Whoops.....

After playing for two hours at Borders in Southampton today, I was wondering why?
I didn't sell any cds, I didn't get any email addresses for my mailing list, nobody knew who I was, nobody made a special effort to come just to see me and I didn't make any new contacts.


"I didn't sell any cds" - I did have cds with me but I'd put them on a table away from people and there was no explanation as to what they where, who I am and that they were available to buy. I wasn't exactly making it easy was I?

"I didn't get any email addresses for my mailing list" - I may have done if I had thought of letting people know that I HAD a mailing list or even had a sheet of paper and perhaps a pen so they COULD give me their email address!!

"nobody knew who I was" I didn't tell them, in fact thinking back, I didn't tell them anything! I never said a word! To be fair, there wasn't anyone sitting watching me, folk were just wander around just like one would in a book store but I could have tried to engage them...

"nobody made a special effort to come just to see me" Apart from a few tweets and a mail-out to my Facebook group I hadn't exactly pushed the boat out as far as publicity.


"I didn't make any new contacts." Not exactly true, I did meet the guy that organizes events at Borders so I'll let myself off that one.

Never-mind, I'm not going to knock myself out over it. Hopefully I'll remember to make more effort next time and put a bit of thought into it.

I did play a few of my oldies today and had a few nice chats with Jules from Angry Badger, who organised the day, so it wasn't a complete wash out.


Oh and I gave a cd to a 10 year old who stopped and listened to about 4 songs. Increased my demographic!!

                                                          *****UPDATE*****

I take full responsibilty for any opportunities missed on Saturday. Jules from Angry Badger did loads of publicity and I thank him for setting the thing up and giving me the opportunity to play. I just wanted to point out that I WAS THE ONE WHO DIDN'T TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF IT

Last Saturday

Just posted a short vid of an audio clip and some still from my gig at The Soul Cellar in Southampton as part of the Angry Badger Showcase. Yes, I'm not too sure why they asked me but I'm glad they did!
Pucka stage, P.A. and some great lights care of Glynne.
I asked Joe the sound guy to experiment with the out front sound, hence the crazy reverb.
It was interesting how some songs don't work as well with a P.A.
"Glad you Came" was a bit odd. All that picky guitar doubled back on itself but I thought this version of "How Do You Sleep?" worked pretty well.
Eh?

Busy Busy Busy

That's what I've been, all through the summer. I had the six whole weeks off work and what a difference it made. I managed to catch up with all the contacts I wanted to catch up on and do (nearly) all the things I had been putting off until I "had the time and head-space". It did pay dividends!

I had a few things I needed to do. Firstly I wanted to record all my songs. I thought I had managed that but last night remembered two that I had forgotten about, so I'll put that right this weekend.! Halfway through that process I had an idea to record a live, studio LP and release it as a limited edition vinyl collectors item. So excited by it that i actually created a blog and have received an amazing amount of pre orders and a large donation by a guy I haven't even met! You can read all about it here thevinylproject.blogspot.com

I also organized the first Pure Acoustica residential gig at The Dolphin in St. Denys.
You can read about that here 
It was a great night. Join the group and you can keep an eye on what's going on with this little beauty. The next event at The Dolphin is on the 17th.
Tomorrow I'm playing in Alton from around tenish
I'm playing next Saturday, the 12th,  in Southampton city as part of this thing called "Music in the City" catchy eh? You can read all about it here it looks like a lot of fun.
And I'll be playing a grown up set on a stage with a pucka P.A. on the 26th upstairs at The Soul Cellar for Angry Badger Records 
What I haven't had time for is recording any new pod-casts which is a shame as I do enjoy them. I have some new ideas for some jingles buy I may give them to http://watchwithmothers.net/ saves them pinching them eh?
Meanwhile I'm going to be recording some new videos for my YouTube channel.
I may even record one using this, it's beautiful. Made form an old cigar box and a bit of 2x1!
Pip Pip

A Fucking Fiver!

I wonder how many of you wonderful people follow independent artists? The ones who possibly suffer from the tag "unsigned". If you don't I understand, I mean there's so much great music out there in mainstream land.

There's, probably, a sexy girl band, some solo rapper types, the odd make up daubed fey (?) guitar band, an Irish boy band all singing the same note, a competition winner as well as the plethora of assorted female American lunatics. Spoilt for choice eh?

You may be forgiven for thinking that these un-signed acts must be shit, otherwise they'd be signed right? Well, if you carry on that line of logic then the statement "signed bands are all great, otherwise they wouldn't be signed, right?" would also apply and we know that's certainly not true.
There are many dreadful acts that reside under the tag "Independent" or "un-signed" I'll give you that.

HOWEVER

There are many more that are bloody wonderful but how do you find the good ones?
How do you find a band who are at the level when you can still go and see them for less than a tenner, where you can get an email from them (not some industry lackey) letting you know when they are playing and what they are up to and where you can start collecting their early works before they got signed and it all when it bad!

I give you this The Showcase Sett Limited edition 16 track compilation cd
It's been compiled by Xan Phillips and Jules from Angry Badger Records and iconic -culture and I went to the launch of this last night and heard the whole thing, twice. It's bloody marvelous, no really.
I defy you, DEFY, to find a duff track on it. There may be a track or two that may not be too your taste but that's to be expected. It's got one of my favourite bands in the world on it, the mad and beautiful Wise Children. Their track I featured in podcast number 11 is just pure Joy!.
Last Night Andrew Foster played his track "The Alchemist" live and was quietly and poetically profound. He later joined up with the amazing Loz Bridge from Loz Bridge & The Box Social and totally blew everyone away. Loz is a legend. Think Gomez (remember them?) hugging Keene.
There are plenty of great tracks on this album, yes yes yes one of mine is on there but you can forget that, you can still download it for free by clicking that little widget thing but as I've already been paid for it I don't give a bugger either way.
I guarantee you will find at least 3 bands that you will want to hear more from and if I'm wrong, then you have no soul, no soul at all.

All for a fiver, a fucking fiver!

Now that's a plan!

After a weekend of beach, gardening and chopping wood, it's a new day and I'm working in my pj's.

Plan "C", recording all my songs see previous post, has now escalated into the most exciting idea I've ever had! That is, to record a live solo album and release it on vinyl. I've been in conversation with Angry Badger who have some very interesting ideas, so interesting that I won't mention them until certain "things" are in place.

As you can see above, the first of the regular Pure Acoustica events at The Dolphin is all loaded and ready to go. It's a dodgy time of the year to start something like this as so many people are on holiday but I know it will be a great night and the people playing are fantastic so it will be a great night. I made a Facebook event for this if you want a peek.

The windows sponsored free download thing has gone a bit crazy, read about it here. I only needed to get 100 downloads to get paid and so far 1330 people have downloaded How Can it Be Wrong, which is nice.

Heading down to the Soul Cellar tonight for the launch of Angry Badger's compilation cd that "How Can It Be Wrong" appears on. It's got some legs on it that song eh?

Looking at totally revamping my website www.nicktann.co.uk I would really appreciate your opinions good and bad on how it is now.

Charles Olsen, artist, musician and all round good guy, has just pimped my myspace page.

I think it looks very classy despite crashing Safari when I looked at it first thing, although I did have many many windows open.

I also get a mention in the local paper! Whatever next?

So today will be spent recording new tracks for Plan "C", publicizing the Pure Acoustica event, picking up Mrs Nick's dry cleaning, taking another door to be stripped and other sundries.