 'new', like coming up with a new logo for my music and myself. I wanted something that represented my status as a 'DIY, independent musician' and after a couple of different ideas were tried out, I settled on a simple text logo of my name looking like it was printed by an old fashioned DYMO label printer. I've gone for a cardboard background for the website too, to try and make it look even more 'home-made'

You can check out the beginnings of the website at www.samdraisey.com, though at the moment it's just a 'coming soon' page. I'll be launching the official website on Saturday the 30th of November, so make sure you check it out and let me know what you think :) I'll be doing loads of stuff in the build up to the day too hopefully, so keep your eyes peeled for that :)

In other news, I've had some good and not so good moments in music over the past two months. The 'Replicas September' was great fun and didn't feel like hard work at all, but then it never really does! I had a very poor turnout at The Robin 2 for The Sam Draisey Session this month (thanks to Matt Dooner for being the other person there!) and so will have to book acts again for next month's session if it's to carry on. I don't mind, it just leaves less space for people who just turn up on the night wanting to play (if you do want to play, best to get in touch with me and just let me know you are coming. Novembers's session is on the 26th). I also had another nightmare before last weeks open mic at Sunny Bank, and I can't apologise enough to anyone who made the journey out there to watch or play.

On a more positive note, I had another good outing at Molinuex Stadium busking for the Wolves fans and really good gigs at The Old Stag's Head in Penn and The Marches in Ludlow, as well as a good send off to this year's 'Festival of Local Music' at The Fox & Anchor in Coven. Here's to hoping I'm back booking there next year :)

Thanks for reading. I'll be posting more once the website is up and running, so make sure you check it out on the 30th of next month. Should be just in time for me to have a stupid moustache for Movember (donate to the great cause here)

To Darlaston we ride.

I'm just home from visiting a new open mic night and I've realised it's been ages since I wrote a blog, so lets put that right!

Tonight was really good fun. The open mic was run by a good friend of mine, David Young (www.facebook.com/davidyoungmusic), who is an awesome musician and songwriter in his own right, but it seems he can also put on a really good night to boot. The audience was friendly, the acts were good and I sold some cds! It's always a nice feeling when I go off to an open mic and come back with more money than I spent getting there!

It's not all about the money of course, and I think I made a few friends and fans tonight too. Its great to get the chance to go to someone else's open mic, meet new people and show my support for others who enjoy playing live as much as I do. The abundance of Frank Turner t-shirts present was a nice surprise too. Who says that kids today have no music taste!

That's it from me for now. If I write too much I'll have nothing left for my next post! I'm travelling to Lincolnshire on Friday for Seaside Fest, so hopefully I'll be able to post something about that :)

See you soon,

Sam.

Update for the festive period

Hi guys,

First of all, I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. For my own part, my very generous parents bought me a bouzouki, so you can expect to hear that on some upcoming recordings and maybe event some live performances! Also, my wonderful fiancée paid for us to go to Dublin for 3 nights, which was fantastic. We saw some great live music and had a fantastic time. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes Irish and Folk music. You won't be disappointed.

However, it seems upon my return that the January pinch has hit home. This has culminated in one of my open mic nights, the weekly gig at The Albion in Wednesfield, cancelling the remaining dates in January. With The Hartley Arms already out until at least February as well, that cuts down on my gigging time significantly this month. I do however have a nice gig at Tattoo Freeze this Sunday to shout about!



I'm looking forward to that one! I'm also on the hunt for some more gigs, with the idea being that I look to travel further afield than my last tour. I'll still play on my doorstep though, if requested :)

As a new years resolution (one of many!) I've promised myself I'll find a new venue in a different city AT LEAST once a month. I don;t think that this is a big commitment really, but if anyone has any suggestions or requests then please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm already booked to play in Worcester in April, and promised Jamie Perry I'd play in Leicester, so I'll look for a venue there too :)

Finally, you will be glad to hear that I start back at The Robin 2 with 'The Sam Draisey Sessions' this month. The session gigs are some of my favourite nights, and I'm really looking forward to getting back involved in running, booking and playing them.

That's about it for now. Please do keep in touch, I love to hear from you :)

Sam.