A full song play-through of Better Than The Book's "Backseat Phobia" from the first full-band LIVE & LOUD practice, more $1 Patreon rewards (Jabun - Home) + setting and reflecting on monthly goals + some exciting updates!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to March and enjoyed a fun 303 day if you celebrated! It's been a super busy week here at JabunAudio finishing up not 1, not 2, but 3 bonus tracks and their artwork in time for April and my 30th birthday (ergh...) as well as doing mix adjustments on that upcoming cover song I mentioned previously, and some proof listening work for a phenomenal new track by World Beyond! With regards those bonus tracks, there will be another $5 Early Pigeon Patreon announcement coming very soon once I've uploaded and sorted all the files so keep your eyes on Patreon for that! Away from making music, it's also been a busy week practicing the Better Than The Book LIVE stuff (more on that in a moment), as well as the usual admin and social media grind, and backing up the machines as is what happens at the beginning of each month. Productive at least! Another Better Than The Book video to share with you today as well as $1 Patreon rewards and the usual setting and reflecting on monthly goals, so let's get started!

First of all this week, another LIVE and loud video, and this time (and for the next 3 videos too) it'll be a full song play-through from the first full band Better Than The Book rehearsal back in December! This week we're back to the One Small Step EP again for some "Backseat Phobia"! Buckle up your seats and enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNgfm0jJHYI
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Line-up:
Nick Standing: Composer, 1st guitar + lead vocals
Eamon Standing: 2nd guitar + backing vocals
Sam Brown: Bass + backing vocals
Andy Forman: Drums
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"Backseat Phobia" and the rest of the One Small Step EP are available on all major digital distributors as well as the Better Than The Book Bandcamp page:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

Or of course you can pick them up if you haven't already when you become a supporter on Patreon, complete with the full Better Than The Book discography and more when you sign up! With the project going live, we could use all the support we can get to push it as far as possible, and another set of $1 rewards was just posted yesterday too (mp3s and art of last week's $5 rewards: Jabun's 2014 single Home (+ all historic rewards for your tier)) so come join the community:

Read more: https://www.patreon.com/posts/33331416
$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/33331414
Join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

3 more of these videos to come over the next month, all full song play-throughs from the first LIVE and loud rehearsal session! Subscribe to the BTTB YouTube channel to get them fresh off the press, and I'll see you next week for another one! 

Finally this week, it's time to reflect on and set some more monthly goals! Here's what I set myself for February:

1) Develop a general exercise / vocal workout / BTTB practice routine
2) Get this cover song mixed and rough mastered ready to send for some feedback
3) Write 50+ minutes of rough demos for the upcoming 2nd Jabun album (total)
4) Get verified and sort my profiles for Jabun and Better Than The Book on Spotify (update socials + website with links)

And overall I think it was successful! 1) I've got into a good routine I think, though I feel like I'm not as far on the vocal workout routine as I'd have hoped by this time. Still, I can definitely feel the benefits of all the breathing exercises at least to it's definitely working! With illness and various visits it's been difficult to keep up with everything, but I think it's all going ok. 2) The upcoming cover song has been mixed and got feedback for now so I'm just going through the tweaks for the next round of feedback at the moment. Target achieved! 3) Over 55 minutes of rough demos for the upcoming Jabun album are completed now so that's great! And finally 4) both Better Than The Book and Jabun have been verified on Spotify and the various websites (etc...) updated! Check out the links below if you haven't seen them already:

BTTB - https://open.spotify.com/artist/4GUCmKQoIk3bNWGiXDGkrp
Jabun - https://open.spotify.com/artist/6Ig1iozkpNv4mOGHJFny73

Overall a pretty good month I'd say! No major gripes though I still feel I could have done better with goal 1). Let's set some more stuff for March:

1) Get the audio 100% complete for the upcoming cover song
2) Write 70+ minutes (total) of Jabun demos
3) Get those 3 bonus tracks uploaded and sort out the Patreon rewards for the next 2 months
4) Prepare and learn the setlist (solid) for Better Than The Book's 1st gig on April 11th!

Wait wait wait 4)?!?! That's right, although it's still yet to be officially announced, Better Than The Book will be playing its very first gig on April 11th! Details to come and I'll be posting about them in the next blog post hopefully, but should be exciting times! As such there's a lot to prepare for it, not just with regards the music, but equipment, travel etc... but as it stands from the current practice sessions, I'd say the music is pretty darn solid at the moment at least (90+% there)! Goal 1) should hopefully be doable, and I'm aiming to have another draft send out before the next blog post. 2) is fairly low priority this month, but always fun to write more music, and 3) since I'll be away for most of April I've got to schedule the posts beforehand. I hope you enjoy the fun and silly bonus tracks to come! That's enough goals for me for March! Wish me luck and feel free to share your own in the comments! All the best with yours too!

And that's it for today's update! I'll be back this time next week with the next BTTB live video as well as an official announcement for that debut BTTB gig if all goes to plan, and I'm sure there'll be more fun news to report as well! Looking forward to it and until then, thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book, Jabun, and my various music projects and I hope you have a great week to come! Take care!