Only a Flight Away is now on Bandcamp, which is a great platform for artists and fans as a much greater percentage of the money spent on downloads goes to the creator.
It would be wonderful if you fancied buying the album via Bandcamp, here it is!
My song “The Instigator” is featured on this beautiful Spotify playlist.
The Robert Lane Creative Careers Podcast is now available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well as on the podcast page of this website
Please rate, review, comment and subscribe to the podcast as doing that helps new people to find it.
Thanks
My Christmas EP with Emily Ewing is now available on Bandcamp, iTunes, Spotify and all the rest. Enjoy!
My podcast is now live! Please subscribe, rate and review!
Episode one features a conversation with musician and YouTube star Mary Spender. Mary has over 200,000 subscribers on YouTube and we chat about what goes in to making her videos. We also discuss creativity and the state of the creative industries.
https://podcasts.apple.com/…/the-robert-lane-c…/id1489062953
Big Christmas deal!
Buy a guitar lesson get one half price. In person if you’re within 5 miles of me in Kings Norton, Birmingham, UK or online via Skype or FB messenger anywhere in the world.
60 minute 1 to 1 lessons full price £31.50, Xmas deal two lessons for £47.25 (£23.63 per lesson)
45 minute 1 to 1 lessons full price £24, Xmas deal two lessons for £36 (£18 per lesson)
30 minute 1 to 1 lessons full price £18 Xmas deal two lessons for £27 (£13.50 per lesson)
This deal is only running TODAY AND TOMORROW so move fast to get your lessons.
They make great presents for friends and family, or yourself! If you’re already signed up for a course of lessons with me you can still take up this offer to run after your current course ends, but the deal is only available today and tomorrow.
Your lessons can be redeemed up to 3 months from now.
Send me an email to book or for more info info@robertlanemusic.co.uk
Thanks!
Robert
I'll be performing a short set at Bournville Light Switch On which takes place on Saturday 30th November. I'm scheduled to be performing at 3.40pm.
https://wlv.ticketsolve.com/shows/873611851
I will be performing short form comedy with The Improlectuals at The Arena Theatre in Wolverhampton on Thursday 5th of December. The Arena is a great venue, and we are very much looking forward to returning.
The Improlectuals are an improv “super-group” made up of some of the finest improvisers from around the Midlands. They create completely new comedy sketches on the spot, based entirely on audience suggestions. Performances always feature Richard Baldwin (Wow Impro, Abbey Players) and Robert Lane (Foghorn Unscripted, Birmingham Rep, The Old Joint Stock Theatre) plus a rotating cast of talented improvisers.
“Slick comedy sketches,” “A great blend of performers who worked together well to create a great night of
comedy.” – Midlands Improv, May 2018
Tour Poster
I'm so excited to be going on tour with Minnie Birch! We have 11 wonderful shows lined up, some at venues I've played before and some which I'm looking forward to visiting for the first time. It's our ambition to sell these gigs out and make them the best shows either of us has ever done, please join us!
22nd January Southey Taproom, Penge
31st January Big Comfy Bookshop, Coventry
1st February West Malvern Social Club
23rd February Bluebell Roots, Arlington
7th March Tower of Song, Birmingham
13th March Colmworth Golf Club
15th March Unplugged Corner, Harpenden
20th March The Harrison, Kings Cross
27th March The Manor House, Sedgefield
28th March New Mills Sofa Sessions
19th April House Concert, Higham Ferrers
Man of The Moment had a play on Colin Noble's show last week. Here's the listen again, song is about 1 hour in
https://www.mixcloud.com/arfm/colin-noble-unsigned-show-25th-october-2019/
Live performance of Bill Frost's Flying Machine. Bill Frost's Flying Machine was inspired by a local legend in Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire where I spent a lot of my childhood. There's a story which claims that a Saundersfoot local called Bill Frost managed to design and build the first powered flying machine, and that he flew it briefly in the decade before the Wright Brothers. He crashed the machine and before he could recover it there was a gale which scattered the various bits of the machine, Frost was unable to repair or recreate it. The story has long been considered something of a tall tale, but recent research has in fact uncovered a patent for a flying machine filed by Bill Frost, so who knows!? The song is told from the point of view of the machine, and it's disappointment not to achieve the worldwide fame that was "only a flight away."
Sometimes I've been guilty of getting a bit jealous or cynical when I see someone doing well in my line of work, or exploiting an opportunity which I feel has passed me by. It's take me a while to acknowledge a couple of fairly obvious truths that I've known all along;
1) jealousy comes from one's own dissatisfaction, and the best way to deal with it is to look at my own situation and see what needs fixing.
2) The chances are the opportunity didn't pass me by, it was available to me I just didn't see it.
3) People do well because they are working hard.
4) We are a community, and it is much better for everyone if we support one another and feel happy for the success of others.
5) Everyone's journey is different, and we will each have our moments.
6) Thank the universe for the success of others because it proves that it's possible and gives me a kick up the bum bum to get stuff done.
How do you deal with this stuff?
Really interesting ideas here. Not wanting to sit on the fence or anything but Joe and Damian are both right... musicians should be paid and streaming is not a great deal for creators. However pandora has well and truly opened her box and I think it’s highly unlikely we will go back to how things were.
But then how were things? How many artists got paid properly anyway? For every Rolling Stones there was several bands who got fleeced by the industry and never saw any of the money that their music generated. Did successful, iconic bands exist purely on their mega record sales? I don’t think so, they were sophisticated businesses that sold hats, t shirts, concert tickets, books et al.
I crowdfunded my last album. It was something many people had suggested I should do but for a long time I resisted. Wasn’t it just like begging? Then I had an epiphany; crowd funding is a commission. People like what you do and ask you to do more. That’s been the business plan for artists for centuries! And not just musicians; did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling out of love and artistic passion? Well no not really, he was commissioned by Pope Julius II, would rather have been sculpting than painting and even ran away from Rome for a while to avoid doing the job. At least when I was making my album I had complete artistic control without a label (or the pope) telling me what I should be doing.
It’s a privilege to be making a living from creativity, be that in any of the various forms I’ve found myself doing including writing, performing and teaching. Yes at times I’m a salesman (all business are marketing businesses) and on many occasions I think a touring performer is basically a long distance driver who plays a gig in between motorway journeys.
The situation we are in is the one we are in. I think that there are incredible opportunities for creative approaches to all this, and it’s exciting to be part of the development.
Hear me playing live and chatting to BB Skone on his Pembrokeshire Music Show from Sunday 11th August. We went quite deep on subjects including creativity, protest songs and the state of the music industry. We also discuss the story behind my song Bill Frost’s Flying Machine.
I’m also artist of the week and will be played on shows throughout the schedule. Thanks BB!
Follow this link to hear the podcast of the show
Hear Alex Noble play my song Who Do You Think You’re Talking For on BBC Introducing in the West Midlands show from the 10th of August. Song at
0:05:00
“He tells a story in every single song”
I was already playing a bit of guitar, but had decided I was happy being a chord strummer and apart from a few riffs I wasn’t that bothered about learning to play lead or solos. That changed when I saw Eric Clapton on TV, performing While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Concert in 2002. Something about Eric’s ability to communicate so much and move thousands of people just by tiny movements of his fingers changed my life. Over the next few years I embarked on a wonderful journey of musical discovery that took me to Cream, The Bluesbreakers and onto Eric’s own influences like BB King, Robert Johnson, Freddie King et al.
Eric’s playing is always so beautiful and, well, musical! It’s a completely pointless idea to compare musicians, particularly guitarists because the “best” or “favourite” is highly subjective and everyone’s emotional response to a piece of music is different There are a few things that get said about Clapton’s guitar playing that annoy me though. While many of my guitar contemporaries would dismiss Clapton and praise the undeniable technical prowess of the 80s heavy metal guitar gods, their speed and fretboard mastery would often leave me cold. So what if they could play hundreds of notes faster than the next guitarist; that didn’t communicate to me emotionally.
I’m a massive fan of Hendrix and Jimmy Page, two guitarists who both seemed to be much more venerated than Eric by my fellow guitarists at university. It’s very possible that Hendrix’s early death and the ending of Led Zeppelin in 1980 had something to do with it; Eric survived and made a lot of music that is fairly middle of the road, safe and unexciting. But to compare like for like and look at the history; Eric was 3 years younger than Hendrix, 1 year younger than Page but yet made his mark before either of them. Legend has it that Hendrix only agreed to come to England if a meeting with Clapton could be arranged. By the time Zeppelin had kicked off Eric had walked away from Cream in search of something different to the hard rock, guitar virtuoso image he’d help to invent (in the two years Cream were together!) Hendrix was an extraordinary songwriter and performer and his rhythm/lead style was unique, but it’s simply not the case that his lead playing in the middle/late 60s was any faster or more exciting that Eric’s with Cream or Derek and the Dominos.
If you asked me what my favourite ever piece of lead guitar playing was I think I would have to go for Cream’s Badge. The guitar tone in the break between the second verse and the bridge bit is sensational and the solo a little while later is jaw dropping. I don’t think it has ever been bettered. Also Strange Brew, Eric’s interplay with Billy Preston at the end of That’s the way God planned it, While My Guitar Gently Weeps…