April 2025 Blog Post: Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life (single) is out, CD test pressings for the upcoming album have been ordered (with vinyl to come), press features, videos and more (+ an extra $10 Patreon reward)!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to spring! It's been a super busy time over here as I'm sure you already know if you've been following the usual posts and stuff. I decided to delay the monthly post given that it was April Fools Day yesterday, but now that that's all over I can post without worry of any misunderstandings! With such a big release less than a week ago I thought there'd just be the one shared news post for all Patreon supporters this month, but I managed to whip something a little extra up for the $10 patrons anyway! More on that in a moment, but let's get started with the news!

First of all, the big news in case you've not heard it yet: Better Than The Book released the 2nd single and title track from the upcoming 3rd full-length album Side Character In My Own Life on Friday! Not only that, but the cover art for the album has also been revealed as well as a vinyl and CD release for the album being announced too! Not only that, but $10 patrons now have full early digital access to the album too! I've already posted about it so I'll not repeat myself here, but read more and check out all the details in the Patreon post below:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/124775796

And listen on Bandcamp:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/side-character-in-my-own-life

As it currently stands, the digital release is pretty much ready to go, and I've just ordered the very first CD test pressing from the distributor! If that comes back all good I'll go ahead and order a test vinyl too! All the physical release packaging is pretty much done, so all that's left to sort once the test pressings are approved is to solidify the release date (taking into account release lead times) and get the (personal) online streams sorted (YouTube, Newgrounds, Soundcloud etc...)! The next and final pre-release single is already pretty much ready to drop and I'll be announcing the concrete release date for the album when that goes live in a few weeks time once the test pressings are approved (if all goes to plan). Exciting times!

In the mean time, following from the physical release progress I have an extra reward for the $10 patrons this time! The vinyl release includes a lyric sheet for the main album (not including bonus tracks), so as an early access patron, you now have an early download for the lyric sheet to look forward to! If you're a $10 patron, head over here to grab the download:

$10 reward: https://www.patreon.com/posts/125676704

And the lyric sheets will be available to the rest of the patrons and on Bandcamp when the album drops in full in May/June!

Following the big launch, the Side Character In My Own Life single has racked up a few press features already in its first week live! Big thanks to The Punk Site for sharing the new music, The Retweeter Hits Radio for adding the track to their radio rotation, and to the great peeps at Newgrounds for the front page feature award! That makes both singles which have met the mark for all 3 of these features. Will the next single (and album) complete the collection? We'll have to see!

March 31, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life single featured on ThePunkSite.com

​March 30, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life (Single) added to The Retweeter Hits Radio Rotation

March 29, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life (Single) receives Front Page award on Newgrounds.com

Away from Better Than The Book news, the home studio set-up is pretty much all set up now too! All the acoustic treatment (for now at least) has been sorted including a ceiling panel I'm very pleased with, and all that's left to do now is a quick speaker/room calibration when I have a free quiet evening. There may be a few stands to get/swap out but functionally it's finally back to how I've been wanting it to be now to get on with making music again properly! The next thing to do in the studio will be to plan out and set up a patch bay to integrate much of the electronics. It's something I've not done before so it's going to be a challenge and will take some capital to invest in all the cabling etc... so that might not be for a little while, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. Before that, I recon the next major project will be to add a grill onto the front and sides of the homemade Leslie speaker though so it'll be time to draw up some plans for that soon!

Next and lastly for this month's update, more videos on YouTube! This past month has been filled with some bass and slide guitar fun times and experiments, as well as my first saxaflute (bamboo saxophone) video! Check out the updated playlist below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• Homemade Superfuzz on Bass sounds like brutal thunder
• Open G Tuning Acoustic Slide Guitar
• Alternative Tuning Experiment for Acoustic Slide Guitar OpenGSus2 DGDGAD
• Alternative Tuning Experiment for Acoustic Slide Guitar DGDF#AD
• Bass with Digitech Whammy Detune Effect
• Funky Bass with Digitech Whammy Octave Effect + MXRPhase 90
• Bass with Digitech Whammy Harmony Effect
• Jamming on the Roland J-6 with the Hold and Arpeggiator functions
• One month of learning the Bamboo Saxophone (uncut practice)

The next month is set to be my last month of regular YouTube videos (for a while at least) while I prepare for the big BTTB release. It'll also mark 2 full years of uninterrupted videos on YouTube so there's that too! More music to come soon though so you'll not be able to get rid of me just yet!

That about wraps things up for this month! I'm hoping that by next time I'll have a finalised test CD (hopefully even a vinyl too) in my hand, perhaps the next BTTB single out, and a concrete release date set in stone for the next BTTB album too, but now that all depends on how sorting these physical releases go (manufacture times etc...). Exciting times ahead and until the next one, thanks so much for supporting my music and I hope you enjoy the new music and videos this month (and to come)! Take care!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/124775854
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/125676704
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding