My second technorati article - Google Adsense

I was a little frustrated at losing my Google Adsense account for these blogs. After a litle investigation, I discovered that it's not so easy to make money from Google Ads. I wrote a short article about it for Technorati:

http://technorati.com/business/advertising/article/does-anyone-actually-make-money-from/

I'm hoping to put together a bigger article about how to make a little money on the side for music activities from blogs and advertising on your site, but it would appear that it's not as simple as I first thought.

Article published on spotify

I had an article published on Technorati. It's a short piece about the returns from spotify for amatuer musicians when using CDbaby. The title should read "Spotify for the amatuer musician" but somewhere along the way an "is" got added. So it looks positive in nature, whereas I intended it to be unbiased. Please comment, share and retweet and let me know what you think. If I get some response, I'll do this kind of thing more often.

http://technorati.com/entertainment/music/article/spotify-is-for-the-amatuer-musician/

CD´s on CD Baby

I sent 5 CD's for Sandra and 5 CD's for Tamira to CDbaby. You can now buy physical CD's at the links below:

The Cd's are available for $9.99, of this the artist gets $4 I think. It cost me roughly a dollar a piece to send the Cd's so financially it's not a great distribution method, but as with everything I do, it's a bit of an experiment and we'll see how things work out. 

Anatomy of a heart - Finished

After a long long weekend of listening to final mixes and
correcting last minute errors, we’ve finally finished Tamira’s CD.
It was a much more ambitious effort than Sandra’s CD’s. We
included drums, electric guitars, additional musicians and duets.
With every track I do, I get more confident and learn a little
more about the process of recording, mixing and mastering, but
since we agreed it was finished, I’ve been scared to listen in
case it’s shit. I’ll check it out in a week or so.

You can listen to the album below:

Tamira - Anatomy of a heart - Artwork.

We submitted the artwork to the printers today:

 

Wi' (not) Jammin'

After 6 months of oscillating between playing rockstar and playing grumpy-organiser-man - the Coco's Jam Sessions are no more. It seems that the Jam Session was the only night that was a guaranteed success, and the bar is going to replace it's stage with a DJ booth.

It was a great experience while it lasted, and I learned a lot, but there is a part of me is glad for a break. As the nerves and worry of managing to get through the night with unknown musicians gave way, it became an organizational chore. How do we plug in 3 guitars in with 2 guitar cables? How long do you give the drunk guy a shot on the drums before you ask him politely to leave? How do you explain to the Reggae enthusiasts that reggae sounds terrible if their timing is terrible? And also is all this shit your responsibility?

Through the Jam Sessions I have met loads of new musicians and contacts and built a lot of confidence in playing and even singing. Thank you to everyone that put up with it and thank you to everyone that participate; we did ourselves proud. Onwards and upwards to the next adventure.

Art work and packaging

We've not had the luxury of time during this project. Sandra and I messed around with recording for a long time, but we needed the deadline of her going on a trip to really get our arses in gear. As a result we're working to the last minute, so for printing of CD's and artwork, we can't take advantage of the myriad of offers out there that will pakcage up your stuff. After spending a lot of google-time and even telephone time talking to companies about costs lead times etc. I realised that I was trying to rush job 500 CD's when there is no way Sandra was going to travel round Europe carrying 500 Cd's in cases with her. I decided 100 Cd's we're burnable by hand and then focused on the art work. 

As always the art work is by kenneth for www.keep-it-creative.com It's excellent being in the position to offer him "professional"  projects, cos normally I'm badgering him for last minute changes to open mike posters etc. 

The art work is based on Sandra's guitar. We had "creative differences" as to how it should look. Kenneth and I wanted simplicity, Sandra wanted complexity. After long video conferences on skype,  we eventually settled on this:

We had solved the issue of CD burning, but we still needed album covers/cases. For this we opted for bulk printer drukland.nl. They had a 3 day delivery and it all looked good. I didn't read the small print though and by 3 in drukland counting is 12 in normal counting. Great prices, great online service, great product variety. DO NOT use if you are in a hurry. In an attempt to run my music endeavours like a business I didn't lay down and take it and after 40 emails back and forward in a mixture of Dutch and English that contained such temporal gems as "Friday IS 3 working days after Monday. Sir!"  I have 10% off my next order. The drawback is that Sandra left Amsterdam with spindle of 100 CD's and the covers are in the post to Madrid where she'll pick them up.

Other than an afternoon loading a CD drive and an afternoon folding and pasting covers, 625 CD's cost:

625 blank CD's - EUR187.50(These are off the high street and could be much cheaper)

625 album covers - EUR178(www.drukland.nl)

Price per CD -  58 euro cents...

If we charge my recording, engineering and mixing time, the price obviously goes up and then you have Kenneth's graphic design time... but 58 cents is a lot less than it used to cost me to make copies of CD's with covers...

I find it unbelievable, but a year ago today. Fraser and I had our first gig together in the Jet Lounge:

It was a pretty mediocre, but it marked my return to the stage after 8 years away from it. So I thought I’d bum myself up a little and look at what I’ve achieved in the past year.

• I’ve played 27 gigs in 8 venues across 2 countries(26 of them were in the Netherlands)
• I host 2 regular events; one weekly, one monthly
• I perform regularly as twiddley electric guitarist, an acoustic rhythm player, and a reluctant vocalist
• I’ve bothered my arse enough to get a website
• I have moved my repertoire beyond covers of 90’s grunge bands.
• I have written at least 2 songs with Sandra.
• I’ve engineered, recorded and mixed several songs to a pretty decent level.

This past year has given me the confidence to call myself a musician again, and not just play to my bedroom walls with little ambition or direction. The difference this makes to my life cannot be underestimated and I question why I’ve waited this long to get back into it.

So. What next?

I’ve got to the stage that my week is so filled with music things that I have to manage my time quite cleverly. The open mike nights and jam sessions keep me active, but they also give me a great excuse not to be creative. This and the lack of a consistent band means that songwriting continues to elude me. It is still the one thing that I want to do which I can’t seem to achieve.