It's finished!

I'm delighted to announce that my new album is finished and will be called 'As I Live and Breathe'. I'll be releasing the track list soon for you to check out :)

What do you think of the artwork?

How long is too long?

I'm about 3 songs away from having my album mixed, and I'm really happy with the way it's going so far. The only thing is, it's around the 45 minute mark already. It won't quite get there, but it will be up close to an hour by the time it's done.

Is that too long? Would you listen to an hour of music by one artist?

I'm also aware that it's been a long time since I've released anything, and keeping all the tracks on there feels like a good way to repay people's patience. Plus, if I hold tracks back for my 'next release', there is a decent chance that when I get around to that, I'll either forget about the songs I left back or won't want old stuff on a new record, so they will never come out at all. Plus different people will like different tunes, so more songs gives me more chance of having something someone will like.

What do you think?

It's finally happened!

I can't quite believe it. After what seems like an eternity of recording, leaving, moving studios around, forgetting, re-recording and agonising over minute details, I've finally finished tracking my album! The computer tells me that it's a total of 1,128 takes! I guess I am a perfectionist after all!

Now it's on to the task of editing, fine tuning, mixing and mastering. Then I can start thinking about fun things like pressing CDs and launch parties. Who am I kidding, it's all fun really!

NEW WEBSITE!

How many times can I start a blog with 'I'm sorry it's been so long' or something of that ilk?

But yeah, it's been a while and I'm sorry for that. I have been kind of busy with other projects, but it's still no excuse. The 'other projects' do however give me something to talk about in this blog post!

First off, I've taken up Instagram. You can see all the photos I've shared here - http://instagram.com/instasamdraisey

I've also started a new website purely for wedding bookings. I went the whole 'professional' route for this (sort of!). I've had a photo-shoot done, the results of which are on the site, but I'll share one of the photos with you here so you get an idea :)

I've done some new recordings for it too! A CD of 11 of my most popular covers. I call it 'Musician For Hire', not really an album title, as it's not an 'official' release, but at least it has a name! I've included the Soundcloud  playlist for it below. Feel free to check out the recordings and let me know what you think.

I've also recently done some new videos for it, adding a couple of songs that didn't quite make it onto the CD. Filming this was great fun, as I had to erect a backdrop and add lighting and sound and all sorts! Good job I have random old staging and spotlights lying around! The videos are also on the website on the 'Listen & Watch' page. Let me know what you think.

Oh, and that all important web address is www.midlandsweddingmusician.co.uk. I know, check me out with my search engine optimisation!



New website aside, I've also been planning and searching for new music nights to run. After I lost both The Albion and The Hartley Arms at the end of last year, it was a necessary process. A few months on, and I've started a new monthly open mic at The Pied Piper in Cannock, re-signed up to host The Fox & Anchor gigs this summer that I ran all through last summer, and started negotiations with a few other places to put music nights and open mic nights on there.

On top of that, I played in Worcester on Friday at a gig that also featured my good friend Brains For Breakfast on his first UK tour. It sounds like he is have a great time, and has inspired me to attempt something similar at some point. Keep your eyes peeled for that, and any suggestions on where to play would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, until next time (and hopefully I won't leave it so long!) have a look at the site and it's new content and tell me what you think, and keep enjoying the music

Speak soon,

Sam.

Hard Work.

Those of you who are on Facebook may have seen some of the uproar surrounding the PRS's decision to name the boy band JLS as the 'UK's hardest working band of 2012', even though they only played 34 gigs. If not, you can find out about it here - http://www.nme.com/news/jls/68255

You may also have seen, should you follow my own posts, that that got me to thinking about how many gigs I had played last year. So I got up my calendar and I started counting...

Including gigs with my function band 'The Replicas' (www.facebook.com/thereplicaslive) the total came to 141. That works out on average at one gig every 2 and half days (approximately). I was quite surprised at this, seeing as although I've been called hard working by other people, I didn't feel like last year was a particularly busy year for me. Also, I only had one week in the whole year where I didn't play a gig.

I guess that just goes to show how much I love what I do. That I didn't think a year where I played 141 gigs (booking other acts for and promoting most of them), recorded and released an album, planned and executed my first tour and put on a festival was busy! It's also shown by how much I'm missing it this month, having had a couple of my regular nights postponed through January, including the first Sam Draisey sessions of the year tonight, which has fallen foul of the weather.

I just wanted to share that with you. Not because I'm being smug or implying that JLS don't work hard, but more because, frankly, I'm pretty proud of it.

In other news, I've been recording guitar tracks for some new recordings of cover songs I'm working on today. I'll wait a while before I record the vocals, only because I'm getting over a cold, but I hope to have them down soon. I'll be putting them up online to hear and download and I'll be using them to try and get myself some more gigs and private bookings in the future. Fingers crossed!

See you on the road. I wonder how many times that will be in 2013...

Sam.

A Narrow Escape

My open mic nights have been suffering a little recently. As you know, I lost the night at The Woodman a few months back, but to add to that The Three Stirrups in Brewood closed just before we were set to put another night on there. I only heard about it because the landlord at The Hartley Arms told me. Still, I bare no grudges. I know the pub was really struggling and the boss there would have had much more on his mind than letting me know about the closure.

But then last week's Robin 2 open mic, my newest and most exciting venture, had a relatively poor turnout too. The standard of musicianship on show was very high, as usual, but the attendance was not as good as previous months, and all of the events so far have not yielded huge profit margins for the venue. So when Mike from The Robin phoned on Wednesday, I was fearing the worst, and I was even more fearful after the conversation, where I was given 2 days collect my thoughts and promotional ideas before making a judgement on whether to take the night forward.

I am, however, pleased to say that after some pleasant negotiation and compromise, 'The Sam Draisey Sessions' at The Robin 2 are safe for the time being. Moving forward, I am going to need to try and get more people in to the nights, possibly to perform but more-so to watch. But that is the fun in promotions, is it not?


A nice, relatively happy little story for you there. I'm back at work and returning to normal after Easter now, so I should hopefully be back in the studio soon. I've given myself until the next Robin open mic to finish the album mixing. Wish me luck!

Hope you are well, and to see you at a gig soon :)

Sam.

Studio Diary Three - The Arduous Task

Sorry it's been a while. I'll level with you, I've been out enjoying the sunshine. I hope you have too :)

Today I finished tracking for my re-release album. All that's left is a spot of guest vocals on one track and the microphones can go back in the box! Though I won't speak too soon. The only reason I hadn't finished sooner is because I had to go back and correct a juvenile mistake.

Without boring you with software related details, I set up 4 microphones to record my guitar, made 4 tracks for them on the computer, then told all of those tracks to record the signal from THE SAME MICROPHONE! So I ended up with 4 identical tracks of guitar sound that wasn't a true or even remotely palatable depiction of my guitar on it's own. I had to go back in and re-record the guitar parts for the two songs I did this on (yes, I made the same mistake twice!) and record the vocals on said tracks today before I could move on to the next stage of the process.

Then another technical hitch happened. My computer's disk drive refused to have any CDs anywhere near it. I mean literally. It was like trying to spoon-feed a full child. I even tried the 'here comes the aeroplane' trick. It wasn't having any of it! It's rejection meant I couldn't listen to any reference tracks easily, and also incurred a painstaking CD ripping and file transferring afternoon.

But after all that, these are the albums I have chosen to go through at first before I start the mixing process, just to get my ears used to the style of music I'm dealing with and maybe to pinch a few techniques from and tip a few hats to more established artists who do what I do. This won't be the last of them, but for now, see if you can name them all from their CD labels. Then let me know who you think is missing!

Anyway, that's enough for now. I'll hopefully be able to get down to mixing in the next few days, and update you accordingly.

See you soon.

Sam.