Leigh Thomas

Hey everyone! I hope you all are well. Plenty of news coming up but I will start by thanking you all for subscribing, and welcome to my new subscribers. It means a lot to have you here.

LIVE GIGS:

                   This week I have several online gigs to perform, although live venue gigs are still proving slow to recover as they do after each lock down. On Saturday June 26 I have a live 30 minute set airing on Facebook for Sounds On The Couch, a Melbourne based music forum. On Sunday, AEST, I perform a 30 minute set for VirtualFest 2021 streamed via YouTube world wide, and following that, a 15 minute set for Rock The Dream, streamed via Instagram worldwide. Times and links to each show can be found on my website on the "Shows" page. Prior to these I will be doing a few "pop-up" practice sets on my Instagram page during the week.

RELEASES:

                     My next single "Take It All The Way" is now set for release on July 16. I am very excited with the result from recording this track and I am about to embark on the most comprehensive pre-release campaign yet. I hope to secure good press and radio coverage world wide with this release. I have also made available the unreleased studio version of 'If You Were Mine'. This song is an epic power ballad and has proven popular in live performances, however I decided not to release it as a single, instead making it available only as a download for purchase. It is available on my website via the "Store" page, and can be purchased for $3. The song will then be emailed with cover art, liner note and lyrics.  I would be grateful for any purchases and sincerely thank those who have already done so. It is an amazing gesture and will help me continue to make music, and maybe get a haircut!

That's about it for now! Once again thank you for your support in listening, sharing, attending shows and just being here! Take care and chat soon.

Leigh.

It's been an extremely busy start to the year with the usual live streams, writing, recording and promoting! "Something About You" has enjoyed amazing success with more streaming and radio play than any other release so far, and has charted top 10 in two separate Indie charts in Europe and the UK. This coming week, my new single 'Rain' is to be released on April 2nd, and features some fantastic harmonica work from USA based indie folk songwriter and musician OrangeG. I will attach a pre-save link to the song at the bottom of this blog and hope that you can pre-save. It is easy to do and costs nothing, but does help enormously with getting the song noticed. I have also just completed recording a new ballad titled 'If You Were Mine' which has come up to be a great sounding and powerful track so stay tuned for release details in the future! 

I am very excited to be playing another live pub gig this week also on Friday, for the Royal Exchange Good Friday Appeal at Flanagans in Traralgon, and hope those of you who are local to the area can come down and support the day. It will be great to play for you in person!! But I will be continuing to live stream on Facebook and Instagram, and also looking into Twitch to grow my audience. This will involve some investment in time and equipment to deliver a better looking and sounding stream, which is proving difficult without earning from live work, but hopefully will work out somehow! 

I hope you enjoy 'Rain', and thank you again for listening, following and supporting. 

Chat soon, Leigh.

https://gyro.lnk.to/RainLeighThomas

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple, Bandcamp and on and on....these are all the things an independent artist has to manage on a daily basis. All this promotion and interaction, spruiking and positioning, pitching, conversing, managing, arranging, updating uggh! It can be mind numbing and time consuming, and I just want to make and play music!! But these are all necessary if you want people to hear your music and being independent means doing everything yourself. So on top of all that why create a website? Glad you asked! Well if some credible record label, promo company or management company came along and said, "hey we'll do all that for you, you just go away and make music" , I would jump at the chance. Through my research and interactions with industry people, I have been convinced that a website is still the go-to place for such people. It is far easier for them to view your brand and then if they like, branch off to other links directly from the one place, rather than wasting time hunting through various social media pages. It also states that "hey, I am serious here, I am not messing around"!  In other words, it's professional! It also means that I don't have to saturate my social media accounts, which can be annoying to those who are not interested! I can be more direct and specific, and more selective about what content I place on each social media platform. This is a place for people wanting to know more in a convenient way, but also a place for those who truly like what I do, true fans! Sometimes on social media, I feel like I am pushing myself onto people, which I dislike, I am not a pushy person with a "hard sell" attitude, never have been. So here is where those who are truly interested come to me, to be apart of what I do, to sign up for the mailing list, to want to be involved. I hope you can be one of them!! 

Hey folks!

Great to be checking in with you again, and welcome to my newest subscribers, I am very grateful to have you here! I hope you are all well and looking forward to getting back out to the real world! Speaking of which, I have begun the road back to live venue gigs, with my first at The Starbar in Traralgon last Friday night, and more to come! I will post dates here on the website so keep checking in and if I am in your area, I would love to see you out in person. In other news, I have just completed recording a new song titled "Take It all The Way" and I am very excited to release this one sometime over the next month. I still have a number of completed tracks not yet released, but I am still deciding whether to release them to streaming platforms, or have them as exclusive EP or purchase tracks. All of my tracks are now available to purchase via the "Store" page here, in case you would like to own the tracks rather than stream them. Streaming statistics are continuing to grow at a fantastic rate, and radio airplay is continuing to increase worldwide also. 

In terms of live performance, as mentioned, I anticipate booking and playing more venue gigs in the coming future, both regional and metro, as well as interstate. I am currently in the process of building my live sound with the use of electric guitar, drum tracks and live looped tracks, to bring a fuller sound more in line with my recordings. I will also continue to perform live stream gigs, although I will be investigating ways to monetize, which may involve seeking tips and donations to my Paypalme account. Unfortunately now Jobkeeper is done, I need to return to earning a living, and hope that small contributions will be enough to keep me going and producing new music. 

Once again, thank you to all who have purchased, streamed, attended live performances, shared and subscribed. I am grateful to you all for allowing me to do what I do. I ask you again to share and get your friends to subscribe here also. Keep an eye on this site and my socials for more news and upcoming releases. 

Thanks for reading! Take care and chat soon.

Leigh

A busy couple of months with the release of 'Decent Guy', much song writing and recording new tracks, a lot of radio airplay and live streams. New songs being worked on include 'Rain', and a new ballad titled 'If You Were Mine', and the release of 'Something About You' is set for February 5th. Coming up also this week is another "real" gig at The Garden Bar, Moe Racing Club, although gigs are still few and in particular the Melbourne City has been slow to recover. I do hope to get back there to play in the coming weeks, however the lack of funds directed towards entertainers is ongoing. From a streaming point of view, numbers are rising dramatically, and now every one of my releases is positioned on some reputable playlists on Spotify and many other platforms, and my followers are growing steadily.

Hi everyone

                            The last few weeks have been hectic with writing and recording sessions, as well as live streams and my first live gig since March. My main focus at this moment is the release of my final single for the year, 'Decent Guy'. This song is a real departure from my usual approach, being a melancholic ballad with just vocal, acoustic guitar, double bass and strings. Only a handful of people have heard the song, but the response has been quite overwhelming, enough for me to decide on releasing it as a single. Unfortunately, the timeline has been tight, and not nearly enough promotion will go into the track prior to release date.I guess I am relying on the strength of the song, and my listeners, to generate some interest and give it some momentum. I will post a new blog later this week, but release date is scheduled for Thursday, December 10. The new blog will feature a pre-save link. Stay tuned!!

Well quite a lot happening at the moment! A few recording sessions completed over the last two weeks with 'What It Takes' and 'Something About You' both done and currently being mixed and mastered. I am leaning towards 'Something About You' as my next single, but as yet I have not made a firm decision. Any songs not released as singles will go into the mix for a future album. To complicate things, I am still writing new songs, and have just complete 'Decent Guy', which is a melancholy ballad that lends itself to just acoustic guitar and perhaps some strings (violins, cello etc). I think it is a really strong song and will try it out in some live performances and see how it goes. If it proves popular, I may sneak it in as an 'in between' singles release. If it proves very very popular then perhaps a single release in it's own right.  The CD release of my first batch of songs titled 'Blue Yonder' is currently being produced and hopefully will be available via the website within a week or two.

In further news, I am performing my first live audience gig since March, on Sunday November 29 at The Moe Racing Club for their outdoors bar. It's nice to finally get back to gigging, and nice to get my new live format underway. I will be performing my original material, but will still have to space the gig with some covers just to get through. Future gigs will gradually become more original focused, so it will take some time to gather enough resident venues that are suitable, but I am very confident as 2021 progresses, I will have enough songs and enough suitable gigs to keep me going. I am also still planning some full band performances also, and work continues with rehearsals and sourcing suitable musicians. I will continue performing live stream gigs on Facebook and Instagram, but also with a shift away from playing cover songs. 

All in all, it has been a productive and encouraging month with many of my releases reaching good streaming milestones on Spotify, fantastic radio airplay in Australia, USA, Uk and Europe, and additions to many playlists, as well as a solid and consistent growth in followers on all social platforms. 

That is it for now. Thank you for reading, and as always. feel free to leave any comments or ask any questions here. Until next time, stay safe and take care, and please encourage your friends to listen to my music and sign up to my mailing list here.

Best wishes, Leigh.

Hey everyone!

                             I just thought I would post an update. Firstly, getting more engagement here is really important to me. More than social media, I feel this to be my personal place to share with those who are genuinely interested in my work, and truly hope to engage with you on a much more intimate level. By this I mean sharing my perspectives on music, my songwriting, and getting your views on such things. I hope you can message me and let me know if you are reading these blogs and give me your responses. The other aspect of this is to sign up to my mailing list, and encourage your friends to listen to my work, and sign up too! I really don't like sales pitches, and only request these things if you feel strongly enough to take action out of your own desires, but no harm in reminding! Anyway, on with the latest news! Last week and next week see me back to Melbourne to undertake recording sessions for two new songs, 'What It Takes' and 'Something About You'. I am very excited about both of these songs, and feel very confident going into recording them. Both are very personal songs and both see a real progression in my songwriting. Also, both have received fantastic responses from live stream performances, albeit solo acoustic renditions. Deciding on which will be my next single is a dilemma, and I also have a track called 'Slow Burn' recorded, which adds to the decision making. That aside, I have decided to release a hard copy CD of my initial recordings, from 'Something To Be', to 'Lightning', including all releases in between, and a couple of unreleased tracks. The Cd is titled 'Blue Yonder', and will be available to purchase for a modest fee, here on my website only. More details to come, but I hope to have it available in the next couple of weeks. Briefly, streaming, radio airplay and general hype have been amazing over the last few weeks, for "Miss Me' and also 'Lightning', which has exploded with a new lease of life as it reaches overseas audiences. I am quite amazed at the response, and it seems surreal because to me it is now several releases old. 

                   So for the next few weeks, rehearsals for full band gigs continues. I hope to be ready to give my songs the full treatment live, in the first half of 2021. More songwriting, to build and strengthen my repertoire, and continued marketing to gather more dedicated listeners and supporters. Live streams both for Australian and overseas fans on both Facebook, Instagram and Zoom will continue. I truly hope to gather more listeners, for my motivation is to give the gift of music to the world, in my own unique way, and hope that these listeners are rewarded with the same life changing or at least life enhancing experiences that I myself receive from music.

                       Thank you for being part of this, for reading, for stopping by, for loving music. Stay tuned for more music and more news!!