Hello people of WordPress…
My apologies for not updating for a couple of weeks. I never thought being a student would mean I am busier than I was when I was a retail manager! Having said that, I am far happier than I ever was then.
Perhaps I should back that up with some history?
I have been a mature student at LCM/UWL for a year now. Prior to this I have spent the last 14 years in retail management for various companies, the most notable being Schuh. I worked for them on and off for 9 years total in the end!! While Schuh is an amazing company to both their customers and their employees, I have always wanted to be a musician so a year ago on a spur of the moment, I jacked in a very respectable 32k a year job to become a very poor student studying Music Management.
For those of you interested in retail, I do highly recommend Schuh. Brilliant company, lovely people, amazing customer service. Their link is below;
Deciding to become a student again is one of the scariest decisions I have ever made. It meant going from being in a very stable environment in a very stable company and a comfortable wage to being in large amounts of debt over a three year period with no guarantee of a job in my chosen field at the end of it and vastly less money. I had to give up living on my own to live with other people for the first time in years and learn how to budget a lot more affectively.
BEST DECISION EVER! If you are unhappy in your job and you’ve always wanted to do or be something else, just do it!! I cannot recommend it enough. As far as I am concerned, I do not want to be on my death bed with the words “I wish I’d…” forming on my lips. So far LCM has been briliant in helping me to understand how I should be presenting my music to the World and how I can affectively manage my own career up to a point. If you are interested in LCM or UWL, the link to their site is below;
http://www.uwl.ac.uk/academic-schools/music
Onto my last couple of weeks then. IT HAS BEEN AWESOME!! Since my first gig of the year post I have had another four gigs! First off was a live set broadcast on KrystalRadio.net. Jonjo Cosgrove has had me on the show a couple of times before – once as a Skype interview and once to co host his Wednesday night show with him and promote my charity single last Christmas.
Playing a live set on radio was an awesome experience, and it was at The Underwater Studios! So many cool music videos and film shots have been filmed in the tank there it’s unreal! Check it out here:
http://www.actionunderwaterstudios.com/latest.htm
If you’d like to hear the live set, it’s on my SoundCloud here:
https://soundcloud.com/milliemusic/acoustic-at-krystal
Next up was a gig at The Matthew Cross Hair Salon in Sevenoaks, Kent. I realise this sounds bizarre. I honestly did not know what to expect when I was invited to play in a closed salon by AVP – Acoustic Valium Project – to raise money for charity. It was awesome! Matthew is lovely, as is Dan Littlechild (the man behind AVP) and the whole night was well run. The salon is GORGEOUS!
I also played at The Bedford in Tunbridge Wells on the 27th March for AVP. It was a fantastic event and I was quite literally overwhelmed with the response from the audience. I only had a few CDs with me but I sold them all and had to fess up to others who wanted to buy one that I didn’t think I would sell that many so hadn’t had the foresight to bring more!
This poster was up in and around the venue – I was incredibly flattered to have been used as a poster girl…
I met some lovely people artists and audience alike and if any of you are young aspiring musicians, I recommend getting in touch with AVP. some of the artists on their rosta are as young as 13 and incredibly talented. They are accommodating and nurturing in the way they deal with their artists, and everything they do is geared towards helping others. Their next big events come in the form of Angel Fest at the end of May, and Demelza Go Dotty week at the end of June, both to help raise funds for recent flood victims. Check out AVP here:
http://www.acousticvaliumproject.org.uk/
I will be playing both by the way – full band stylee which I am naturally VERY excited about! I was even featured in an online paper to do with it.. *proud* you can read the article here:
http://www.courier.co.uk/Tonbridge-flood-aid-concert-videos-bands/story-20686248-detail/story.html
I have been up to so much more over the last couple of weeks that I think I am going to have to save it for a different post. Look out for “Gigs and such” up in the next couple of days…. I’ll be talking about gigs I’ve seen rather than played and the reviews I’ve been doing for the Punk Archive.
Happy Monday lovely people…..
Music and all things Millie 