Aaron's weekly dispatch
Hey everyone,
Last week completely got away from me, so there wasn't a Soundcheck. Between all the gigs and working on a new project, the week just disappeared — the funny thing is, as I sit here writing this, I can't even remember half of the gigs from the week before! So rather than trying to piece it all together, let's jump straight into this one.
This Week
Wednesday I was back at Bonnie Rogues in Kingston. Another brilliant night with loads of audience interaction and requests flying in all evening. That's quickly becoming one of those venues where you never quite know what's coming next, and I love that.
Thursday was a very last-minute booking at The Horse & Groom in Chobham. Not the busiest night of the year — pretty normal during the school summer holidays — but everyone who was there really got involved. Loads of requests for Cat Stevens, Rod Stewart and The Everly Brothers, and I thoroughly enjoyed diving back into the music that first made me pick up a guitar all those years ago.
Friday was back at The Maypole, and that's become a date I always look forward to. Every time I play there the atmosphere is fantastic.
Saturday turned into two completely different birthday celebrations. The afternoon was a lovely, wholesome family gathering where I spent as much time wandering the garden chatting to people as I did performing — requests coming from every generation, grandparents, parents and kids all enjoying the same music together. The evening had that same warm feel, but once the sun went down we pretty much turned the garden into an open-air rave. Amazing how quickly a relaxed evening becomes a full-on party.
And as you read this, I'll have just played The Eight Bells in Ewell Village — another real favourite, where people turn up armed with requests before I've even finished setting up.
On My Mind
Away from the gigs, the biggest thing this week has been the release of LiftShot.
Many of you know I've been building Poster Poster over the past year, but while I've been waiting on authorisation from various social platforms, I needed something else to get my teeth into. That became LiftShot — and I'm really pleased to say it's now officially out.
The idea came from a problem I've had for years. Recording gigs is easy enough; editing them afterwards definitely isn't. Setting up cameras, capturing clean audio, syncing everything, cutting every song, adding zooms, colour grading, balancing the sound — it can eat hours after every performance. LiftShot automates the whole thing.
Featured
This week it has to be LiftShot. Upload your footage and your clean audio, and the app automatically splits your performance into individual songs, syncs the audio, enhances the sound while blending in the natural ambience from the camera, creates intelligent zooms and punch-ins, colour grades the footage and exports polished videos ready for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok.
I've been using it after every gig and it's completely changed how much content I can produce — I've now got enough professionally edited videos scheduled for two full YouTube uploads a day for the rest of the year, plus six Shorts every day. A few months ago that simply wouldn't have been possible.
If you're a musician — or know someone who records live performances — I genuinely think they'll find it useful. It also works brilliantly for creators filming talking-head videos with two camera angles and clean audio. There's a 7-day free trial with no card details required, so you can give it a proper go before deciding.
As always, thank you for following along, coming to gigs, watching the videos and supporting everything I do. It genuinely means a lot, and I hope to see some of you at a gig very soon.
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See you out there, Aaron