Today was spent in the office working hard as always, on a Saturday too yet for no obvious financial reward as self-employed receive no time-and-a-half for giving up the weekend. Don't feel sorry for me though, unless you want to feel sorry for me you could hit that PayPal button above the page to help me to carry on providing free entertainment. You might also want to pop along to the shop page and buy something.
Anyway, the main job in hand was the recording of this week's podcast which took me longer than usual because I hadn't compiled the music beforehand. I usually listen to a handful of songs every day and download them from the email if I like them and make notes, but this week I hadn't time and had to listen along to six songs and make a decision fairly quickly. There is a bit of a backlog of music so I carefully picked out tracks with a future release date and had a listen while making notes and laying out the blog page. By spreading the task over a few days it makes things a lot easier.
Of course the job on my to-do list that isn't really moving along thanks to time restrictions is the recording of the not at all anticipated album A Kazoo Christmas With Steve Oliver. So far I have two songs out of ten recorded which isn't a desperate situation but I am aware that I would have a problem getting the thing released in time for the festive market if I'm still recording it near the time. I will be releasing it on my Bandcamp page as a free download with the option to pay your own choice of amount if you want to, it would be nice if it happened but I doubt anyone will buy it. Near to Christmas I might release a bonus track on Soundcloud although another idea would be to allow the free/pay what you want option on Bandcamp but record another song that isn't on the album but will be emailed over for a donation of one pound or more. The money doesn't go in my pocket so I'm not conning anyone, it will go towards making films, sketches, podcasts, documentaries and other things that in return for your gift I will release for free.
Despite the fact that I have been called Nottingham's top kazoo player (only by myself but it counts doesn't it?) I found this really difficult. 'Silent Night' and 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' are already down but today I had a lot of trouble trying to record 'Sleigh Ride'. Part of the problem was that I was using the Ronettes arrangement which has quite a lot going on at the same time, so as soon as I had finished playing the lines I had to follow it straight up with the 'ring-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-dong-ding' bit with a proper chance to breathe in. I do think I will get there eventually though so please don't worry. Nobody was worried.
The Hockley Hustle Practice Run can be viewed here.
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September housekeeping
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steveEoliver@gmail.com
