Found My Way Is Now on Bandcamp

When I finished making the Found My Way album in the autumn of 2019, I released it for distribution through CD Baby. This meant that it was quickly available through Spotify and other streaming services, and initially available to download as quality mp3 files directly from CD Baby.

During the summer of 2020 I eventually got around to getting the physical CD version sorted, as some people had indicated that they wanted physical copies of the album. I announced the arrival of the CD copies here.

Enter Bandcamp

Some time ago I realised that CD Baby were no longer doing downloads so people who wanted to get hold of the album on mp3 couldn’t do so. I realised I need another solution.

Late last year there seemed to be a flurry of people releasing things via Bandcamp, and I decided to investigate. I had heard of Bandcamp before, and had even bought a couple of albums through it, but had never really thought about using it as an artist.

Well the signup process was pretty easy and before too long I had my own Bandcamp artist account, and the Found My Way album page is here. I’ve also uploaded my Life Line album from a few years ago.

Found My Way album on Bandcamp
Found My Way album on Bandcamp
Life Line album on Bandcamp
Life Line album on Bandcamp

The advantages of Bandcamp

For a singer/songwriter like myself Bandcamp offers the flexibility to release albums or tracks in whatever combination you want. You can just upload the songs in a grouping, and that becomes an album.

You can also supply artwork for the album, some general notes about the album and copyright information for each of the individual tracks.

People who are interested can buy the whole album, or just individual tracks if they prefer. And Bandcamp even allows users to play the tracks a few times without having to buy them.

Obviously Bandcamp doesn’t offer all this for free, and they charge a 10 – 15% commission on every purchase. But that’s not bad really.

What do you think?

It’s easy to think about things as an ‘artist’ (in Bandcamp’s terms), but what about you? Does Bandcamp offer everything that a music lover needs? And is there anything obvious that’s missing?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Keep well, and keep safe.

Found My Way CD Available Now

At last, it has arrived!! A few days ago some boxes arrived, and the Found My Way CD was actually here.

Several Found My Way CDs in a box.
Coming out the box.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Found My Way album was actually finished at the end of 2019, and has been on Spotify since then. But whilst I wanted to get the CD available at the start of 2020, I had to actually create the full cover artwork for it.

Then life got in the way in February as I was knocked down by a bus, and had a stay in hospital for a while followed by more recovery at home. So my ideas for the CD cover took a lot longer to come to fruition.

But a few weeks ago I was well enough to get everything together and finish it. And now here it is.

Acknowledgements

There’s a few people I want to thank for helping me create the album, and more recently helping with getting the CD artwork finished to the correct format.

Recording the album

Neal Leggett - studio engineer.Most of the album was recorded and mixed at Miacon Studios in Horsell, near Woking in Surrey. Neal Leggett is the owner of the studio and he operated all the recording equipment during the sessions.

Francis GreeneAll the songs were my own, except one track ‘Don’t Let Go’ which was the result of a collaboration with Francis Greene – a guitarist and keyboard player who I regularly encountered on open-mic nights. Having co-written the song, Francis was happy to come and record some keyboards and backing vocals on the track. That was a fun evening. See Recording Don’t Let Go for more detail on how this track was written and came together.

As well as backing vocals from Francis Greene, I was fortunate to have some other help in the vocal department from Karen Terry and Tracy Ginn.

Tracy GinnTracy and I had met at an open-mic night in Woking some years ago and had performed together at many open-mics since.

Karen TerryKaren is a neighbour who I’ve known for a few years, and she has been a singer for ages. Whilst we’ve never done open-mics together she has instead been involved with other events like Ripley Rocks for example.

Joanna LawrenceIn terms of other contributions during the recording, I should mention Joanna Lawrence – another Woking resident and an accomplished string player. She agreed to be part of the project and her viola and violin can be heard on two of the album tracks. She did well decoding the hand-written scores that I gave her.

Creating the CD

Once again I’d decided to use Disc Manufacturing Services to actually make the CD. I’d previously used them to create the Life Line CD some years ago, after a recommendation from a fellow musician – and I would myself recommend them too.

They have many artwork templates already set up and it’s just a case of choosing the one you want to use. Fortunately I have a bit of experience with Photoshop, but that’s more in the field of creating website graphics. The people at DMS are helpful though and are happy to spend time answering your questions and helping you get everything to the right format and standard.

Once the order was placed, the turnaround was pretty quick too – I think the CDs arrived less than two weeks after the order was finalised, and I’d paid.

What next?

Please let me know if you’d like a copy of the CD, and I’ll do my best to get it to you as quickly as possible. I’m selling them for £5.00.

With face-to-face open-mic nights not running at the moment, and unlikely to be until 2021 at the earliest, opportunities for playing you the songs live are very limited. But I may be joining in with some of the virtual open-mic nights in the near future, once I’ve worked out what I need to take part.

 

Found My Way Album Released

At last, after a couple of years of tinkering, my new album ‘Found My Way’ is finally out.

Currently it’s available for high quality MP3 download at CD Baby. Visit the Found My Way page on CD Baby and preview the tracks there.

In the near future it will be available via Spotify, and other streaming and download services. I’ll be posting links to those when I know them.

Is it on CD?

A question that a lot of people have asked.

Well I’m just finishing off the artwork for the cover and then I will be wrapping it all up for CD manufacture. Given lead times etc, I think that realistically the CD will be available some time in January 2020.

So if you’d prefer having the hard copy, I’ll be posting when they are available and you can get one from me when I’m playing at open mic nights and gigs etc from then on.

Tracklisting

If you’ve seen me play recently you’ll probably have heard some of these.

  1. Got To Be This Way
  2. High Time
  3. If You Could Only See
  4. Take Your Chance
  5. Through This Night
  6. Your Eyes Are My Sun
  7. Don’t Let Go
  8. Time, Time, Time
  9. Way Out West
  10. Not Like Before
  11. Tell Me Now
  12. Just Like A Dream