​An exclusive bonus Patreon reward: A cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" for my dad's 60th birthday, Bandcamp Friday, setting and reflecting on monthly goals + more updates!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to July! It's been a reasonably busy week here at JabunAudio sorting out Patreon rewards and various things for the main piece of news this week (more on that in a moment) as well as getting back to Better Than The Book vocal/guitar practice and playing a tonne of organ and keyboards as has become the norm recently! With the UK lockdown due to be easing greatly at the start of next week, it looks like things are getting a little bit brighter for the future, but we'll have to see how it all goes. Anyways, let's get straight onto the main news for this week, a brand new track!

So first of all in the news today I'm super excited to share with you a special bonus track in celebration of my dad's 60th birthday last week: a cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters"! Some quick backstory: this track was a request (and challenge) by my dad as a 60th birthday present for him. He asked simply for me to record my own version of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" and do whatever I want with it production-wise. With that said, I started on this about a month ago recording in my free time when I could, and after presenting it to him last week, he's kindly let me share it on YouTube as well as give it away as an exclusive download to my supporters on Patreon! The cover features vocals, acoustic guitar, the doubleneck electric guitar I built with him in my teen years, as well as cello, my first time recording with it since 2015 and Better Than The Book's Two Years On album! As with all the musical presents I've given in the past, this cover is also free of tuning correction and "elastic audio" timing correction. In James Hetfields words: "Couldn't be much more from the heart"! Without further wait, I present to you my version of "Nothing Else Matters"! Listen via the YouTube player below and grab the downloads when you become a supporter on Patreon (links below the video)! I hope you enjoy it:

​Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
$1 rewards (Mp3, Art): https://www.patreon.com/posts/38637501/
$5 rewards (Mp3, WAV, Art): https://www.patreon.com/posts/38637502/

And remember that you'll be getting access to not just this track, but all past rewards for your tier too including the complete Better Than The Book discography, a tonne of Jabun, and a whole lot more when you sign up! As a reminder too, the next rewards will be out on July 19th when Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals]" bonus album is launched, but until then, thanks for supporting my projects on Patreon and I hope to see you in the community!

And speaking of supporting my projects, in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight PDT (that's this week)! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp today, the artists you support (including myself) will get more of the sales revenue than usual since Bandcamp doesn't take its cut, and you'll be able to support the music you love more directly than ever on the platform!
 
If you've been thinking of picking up Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams", pre-ordering the new bonus album, or grabbing Jabun's "Daydream" or one of my other tracks or albums, now's the best time to do so! Feel free to check out the Better Than The Book and Jabun Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can:

Better Than The Book
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Jabun
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/
 
Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)
https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/

Finally this week, it's the beginning of another month which means it's time to reflect on some goals and set some new ones as usual. Here's what was set for June:

1) Sort and schedule Patreon rewards posts for the next 2 months
2) Finish the admin work and announce the upcoming Better Than The Book bonus album (ready for release in July)
3) Keep up the BTTB practice and polish + add some stage pazzaz to the 17 tracks so far! *
4) Goals 2), 3) & 4) from last month with the exception of any admin work *

2) Sort artwork, mp3s (etc...) and admin work for mystery cover song (ready for release)
3) Finish final audio + sort mp3s (etc...) and admin work for next Jabun album (ready for release)
4) Finish initial mixing the following Jabun album ready for final tweaks and mastering
* Low priority

Of course, I also had a tonne of personal things including the just released "Nothing Else Matters" cover on my goals list for last month. Nevertheless it was a reasonably successful month with the remaining goals. 1) is all sorted, as is number 2) which takes a lot of my plate for what will be a busy launch in less than 3 week's time! 3) was ok considering I was on full vocal rest for the best part of a week and was recovering from a damaged voice for a few weeks after. I think I've managed to keep most of the tracks to the same standard as they were at the beginning of last month, with some improvements and some stage pazzaz added too (though not quite as much as I'd hoped). Goal 4) and the subset of goals included have been on pause for the whole month, but I look forward to getting back to at least some of them in the coming weeks! With those reflected on, let's set some goals for July!

1) Release the Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] album and start the post-launch promo campaign
2) Keep up with BTTB guitar/vocal practice and learn THE guitar stage jump as I've planned
3) Sort artwork & mp3s, for the upcoming mystery cover song
4) Finish final audio + sort mp3s for upcoming 2nd Jabun album
5) Finish initial mixing for the following Jabun album *

* Low priority

That should be plenty for me to get on with this month and I've still a couple of personal goals to do too, so no doubt it'll be busy away from these goals as well. If I can get started on the admin for projects related to goals 3) & 4) that'd be cool too, but no rush. With regards 2) I've already been practicing some ambitious stage presence for the BTTB live show but it's not quite there yet. My aim is to get that one bit of stage pazzaz 100% by the end of the month, while keeping on top of my practice, but we'll see how it all goes! Wish me luck I guess and feel free to post your own goals in the comments so we can keep each other accountable! It's looking to be a busy month!

And that about wraps things up for this post! I imagine things'll be busy but maybe not worth reporting on over the next 2 weeks until the big album launch on July 19th, so there might be a short break from the blog in the coming weeks. It'll definitely be back on July 23rd if not before though and I'll have plenty to get on with in the mean time I'm sure! Until then, I hope you have a great July and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects! Stay safe and sensible and take care!