Don't Give Up Your Day Job - a local musicians guide

In the final episode of the season I had the total privilege of chatting to Mille Manders of 'Millie Manders and The Shutup' about all things music. Norwich resident Millie very generously shares her experience of the industry and talks about the hard work, the toil, the rewards and the sheer bliss of being a DIY musician. Millie is a first class musician and has been ploughing a deep furrow into the heart of the music scene with her high-octane, fierce sound that's bursting with attitude.

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Successful and driven Heavy Metal musician Daniel Finch joins me to share his journey, stories and experience of the Heavy Metal scene and what it means to him. 

My first on location episode takes places at the amazing new venue in Lowestoft: The Grit Centre for the Arts & Heritage. The owner and curator at said Arts Centre, Piers Colby, very generously allowed me access to his great new venue which is set in the old Magistrates court. Piers is also part of The Hard Working Blues Band along with my other guests Adam Jarrett (very active within the Norfolk Blues Society) and superb harmonica player (and one of my oldest friends) Ryan Duffer. All three of these exceptional musicians had some great experience to share with me in this incredible setting and brand new venue.

Guitar welding troubadour Isaac Lister who 'loves as hard as he fights' has recently returned to our local music scene from York and brings with him a breath of fresh air. Hitting all the local bars spreading his music and love, Isaac takes some time out with me to discuss his upcoming musical projects, watch me have my windows cleaned, have a live text chat with his old mate Chris Helme from the Seahorses and many more fun things!

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Acoustic, original Americana artist and the other blues man in Lowestoft, Gram Philliips gives some great advice for the DIY musician on this in-depth episode of the podcast. Known professionally as Tupelo Lime, Gram talks us through Twitch streaming, getting an agent, getting a manager, getting euro gigs, authenticity and the plethora of other mountains that the DIY musician has to climb in order to create revenue streams. We also talk about building a musical community and discuss the benefits of creating a local music scene.
Check out Gram's music Tupelo Lime:

Known on the local circuit as 'the human jukebox' superb local guitarist Ben Lever joins us on the show to talk about the importance of having a large...repertoire. Ben also shares with us his history and involvement within the local music scene and talks about his more recent bands; The Masie-Joe & Ben Show and The Boston Tea Party. Danny R joins in with the laughs and banter and gives his perspective of a local battle of the bands contest he was in many years ago, competing against Ben's band! 

Joining me on the podcast for this episode is the genius that is Raoul Crane; owner of Blaze Studios and frontman/guitarist for local legendary rock band The Floating Greyhounds. For this extended episode Raoul gets deep into working with bands, music production, sound engineering and even spills the beans about his latest project: building a recording studio from scratch! Anyone that has heard the music production that emerges from Blaze Studios will testify to the fact that the man really knows his stuff. I'm extremely grateful that Raoul came on the show to share his knowledge and experience with all of us!