Click above to watch Whisky in my Blood at Glengoyne distillery 🙂
THERE’S a few wee things to edit on the Whisky in my Blood video I shot at Glengoyne distillery yesterday, so it’s straight into the studio to get the final version done and rendering.
I have some photos to sort out too and then a load of emails to deal with. The to-do list is bursting!
Once the video’s finished rendering (…or ‘processing’ or whatever the hell it does that takes so long!) I start it uploading to Facebook via Margaret’s laptop in the house.
I go to the office and do some work on next month’s single release…Givers & Takers will be the single from the forthcoming Live at Memorial Hall album. The album is out on 1 September…and the single more imminently on Friday 14 July. I don’t want to do too much on it until the iTunes pre-order is live, but need to have everything ready to send out as soon as it does – news releases, radio/promo, website landing page etc etc.
Back in the house I see the video has uploaded to Facebook, but there seems to be some kind of technical hitch. I’d hoped it would be on my page at midday, but that;s not happening now. Plan B – I start uploading it to my YouTube channel.
I have a live phoner interview with fm1fm radio and have a nice on-air chat for half an hour talking about my music, forthcoming gigs and releases then it;s lunchtime.
Back at Margaret’s laptop, the video has uploaded OK to YouTube, so I give Facebook another bash and leave it churning away.
In the office I do some work on a website I’m developing for the local hall – the place we recorded the live album. A venture into the house for a coffee and I see the video has, at last, uploaded to Facebook – I do a bit of sharing round social media and stuff then decide I should make a short edit and trailer for Instagram.
Plans for a wee walk and some fresh air are scuppered by monsoon-like rain accompanied by thunder and lightning, so I stay put int he office and work on the hall website ’til dinner’s ready sometime about 9pm.
There’s a few things to prepare for tomorrow – I’m dropping into a school in Milton to play a few songs for the kids and need to gather some gear together. the rain’s stopped when I go across to the studio, but the midges are out in force!
HERE’S someone travelling from south of the border to try out the Lowden guitar I have for sale.
They reckon they’ll be here around midday so meantime I get some work done, them make a bacon weave for the pork loin I’m gonna smoke for our dinner guests tomorrow night. The bacon weave is always a bit of a fuddle, but I get a rub on the pork and get the bacon wrapped round ready for the smoker tomorrow.
Big news of the day is that, at midday, we can announce that I’m playing the Red Rooster Festival in Suffolk at the start of June. The festival is announcing the lineup at the same time and has created graphics and content for me to use on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc…I’m impressed.
The guy coming to see the guitar – who’s making a 450-mile trip – arrives and checks out the guitar. he plays it, puts it down, asks questions, plays it again for the next hour. He’s not quite sure, hums and haws, plays it again then offers me £100 less than the asking price, saying that’s all the cash he has.
Now the guy had asked the method of payment the night before and was in doubt of the asking price and that there would be ‘no deals of exchanges’.
I explain I need the full price, in cash. He clearly has no intention of paying the asking price and must think my head zips up the back. I manage to remain polite, despite him wasting an hour of my time, and show him the door. You’d have thought he’d either’ve paid the price if he wanted the guitar – or not if he didn’t – especially when making a 450-mile round trip.
Once he’s gone I make some lunch and message some of the other folks interested via Gumtree and Facebook. A Gumtree guy calls and arranges to come tomorrow morning then, just as I;m about to nip out for a walk, someone on Facebook who I’ve been chatting with asks if he can come early evening. Of course!
I go my walk, stop in to help Joe with some stuff then get home in time for the potential buyer arriving.
He’s come from Lanarkshire and brought his girlfriend. We know lots of folks in common, all hit it off immediately and end up hanging together until after 11pm. Oh, and he buys the guitar. Cash. No problem. We’ve made some new friends into the bargain 🙂
Scottish shows info/trailer video…click above to watch!
THERE’S a note in the diary that the episode of Julia Bradbury’s Best British Walks featuring yours truly is airing on ITV tonight. I spend a while spreading some ‘hints’ around Facebook, Twitter etc.
With an upcoming session of STV’s Live at Five – Wednesday 1 February, 5pm – I run through the new songs I’m planning on performing and rehearse a few more for good measure.
Mikey arrives mid-afternoon – he’s coming through for the night so Margaret can deal with his accounts and get his tax return done in time.
I’m planning a Facebook video ad to promote the upcoming Scottish shows – but before I can make the ad, I have to create the video…just a short piece to camera.
Half an hour back in the studio with some minor editing and I have a wee clip to upload along with the gig dates/info. Although it’s destined to be an ad, I upload it now to get some traction before throwing some cash at an ad campaign.
Betty pops round with info for us and we have a drink and watch Julia Bradbury’s Best British Walks – despite her questionable (but understandable) pronunciation of some of the place names, the half hour show is a fatastic depiction of our area…and the closing segment with Margaret watching yours truly playing Loch Lomond outside the local coffee shop has survived the threat of the cutting room floor!
After dinner we chat and I set up the Facebook video ad. Rather than promoting (or ‘boosting’) single Facebook events, we’ve found we get much better results and more bang for our buck by having an ad direct to a landing page on my website. And video ads have a much higher success rate than standard ads on Facebook 🙂
A quick search found the above clip from Julia Bradbury’s Best British Walks online! Click the image to watch the segment featuring yours truly 🙂
Dave Arcari is a full-time touring alternative blues (alt.blues) guitar player and songwriter based on the eastern shores of Loch Lomond, Scotland
IT CERTAINLY is ‘Friday the 13th’ – either that or I got out the wrong side of bed this morning.
First up, I’m getting security notifications when visiting my website. The SSL certificate I installed the other day seems to be creating more problems than it solves. I raise a support ticket with my hosting company to see if they can shed any light on things.
Second – our broadband speed has gone from poor to virtually unusable.
And thirdly – to cap it all – my tour dates aren’t showing up on my website. I use bandsintown to populate my tourdates page and, (I’m assuming) after yesterday’s WordPress update to version 4.7.1, something has happened.
I try a few edits and changes but nada. No solution. My bandsintownpage and everything is OK so it must be something to do with the WordPress update that’s preventing the content showing when embedded in my own website. My Google ads ain’t showing up either but that’s no real loss.
Nothing I try wants to fix it so i end up creating a new tourdates page that will suffice until I work oiut what’s gone wrong – or WordPress, bandsintown or someone posts a ‘fix’ or update.
That’s the day all but gone. Dealing with shit. Not a single thing on my to-do list even looked at. I fiond myself wondering how everyone else manages to deal with all this crap. Firefighting.
I spend a couple of hours archiving and organising hard drives in the studio before throwing in the towel for the night and conjuring up a green curry.
On a more positive note, though, following my meeting with Google the other day, Ekaterina’s advice has already resulted in my site coming up on the front page of search results for the three keywords we chose 🙂
Dave Arcari is a full-time touring alternative blues (alt.blues) guitar player and songwriter based on the eastern shores of Loch Lomond, Scotland
Great to see Neil and the guys at Newtone Strings…and launch the Dave Arcari signature strings…now available in the web shop 🙂
THE CAR’S packed, so all we have to do is shove in our overnight bag and a few other bits and bobs before we hit the road.
First stop is Matlock where we’re stopping off to see Neil at Newtone Strings…I’ve been using custom gauge (ie: very heavy!) strings from Newtone for years. We were chatting a while back and we discussed the idea of a ‘signature set’, worked together to put the plan in action and now we have ’em 🙂
The strings are now available in my online store, on the merch table at shows and, of course, via Newtone Strings.
We carry on our journey to London where we’re staying with friends Chris and Richard….we’re staying tonight and tomorrow (Tuesday) – after the London show at the Blues Kitchen, Camden. It’s nice to have an evening with them and Chris has made a fabulous meal….
I take some pix of my Lowden F32 to prepare it for sale 🙁
FIRST job is finalise some Facebook advertising. It’s a crazy mix between a fine art and ‘suck it and see’ experimentation. My view is that it’s worth spending at least what I would on postage etc sending out traditional ‘physical’ news releases and media packs.
I’m reluctantly gonna have to sell my Lowden F32 guitar. It’s been hanging on the studio wall, largely unplayed, for the last five or six years. We’re skint and it hurts, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Trying not to drag my heels on it ‘cos I know that if I’m not going to lose money I need to get it sold before things are desperate and there’s no way I’m going to let it go at a lower than value price just because I’m backed into a corner. I dig out the case and ownership documents and take the lot over to the studio for some photos. There’s a bit of thought and work to do before I decide the best way to advertise the thing for sale.
I still have to get the news releases out for the Reading show on 15 July. It’s been a while since I’ve played there so, like the York stuff yesterday, I call round the local/regional press in my database…just as well as most have moved, closed down or changed email addresses. I have a couple of good chats with some of the journos, though, which hint that I might get some decent preview coverage for the show.
There’s a lull in the rain and a slight breeze keeping the midges at bay so I take advantage and go for a walk up the loch side. Haven’t had a walk for a good few days and starting to feel a bit sluggish.
The fresh air helps.
The day has long gone when I shut up the office and head back to the house. Into the kitchen to knock up some chicken enchilladas. A bit of a faff…but it’s my ‘therapy’ and I’ll make enough so we have some for tomorrow night too.
The enchiladas are good and get a big thumbs up from Margaret.
