Well travelled

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.

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.

Mailing list and other updates

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.

Digital Distribution

I've been thinking recently about what to do regarding my next album's release online.

In the past I've always stated that releasing my albums on iTunes and Spotify were primarily for marketing purposes. I don't expect to make much money from it, not even enough to keep it up online really (it costs around £30 a year, which is ok for the first year, but after an initial burst the sales tend to fall away), but I've always said that as two of the biggest music services in the world, it looks good to have them up on there. It's free advertising.

Isn't it?

I've been toying with a few ideas to change it around. Should I release my album via Bandcamp, a service I have heard nothing but good reports about, and one that doesn't charge a fee? Or maybe I should just have them online on somewhere like SoundCloud, giving the downloads away for free or in exchange for an email address. Or should I even go whole hog and release them as a torrent? It wouldn't be illegal, after all, and I wouldn't be the first to do it.

Maybe it's time for a fresh start with iTunes instead. 'The List' has been available online now for almost 3 years. Should I take down my old albums and start again with the new one? Just stockpiling them on iTunes is not only expensive (it's £30 per album per year), but it could also leave potential new listeners with a 'don't even know where to start' mentality. Maybe I could implement one of the other strategies above for the previous two albums and have my next album up on the major platforms.

As always, comments are more than welcomed on this :)

See you soon,

Sam.

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.

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.