Hi everyone and hope you're as excited as I am on this very fine Friday 13th of June! It's finally FINALLY time and I'm super excited to announce that Better Than The Book's 3rd full length album "Side Character In My Own Life" has just been released!!! Check it out including all the album credits and about sections over on Bandcamp and pick it up on CD and/or Vinyl over on elastic stage!

Bandcamp:

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

CDs & Vinyls on elasticStage:
https://elasticstage.com/betterthanthebookuk/releases/side-character-in-my-own-life-album

And here's a quick video of what to expect from the CD and Vinyl releases:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/b4LbNcz3bbc

And here's the full stream here on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhB1UtJKccw

Of course my Patreon supporters have a full digital download of album too, that's the Mp3s of the full 10 track album, 4 bonus tracks, 4 radio edits, the full sized album artwork and pre-release Plot Holes (Single) photo, and the vinyl album lyric sheets (+ the master WAV files for the $10 patrons)! If that's something you're interested then become a patron and remember that you'll get access too my full discography and past rewards for your tier including all the music from Better Than The Book and Jabun as well as a tonne of exclusive downloads and bonus tracks. Find out more below:

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/130599781
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/130599817​
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

This album has been a major undertaking and undoubtedly my biggest project to date! I started writing Side Character In My Own Life back in 2020, and since Hopes and Dreams we've had a global pandemic, I've been to hospital a fair few times, had 2 major computer meltdowns, had a tonne of equipment broken, then resurrected, then broken and resurrected again, and had a handful of live shows booked which never came to fruition (for many reasons including those above). To be finally at the finish line so to speak with this project feels unreal to me and with all three of the pre-release singles featured on the radio before the album even released already, including Plot Holes and Bump In The Night on BBC Introducing and the title track Side Character In My Own Life making onto the Ska Time show on Button Down Radio as well as Beefy's Ska Club over in Australia, I have no doubt that this album is going to blow your socks off!

To everyone who's supported this project and Better Than The Book, the live band peeps, the DJs and promoters, friends and family, fans and supporters on Patreon with special extra mention to past and present $10+ patrons: Nathan Puray, and Michael White during this project, I extend my deepest thanks for giving me the time and space to make this dream a reality and I hope that you enjoy it and it's an album you'll remember forever!

That about wraps things up for today but Better Than The Book isn't done quite yet and I'm happy to announce that I'll be releasing a little extra something next month on July 23rd before I call this project closed. Some of you may have already guessed what it is but I'll leave that to your imagination for the moment! Until the next time, thanks as always for supporting Better Than The Book and my music projects however you can, and I hope you enjoy Side Character In My Own Life. Take care everyone and while I have no idea what comes next, I'm excited to see how things unfold! THIS IS MY LIFE!

Better Than The Book - Side Character In My Own Life

01 - 2020 Was A Write-off, But What Comes Next?
02 - Side Character In My Own Life
03 - Mood Swings
04 - Red Kite
05 - Rewrite
06 - Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself
07 - Hold Me Tight
08 - Bump In The Night
09 - Plot Holes
10 - You'll Never Be Too Old For This

Bonus Tracks (CD and Digital Only - Not Vinyl)
11 - Hearts Racing Backwards
12 - Plot Holes (Alternative Version)
13 - Hold Me Tight (Non-Acoustic)
14 - Side Character In My Own Life (Acoustic)

+ Additional Radio Edits for Tracks 07, 08, 09 & 10 (Digital Only)

Written, performed and produced by Nick Standing [Jabun]
Recorded, mixed and mastered at JabunAudio by Nick Standing [Jabun]
Artwork, images and photography by Nick Standing [Jabun]
No generative A.I. tools were used in the creation of this album.

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to Summer! It's been an incredibly busy month and only set to get busier for the next few weeks too! With Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life album coming next Friday 13th June (in less than 2 weeks), I'll be holding off for $10 DEMOlition Pigeon Patreon rewards this time, but hope to be back to it soon! There is MUCH to share in this post so let's get straight to it!

First of all as I'm sure you're well aware, on May 23rd Better Than The Book released the 3rd and final pre-release single Bump In The Night from the upcoming Side Character In My Own Life album and wooooweee did it go down well! Not only has it racked up over 4500 listens on Newgrounds alone (on top of a front page award and Takeover Tuesday feature), but the single was also featured on BBC Introducing: The South's radio show too! Thanks so much for the support everyone and you can catch up with the BBC Introducing replay for the next month over on BBC Sounds (I'm on towards the end, but there are some great tracks throughout the show as usual):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002cxxy

Bump In The Night was also featured on The Punk Site's news feed and on Retweeter Radio! Thanks for sharing the new music peeps!

May 25, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Bump In The Night single and CD/Vinyl announcement featured on ThePunkSite.com
May 25, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Bump In The Night (Radio Edit) added to The Retweeter Hits Radio Rotation

And flipping back to the previous single and title track Side Character In My Own Life, that track received its first international radio play in Australia on the #1 ska show in the world: Beefy's Ska Club (formally The Ska Show with Beefy)! The show is available to listen again as a podcast and what a heck of a show it was! I think it's the best shoutout I've ever been given on a radio show! Thanks so much to Beefy for sharing the music and all the kind words and I hope you love the album when it comes next week!

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/beefys-ska-club-17th-may-2025-pod-2-ep-613/id1510126760?i=1000708862516

Also In case you hadn't heard, Side Character In My Own Life is now available to pre-order on CD and Vinyl on ElasticStage too and you can read more about the album and listen to and download the pre-release singles over on Bandcamp. Check it out!

https://elasticstage.com/betterthanthebookuk

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

Finally for BTTB news, I'm pleased to announce that after a little trouble clearing a public domain sample, the album has been fully approved for worldwide digital distribution too and will be available on iTunes, Spotify, Tidal and all those places come Friday 13th as well! Woot woot!

Onto some non-BTTB news, it's been a very busy month in other areas as I've been away on a few trips as well as fixing up some stuff around the studio! Starting with the trip, on May 11th I had the amazing and unforgettable opportunity to see one of my favourite bands ELLEGARDEN play their first European gig EVER! For those who don't know, ELLEGARDEN is a Japanese pop-punk band who started around the turn of the millennium but went on an almost 10 year hiatus before returning just before the pandemic hit. I never thought I'd have an opportunity to see them, but as soon as I found out they were going to be playing in London (alongside local heroes FEEDER) I just had to make sure I could go! I've been using these guys as mixing reference material since the One Small Step EP, and learnt so much from listening to their records! It was an amazing night and I hope they come back again soon! While I was in the pits only a few meters from the front, some other gig goers got some great footage of most of the concert from the balcony (you can even spot me in the crowd if you know who to look for XD)! Check it out below and if you every get the chance, go see them for one hell of a party!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4oqBMGy2FBglFJttux9g_fGcbltZwDGb

Next on the news for this month, some studio updates! While I was down for the gig I went to visit my long time mentor of sorts Martin, and as tends to happen I ended up leaving with a piece of his studio, this time an old Yamaha 8 channel mixing desk from the 80s! I've been looking for a mixer for a long time, so I was super excited when he offered it! After a clean, some re-soldering of connections and a hefty drench of electrical cleaning solution, it's working great, and I'll integrating into the studio along with Martin's old patch bay very soon! Thanks so much, Martin! Alongside fixing up the mixer, I also finally got around to putting grills on my homemade Leslie rotary speaker and got it put back together and serviced! There's a new YouTube video all about it which I'll get back to in a second. Finally in the studio updates, my main guitar amp for the last 18 years was acting up again and I really thought it was gone for good this time but again, I managed to resurrect it and it seems to be doing much better than even before now! Phew! While I was at it I figured I'd service the bass and organ amps too which were working but not quite as well as they could have been... A can of electrical contact cleaner sure does wonders!

Finally for this month, some more YouTube videos to share! This is the first time in 2 years that I've not been recording 2 videos a week so this time it's just 2 videos to share this month but I hope you enjoy them nonetheless! Check out the updated video below:

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

And here's a list of the latest additions:

• Choppy Glissando and Ghost Notes Organ Practice
• Leslie got grills!

That about wraps things up for this time! It's just 10 days until Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life album finally releases (I can hardly believe it), so I'm going to be working my butt off to prepare all the promo for that, and trying to get some rest where I can in the mean time. More interesting projects are coming on the horizon now though so it won't be long until there's more music to come! Until then, thanks as always for supporting my work however you can and I'll see you next week for the big album launch! Take care!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/128920974
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding​