Hi everyone and hope you're having a great end to April. Still on lockdown over here, and its been a reasonably productive week mixing / mastering + sorting artwork for one of the upcoming Jabun albums, as well as recording / mixing the next one. I'm definitely starting to feel a little burned out as of late though, and the lockdown restrictions are starting to get to me too, so perhaps time for a break soon. It was certainly a strange 30th birthday on Friday, but I think I made the best of it (looking forward to celebrating properly when this is all over). But anyways some cool things to share this week! 2 new tracks and the associated Patreon rewards. Let's get to it!

So as previously mentioned, Friday was my 30th birthday so as an extra special treat and thanks for all the support over the years, not only did I release 2 new Patreon exclusive bonus mashup tracks, but also patrons got them on my birthday instead of having to wait for the first Wednesday of the month like usual! Woot woot! For those of you not on Patreon you can listen to them on YouTube! Grab the rewards and check out the videos below:

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/34612399
$5 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/34612358

The first bonus track is another Better Than The Book mashup and although I didn't think it would work initially, I'm actually super pleased with the way it turned out! Check out "The Bigger Call, Maybe..." via the video link below and hope you get a kick out of it!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far despite the extended lock-down and all the crazy stuff still going on outside! It's been a super busy and productive one over here at JabunAudio working on a variety of new tunes and sorting out a tonne of upcoming Jabun projects (more on that in a moment). A fair bit of news to share this week so let's start with a celebration!

Firstly in the news, after much hard work and promotion, I'm super happy to report that Better Than The Book just passed 1000 followers on Twitter (right on time for my 30th Birthday tomorrow too)! Thanks so much for all the support especially since Hopes and Dreams was released last year, with a special thanks to all the radio shows and blogs which featured the music and everyone else who helped spread the word (especially the album's PR extraordinaire Meg)! If you're not yet following you can find BTTB on Twitter here, and check out the screenshot below:

https://twitter.com/BTTB_UK

Next this week, with not much else to do while on lock-down, I've been super busy composing demos, recording and engineering for new Jabun projects and my oh my has it been a productive time! With almost 2 and a half HOURS of original Jabun demos completed since November last year (not including covers or half finished demos), I'm finally taking a break from composition now to focus on what I've currently got and polish them up for some new releases! As it currently stands here's what's lined up for the near(ish) future (in approximate order though with no timescales just yet):

1) A mystery metal cover song (master audio finished; just artwork, conversions and the admin side of things to do)

2) A 33 minute Jabun "LIVE" album (all recorded, needs final mixing and mastering, then artwork and admin)

3) A 37 minute Jabun studio album (fully composed and well demoed, needs final recording, and all the rest)

4) A ~70 minute Jabun studio (double) album (Roughly demoed, with possible additions to come) 

5) A bonus album with alternative versions (eg: instrumentals) from album #4 above

+2 more miscellaneous leftover demos I'll likely release as Patreon exclusive bonuses

And on top of that there will definitely be a Better Than The Book bonus album coming in July too! I'm currently aiming to have projects 1, 2 & 3 out before the end of the year (maybe beginning of 2021 for #3), and more details to come as and when I can share them! In any case it's looking to be an exciting time for music for the foreseeable future and I've still got the rest of the Jabun back catalog to upload to Patreon too! Hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am, and I can't wait to share it with you all!

Finally for this week, a heads up that tomorrow is my 30th birthday and to celebrate I'll be releasing 2 new bonus tracks on YouTube with Patreon exclusive downloads! That also means that tomorrow will have a good few Patreon posts/rewards too. If you're a $5+ supporter, then you've already got access to these tracks, and download privileges will be granted to the $1 patrons at ~9am BST tomorrow too! Come join the fun on Patreon to grab those downloads and all previous rewards for your tier including the full BTTB discography + a tonne of Jabun and other bonus tracks! Hope to see you there:

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And that's about it for this post! Hope you're looking forward to the new tracks tomorrow and I'll be sure to share them in the blog post next week. It's certainly going to be a strange birthday this year, and I'm sure the rest of my week will be filled with working on more Jabun projects and other things. Until then, thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and all my projects and I hope you have a great week! Stay safe, wash your hands, and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're staying safe and well indoors with some very clean hands (lots of time to practice that at the moment)! It's been a slow week here at JabunAudio finishing up some tax year admin work, practicing the usual BTTB tunes and learning/brushing up some more, jamming on synths / drum-machines / samplers, playing a bit of cello for the first time in a while, a tonne of melodica, and working on more demos for the upcoming Jabun album(s). As it currently stands, the demos total to over 111 minutes (1 hour 51 minutes), which makes me about 8 and half minutes away from this month's target (probably 2 or 3 more tracks I recon). Nice! Certainly feeling that lock-down strain at the moment though and looks like it'll be for another few weeks at least so staying productive is going to be a push. Keeping at it as best I can though! Other than that there's not a whole lot to report this week, though I do have something very cool to share from World Beyond, so let's talk about that!

So over the past year and a bit since World Beyond released its 2nd full-length album "Nobody Asked For This So I Did It" in December 2018 (for which I played guitar and bass on most of the tracks), my dear friend Vlad has been working hard on various animated videos for each of the tracks, unveiling a story which has been many months in the making! On Sunday, the finale of these animated videos was released for the track "Awaken The Giant" and it was simply glorious! "Awaken The Giant" happens to be the only track on the album which I didn't contribute to instrumentally (though I took part in a lot of proof listening etc...), but I just had to share it here! A huge congrats to Vlad for getting this project out there and looking forward to working with you on your music again soon! I hope you all enjoy "Awaken The Giant" and here's a statement from Vlad about the production:

"This animated video signifies the end of a huge period of my life that started with the production of the album Nobody Asked For This So I Did It, way before I turned to Nick Standing for recording the first guitar tracks. Back in 2016 I took the photo of construction workers on top of a nearby building and then decided it would be cool to make this a theme of the entire album only with a sci-fi twist. Ordinary people building a foundation for the future of humankind. And then the plot thickened with each new video revealing more and more of the structures they were working on from odd looking towers appearing to be parts of gigantic heads that turned out to belong to huge stone robots. The final video was supposed to tie everything together. I teased a few scenes in the Not The Beginning video. Back then I thought I would be able to finish Awaken The Giant a lot sooner, but life got crazier and production of some scenes had to be cancelled or postponed. Every segment in this video took me hours, sometimes days to design and a lot more to render in 4K on my workstation. Sometimes I had to return to finished footage to update the visuals which pushed the release date even further back. And yet, I just had to do it because from the inception of NAFTSIDI everything was for this video. Finally able to move on, I'm releasing the animation on my channel and the mkv file will also be available from Bandcamp as a download. I hope after so much tease, I at least did not disappoint you. Thanks so much for staying in our World Beyond. You made it happen."
- Vladimir

And that about wraps things up for this blog post! Not a whole lot to report these days unfortunately, though I'll be keeping up the blog for the forseable future and reporting what I can! Looks like this next week will be filled with more Jabun composition and various practicing as there's not a lot else I seem to be able to do at the moment, but I'll be sure to share anything else exciting that crops up in the next post! Until then, I hope you all have a great week to come, stay safe and wash your hands and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my various projects! Take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're staying safe and healthy especially during these corona virus times. It's been another week of lock-down over here at JabunAudio filled with a little bit of Jabun composition, some World Beyond project proofing, some Better Than The Book guitar/vocal practice, and a whole load of JabunAudio admin work since the new tax year started on Monday. Some more exciting radio news to share with you today as well as a long overdue update so let's get on with it!

First of all, after much consideration and suggestions from various social media platforms due to the corona virus disruptions over the last month or so, I've decided to set up a PayPal tip jar for anyone who wants to throw some spare PayPal pennies my way to support my music, especially during this crazy time.
 
I realise that while Patreon is a great platform for people who want to support my music/projects on a regular basis, many people aren't in that position to do so, and since I try to keep as much of my music as possible free to listen to for everyone on platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, Soundcloud, Newgrounds, etc... there's not much incentive these days for people to actually buy digital downloads anymore (a huge thank you to everyone who does though)! With this being the case, I thought setting up a separate PayPal tip jar would be a good alternative for those who want to support my music with one-off tips or the occasional support without the commitment of Patreon, or simply buying the same digital album over and over again. If YouTube (etc...) is my busking street, think of this tip jar as my open guitar case for your spare change. Every little bit makes a difference!
 
With the UK on lock down at the moment, all I can really do is make or practice more music (as you've heard), so I'll be working on a whole plethora of new tunes for the foreseeable future! If you're enjoying the music and have some pennies you won't miss (whether a Patreon supporter already or not), feel free to send them my way via the new PayPal Tip Jar button or hyperlink below:

https://www.paypal.me/NickStanding

You can now find this tip jar button at the foot of all the JabunAudio, JabunMusic, Better Than The Book, and Nick Standing web pages, and I've updated my various social media profiles and streams with the hyperlink (where I can) so it'll always be easy to find! Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book, and my various music projects in all the ways you can, many thanks for listening, and I can't wait to take Better Than The Book live once this corona virus thing is all over! 

Next and lastly for this post, some super cool news to share as Better Than The Book's "Brighton" was back on The Ska Show with Beefy this week playing alongside Less Than Jake's "The Science of Selling Yourself Short" (a track I requested for the show and one of my all time favourites)! Thanks for sharing the tunes and the lovely shout out, Beefy!

Check out the replay of the show below: Less Than Jake is on at -37:03 followed by a lovely shout out, then "Brighton", then more tunes and another shout out!

https://www.facebook.com/TheSkaShowwithBeefy/posts/2923405277747858​

And check out the full playlist for the show below!  Lots of great stuff this week!  

https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-ska-show-with-beefy-on-southern-fm/playlist-31st-march-2020/2914311901990529/

Remember you can grab "Brighton" and the rest of the Hopes and Dreams album in all the usual digital places including the Better Than The Book Bandcamp page:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams

Or grab the full BTTB discography, bonus tracks and all when you become a supporter on Patreon if that’s your jam. The next set of rewards will be on April 24th (my 30th birthday) including 2 new Patreon exclusive bonus tracks so hope to see you then!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And that about wraps up this blog post! I'm told there'll be something new to share from World Beyond next week so look forward to that, and by then I'll hopefully have my taxes sorted and be back to Jabun composition or something equally as exciting! Until then, I hope you have a great week to come, stay safe and sensible during these crazy times, and thanks as always again for supporting JabunAudio and my various music projects. Take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to April despite the corona virus craziness going on! It's been another week on lock-down doing a bit of Jabun composition and experiments with the total duration of demos up at 96+ minutes now and still a dozen+ ideas I'd like to pursue before reviewing them and sorting out some albums. Having said that, there are a few ideas which have pieced themselves together nicely into a 4 track - 38 minute ambient album which I've set aside for the moment. That's looking to be the next Jabun album, though I'll continues writing demos for a while as I mull it over. In other news I've also been busy sorting out some more LIVE arrangements for the Better Than The Book LIVE band to learn, and since it's not clear when we'll next be able to meet up for a practice we might as well make use of this unprecedented downtime for some solo learning. Onto the main news this week I have an extra special and silly April Fool's BTTB bonus track to share with you (which also ties into April's Patreon rewards), and there's also the monthly goals to review and set as usual. Let's get started!

So first of all this week, yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month which means the $1 Patreon rewards have just been sent out, and this time I have something extra special for you, an unreleased bonus track from the 2016 Better Than The Book album "Two Years On"! Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liE7nsRbgJY

... is what I'd have said if there was such a thing, but anyway, here's Wonderwall... and happy April Fool's Day!

This silly mashup has been sitting half finished in my projects folder since about September 2018 but now seemed like the right time to finish it up ready for some April Fool's fun! I hope you get a kick out of it and sing along loud and proud!

Songs used:
Better Than The Book - Make Your Mark [Instrumental]
Oasis - Wonderwall [Acapella]

This bonus mashup track is a Patreon exclusive download so if you want to pick up a copy, come join the lovely Patreon community! Remember that you'll be getting not just this mashup but all historic rewards for your chosen tier when you sign up too including the full Better Than The Book discography and much more! With the REWARD ARCHIVE tag it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them :) 

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding (Sign up and find out more)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/34612394 (Exclusive download)

And for the $10 patrons, you've got another exclusive demo from Jabun's upcoming 2nd album to look forward to as well as an article on the composition/production process for it and early access to all the upcoming music later this month! Become a $10 patron to access that article and music and much more now!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/34612377 ($10 rewards)

That's it for this set of Patreon rewards, but as it's my 30th birthday on April 24th, there'll be new rewards including 2 more Patreon exclusive mashups coming early next time! I'll leave all the details as a surprise for later this month, but until then, I hope you enjoy the new music and see you on the 24th!

Finally this week it's the beginning of the month and time to set and reflect on some goals! Here's what was set 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!
 
​So with all the disruption going on around the world, 1) has been delayed a bit due to awaiting feedback from other people. It's currently sitting in a mostly done state, but as there's no rush to release it I've been working on the Jabun demos instead. Speaking of which with 96+ minutes of demos completed now, I GREATLY exceeded my targets for 2)! In fact it would appear I've written a whopping 40 minutes of demos in the past month which feels a little crazy. I definitley don't expect to be making as much next time. 3) is all done and sorted, and with the Better Than The Book (and ALL) gigs indefinitely postposed, while I did lean the setlist solid for what would have been next week's gig, it's kind of an irrelevant goal now... Overall a reasonably successful month though, not perfect but definitely making up for the lacking areas with some extra Jabun demos! Let's set some goals for next month!

1) Complete my tax return
2) Renew the JabunAudio website
3) Get the audio 100% complete for the upcoming cover song 
4) Learn the 17 BTTB songs that currently have live band arrangements
5) Write 120+ minutes of Jabun demos (total)

Since I'm likely to be stuck inside and had to cancel my holiday downtime anyway I figured I'd set some big goals this time. Of course 1) & 2) are essential, but the others are lower priority. 3) will depend on the availability of my feedback team, so that's partially out of my control. 4) Should be ok. I've already learnt 8 tracks for the gig + another 2 from the December practice (though those are a little rusty) + 1 more, so really it's only 6 new tracks to get under my fingers and vocal chords. If I can get a few more down that'd be cool, though I'm not too bothered if I don't make the full 17. 5) Is probably a little over ambitious but with 40+ minutes written last month it seems this'll hopefully not be quite as strenuous as it only equates to about 23 minutes of new music, all of which are partially started already. We'll see how it goes but I'd be happy with just 15 minutes of new music! I've a few more maintenance goals for myself too but those are also less in my control so I'll just set these 5 here! Any goals you have for April? Leave them in the comments and we can keep each other accountable!

And that about wraps things up for this blog post! I've honestly no idea what's going on next week or for the foreseeable future with all this corona virus stuff, so I'll be playing it by ear and tending to the goals above and we'll see if there's anything else to share in the next blog post! Until then, I hope you have a great start to April, stay safe and sensible and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects! See you next time and take care!