Haha, that was the great advantage of being a few rows back, where we all behaved impeccably

He's just tweeted that he'd love to do a show in America - hopefully he'll pop down and do a show or two south of the border first

I'm worried about that. It reinforces my feeling that the McD management doesn't have a plan, at least not one that fits Nicky's ambitions.
Btw what would he do in the US? where would he sing? for what public? with what program?
The only possibility I see is him being asked by somebody else to join him/her/them on a tour.
Who is taking care about practicalities as e.g. his (P or O) visa and so many other things?

I agree that his management should try to fix his next shows rather in nearby sites at first, as e.g. in Edinburgh, Newcastle etc...
Or - what I think is even better - let him work from within London.
But anyhow a couple of gigs more, where ever in the world, will not make that much difference at the end.

Further he has some practical limitations: he does not play an instrument, as far as I know. So even busking is not that very obvious. From the first report about the recent gig at Dalziel I was a bit mislead with the "Wild Card" song towards Hunter Hayes. Hunter plays a lot of instruments, and got positioned well on the Billboard with "Wanted":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruyaKdPfTN4

Futher I do not see Nicky set up shows independently without him being associated with a band. I don't see it that difficult for him to combine with a couple of musicians. I think he even did so at school for a local competition.

But the most important for him, I think, is getting a couple of singles released in the coming months and get at least one pushed within the top 10 in the UK. I can only hope somebody is contacting songwriters & producers for setting up a program with and for him.

Is there anything wrong with Nicky producing some quality covers on short term, for his public getting something better than live bootlegs recorded from behind screeming kids?

Others did before, e.g.:

Elyar Fox cover of 5SOS' She looks so perfect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuEpmSYS1pE

Ed Sheeran cover of Sam Smith's Stay with me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48qwvBkpw1g

Elvis Presley cover of the traditional Muss I denn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20pBIzDKUg

respectively:
566,616 views, 18,369 likes
1,096,811 views, 29,77 likes
53,078 views, 153 likes

A nice positive review from The Daily Record.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/lo...rforms-3788537

ShawThing is no longer mentioned in the Twitter bio:

Twitter bio:
Nicholas McDonaldVerified account
@nickymcdonald1
Singer / Songwriter / X Factor 2013 Runner Up - FOR BOOKINGS & ENQUIRIES: paul@nicholasmcdonald.co.uk

Facebook bio:
Singer / Songwriter / X Factor 2013 Runner Up - FOR BOOKINGS & ENQUIRIES: paul@nicholasmcdonald.co.uk
Biography
Singer/ Musician from Scotland, Semi Finalist in Britains got Talent 2009.
Plays such genres as Acoustic, Main influences are Ed Sheeran
and Michael Buble.
FaceBook - Nicky Mcdonald
Twitter - @nickymcdonald1
instagram - NickyMcdonald11
Thanks !!!
Description
Singer/ Musician from Scotland, Semi Finalist in Britians got Talent 2009.

So I finally got around to finishing my remix of Answerphone.

https://soundcloud.com/danchoo/nicho...ousphat-redial

Have no idea whether I'm happy with it or not. I can't get it *quite* how I want it sonically. I'm sure a professional audio engineer could sort out my issues with it but anyway, there it is!

That's really, really good - more than worth the wait

Thanks for posting and sharing. I hope Nicky gets to hear it

I feel like Austin Powers and want to scream out "yeah baby **geeky laugh**'.

This is brilliant Chris, it's trippy in a 70s disco kinda way. The beginning of the track reminds me of I Feel Love by Donna Summer.

Ohhh, this middle section around the 4 minute mark.

Ah thanks

I did tweet it at him but who knows whether he's seen it or not. Probably not!

It's now accessible from Nicky's facebook page:

I actually like it.

I don't find Rough Copy in the midweek Top-40:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/updatesingles
(Ella Henderson continues selling, even when others take the first position for a week)

LOL

That'll be me then.

You gotta admit, self promoting is always a good thing. Hope you don't mind Chris, I wanted to get your remix extra attention from #TeamNicky.

That's because Ella Henderson has a fantastic track, I bought Ghosts on iTunes two weeks ago.

As for Rough Copy, I'd like it more if it didn't rip off Sweet Love so I find the song quite horny because of it. A bit of an ill advised first single, although I thought that about Answerphone, and tbh Rough Copy didn't even crack the top 40 on iTunes so their chances of going top 75 officially are practically non existent.

Tickets for Nicky's gig on 25th July are now available

https://www.facebook.com/REACHSLAutism

I might just go and book me a ticket.

They're limited to 300, and I imagine half of them will be screamers, but what the hell? I'll be on holiday and spending the rest of it taking down plaster from the spare room walls, so I might join the screaming too

What a nice write up for Nicky

I wrote earlier:

I was mislead since I had in mind this "Wild Card":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlY6NPpRJM8
It was Hunters tentative move from country-ballads to uptempo singing. Actually all these young guys are (erratically?) trying to find a proper direction for their career.
About this move;
http://www.hunterhayes.com/video/wil...ind-song-38636
http://www.cmt.com/news/cmt-offstage...ty-event.jhtml

BTW Having had to suffer from being bullied is apparently becoming a must nowadays:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugVU2WcHZeg

Like Nicky, Hunter started singing at a very young age, but instead of recording mainly in the home living room, he found his way to the stage from the very beginning:
5-6? yr:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etffxJVAwIc
12 yr:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMZvLpiEwtU

I think Nicky's experience on stage was rather limited, as e.g.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzmebICE8hI
I like his voice.

Nicky still has his way to go and I'm very curious the learn about his next step.

BTW Rough Copy didn't get the top 100 with Street Love in the first week
while Ed Sheeran managed to get 13 tracks of his album in the TOP 100
http://www.officialcharts.com/music-charts/

Answerphone got to #34 on iTunes and even though it did drop down the iTunes chart fairly quickly over the following few days, it still sold enough to officially enter the UK chart at #73.

Street Love, on the other hand, barely cracked the top 60 on iTunes and I suspect had an even sharper decline down the iTunes chart 48 hours after release. So it's no surprise Rough Copy didn't make the top 100.

Also worth noting that the UK chart now includes streaming sales. This is basically for every time a song is streamed 100 times on Spotify, it equals 1 sale towards the chart.

So if Nicholas McDonald was to ever release a massively popular single that was #1 on Spotify's streaming chart, let's say the song is streamed 1.5 million times throughout the week, that's the equivalent of 15,000 download sales which would be added to whatever sales the song made from download sites like iTunes, Amazon etc...

Anyways, on another note I messaged Joe Campbell on Facebook about Nicky a week ago, mentioned Forever Of The Dancefloor and added that I'd be more than happy to send the instrumental and that they could do whatever they wanted. Ie; get his songwriters to use it for a new track or something. Joe replied to me asking me to email him.

I sent an email and attached the instrumental of FOTD. I've also decided to add the track onto my SoundCloud page. Was quite surprised that it received its first like about 2 minutes after I uploaded the track.

https://soundcloud.com/hitstastic/hi...r-instrumental

Nothing will probably come of it, but it's been sent so I shall let Joe decide its fate.

mmpfb, I don't know how you feel about this but it'd be ace if you contacted Joe too. Perhaps on Twitter and send him a link to your remix of Answerphone. It'd be brilliant if we were asked to work on a track together for Nicky, or remix a new single of his.

Of course, don't get your hopes up as there's probably a 0.6% (number chosen at random ) chance of us being asked. Still, I've put my foot through the door to #TeamNicky and will see what happens.

Ella Henderson confirmed for the BBC Commonwealth Concert at Edinburgh Castle on the 19th July, when Nicky's doing the Gig in the Park in Jersey. Would be nice to think if there wasn't the overlap he would have been considered too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/arti...ne-this-summer

I guess the normal chain probably is:
Comonwealth Games staff (in London?) -> Professional Event Organizers (can include radio stations) -> Artist's managers -> Artists

So the local Scotsmen are not faced with difficult decisions as e.g. to select among local celebrities as e.g.:
Michelle McManus, Pop Idol 2003
Leon Jackson, X-factor 2007
Jai McDowall, BGT 2011
Nicholas McDonald, X-factor 2013
and others...

Leon Jackson. A celebrity?!!! LOL

Sadly I think even if Nicky wasn't doing the Jersey gig he wouldn't have been considered. The organisers are too busy thinking Lulu is still relevant enough to perform Shout. They might consider Nicky if Glasgow have the honours of hosting the Commonwealth Games in 40 years time.

Of course we would probably be thinking "well, about bloody time" so I can imagine all Lulu fans are delighted to know she will be performing.

No, Lulu is performing at the Glasgow opening ceremony, along with other Glasgow born acts. The BBCshow from Edinburgh has a great line up including Jessie J, Kaiser Chiefs, Smokey Robinson...

Oh, my bad.

Anyways, looks like Nicky performed Superman whilst he was visiting Yorkhill Hospital. Click the below link to watch the performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2GUXc5RBuA

It's astonishing how the lack of echo and reverb can make someones vocals sound so ordinary. Then again, it's a hospital so you can't expect them to have a fantastic sound system. However, most of the people sitting were barely interested in Nicky, too busy talking to each other throughout the performance.

Now wouldn't it have been genius if Nicky had gone straight into this song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqKtCiTvrLs **

Admit it, within seconds Nicky would've had everyone watching him.

** shameless plug #962 and proud!!!

Not sure about that - there were some very sick children in that audience, and I would guess they were the centre of attention?

Good for Nicky for going along, no advertising the fact but just turning up and joining in

In the begining there was the room audition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am5LubDrUMo

and somehow it turned into a mess at the end:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...r-picture.html

X Factor results are like an advertissment: they help launching a career, but if that
career is not properly managed, they are just a waste.
Do you remember this guy, performing just before Nicholas at bootcamp?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Apz5kOzdgs

He didn't even make the judges houses, but he cleverly uses the little reputation he got
twitter: "Tom Mann @TomMannMusic · Jul 3
The @TheXFactor was best time of my life"

He will also be at Soccer6
twitter: "Tom Mann ‏@TomMannMusic · 23h
Who's comin'?! @SoccerSix pic.twitter.com/13Ivk6PpmF "
https://twitter.com/TomMannMusic/sta...312640/photo/1

We have had some reflections about Nicky's management before

It was very clever of the BAM management to jump on the hype in the US:
http://www.stopbullying.gov/
A federal government website managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

cf. also:

This refers to his song Invisible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiUqgL5urWc (+ 2 million views since March 13).

BAM on the Ellen show in the USA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBWj92_YjEU

videoclip released today:
Retweeted by B.A.M BGT
Everyone go watch this video its amazing!! @BarsAndMelody #BamVevoVideoHopeful
http://youtu.be/wT3RhIJZu4k