Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog.

For those that don't know me, I am a hobbyist musician, a photographer, a writer and a software engineer.

I am in a band called The Hair Thieves, who record an eclectic mix of EPs. This is mostly indie pop rock songs with a smattering of ambient soundtracks, rock, punk and jazz twinges.

Within this blog I aim to document the writing, recording and marketing of my first solo CD.

As of today.  May 17th 2014,  this exists only as a series of song parts, nothing has been finalised, I have no list of tunes nor completed lyrics to work on.

All I have is some ideas, that are either in weird tunings, weird timings (or both) or have been rejected as songs for The Hair Thieves.

So this might end up a album, or an EP or an EP and an album.   I don't know yet.

The Hair Thieves is still my primary focus, so working on the new EPs for that will take precedence over any solo material I write, so I am envisaging that a solo album may take a year or two to complete.

 So this blog aims to be informative on

• My writing progress
• Tools I use to write music
• The progress of demos
• The recording process
• Tools I use to record.
• Occasional dodgy cover versions
• How to market a band.  Starting from scratch.
• Online courses I have partaken in.
• Reviews of useful blogs for musicians.
• My take on posts from other musicians.

From the marketing point of view, I aim to base the steps on Music Success In Nine Weeks by Ariel Hyatt.

Obviously, since I am starting from scratch and have other priorities,  I aim to do this in nine months not nine weeks.

This will be supplemented by various books from Bob Baker like, Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook (in which my name is mentioned!) as well as other blogs and books.




So there it is a start, or at least a line in the sand.  To be honest it is a little bit scary!

I am to blog every couple of weeks.    Starting the week June 1st.   Wish me luck!