Been a busy month what with holidays and the like. Loads of different things going on musically which is good. Managed one open mic and played some brand new tunes which I had written whilst on holiday. Slight improvement in my performance but still way off where I think I need to be to do some proper solo gig spots.
3rd experimental album was also released which again took quite a bit of effort chasing ‘Amuse’ to approve things that they said wee errors. I have one more album to go in the current series so i will put that out in the same way and then consider whether it is better to move to a paid service. I have really enjoyed having the experimental music available on Spotify and have listened to all the tracks which I have not really done since I wrote the albums. Some strange stuff but if you get a good set of earphones there are some great accidents happening and interactions that I could not have predicted but that make the tracks really interesting. It makes me want to get back on the experimental stuff and try to put together a live performance set-up. Once again though there is just not enough time to do all these things.
I am keeping focus on doing my solo stuff and writing lots of new material. I managed to do a live video of me playing a new tune on top of a hill while we were on holiday in Wales. The hill was the site of an Iron Age settlement and I found it had some amazing energy and was a beautiful place to play. Here is a link to the video.
Still not got the courage up to do any busking yet, I have an idea for a regular busking project focusing on highlighting the stigma around mental illness and suicide ideation ‘Busking to Beat the Stigma’ (links in to some of the experimental work I have done). I have quite a few solo songs that are around this subject and it would be good to give them an airing. Before the weather gets too bad I want to do just 1 session of busking so that I know what it is like and then I will focus on create a set and performance that I can start doing once the weather improves next year. Hoping to do this next weekend so I shall report back in the next blog.
In other news, The Sacred Woods had a great gig at Stanley Park in Blackpool where we arranged all the other acts (same style as the Astley Hall gig). We had 2 people pull out which meant we had some last minute shuffling to do but it all went really well and the weather was fantastic. A few more gigs booked for the rest of the year and working on a number of new covers so things keep moving forward.
Onwards…
The sonic journey of Jules Bryant-Funnell 