September dreams, September nightmares.

September was a strange month. It was like a rollercoaster, but without the extortionate pricing and ridiculously long queues. Two examples encapsulate this:

September 4th

I had my first gig of the month booked. On the way to the gig, I checked my e-mails; one of these e-mails informed me that I had not got through to the interview stage for a job I applied for. It was a job at a well-respected firm. It wouldn't be my dream job - it would probably be quite mundane and simple - but it would be at the very least working for a company who care for their employees. I was frustrated to have fallen at the first hurdle.

The gig, however, was brilliant, for numerous reasons. Firstly, it was a night organised by David Earl, the man behind one of my favourite comedians: the brilliant Brian Gittins. A few months ago, "Brian" had posted on Facebook, asking if any new comedians wanted an open spot at his night. I jumped at the chance, and was lucky enough to be one of the first 3 to respond, meaning I got a spot at the first Gittins to Know You show. I was delighted enough to be on the same bill as Brian, but the rest of bill was made up of Adam Hess, Holly Burn and Harry Hill. Anyone who knows comedy, and knows what sort of comedians I love, knows how highly I rate these names. Not only was I on the same bill as bloody brilliant comics who I really admire and respect, but it was the biggest audience I'd performed in front of. 110 people. My previous best was the 70-ish who gonged me off after 2 minutes 20 seconds at Up the Creek back in May. This gig was far more successful for me, however. It was a great gig, that I really enjoyed. Any demons telling me "you can't gig to an audience of more than 60 people" were exorcised in those 5 minutes. Not to mention the fact I got to see properly brilliant comedians for free. It's one of the most beautiful perks of being an open spot.

Wednesday 24th

I was due to have an interview at my local Tesco, a job I thought I'd have a good chance at getting, because my brother works there. However, I couldn't sleep until 7am, meaning I overslept - my interview was due to be at 11am. I woke up at 11:07, and immediately phoned the lady who arranged the interview. I was very annoyed at myself, even though my good friend PDT correctly pointed out that it wasn't my fault that I couldn't sleep. I even put across the point in my rearranged interview the next day that two of the reasons I couldn't sleep were due to unemployment and money troubles, which getting a job would fix.

That night, I took part in a Laughing Horse New Act of the Year heat. The only other time I had entered this competition was for my very first gig, and since then it has been one of my biggest personal goals to do well in this particular competition. My set was well received, and I felt very happy leaving the stage; this didn't stop my heart from racing while I was waiting for the results to be released. If the top 5 went through, I'd have felt more relaxed, but only the top 2 - out of 14 comedians - were to go through. I've set this up to show how contrasting my days have been, so you know that, yes, I managed to get through, finishing 2nd to Gary Knightley, who fully deserved his place in the semi-finals. It is the most proud I've ever felt of myself.



For a long time, I've not felt fully comfortable referring to myself as a stand-up comedian. I've always leaned towards "I gig a bit", "I've done a few gigs", things like that. But now, I feel happy calling myself that, because I've proven to myself that I can do it. Only on a relatively tiny scale, sure, but I can still do it on that scale. Which is fantastic.



Ultimately, though, the money and job troubles are still there. It's a very strange feeling; one night, you're on top of the world, with a room full of people saying "well done", with most of the comedians probably thinking "I wish I was him (purely because I got through)"; the next morning, you're struggling through an interview for a job working the minimum wage - a minimum wage job you fail to get.




Anyway, onto October. October sees the return of Vlogtober from last year, so keep your eye on my Twitter for links to videos and all that jazz. I also have a ton of gigs booked in. It should be knackering, but fun.

Thanks for reading,

Tom.

How easy is it to make money from music on the internet?

Can you make money from music on the internet?

This is a question I have spent a long time pondering. Theoretically, anyone can make a song, put it on the internet's many music sales/streaming services, and within 6 months have made £50,000 due to it going viral. But I have always wondered how easy it is for the everyday, normal person to make money through the avenue of paid downloads/streams.

So, on 12th November 2013, I uploaded a song to Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, and all other websites that sell digital music. It wasn't a song by me, per se...it was a mash-up of two pieces of dialogue mixed over a techno beat. The pieces were an impression of Waluigi by someone who is great at impressions and voice-overs that I found on Fiverr a while ago...and my friend Jon's impression of Walugi. The song shows them both saying the name Walugi again and again, with 'Waluigi' bemoaning Jon for stealing his voice and copying his nose. The song is listed as being by 'Jon Reynolds', with a title of 'Waluigi Yeah Yeah Yeah'. This is the wonderfully ill-fitting artwork I chose:

It's ridiculous. As songs go, I daresay it is probably in the bottom 50 on Spotify. So why did I bother?

The first - and main reason, if I'm honest - is the fact I find it funny. A song that, previously, only our friendship group of 6 knew of was now on Spotify, where the whole world could find it by typing in the name of a low-popularity character from the Mario franchise. The brilliant thing? Some people have. So far, since November (up to June, the latest reports available), the song has been streamed 224 times. Just the fact that there will be some confused Americans somewhere thinking "what the fuck is this shit?", while the sound of my friend Jon doing a duet with a videogame character fills their house...I love that.

There was also - as I said earlier - the experiment aspect. Sure, this song wouldn't have any promotion; it isn't by an established (or even real) artist; it's quite shit. However, it does feature the name of a minor character from the massively popular Mario franchise, so I wondered if this would drive enough traffic to it so it could turn a profit.

Let's look at the numbers, from November - June:

224 streams + 2 sales

=

$2.64

So, absurdly, I have made $2.64 on this ridiculous song over the last 8 months. To upload it to iTunes/Spotify/Amazon etc., it cost me $9.99 for a year. So, at this current rate of earnings, I am going to turn a loss - I daresay rightly so, if I'm honest.

But to go back to my original question - can you make money from music on the internet? Definitely. While this particular track isn't going to turn a profit, the fact that even this track is on target to make back 40% of the very minor fees for uploading the song shows how easy it is. If someone uploaded a song that they promoted, was people could relate to, that actually wasn't shit, then I reckon it would not be too hard to make your investment back. Alternatively, you could just put the name of a more popular character from the Mario franchise in the title, and you'll probably make the money back anyway.

There is still the chance that this song will make it's money back, of course. All I need is for Waluigi to be a contestant on X Factor this weekend, and I'm quids-in.

This brings me onto my next point; my cunning plan, if you will. Everyone knows that people have the ability to be impatient, silly, or just plain stupid. With this in mind, I am currently debating whether I will follow through the following idea:

On 17th December - or whenever the X Factor final is - I will release a song that is "by" the favourite to win the show. I will give it the generic title of "Winner's Song", with it just being the words "Simon Cowell is a poo" looped over some guitar. Upon the winner being crowned, people will rush to download the song, see their favourite's name alongside "Winner's Song", and click download/stream/GIVE IT TO ME NOW. All it takes is 1/10,000 people who download the winners song to buy this accidentally, and I'll score roughly 500-1300 sales. Even if it is a tenth less than that, it's still pretty funny, and will more than turn a profit.

I am unsure of the legal/moral ramifications of this, as it stands. There is a precedent for people releasing misleading song-titles; in 2012, a week before Maroon 5's song Payphone was released, an artist called Precision Tunes reached #9 in the UK Singles Chart after releasing a cover called Payphone (Maroon 5 Tribute).

Whether I do it or not is hard to call. I may have to find some way around it; perhaps giving the artist a middle name, so it isn't a direct copy? So it is misleading enough to trick people, but not so misleading enough to trick people who actually pay attention. To be fair, I am fairly sure most people who watch The X Factor do not pay attention to much, otherwise they'd realise it has been the same the last 10 years. There's a duo in this year's series called Blonde Electric (who tabloids have already dubbed 'The Female Jedward'), who will get far in the live shows at expensive of far more talented acts, and people will moan "I can't believe it", despite the fact that Chico, Jedward, and countless others have done it before.

In my mind, I've already envisaged some people leaving angry comments about getting "ripped off"; people furious that they have given $0.70 to an unemployed guy in his early 20s instead of a billionaire who treats people like commodities. Maybe pointing that out would put it all into perspective for a few.

If anyone was any legal/moral thoughts about this plan, let me know! I'm currently enjoying it as a wistful silly idea, regardless.

Thanks for reading,

Tom.

3:38am ramblings. 16th September 2014

Hello there. I am up at 3:38am, as this title suggests.

My mind is racing, nervous, full of worry. This is a usual occurrence for me; most nights are like this. I have spent a lot of time recently feeling extremely stressed out, which has caused me to not sleep well, get a load of ulcers, and other illnesses such as coughs and colds are things I am afflicted with very often. Quite frankly, there is a shit-load of stressful things about my life, and I am not coping well. YAY!

Tonight (well, this morning), there were numerous things on my mind preventing me from sleeping. I am going to type them out in an attempt to calm my mind down; for this morning, at least. In no particular order:

1. My current employment situation. 

This is a very frustrating aspect of my life. I have tried many different avenues to change the fact I am unemployed; last month, on the 19th of August, I went for a job interview at Tesco, in Aylesbury. I was the best dressed person there, being the only one wearing a suit and tie. I gave the best answers as part of the group interview; the 7 of us that were there were asked to go out into the store and "pick one product that represents you". I picked a box of Cadbury's Miniature Heroes, and said "this product represents me because it is sweet, nice, versatile, and will put a smile on your face". I both displayed my positive qualities, while also communicating why I'd be good at the job. In contrast, one girl said "I have picked Iron Bru, because it is Scottish and orange, like me". Not to mention the fact that a man there said - in a very deadpan way - "I have picked Lucozade because I like it...and because I'm energetic", which was greeting with 5 seconds of pure awkwardness in the room. As I left the interview - being the first one to make the effort to shake the hands of all of the current Tesco employees in the room, thanking each for their time - one of them (who worked in the position I was applying for, though wasn't in charge of employment) even said "see you soon". While this could have just been her usual polite greeting, I was - understandably, and rarely for me - feeling confident, so I presumed this was a sign that she recognised my good chances of being employed. While I haven't heard back officially either way, they initially said "we'll contact you within a couple of days", then 10 days, then 2 weeks. It's not going to happen.

2. Lack of creative output/progress

I guess this is why I woke up, came downstairs, and booted up the PC. Partly because I had some stand-up comedy ideas swirling around my head that I wanted to write out so I don't lose them, but also because -

like every night for a long time - I have spent time worrying about my lack of progress, output, and achievement creatively. Granted, I know part of this is due to my employment situation - and the high levels of worry and stress caused by the uncertainty of pretty much every aspect of my life - but it's still a nagging concern.

3. Money, money, money.

This goes hand-in-hand with the unemployment. I don't have an income, so I am constantly worried about what's going to happen when my bank account runs out. I've only been able to get through the last month or so due to some utterly lovely people I know just simply giving me money to help me out, which I cannot thank them enough for. But even when I know that I have enough money in my account to last me the next 2 months (for example - this is a rare occurrence, to tell you the truth), there is always the very real worry about how I am going to be able to afford to live happily over the following months. There's also many daily causes of frustration due to my lack of income/funds. There are times that I spend 50p in a charity shop, and find myself stressing over it, thinking "could I really afford to spend that? God Tom, you're being an idiot, why did you spend 50p on that thing you don't need to live? You should only spend money on things you absolutely, 100% need to exist, nothing frivolous at all". Earlier on today, I bidded 1p on a Smash Bros. 3DS demo code on eBay. The official demo is out September 19th, but for 1p I could have got it 4 days earlier. It is the game I am most hyped about for over 3 years (since inFamous 2 in 2011), and I really want to play it. But there was part of my brain that was saying to me "you moron Tom! Why did you bid 1p on that, when you get the demo for free in 4 days?! What a waste of money, you dickhead". Over 1p. I didn't win the listing in the end, as it happens - it sold for £4. I'd rather just wait for the demo to be released in a few days, to be honest.

But then, there's also the side of me that can think "hey Tom! Things aren't going well for you generally, but you wrote a nice thing/had a nice gig/made a good video; why not reward yourself by buying an album on Amazon?" - and yes, a £9 album is genuinely, 100% an extravagance for me right now. I just want to be able to earn money myself, even if it is just £60 a week. Heck, that would be enough for me to be able to do the things I want to do in life most weeks, quite frankly. Over the last 21 months, sadly, that has been too much to ask.

4. General depressive thoughts

Oh, you know the kind. "What's the point of this all?", "why do I keep bothering when things aren't getting at all better?", all of those things.

All 4 of these things all work together to make each-other more powerful, annoyingly, like some Dickish Power Ranger Morphin' Time. On the downside, I'll only get around 4 and a half hours before I need to get up (just my luck before my first early morning in weeks, eh?). At least I've written around 5 minutes of stand-up material to test in a Word Document, and this blog. That's something.

Thanks for reading.

Tom.