I finish splitting all the logs and stacking the chopped wood in the shed…

ANOTHER gorgeous day…additional USA booking for 2019/20/21 has become an urgent priority tho’, so it;s straight into the office.

I try and work out a timescales for potential future USA tours – basically I need confirmed bookings around January and June/July each year to fill in long (ie: three or four month) gaps between tours. The visa folks need to be satisfied that I need a ‘continuous’ three year O-1 visa – they don’t get that for an independent artist at a grass roots level to be spending four months and £3/4k every trip is quite impossible. Not to mention the stress of not knowing if the visa will be granted and all the time trying to get contracts in for shows.

In between pulling lists of contacts together and juggling dates and plans I take advantage of the sunshine and nip outside from time to time and split some logs. The pile is slowly getting smaller.

In the afternoon I hit the studio and listen through to both versions of the new song recorded yesterday. Although I like the feel of the second version – as do a lot of folks that were watching the Facebook livestream – there’s a couple of horrible bits, so I end up doing a mix of the first version.

I accompany Margaret on here ‘couch to 5k’ outing, but instead of walking, I take my bike…I pulled the bikes out the shed earlier in a bid to tidy things up a bit. It;s fun, but my legs aren;t used to the sharp, stony uphill sections of the path.

Back home we listen to the mix of the new song. We both like it. But…I notice a couple of lyrical bloopers, so we decide to give it another bash tomorrow before mastering. I think I’m gonna release it as a single on World Music Day (21 June)…so not only need to get it finished and mastered, but also get artwork done and the info off to the digital aggregator who pushed it into all the online stores and streaming services.

West Coast of America has had time to wake up and get my messages and pleas for help, so spend some time in the office and, once again, nips outside form time to time to split more wood until the pile is done. Quite satisfying, I must say!

There’s a bunch of quite positive messages and possibilities from California which I can go through properly tomorrow. 

Meantime, there’s some leftover smoked chicken for dinner…and beer in the fridge…

AFTER breakfast Margaret comes across ot the studio to help me record a demo of my new Whisky Trail song.

I’ve decided to do a Facebook livestream of the whole process, so once we’ve got things set up we go live and stream the recording process, some guitar parts and a rough mix. There’s a wee bit interaction too and it’s surprisingly popular considering the stream lasts and hour and twenty minutes!

After helping set the levels and stuff in the studio Margaret spent another few hours on a local community project. We have lunch and she carries on while I split some wood and deal with some email stuff…and more GDPR compliance.

Betty and Joe pop round for a coffee i the sunshine then I call the lawyers in New York about my visa petition. They reckon I need some more contracts to fill in some gaps in my three year itinerary. That’s not going to be easy and we’re now up against things time-wise as the petition  needs to be lodged in a fortnight.

I start firing out emails and trying to pull some plans and ideas together. In  between times I get some chicken on the smoker – Mikey’s staying again tonight.

I do a little more work in the studio until Mikey arrives then go back to the house. We start having dinenr outside, but the midges are too much for Margaret so we take everything indoors.