A trip to Marvel Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. (and more tales of exciting weekends), another track to share from World Beyond + some BTTB updates!

Hello everyone and hope you've all had a great week since the last blog post. I have pretty much not been here for most of it (Friday to Tuesday evening), so there's not a whole lot to report about in terms of my work, but there is some new music to share and a few little updates which we'll get onto in a moment. First though, I thought it'd be cool once again to share with you what I was up to this past weekend, and even without seeing Ozzy Osbourne (get well soon sir), boy was it a busy one! Let's get started!

Saturday commenced with the traditional family coffee morning which was as usual a great start to the weekend, before myself, twin Eamon and girlfriend Eva headed to London for a late Christmas present: a trip to the Marvel Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. exhibition/experience! Unfortunately for us, it was rail replacement bus services all this weekend, which meant a much longer journey than usual and so no time to explore London (and Denmark Street) before going to the exhibit, and even at our speediest we arrived at 3:20 pm for what should have been a 3:00 - 3:30 pm entry. Cutting the time a little short there!
          The exhibition was simply fantastic though if you're a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe! With props all the way back to the Iron Man suit that Robert Downey Jr wore back in 2008 (the chunky one in the cave), to Captain America's WWII uniform and shield, to even scale models of how HUGE the Hulk's hands are, as well as tonnes of articles about the science (both factual and only slightly fantasy) behind many of the characters and event during the franchise, it was a fantastic display and step into the world of the Avengers! I shan't give too much away here in case you go and see it for yourself but here's some pictures of me pulling a silly face on Captain America's Harley Davidson, and trying to pick up a replica of Thor's Hammer Mjölnir!

There were also many interactive experiences including a motion tracked Hulkbuster Armour game, and a strength test in which somehow I managed to consistently register as just about stronger than Natasha Romanov (AKA Black Widow), which I'm pretty chuffed about considering I'd describe my build as "a bunch or twigs held together by string", and neither Eamon nor Eva could figure out how I managed it. Perhaps all those years of playing doubleneck? We shall never know... Thanks so much to Eva for the fantastic day out once again (and for taking the pictures too), and I wonder what our next adventure will be!
          Sunday was another day out too, again rushed because of the lack of trains, so not much time to explore Brighton this trip either. The trip's main purpose though was to see the new Battle Angel: Alita live action film, based off the 90's manga/anime of the same name, and overall, fantastic execution, especially the visuals, acting and story. I won't spoil anything here, but the one thing I would say is DUDE BBFC, you really messed up with the age rating on this... 12A?! More like 15 (even the animated version was a 15). Children should not be watching this level or gore and dystopia even if accompanied by a parent, I have no idea what you were thinking with that... Very well done film though. I'd highly recommend to any fan of the franchise!
          Finally for the long weekend, Monday (with the Ozzy gig being postponed) was spent chilling and catching up with friends instead which was great. Tuesday morning was exciting too as my brother won an auction last month for some props used in another live action 90's anime adaptation, 2017's Ghost In The Shell film, and the items finally arrived in the post which was super cool. After that, it was a long day of travelling back to reality which included a headphones synth jam on the train. Overall another great action packed weekend!
  
​Onto the audio news for this week, I've another great track to share with you from last years World Beyond album, a groovy heavy metal tune "Nickel and Dime"! I'm on bass and lead guitar as usual for this one, and I hope you enjoy the vizualiser music video that Vlad put together for it. More music to come soon, and if you can't wait, be sure to check out the full "Nobody Asked For This So I Did It" album on Bandcamp via the link below. Enjoy!

https://worldbeyond.bandcamp.com/album/nobody-asked-for-this-so-i-did-it

Lastly for this blog post, a couple of updates on how the upcoming Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album is coming along! Although I haven't had much time to work on it this week, as of yesterday 2/10 mixes have been tweaked to perfection (to my ears at least) and have been exported ready for mastering when they're all done. The mastering session has been set up too with a solid processing chain set up ready for the final tweaks and polishing when the mixes are done. It's slowly but surely coming along, and hopefully I should be at least halfway through the album by the next blog post (if all goes well). The finish line (audio-wise at least) is well within sight, and I'll keep you updated with the progress as and when there are things to report!

That about wraps things up for this post. Apart from working on the upcoming Better Than The Book album, I have a couple of other things to take care of this week which'll hopefully make an appearance in the next blog post. We'll see how it all goes and I'm sure there'll be another World Beyond visualiser to share too! Until then, I hope you have a great and productive week and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various music projects. Have a good one and take care!