HUGE NEWS: Announcing the SAVE THE SKA SHOW fundraising album feat. BTTB (releases Saturday 30/1/21), Away Fear featured on The Tribune Phonograph Vol. 28 on Newgrounds, the $5+ Patreon rewards are out: Sonnet For A Spider Girl & more + more updates!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! Boy has it been a busy one here at JabunAudio and some incredible news to share with you in today's blog post! Before that, some quick updates: I'm been busy sorting out admin work for Jabun's upcoming 3rd album (which will be coming Spring 2021) and I'm super happy to announce that it's just been approved for worldwide distribution so the ball is finally rolling and clock ticking until the concrete release date! I still need to sort out the associated Patreon rewards and the Bandcamp page, but at least I know it'll be arriving to iTunes, Spotify, etc... on the desired date without any problems! With much of my to-do list complete earlier this week, I've also been busy writing more lyrics and recording demos for the upcoming next Better Than The Book album as well, which is going VERY well and ahead of schedule. Just one more first draft lyric sheet to finish off and a few rough horn parts to arrange, then it'll be time to go through these demos with a fine comb before recording everything for real! Exciting times ahead! Anyways, with those little updates all said, it's time to get onto the main news for this week and let's start with a HUGE one: Better Than The Book's first compilation album feature to save a beloved ska radio show!

Those of you who've been following Better Than The Book over the past few years have certainly heard of the amazing Ska Show with Beefy, based in Melbourne and proudly the 2nd most listened to Ska music podcast in the world! The show has played a tonne of Better Than The Book since my debut on there in 2019, but with all that's happened over the past year and finances running low, the future of the show is looking unfortunately uncertain...

But when things are looking dire, people come together, and so Beefy along with 60 ska/skapunk bands/artists from around the world (including myself) have put our heads and hearts together to release a 60 track fundraising compilation album to keep the show on the air! There'll even be one BTTB track on there! Which one? You'll have to wait and see! Pre-orders for the album are now open and the album releases this Saturday 30th January! Check it out on Bandcamp below, along the promotional art:

https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

It's been an absolute honour to be part of this fundraising compilation, and if you're a lover of ska music and/or the show, then that's 60 tracks from around the world for as little as 12 Australian Dollars (not even £7), with the option to donate more if you wish. Let's keep the skanking going and save this great show and I'll be back next week when it's finally out!

Next on this week's blog post, another quick bit of cool news to share with you as my most recent collaborative single with Cyberdevil (as Jabun) "Away Fear" was featured in this week's The Tank Tribune's Tribune Phonograph playlist Vol. 28 on Newgrounds.com! Thanks so much for sharing even more of our music, and check out the full playlist below:

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/7a1628488d0ca66a3ea72f38928041d9

And read The Tank Tribune No. 28 below too:
https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1139715

Finally for this week's news, it's the last Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some $5 and $10 Patreon rewards, and with last year's Jabun album out to the world (completing the current Jabun discography), it's time to go waaay back and explore some of my classic tracks as plain old Nick Standing!

This month it's my very first acoustic solo track: "Sonnet For A Spider Girl"! Released on Halloween 2012 (before even the very first Jabun track but not before the first Better Than The Book demo), this song is a love ballad for my greatest childhood fear! The lyrics are pretty self explanatory and as expected my production has improved a tonne since this was released (unlike my drawing or handwriting) so the mixing/mastering isn't to today's standard, but it's a trip down memory lane which always brings a smile to me, and I hope it does to you too! If you're an arachnophobic, I hope this changes your mind even if just a little! Listen to Sonnet For A Spider Girl on Bandcamp:

​https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/track/sonnet-for-a-spider-girl

For the $10+ patrons, you've also got an exclusive sneak peek at this year's upcoming 3rd Jabun album to look forward to (set to release in spring) with a cover artwork reveal and story as well as a title reveal! Become a $10+ patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! With the newly updated REWARD ARCHIVE it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's it for this month's rewards and Sonnet For A Spider Girl will be out for the $1+ patrons next Wednesday! Next month we'll be continuing with the Nick Standing song back catalogue with 2 shorter tracks, one of which I've already mentioned here and on Patreon, but until then, I hope you enjoy some old music from plain old Nick Standing!

And that about wraps things up for this blog post! Next time I'll be posting up the released link for the Save The Ska Show fundraising compilation album, as well as the $1+ Patreon rewards, and there'll be the monthly reflections and goals to go through as well at the very least! Until then, I hope you enjoy all the music, thanks for reading and as always thanks for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book, Jabun, and my various projects and the things associated with them however you can; it really means a lot! Let's save this ska show and I look forward to sharing more news with you next week! All the best until then, and take care!