Well, maybe it’s time I put my first blog on the new website…seems to be the done thing.
Recording the Colourblind album took an awful lot of time between August and December last year (2011), not to mention a hoor of a lot of money. I’m so delighted Adam at Circular Records had enough faith to agree to release it on CD, and to pay for artwork, pressing, marketing and promotion. Circular’s an eclectic label, and I’ve always regarded it as very high-end, with artists like Nigel Clark, Koshka, Savourna Stevenson, Hobotalk and hip-hop rising stars Stanley Odd, to name just a few. I feel privileged to be label-mates with them.
Now the time has come to try and start the tricky business of selling a few. Launch is on the 14th of May – just two weeks away – and Bob Buchan, who is running the press and PR campaign for us, has been doing a fantastic job. ‘Songwriter of the Week’ on Iain Anderson’s BBC Scotland show at Easter was a real high point. Some really nice reviews too, and I’ve done a fair few live radio interviews so far, with several more booked in. I actually quite enjoy this side of things, although it’s a bit weird sitting at home talking live to radio listeners in Yorkshire. The presenters are really friendly and chatty without exception, and I have to concentrate on not letting the odd wee jovial swearyword creep out!
Quite a few gigs coming in, as you’ll see in the gigs section here. That’s always a difficult thing for me – getting bookings. In my band days, someone else took care of that, and I just turned up on time and behaved myself. Now though, you have to go out and look for the work, and that’s a nightmare – I’d rather eat my own head than phone people up cold looking for a gig.
The last six months of 2011 and this year so far has been incredibly busy for me and Cy on musical projects. Two substantial music library albums of ceilidh and pipe music written and recorded, music for the STV series ‘Too Good to Waste’, the Colourblind album, a remix of our song ‘When The Lion Wakes’ for a forthcoming digital album and, bizarrely, a new Clydesiders album, twelve years after the band called it a day! That was really good fun, and quite emotional – I worked with these guys for 18 years in the 80s and 90s, and it was incredible how quickly it all came back together. A one-off live festival gig at Fintry on May 20th – looking forward to it very much.
Trying to organise a concert with the six-piece band – me, Cy, Stevie Lawrence, Finlay Macdonald, Chris Stout and Ray Laidlaw – in my home village of Gartmore for Friday 22 June. Not easy, as it involves a fair few musicians, and we’ll need a very serious PA as there’s drums involved, too. Just organising quotes, but by the time we pay the PA and ensure the guys get a modest wage, it looks an expensive gig to put on. We brought over 200 people (the hall’s capacity) in when we last played here in February 2011 and I’d hope to do the same again, but there’s always that risk – as it’s for funds to refurbish the hall, I can’t risk it losing money. Originally I’d planned to put it on this month and double it as a CD launch, but a couple of they key players werent available, so we put it back to June. Too far away to make it any kind of launch gig, so it’ll just be a concert, with parties to follow locally!
Anyway, that’s the first ramblings over. Not sure if anyone ever reads these things, but it seems Twitter and the like would prove me wrong……..
Off to watch the 10 o’clock news now. Pictures of people trapped in floods down South after the wettest April on record……but still suffering from drought!