Now there's a damn good idea for a thread Suzie...
Well as a few will know I now run
Motorsport Marketing Solutions where I handle most of consultancy work and along with Dan Bennett provide all our creative/design services. So I spend my time between preparing proposals, talking to prospective and current sponsors and our clients, helping them activate their chosen marketing strategies, and sitting here with a graphics tablet in my lap drawing race cars, designing paintschemes and other associated graphics.
What most don't know is that in a previous life I was a touring musician. Playing piano from the age of 8, I started doing odd pro gigs at the age of 13 and by 17/18 made it my living. I managed to fit in 4 years of university while still making a living from gigs and graduated with a BA(Hons) in Popular Music back in '97. I was lucky enough to come out of university straight into a couple of summer seasons working the UK holiday circuit, (not a great gig, but it was ok money straight out of college) and fitted in odd things like pit work for the great british tradition of pantomime over winter. Over most of this period I'd done my best to keep indulging in my passion of big band jazz, playing with local bands whenever possible although with 17 musicians on stage for a local gig the money was never going to be worth having as a pro-player. In 99 I was lucky enough to suddenly found myself working with The Sid Lawrence Orchestra, who have regularly been billed as "the worlds best big band" and constantly touring Europe. The great count Basie once said "this band is so good it should be banned". We didn't stop for a break and I didn't have more than 3 days off in three years.
However much I loved it touring constantly took its toll and I could see some of the old guys in the band were no better off than I was and they were still at it in their 70's. I decided to give it a bit of a rest and took a job in education, teaching Music Technology and providing tech support for the Music dept. at a fairly local college to home while still doing a few gigs to bring in an extra few £.
Now don't get me wrong here I loved working in education and the kids were great, but OTHER TEACHERS... well they couldn't cope with a guy who actually knew his subject and had an industry background. So I gave it a few years and did more odd gigs here and there playing with whatever band would have me that week, but finally decided that enough was enough last year as music was just becoming a drudge and a bore, and I wasn't willing to feel like that about something I truly used to love. All this time I'd been doing marketing work over here for Barry Sheavills and sponsorship renderings and bits and pieces for a few other teams, so it seemed fairly obvious that if I needed a new direction, then that should probably be it.
So here we are... MMS is up and running... its still up and down as any new business would be, but we're getting there, and I get to continue with only doing things that I truly love as a job.
