Wednesday, 12 October 2016

Tuesday 11th October 2016

Wow........ what a busy peeps I have been since the last posting.

Several weeks ago I was invited to take part in an online music course (which I may have already spoken about) and part of the content of this course was about identifying your place in the business and also about growing your following.  Anyway, one of the comments that was made was a suggestion to join a community called "Patreon" which I have done - and although it is early days I am finding it great fun

If you follow the link below you will go to the first page I have created and it gives people the opportunity to take a part in CauldronFM (our online radio station catering for the Pagan community)

Here is the link to the page on patreon;-  patreon.com/moonshadowmedia

Why not pop over and take a look and maybe even get involved?

Secondly I have been working on a new short video that is designed to give people a little bit of an insight into Ilfracombe and its C.C.C. (Curious Coastal Charm).

Last Friday we had a visit from Alison's best friend and she has been taking an interest in my music therapy work. It seems that she has been talking to her boss about it and it transpires that he is keen for me to provide a therapy service to the residents in his group of Nursing and Care homes........wow!!!!.  I have also just taken delivery of the first of my new advertising signs for the therapy business so they will get an outing on Thursday if not before.



Later in the week we are making the trip to Cheshire.  There are two reasons for this a) we really must go and see our really good friends who we have not seen for over 2 years (we will also be catching up with other people who we have not seen for even longer) and b) I have to visit Reybridge Records and see if the recording of the new track Smokin' Mudflaps (based on a poem that I wrote recently) is ready for me to listen to.

So all in all it could be a very busy few days......

But before I leave you I am going to give you a sneaky look at the latest poetic contrivance from Your Truly - it is called "Campervan Theatre (Not Quite Shakespeare)"

Now gather round and lend an ear
And let me make it very clear
As old Bill Wagstaff used to say
All the world is but a play

We play our parts upon that stage
In London, Bristol and Fegg Hayes
To sell out houses every night
As we like, it feels so right!

And when we do our Scottish Play
In hamlets all along our way
They sell out and the audience sit
As they like it - just a bit!

The camper makes us very proud
As we trundle round and round
The by-ways with the compass set
For Venice - and our Juliet

c2016 Moonshadow Media

So that my friends brings me to the end of this post and keep an eye open for more in the not too distant future.

You can drop me a line to - moonshadowmedia@mail.com

You can find me on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dave.baxter.9889

and on twitter @cauldronfm


Until the next time

Love Light and Blessed Be!



Tuesday, 4 October 2016

A New Title and some more things...............

Hi and welcome to the first day under a new heading

"A Little Bit Of Magick"  

I really hope that you like it!   So how did it come about?

Well I was looking at a blog post by Zoella and she had done something that inspired me to create a new project and as part of this new thinking I decided I wanted to create a something new, and during that process it blossomed into the idea outlined here......

I have designed a poster......


 .....while I was working on this poster idea I decided on the line that is at the bottom of the image which says "Produced by Merlin "with a little bit of Magick" and that led the way into another idea.  I would like to invite readers of this blog and other pages that I work on, to create a "Witches Alphabet"

So I have started the campaign to get people to submit their ideas for as many of the 25 remaining letters of the alphabet and the only stipulation is that the word must be Witch related.

Each letter will be produced in the same format as this one and the person who suggested the word will get their name on the bottom line and we are looking to produce the whole set as A3 prints by Yule.

Please email your entries to me at moonshadowmedia@mail.com

What is my micro niche?

I am currently taking a course that will help me develop the social media marketing of Whyte Raven's music and one of the questions that the tutor (Leah McHenry) asked of the group was "what is your micro niche?"  In other words what genre, if you drill right down into the music you produce, do you sit?

I thought about this question hard and slowly the mist began to clear - I have always considered myself to be a folk singer but this is too broad a category, so the next step was to identify a smaller group that distinguished me from other folk singers - so my next choice was guitar playing folk singer......still too broad so I had to look at another level and I came up with Solo guitar playing folk singer.

Eventually after a long period brain work and after a good deal of prompting from my other half it suddenly dawned on me that my Micro Niche is "an acoustic pagan folk artist". A lot of my songs have themes based around paganism so I was "like whoa!" I have been missing this trick and wondering why my videos etc were not getting many viewers and quite simply the right audience did not know I was there.

So now if anyone asks me I know exactly what my answer is - however that does not preclude me from playing other styles but it does clearly identify where I place my main focus.  

So now with that in mind here is a link to the video of my latest song "Somerset Levels"


I really hope that you liked that video and the mistake right at the end just proves that it is real :)

Moving On

Now let us move on to other things that are taking place in the Magickal world of The Merlin.....

The Music Ladder, Music Therapy business is starting to gain momentum and we are hoping to secure our first contract with a residential home for persons living with Dementia very shortly.  I am in the final stages of preparing the "job description" and setting out the terms of reference.

Cauldron FM has been accepted as a sponsor of the 2017 North Devon Firefly Otherworldly Fayre and Ball, to be held at Clovelly Parish Hall on 22.07.17 and all money raised will be donated to the Parish Hall to help fund much needed renovations. There will be stalls indoors and outdoors plus acoustic performances during the afternoon and then in the evening there will several live bands entertaining attendees.

You can visit their page on Facebook by searching North Devon Firefly Otherworldly Fayre and Ball 22.07.17

Sadly time has beaten me on this entry so I will have to leave it there for now, but keep an eye open on my Whyte Raven, Capstone Radio, Cauldron FM and Wytchwynd Photography pages for more updates
and I look forward to your suggestions for the "Witches Alphabet" posters

Until the next time

Love, Light and Blessed Be

Merlin x





Monday, 12 September 2016

Hi and thank you for joining me for the latest post........

Well it has been a busy weekend!

Starting on Saturday - I took a lot of photographs of the motorcycle show on Ilfracombe's Sea Front - the images have now gone off the the North Devon Gazette and I have no idea which if any they will use but just as a wee taster here is one of my favourite machines in the show




On Sunday the wheels began to turn in the direction of Exeter in search of a new travelling home for "The Music Ladder - Music Therapy"  Ideally said home would be either a Toyota Alphard or a VW camper but given the financial situation at present it might end up being a Transit or similar.

Leaving Exeter I pointed the wheels towards Dunkeswell in order to go and visit a music therapy client
and her husband.  The lady has a serious illness and over the past few weeks we have organised a pain management strategy that incorporates music.  Having spent a very pleasant couple of hours in their company I headed back home.

On arrival back home I had to put my photographer head back on and sort out the next set of postcards for my "Postcards of Ilfracombe" series.  The first and second sets are illustrated below.



And now we come to today and I had received information that the sample "The Music Ladder" t-shirt was available and ready for collection - and here it is



So with everything that has been going on this weekend I will be glad to get home and have a rest this evening.

If you want to talk to me about coaching, photography, therapy or any of the other things I am involved with please feel free to email via the address below

moonshadowmedia@mail.com

So until the next time we speak, have a fantastic week

Love and light to you all

Blessed Be!

DAve (aka The Merlin)

Tuesday, 6 September 2016

Hi and thank you for coming back to this page.  I am now back off my holiday and to be perfectly honest I am ready for another break.  Things have gone totally mad in my world at present!

Anyway if you follow me on Facebook the you will possibly have seen my Vlogs from the holiday and at this point I was going to insert one by way of an example, however the machinery is playing silly things so currently that is not possible so I don't know if this will work but here goes

https://www.facebook.com/dave.baxter.9889/videos/10154007987799541/

Now if that idea works you should be able to go and view the first one of said Vlogs and it means I can do other things as that way too.

So what else is happening, well I have now built a presence on Vimeo and started to populate it with a number of my videos - currently those from The Crystal Spring, Whyte Raven and Ilfracombe TV and as we progress with this whole increased visibility thing there will be a lot more coming on stream.

As someone who has a lot of interest in the media I am seriously looking to develop that side of the business and would be keen to talk to people who share the same interest who could be interested in joining forces and expanding the Moonshadow Media brand still further.  So if that is you then please drop me a line to moonshadowmedia@mail.com.

Just back tracking slightly whilst I was on holiday I spent many many hours, camera in hand, waiting to catch the photograph you will see below.  It was the realisation of a long held ambition and I hope that you appreciate the effort.




Tonight I am heading off to Dementia Awareness workshop as part of my ongoing building of The Music Ladder - the music therapy business that I have begun, since gaining my Diploma in Music Therapy.  I am really looking forward to it.

Cauldron FM is going from good to even better as we are now, for the 3rd year running, one of the official sponsors of The North Devon Firefly Otherworldly Fayre and Ball 2017 that will be held next July in Clovelly Parish Hall.

So I think that is all the news for the moment so until the next time, have a great day, be safe and above all

Don't predict the future - CREATE IT!

DAve x