Believe it or not, I’m a musician.

You can tell from this picture of me and my daft haircut singing a song.

Hello folks! Has your hair always been that colour? It fair suits you. This week I’ve been thinking about twitter and facebook and all this social network malarkey, in relation to my music. You see, recently I met someone who followed me on twitter but didn’t realise I was musician, until a mutual friend brought him to one of my gigs. I was a little incredulous, after all, my twitter isn’t short of tweets about gigs and I do use it to promote my music and whatnot. My twitter avatar is even holding a guitar!

Look, just listen to the song. Don't make me hit you.

I had a similar experience one day in work, when I served someone I used to go to school with. We have each other as friends on facebook, but don’t tend to interact with each other via the site. We chatted briefly about what we’d been up to since school, and she seemed quite surprised to learn that I was a gigging musician, never mind that I had self-released a couple of EPs and was planning a single release.

It got me wondering however, about how many people that follow me on twitter, or who are friends with me on facebook, have actually heard my music. To be honest, I get the feeling that most of my active followers probably do know I’m a musician, but I suspect many of them haven’t got round to listening to my music yet. After all, I’ve often seen a band crop up on twitter and think “oh, I’ll need to listen to them sometime” but I often forget to until someone actually links me to their music. With this in mind, I thought I’d give an updated list of some of the places you can find my music online.

Bandcamp

This is an invaluable tool for unsigned/independent musicians nowadays. Allows anyone to listen to your music, buy it if they want, and offers a very fair deal for the bands/artists who use it. It also allows you to embed the player into other sites, which is why you can not only listen to my music on bandcamp, but also on this very blog, AND of course, on everyone’s favourite evil digital empire…

Facebook

Facebook, sneaky as it is, regularly finds ways to integrate with other useful sites. After all, you post a link to a youtube video and you can watch it right in your facebook feed. Well, you can also listen to music, via the likes of the aforementioned bandcamp, but also using something called Bandpage. Basically, if you go to an artist’s page on facebook, this application will allow you to listen to, share, download and buy music. Both bandcamp and bandpage options are available on my music page, so feel free to check it out.

Amazing Tunes

A digital radio station for unsigned artists? If you’re looking for new music and haven’t heard of either Amazing Tunes or Amazing Radio, I recommend you have a listen. You can listen to songs whenever you like using their inbuilt player, or tune into one of their shows for some great music. My page is here, if that floats your musical boat.

Youtube

I know that nowadays a lot of people just chuck a song title into youtube when they feel like listening to a particular song/band. Well, it’s no different for me. If you feel like checking out some live videos and/or me talking pish, there’s always my youtube channel.

So, lots of ways to stream my music online. You can also buy one of my CDs from bandcamp, or download a digital copy (which is a bit cheaper, if you’re not too bothered about owning the disc). But what if you’re not quite sure if you want to pay for stuff just yet? Well, for folks who like free stuff, you could check out my…

FREE STUFF

Well, funnily enough, all of the previous sites (apart from youtube) offer some ways to download some of my music for free. I also occasionally contribute the odd track to compilation CDs and monthly EPs, so you could keep an eye out for those. In the meantime, here are three of my free tracks currently doing the rounds:

Rapture

This is a little song I recorded recently about the end of the world and chatting up girls.

Things That Make Me Angry

This is the free track I offer through being a member of Strummerville DIY.

This is a live track, from Glasgow’s very own Words per Minute.

That about covers it for now I think! If you’ve never heard my music before, I’m genuinely greatful that you’ve taken the time to read through this, and I hope you’ll take the time to listen to at least one song. Might have even managed to surprise one or two of you who simply thought of me as a daft little cartoon man on twitter.

Til next time folks,

love Shambles

x

I don’t blog about EVERYTHING…

Hello folks! Jings aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. I noticed that I haven’t blogged as much recently and yet my friends still make fun of me for blogging everything. CANNY WIN. However, I have been right busy recently, which is a better excuse for not blogging than having done nothing. What an odd sentence…

SO. What have I been up to recently? Well I’ve been gigging of course, including a secret Edinburgh gig and having an awesome time down in Ayr at Su Casa. I also played Bloc in Glasgow, fresh off the boat from Colonsay sporting some serious sleep deprivation and a wee tan. I’ll tell you all about that stuff in more detail soon enough, but for now I thought I’d recap my more digital adventures.

As you might know, I recently recorded a wee song called “Rapture” and offered it as a free download. Well, it’s also had some radio play! If you missed it the other day, Jim Gellatly was kind enough to play Rapture on his Amazing Radio show, which you can listen back to on this tasty wee link. It’s always a great show, so do your ears a favour, eh?
Rapture was also played on Pulse Radio, on a show called In the Jabba with Punk Morvs! You can check out the details of her show on facebook and find out when to tune in for a really eclectic mix of music.
I was also honoured to have one of my songs featured on the Scottish Fiction show, again on Pulse Radio. Presenter Neil Wilson had RM Hubbert on as a special guest for some chat and to play some tunes, so it’s one to wrap yer ears round. The pair fair made me blush at one point, so if you fancy hearing the show, you can listen again on the Scottish Fiction blog. Go’frit!

That should do for now I expect. My other main piece of news is that I’m going to be supporting Jack Savoretti at Cabaret Voltaire on the 26th of August as part of the Edge Festival in Edinburgh! I’m fair excited so I am, and I really hope some of you can make it along. I have a few tickets to sell, so if you fancy some tickets for the show, get in touch at shamblesmiller(at)gmail.com or on any other preferred media. Carrier pigeons accepted.

Til next time folks!

love Shambles

x

Pssst! Me! Jim! A Free Thing!

Hello folks! You’re looking well and you smell LOVELY, if I may say so. This weekend I was lucky enough to have one of the tracks from my new E.P featured on Jim Gellatly’s show on Amazing Radio. It’s always really flattering and exciting to hear my music being played on the radio, especially when someone like Jim Gellatly is the one paying you the compliment of giving you the airplay. In case any of you missed the broadcast, it’ll be repeated on Tuesday at 6pm and Thursday at 1pm, so you can tune in then! You can catch it on DAB radio, under Amazing Radio, funnily enough or on the Amazing Radio website. If you have smartphone doohickeys, you can use those too.

Some of you might know that a while back, I did a wee session for Jim over at Radio Magnetic. Some of the tracks were featured on Jim’s monthly podcast and some of them were featured on his Amazing Radio show. What you might not know however, is that I recently cropped up in the Radio Magnetic trailer for Jim’s show! Eagle-eyed viewers might even spot my debut E.P in the pile…

That was a really fun day :) Wearing my best plaid shirt there, of course!  Since Christmas time is coming up, I thought I might take this opportunity to offer you all another Free Thing, so here’s a free download of the version of Pssst! I played for Jim during the session. The original version of the song is the first track on my debut E.P “Shambles Vs. The Dragonwizard“. It’s also the track I’m playing in the video! Enjoy!

Hope you like it folks! Oh! You might like to know that this week I’m venturing out of my writing cave to hand in my essays, drink a beer or twenty and play a gig. It’s at the Liquid Ship, this Thursday the 16th of December. Free entry. Hope to see you there!

Til next time,

love Shambles

x

 

http://amazingradio.co.uk/

Good grief, I published this before I thought of a title…

Hello folks! Deary me but it’s been a fair busy time recently. I just thought I’d give you all a quick wee update on what’s been happening. As you might know, I recently did a live session for Jim Gellatly over at Radio Magnetic. All in all, I played four tracks: two were featured on Jim’s show on Amazing Radio and two were featured on his weekly New Music Podcast. I’ve also stuck them up here on the blog, over at my music page.

If you didn’t catch the show being broadcast on Amazing Radio, you can listen again with this lovely link. You can also hear the tracks I picked, from Julia and the Doogans and Anavris!

As for the podcast, you can get that from iTunes or stream it directly at Radio Magnetic, with yet another handsome link. I hope you enjoy it! There are lots of great bands on there, but I’d particularly recommend Call Me Ishmael, they have a brilliant track on the podcast.

So, that’s about it for now, in the meantime here’s another one of the session tracks for your listening pleasure. I hope you like it! (sorry if my voice sounds a little hoarse, just pretend I’m an actual grown-up instead of an idiot man-child)

Til next time folks!

Shambles

x

Jim-Jam

Hello folks! I do hope you’re well today and that you’re having a great week.  Mines has certainly been lovely so far, as this week I recorded a little session for Jim Gellatly over at the Radio Magnetic HQ. It was a lot of fun, though my voice was a little bit hoarse on one or two tracks. I don’t think it’s used to singing before lunchtime. I played a track from my debut E.P, two from my soon-to-be-released second E.P and one BRAND NEW track (though you might find it floating around youtube…). You can hear them shortly by tuning into Jim’s radio show on Amazing Radio at 3pm on Sunday and you can hear the other two by downloading Jim’s next podcast, sometime next week. You can also hear me talking some nonsense at Jim as we had a wee chat between songs. I even got to pick a couple of tracks for Jim to play on his Amazing Radio show, so there’s another reason to tune in: my BRAWSM taste in music. Can you guess who I picked…?*

A little picture Jim took after the session. NOT an advert for the Hidden Lane Tearoom...

This week I’ve also been working on my new E.P, putting on some little finishing touches, tweaking this and that and generally annoying my producer by being too picky I expect. I really can’t wait to get it finished, you can be sure I’ll let you all know. I’m really excited about it though, so watch this space for updates.

Also, a big congratulations to Jim on the nomination for his podcast in the Digital Music Awards!

Anyway, I best go do things, don’t forget to check out Jim Gellatly’s show on DAB digital radio on Sunday at 3pm, on Amazing Radio (it’s in between Absolute Radio and BBC I think) or you can listen online with this coquettish little link.

Til next time folks,

love Shambles

x

*I picked Julia and the Doogans and Anavris, incidentally.