The EP Launch was yesterday; everything came together and I have been left feeling that despite a few technical hitches that were out of my control, it was a success. I even managed to get a bit of compensation off the venue for the technical hitches without making enemies there, which took the best of the skills I have learnt through working with new people over the last 8 months.
The night worked out so that Swansea Love Story played a half hour set, followed by our EP preview which was accompanied by Mike Pettyt's stunning videos; then we, Jeanie in the Radiator, played a 40 minute acoustic set accompanied by Devin's photos which she had edited and sent to me so I could create a slide show. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and commented on all of the audio/visual media as well as the live performances which is exactly what I wanted.
Swansea Love Story shifted 35 of their EPs, despite selling just 25 tickets to their fans and 60 people left with our EP USB wristbands. With our EP set to be released on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify on May 2nd, I can only hope that the sales will increase. However, whether they do or not, I have achieved a lot over the last 8 months which have culminated in a successful, public launch of my career as a producer, as well as the careers of two groups of musicians, a photographer and a video producer.
I have worked hard on gaining ground as an artist and producer since September. As with all things, there were times when I succeeded and times when I didn't so much, but the key thing is that I feel that I have thrown everything I have at putting myself out there in that time. I have secured my songs airtime on a regional BBC radio station; my band a radio interview on the same station; organised the production of the Soapworks Session youtube videos which now have, collectively, 5,466 views; I have successfully produced EPs for 2 bands including my own; gotten in touch with a BAFTA winning director and secured a work experience placement on her next shoot, as well as passed on a CV to her network of sound designers; released the Jeanie in the Radiator EP as a physical USB wristband and as a download on iTUNES, Amazon and Spotify; I just finalised plans for a job playing guitar in the show band of a production of 'Honk!' at the Royal Northern College of Music which is a great opportunity to further my performance skills; and just today I bumped in to Marc Riley of BBC6 Music and have organised to go and shadow one of the live session sound engineers on his radio show in the next few weeks.
This personal and professional development project has been an invaluable tool in documenting my achievements in order to access how far I have come in the last 8 months. It has also allowed me to evaluate the way in which I have dealt with situations and has taught me some valuable lessons in the field of networking, gaining contacts and securing work and experience for my art. The incident with Stuart Howatson, for example, was my first real taste of the exploitation that goes on in the music business and was an experience that will stay with me forever and remind me that one must be careful who they agree to do business with. On the other hand, the work experience I organised with Tinge Krishnan the very next day was a prime example of the swings and roundabouts of this business.
The case really is that the more I put in to something, the more chance I have of getting something out of it. I will continue to document my personal and professional development throughout the work I have coming up. Once I leave University in the next few weeks I hope to make the most of the work experience with Marc and Tinge and continue to build up a portfolio of work in music and audio, in the hope that I can apply what I have learnt throughout this project, to make even bigger waves in future.
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