I remember asking a mate after a gig “How was I?”  I had just come off stage, full of myself, and I thought I’d aced it.

“Not bad”, he answered, “but you could have been a lot better”.

He then tore my act to bits telling me where I could have introduced a song better, asked why I kept looking at the ceiling when I was trying to remember my words instead of looking at the audience, and why did I sing the last song in G when it would have been better down a tone.

He was just being honest. I asked him and he told me the truth which I hadn’t expected.

Asking for feedback is difficult – and I didn’t get the reaction I expected!

The Mutual Appreciation Society does you no good at all.

After a folk club gig I was having a chat with a member of the audience who asked if I would play a gig at their house one Sunday evening and how much I charged.  I thought about it and said,

“I won’t charge you anything, but get everyone who comes to the party to donate £5 towards the cost of the gig.”

After agreeing a date I arrived at the House Gig an hour before the party was due to start and set up a very small acoustic amp and a mic, mic stand in the host’s living room.

House gigs are great fun. Just don’t stand on the flow beds, it don’t go down well.

“This song is for the drunk that has been asking for a Van Morrison number.”

This was the low point in my musician career. I was gigging in a pub in Rugby, Warwickshire and a guy had been heckling me for most of the evening asking me to play him a Van Morrison song. He was loud, obnoxious and determined to get his request played. I knew he would keep asking but I was trying to put it off for as long as I could just to annoy him.

Over the mic, in front of a pub full of people, I dedicated a song to… ” The Drunk asking for a Van Morrison number.”

Things quickly went downhill from there.

“You know what’s really cool? Wake up every morning, decide what you feel like doing, and do it.”
― Amanda Palmer

I am thinking of making a CD or putting on a tour with a Crowdfunding scheme like Kickstarter.

Crowdfunding is a scheme where in return for money given to you by “patrons”,  they receive, for example something in return from you. So for donating money they could get in return downloads of your music, hard copy CD’s, a free house gig, exclusive songs that have not been recorded, an early release of a CD, free tickets to a gig etc, all depending on what money they are prepared to give you.

I always forget to breath when I first start a gig.  I have so many things to think about. I know that breathing should come naturally but for me it isn’t so simple. Obviously I breath enough to stay alive – but when you are singing you need to control your breathing and I forget. So, my first few songs are rushed and I struggle to get my words out. It’s just one more thing to think about, though you would think that breathing should be high on my list of things to remember.