Stop and smell the roses

I know that it’s the wrong time of year to smell roses. It’s a good time to stop and reflect. I’m not one for reflection I’m pretty driven and don’t do slow days.

Typing this while on a train from Tralee County Kerry back to Dublin the day after appearing as one of 10 finalists in the IMRO 2012 Christie Hennessy Song Contest.

Today my album “Other People’s Hats” is officially released. (Official because the song contest rule required that entries were not commercially available at the time of the contest final).

We had a few drinks (well.. ok… several drinks) after the show last night and I paused to remind myself that I had achieved a couple of personal goals that I set myself back in 2007 when I began this songwriting and performance journey. Journey. I don’t like that expression. It has been appropriated by reality TV.

If you had told me 5 years ago that I’d have performed a show in Dublin with a full band in front of a full venue to celebrate the release of an album with the lead track from the album featured as a song contest finalist I’d have said “yes please”. Damn it feels good to have gotten this far.

So what do I do next? I need to recoup the costs involved in the album production, and the show production. So get the fingers clicking ladies & gents: buy a copy at my online store. You can get a digital download or physical CD (you get an immediate download when you buy the CD).

While that’s all happening I’m going to get the album out to some selected reviewers and some radio shows. This isn’t as easy as it sounds: I don’t have time to check up on radio shows every day to see if they’re playing my music and there are not many blogs or publications that feature “adult contemporary folk rock”… that’s my label…. or if there are then I haven’t found them.

There is a video coming soon for another song on the album. I’m hoping that interest in the video will generate some more sales & add more fans to my mailing list.

This week I’m going to start flexing the songwriting muscle again and get myself back to a level of fitness that will be the start of the next album. In between I will be mixing the live video from the launch show.

See what I mean about driven?