NOW that Nine Pound Hammer is finally live on Apple Music and iTunes, the morning is taken up with wider online promo…I’d held back a little yesterday as I wanted to wait until the Apple side of things was sorted.
Margaret’s in a panic as she’s lost her ring – the house is being turned upside down and the bins emptied. In the meantime I get the smoker going for a bacon-wrapped pork loin destined for tonight’s dinner table.
I’m playing a livestream set later on for the Virtual Blankfest fundraiser out of Racine, Wisconsin. Normally a multi-act event at McAuliffe’s in Racine – a venue I play every time I visit the mid-West – covid-19 scuppered the plans so the event was moved online. My set is at 9pm. Mid-west time. 2am here!
I start gathering the guitars and gear we’ll need. It’s important to make a bit of an effort for these kinda things – not just to try and ‘stand out’, but if folks are donating to fundraisers/charities I feel, as a performer, I owe them a bit more than just sitting on the couch in my t-shirt and shorts strumming away.
When the pork’s ready I put it in a faux cambro to rest until it’s time for dinner and then go out with Margaret on her couch to 5k run. She’s pretty countered as she hasn’t;t found the lost ring 🙁
On the upside, dinner’s good and we watch a little telly before starting to get the space ready for the livestream.
Funny how the prep eats up time – and it’s after 1am when we feel things are ready technically and set-wise.
The event is being streamed on YouTube with performances being piped in via Skype. Festival host Ron calls me up a minute or so before my set and suddenly we’re live. The earlier part of the stream had a few technical problem but my set goes to plan with no technical hitches until about half way through the last song. There’s a couple of acts after me, including William Elliott Whitmore…his set, though, is a pre-record and therefore looks and sounds a lot better than the live stuff which has been squashed by bandwidth and various conversion processes. Still good tho’.
Over $2000 is raised for the Racine-based homeless charity Halo, Inc 🙂
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