What do DIY musicians do all day?

Why.... play music of course! Hahahahaha. Ha. Well, sometimes.

You best believe I have a planner for this email newsletter. There are notes within notes, there are reminders and lists, there are colour-coded cross-referenced tags. OK actually not that last one, I have some dignity.

But today I’m throwing the planner out the window. Like a maverick. So buckle up.

I’ve been trying to get my head around how much of my time actually goes to making music, and how much is all that other stuff. What do people like me¹ actually do all day?

Here’s a typical week in my life right now. Take a look, and as we go, I want you to draw a parallel with how you spend time on the important people and projects in your life so it appears like I’m making a wider point about all of us which I’m just shoehorning in here cos I’m feeling self-conscious all of a sudden.

• Some Things Are Like Other Things live video - mixing audio, editing the video in landscape and portrait versions, subtitles, other bits.

• Working with Kerry on the press release for the new album that a few blogs might copy and paste. Preparing an Electronic Press Kit for the radio pluggers.

• Uploading a single release for Spotify, Apple etc, preparing artwork, metadata, playlist pitching. More on this very soon.

• Emails with tour promoters about supports and promotion and that stuff.

• Reformatting CD artwork in Adobe InDesign for a different supplier after my usual people have messed me around for months and months on lead times delaying the album launch and this took ages and ugggggh! I’m so fricking disappointed about this I could cry.

• Writing email newsletter posts like this, which is fun. Thanks for reading, love you.

• Some halfhearted attempts at music video projects even though I mostly find the results unbearably pretentious.

• Also started writing a new song. I PLAYED MUSIC FOR THIS BIT!!

• Social media posts haha just kidding.

• My part-time job that helps pay the bills because reasons and reasons and reasons and reasons and because it’s actually fun and the people are great.

• Family time because I really shouldn’t need to give reasons for that but basically we love each other and stuff.

To be honest I’m pretty lucky. Lots of those things are really fun.

But only half an hour involved actually playing music. Isn’t that like the main thing I’m meant to do? Am I doing this whole thing wrong?

Freddie Stevenson quietly releases an album on bandcamp every couple of years. He’s even more mysterious² with social media than I am, and doesn’t seem to play gigs unless people ask him directly. And… well not many people seem to listen to his songs.

Except… so what? Isn’t it more important to be happy, or at least true to yourself, than to be successful? Follow the first part and often the other part tags along behind. If it doesn’t, maybe it was still the right thing to do?

This kind of radical joy-following approach feels daring and thrilling to me right now. Maybe I could burn my admin list!! Do only things that are fun, drop anything I resent, trust it will lead to good things? That’s what true artists do right? Hey it worked for Prince³.

But without me booking gigs and hotels and discussing supports and designing posters and doing promotion, I wouldn’t really get to play gigs which I massively love. That’s all worth it for me. And since when did we get the right to only do things we love all the time?

Anyway. There’s a lot of ‘means to an end without enough end’ going on. The music part is important. I think I need to refocus on it a little more.

Thanks for helping me with that. You’ve been a great sounding board. Here’s £60.

Feel free to return the favour. Are you in some sweet spot or or getting bogged down in the details? Are you due a little refocus?

If you’ve got a comment, you know where to stick it. That’s right - in the comments area behind this button where it will be gratefully received and most likely replied to:

Live Dates

This is a difficult time for (almost) everyone.
If you really want to come to a show but the ticket price is an issue get in touch.
There might be ways we can make it work.

Friday 23rd September - Totnes Barrel House. Tickets.
Friday 30th September - Coatbridge Georgian Hotel. Tickets.
Saturday 1st October - Berwick-upon-Tweed, tickets soon.
Sunday 2nd October - North Yorkshire Old School House. Tickets.
Monday 3rd October - Leeds Oporto. Tickets.
Wednesday 12th October - Suffolk Bull Inn. Tickets.
Thursday 13th October - Suffolk Bull Inn. *SOLD OUT*
Sunday 16th October - London Green Note. Last few tickets.
Friday 21st October - Brighton Folklore Rooms. TICKETS 🙏.
Saturday 22nd October - Winchester Railway Inn. Tickets.
Wednesday 26th October - Manchester Rose & Monkey. Tickets.
Thursday 27th October - Nottingham Running Horse. Tickets.
Friday 28th October - Lintrathen Lodge At Lochside. Tickets.
Saturday 29th October - Carnoustie Dibble Tree Theatre. Tickets.
Sunday 30th October - Tayport The Larick Centre. Tickets.

See all dates on a map here: https://share.jakemorley.com/livemap

1. Heaven forbid there are others. Anyway, can’t totally speak for other artist types, though we do talk. Oh the things we say when we talk!

2. Rubbish. The word I’m looking for is rubbish.

3. There is however only one Prince. They did once allow Two Princes, but that was an exception.