THE kids wake us up early…Margaret takes them downstairs for breakfast and I spend some time catching up on emails, socials and get my daily blog out the way.
Once everyone’s organised we jump in Catriona’s car – the kiddie seats are in her car – and Margaret drives us to James’ Coffee…a cool outdoor cafe run from an old airstream a few miles away.
Back in Doune we take the kids to feed the ducks and aren’t back at the house long when Catriona and Will get back.
We head for home and get some stuff done before Mikey rocks up – he’s staying a coupla nights…
Pretty pleased with my photos of Will’s latest paperweight
MATTY and Lindsay head off after breakfast and I hit the studio to take some photos of a paperweight for Will.
We’re off to Doune later to babysit for the night so it makes sense for me to get the pix done and take the paperweight back.
Photographing the glasses really challenging as it’s hard to minimise the reflections. I try a new method of placing the weight in a translucent fabric ‘tent’ in front of the patio doors with no light on in the studio. The backlighting and tent knock out most of the reflections.
The next part is to use a tripod and tether the camera to the computer and use a really slow shutter speed…nearly two seconds.
It works! And the pix turn out pretty good 🙂
Then it’s off to Doune and a coffee with Catriona and Will before they go to St Andrews for the night. Will likes the paperweight photos too.
We have a nice afternoon with the kids and once they’re off to bed we have dinner…Catriona and Will have left fillet steaks for us. What a treat!
WE LIE in a bit and all have breakfast before I hit the studio.
Matty and Lindsay go for a drive to Aberfoyle, Margaret potters about in the house and I continue my animation efforts to build the Devil May Care video.
Other than a break to marinade some steak for the grill tonight, the animation takes up most of the rest of the day then I take the chance to go out t on the loch for a paddle…Clairinch, Torrinch, Port Bawn on Inchcailloch and back. It’s fantastic!
Back in the studio I test some of green screen animation efforts to make sure I can work with them in Final Cut and use it to make a short looping video to use as a Spotify canvas for the song.
The it’s time to light some charcoal and get started on dinner…
WHEN I take some CD media packs to the postbox I realise there’s a postal strike today and they won’t be picked up ’til tomorrow (Friday). Bah!
On the upside, the loch’s looking pretty calm, so i might get out for a paddle later.
A lot on my to-do list tho’, so I get wired in as soon as I get back to the studio.
When I’ve made some progress I decide on a quick pre-lunch paddle, but when I get to the bay it’s starting to get pretty windy…then further out it’s really choppy and difficult to steer the board. I call it a day and head back to shore.
After lunch we work out a t-shirt and hoodie order for our screen printer then i spend some time putting together an ad campaign for the upcoming shows. I’ve done a lot of Facebook advertising in the past with varying amounts of success..but I’m not convinced it should be the backbone of the paid promotion/advertising for this upcoming tour.
Bandsintown has in interesting approach so I start messing about with the creative and targeting. The downside is the minimum campaign budget is £150…a lot to spend just to see if something might work.
Print ads, even in niche publications, just don’t work. Never really have, and never will. They’re OK for building awareness but there comes a point where they don’t really work. Most of the folks that buy/read these publications are well aware of me and my music…and they’ve long since decided if they like it or not. The folks that do are on my mail list, follow my socials etc and don’t need an ad to let them know about tour dates, new releases or whatever. In saying that, I did take a small ad for the forthcoming album and UK dates in one of the blues mags, but that was more to support the publication than anything else. It’s had no effect at my end at all!
We discus budget (or lack of it) and the pros and cons of the various online ad options and decide to give the bandsintown thing a whirl. Organic socials, email list, posters, and ‘traditional’ press/media/PR all play an important part, but paid promotion/advertising is also necessary – especially when trying to build or reach new audiences. I have to be willing to ‘put my money where my mouth is’…’or speculate to accumulate’ as the cliches say!
I spend a while tailoring the tour campaign creative…but before I finalise everything I send a note to the bandsintown folks to see if they have any incentives or discounts so first time advertisers can asses the suitability of the platform and it’s paid services for their own needs. We’ll see what they say…and we’ll see if the campaign makes any difference to anything. Watch this space.
Matty and his girlfriend Lindsay are coming later tonight to stay a coupla days and I’m doing pizza tonight…the dough is ready to be balled up and I need to make some pasatta.
Back in the studio I start work on an animation idea I have for a video to go with Devil May Care – the title track from the forthcoming album (18 November). I’m using some free software called Synfig Studio which is quite powerful, but not very intuitive…I wanna create my main character animations int here then compile the lot in Final Cut. it’s gonna be a steep learning curve.
Matty and Lindsay arrive just after 9pm so i close up the studio for the day and crack open a beer. The it’s pizza time…
MARGARET’S asked me to look out a photo I took of her a while back…a bit harder to find than I expect..then I make up a meal plan and shopping list for the next week.
I have some wooden badge ideas to prototype and also some vinyl orders to be sent out. I book the packages in for collection by the postie and am surprised to see it’ll be Friday rather than tomorrow (Thursday). Further investigation shows there’s a strike on tomorrow. That explains it!
After a Zoom guitar lesson I make some lunch. I’m feeling absolutely knackered tho’ – I think it may be these ibuprofen with codeine ‘cos I;ve felt a wee bit spaced out this morning. I fall asleep for a good 20 minutes-half-an-hour after lunch!
In the studio I prepare some physical promo radio mailouts for the album…with some handwritten letters to try and stand out form the crowd. Then it’s time to start updating my website landing page – Meet me in the City is now out and the focus has to shift onto promoting the upcoming. album and UK tour dates.
I get it done in a kind of a way before it’s time to take some dinner along to Betty and Joe. Margaret’s on cooking tonight and I need to try and inside a batch of pizza dough between her acting the kitchen and us going out…
UP at the crack of dawn and heading into Glasgow. Margaret drops me in Milngavie and I get the train into the city centre.
My right shoulder’s killing me – think I maybe slept with my arm under the pillow the other night – and I need some ibuprofen, I go to Boots but it’s shut ’til 9am so I find a seat and do some work online until the place opens. Ibuprofen with codeine. That’ll hopefully help. Can’t take ’em ’til I’ve had something to eat tho’, so next stop McDonalds.
Sausage, egg and cheese muffin, coffee and painkillers…and an hour or so more work then I hit the post office to drop off postal tubes full of posters for the November dates. All going ‘signed for’ to try and avoid them either not being picked up or ending up under desk as the venues.
Next stop, Love Music. I have a chat with owner Sandy and stick up some posters for the Glasgow show before making my way to the Scottish Music Centre. I stop and deliver posters to Stereo for the Glasgow show on 19 November.
We have a chat about the media/industry album launch event we’re doing there and I leave some posters for the Glasgow show.
Hunger has the better of me and I make for Mikaku on Queen Street for a bowl of ramen.
I’ve an hour too kill before I meet Margaret so I visit GuitarGuitar on Trongate then stop in at the Apple Store and have a gander. The new Apple Watch Ultra is nice.
We’re home by 5pm and I hit the studio to get some more work done…then back to the house to make dinner. Asian salmon, steamed broccoli and cold soba noodles. And a beer.
THERE’S some CDs to be sent out to Help Musicians…I get them packed and in the postbox before a Zoom session with one of my guitar students.
Will pulls up just as I’m finishing the session to drop off one of his paperweights he’s asked me to photograph. We have a blether for a while then he heads off.
Just over a month ‘til the release of Devil May Care and I need to start getting invitations out for the media/industry launch event. I spend a while going through some of my lists.
After lunch I do a wee bit of prep for this evening’s livestream into my Wildcats’ Facebook group then get on with some other bits and bobs of work.
I need to start work on the video for the album’s title track – Devil May Care. Keen to do some kind of animation to illustrate the story but that’s gonna involve a pretty steep learning curve. I downloaded some free animation software called Synfig. It’s a little daunting so I may have to resort to something from Adobe. Meantime, I spend some time drafting up ideas for a flying devil which is, of course, the central character.
I head out for a walk and bump onto one of the guys from the Paddlefast SUP group. He joins we for a wander and blether for a while.
Back home it’s time to set up the livestream – keen to move back to a proper camera and mic so spend a while messing around to sort the sync issues and manage to get things to a tolerable level. I think.
The livestream goes well, although I’m still not happy with the sync…then it’s time for dinner….
WE have a lazy morning and after prepping some pizza dough I hit the office to get some work done before Catriona, Will and the kids roll up.
I’d planned to surprise them with pizza for lunch but Margaret let the cat out the bag. Nevertheless, we have a nice coupla hours together and the kids love the pizza 🙂
The rest of the day is spent catching up with some work in the studio – a mix of a song for JonZip, a transcript of an audio file for Betty and various other things.
Back in the house I make some mushroom risotto in time to settle down and tune into our pal Bill’s livestream from Florida…
I’M fine when I wake up and nip down to the shop to get some rolls.
While Margaret makes breakfast I start knocking up some artwork ideas for Devil May Care badges but start to feel a bit sick..and when I go into the house for breakfast I can’t face eating.
I go for a lie down on the couch and sleep another three hours..which is kinda weird having just had a good night’s sleep.
Feeling a little better when I wake up I have my reheated sausage, egg and cheese bagel, do a little more work on the badges then end up having another two-hour nap. Jeez!
Ultimately it’s a bit of a lost day – the last thing I need having just taken a day-and-a half off while our pal Don was staying. Ah well…
The video for Meet me in the City premieres at midday UK time…click above or see it here
I’M AWAKE early to monitor all the services that should be delivering Meet me in the City. All looks good other than Spotify which has, somehow, messed things up a little…
After breakfast I take Don out for a wander round the village, getting back int time for the YouTube premier – and Facebook releases (Facebook doesn’t do ‘premiers’ any more) – of the Meet me in the City video.
Don heads of just after lunchtime and I hit the studio to do all the other necessary promo stuff, including adding the song to my Bandcamp and Soundcloud pages and then making sure they’re on my ‘listen now’ list.
Both the song and video are being well received online and I’m quite happy with progress when I go back to the house and cook dinner…nice to have night with nothing happening!
