nobody else: Blog

I wanted to talk a little about what performing live with my band means to me and how I do it. In my capacity as a music lecturer and singing teacher, I endeavour to give students what they need, technically, to be able to deliver a good, professional performance. Having said that, I have never received one lesson on how to connect with an audience (or anything else to do with playing in a band actually)and it is one of the most difficult things to convey to students.

In truth, I have built up a way of "being" on stage through years of experience playing to audiences; big, small, good, bad, attentive, aggressive. I am trying to give them short cuts so they don't have to make all the mistakes I made.

What I am on stage, is me. Simply that. Should be easy eh? Unfortunately one of the biggest mistakes that a front person in a band makes is to try too hard to be liked. I am, of course talking about playing to a new audiene and not the same friends and fans who support you regularly although [...]

I was asked recently by Derek Sivers, (founder of CD Baby and successful and inspirational Music Business Entrepreneur) to read the book Ignore Everybody - and 39 other keys to creativity by Hugh MacLeod and write in my blog about how, if at all, I felt it could help me in my music career. I think it is important that the reader understands my background as this is obviously going to inform my opinion. I am from a working class Scottish background and, as such have a tendency to scepticism. I’d like to think I am open minded but, honestly, I think I have always approached self improvement books tentatively and slightly cynically. Having said this, I have endeavoured to really think about my attitude to my band, its journey and what I want to achieve through my music. I plan to really consider each of the 40 pieces of advice in this book and decide if and how I feel I could apply the advice in the real world. I don’t live in Hollywood or New York or even London. I live 18 miles [...]

I suppose this is a subject that I think affects us all - can we actually do this thing? Can we make a living as independent musicians. I am always blown away by the way in which modern technology enables musicians to produce their own recordings and to allow people access to them. I have recently come across a 7" single that I sang backing vocals on in 1986. I remember how difficult it was for us to record and produce that vinyl single. We seem to have so many more opportunities today. I wonder, however if that devalues the product. Could that be the reason why it doesn't seem to be very easy to "get noticed"? I'd be really interested to hear what you think about this. I'd love to start a dialogue about the industry and how you interact with it.

Well, the album is on Spotify now. Quite cool for the fans who can't afford the album. I think I quite like Spotify, it's a legal way of letting people listen to the music. Anyone have an opinion on this?

Hey guys, welcome to my blog. I've turned over the admin side of things to our new admin manager, Mark but I really want to keep in touch with you guys so I've started a blog. It's new for me so I'm trying it out to see how it goes. You guys can add comments too so lets get a dialogue going. First thing is that we have an audition for the Live and Unsigned competition in February. We've been told that we have a maximum of 2minutes (not long) to impress and so I'd like you guys to suggest which of our songs we should adapt for it.