On a shoestring project part 23

  It is Sunday night (more like Monday morning) and I'm just back from the Porterhouse, where I was playing with Sliotar. The Temple bar trad festival was on this weekend, and It was great to see the place buzzing again after January. As I am sure any musician knows, It is almost impossible to fall a sleep after a concert. Your pumped full of adrenalin, ears are ringing and the brain is buzzing. The world around you slows down and falls a sleep, but you are still wide a wake. Fingers might be sore, body might be tired, but the mind is wide a wake. But some times this can be a creative time. Many of my song lyrics have been written in the middle of the night, or even a blog;-). I do live in the center of Dublin, and it can sometimes get bit noisy here, but Sunday nights the town stops much earlier. There is something magical when the city goes quiet and the week finally comes to an end. I always feel somehow hopeful on Monday mornings. I am not a big sleeper, and I am up most weekdays around half six. And Monday is always when I make a plan for the week. If you are your own boss, you do need to have certain amount of discipline, but also positive attitude is very important. And you need to start to see the positive side of Monday mornings.
  Past week has been a very busy one for me, and next one is going to be that as well. I have got some good solid guitar tracks down, and can't wait to get the drums going. And as I mentioned in last weeks Blog about my new Telecaster and the Blackstar amp, I thought I could share with you a sound snippet here again. So the Blackstar got my "closet treatment". I place it at the bottom of a closet facing upwards, position Shure beta 57 on the cone of the speaker, and Akg perception 220 about a meter away from the speaker. And once again we split them to left and right, just to beef up things. So this is an intro from a song called “Right out of here”
New tele sample by jpkallio
The file once again is hosted by Soundcloud.com, and how ever they compress the files, the sound quality is just so much better than myspace!

  This week we are moving rehearsal room, which should be the last puzzle in place for the recording. The Volt studios have been great to us, and I am glad to be staying there. And also we are looking in to possible venues in Dublin at the moment for our first concert. We are looking for somewhere intimate enough, but at the same time big enough that a rock band can make some noise in. We have few ideas about the promotion as well. These days you really need to think out side the box. Obviously all these social media tools are very powerful and can't be ignored, and if you know me at all, you know I never would. But still there is place for an old fashioned posters and flyers. I personally see music as a bit of a cross over art form, especially for independent artists, and it does help if you have a good eye for graphics. And if you don't, find some one who does. The music should speak for it self, but good visual graphic is a powerful tool and it can draw people in to the music, whether it is a CD cover, gig poster or flyer.
  And actually, I just got an perfect opportunity to try out some of these ideas in action. I've have the great pleasure to play this Thursday, the 3rd of February 2011 with some great musicians in a group called the Barbers & Butchers  in bar here in Dublin called The Old Storehouse. The music is Irish traditional tunes mixed with folk and contemporary songs. As a musician you need to spread your wings wide, to make the ends meet. And the fellow musicians in this group are such high level, that it will most certainly be a great night of music. If you are around, come along. It is free in and the music starts at 9pm. And for this concert, we will put up some posters, as well as a social media campaign that is already in full swing:-). These kind of things are great opportunities to try out what works and what does not. If with every concert you try to do some promotion, soon enough you'll get good and fast at it. I'm still bit slow;-)
  This is a good example how everything in music business is somehow linked, and also how it is a constant learning curve. To be honest with you, still every day I learn something new, and come across something new I need to learn. If you are in a similar situation and there is anything special you would like me to cover in this blog, don't hesitate to contact me.
  But for now, enough of my sleep deprived ramblings. I'm off to bed, and will continue next week:-)