January 2026 Blog Post: 1 month until Better Than The Books debut live show, lots of videos, BTTB featured in video game Ally's New Life, a round-up of 2025 + early access to the artwork for Jabun's upcoming Lost Tracks collection for the $10 patrons!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to 2026! It's been SUPER busy over here and is looking to be until Better Than The Book's big debut LIVE show in just less than a month's time! I can certainly appreciate why the big bands have their own managers and departments for this kind of stuff so they can focus on practice and the art! It is HECKTIC! It's a beginning of the year post so let's get straight to the news before reflecting on another year gone by (and boy was it a busy one)!

First up for this month, as mentioned above, most of my time has been spent preparing for BTTB's upcoming big LIVE show: practicing, promoting, sorting out the venue logistics, etc... before some brief downtime for the holidays! There's a load of surprises I'll not reveal just yet, but it's only a month left until the show so if you're planning on coming then head over to Fatsoma to grab your tickets before they all go! Use the promo code "TENYEARSON" (ALL CAPS) for a £1 off your ticket too! I look forward to seeing you there!

https://www.fatsoma.com/e/q2ub5sxo/better-than-the-book-presents-ten-years-on-with-special-guests-look-what-happened-luvd

Time's flying and more stuff to come about the above preparations when we get to all the new videos later in the post!

Meanwhile, while I've not been doing any recording or formal production last month, I have taken the time to make and finalise the artwork for Jabun's upcoming Lost Tracks project! Artwork is all complete, so this month I'm giving early access to the $10 patrons! Check out the post below:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/147544633

I'll be aiming to start releasing these new tracks (8 are complete so far, with another potentially 16 to come?) soon after Better Than The Book's LIVE show so expect more updates in March!

Next a fun feature for Better Than The Book: Side Character In My Own Life has been featured in the indie video game Ally's New Life on Newgrounds! The track is part of a secret mode, so let's see if you find it without any hints, but I hear there's an update coming soon for easier access to the secrets too. Thanks so much to Some-Crappy-Edits for having me on the project and enjoy "Ally's New Life"! It's super cool!

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/1011029

The game also went on to receive a Newgrounds Front Page and Daily 3rd Place award too! Awesome work peeps!

Onto videos for the month, let's start with some holiday funtimes! My twin Eamon has been back to his usual holiday meme-filled mash-up spree and has released another 6 track Christmas EP! Check out his full list of mashups here and the new EP runs from #72 -> #76! Thanks so much Eamon!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwEpjDbB6TAHQ7Khc1Nq5wCtnM-f0rUVc

Now onto my own videos + some special guest appearances from the Better Than The Book LIVE Band! There's a load of practice videos from various rehearsals, though strangely none of the 4 of us together this time, just Andy (drumming) solo, the band minus Andy, and the band minus Me! Makes for some interesting focus / breakdown! We're set for a big all 4 of us rehearsal next week though so expect some full band videos again soon! On top of that I've been back on organ trying out some new techniques and I've finally recorded the finale for the setting up the studio series this time focused on Patch Bays! Check out the updated playlist below:

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

And here's a list of the new additions:

• Andy drums Heartbeats - The KNIFE
• Hearts Racing (LIVE Band Practice 14-11-2025 sans Andy's drums)!
• Digging Cat Rapid Ghost Notes Organ Technique
• Undead Education (LIVE Band Practice 14-11-2025 sans Nick)!
• New Studio Part 7: Patch Bay + Mixer (FINALE)
• Artificial Ignorance (LIVE Band Practice 14-11-2025 sans Andy's drums)!
• Andy Plot Holes Drums

With the "New Studio" series finished now I put together a playlist of all the videos in the journey starting from closing up the old one! I hope you enjoy it and it helps inspire you on your own studio builds!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvTKBnhvGDkDD5W_26byNPFB

More Better Than The Book videos coming soon and I still need to record a video about the Roland J-6 sound sheet I put together last year. That's low priority for the mo though! I need to pace myself and prioritise in these busy times!

Finally for this post a yearly round-up! 2025 has been one of the most crazy and busy years for me so far! Of course the highlight of the year has to be the release of Better Than The Book's 3rd full-length album Side Character In My Own Life (cut to CD and vinyl too) which went on to receive a tonne of Newgrounds awards, blog features and some decent radio play too (+ the game feature above)! There was also the release of the bonus instrumental version of the album as well as the long overdue Apotheosis Video Game OST by Jabun which also went down well! 3 albums in a year is a bit overkill even if some were bonuses and remasters! In strange other album features, I forgot that I "contributed" to the "Is This What We Want?" anti government A.I. legislation protest album, and my twin Eamon released the Sonic The Hedgehog x BTTB - Endless Hopes and One-way Dreams Mashup EP too! Nice! Released music-wise the final thing this year was not 1 but 2 collaborations with Cyberdevil for his yearly INKtober challenge! Always good fun! Onto other things, after 2 full years of 2 YouTube videos a week I decided to take some time out and slow down to a more casual pace, but still managed 49 videos released this year though! After moving to a new home last year, I finally managed to finish setting up the new dream home studio, as well as finally put some metal grills on my homemade Leslie rotary speaker too! Busy busy busy but super cool! A highlight moment of the year was also seeing my Japanese heroes ELLEGARDEN at their first EVER UK show, which honestly was really the main inspiration for the next big bit of news: announcing Better Than The Book's first ever live show TEN YEARS ON in celebration of the 10 year anniversary of the Two Years On debut full-length album! Although not released just yet, there is in fact a secret Better Than The Book track which is fully recorded by tied to another project waiting to be released next year too! LOTS of things to look forward to in 2026! Looking back at the goals I formally set myself:

1) Release the upcoming Better Than The Book album!
2) Finish recording the next Jabun album
3) Play my first live shows as Better Than The Book or Jabun
4) Finish setting up the studio

And I think I did pretty well! 1 & 4 complete + a big step forward for the other 2, though I'm not sure I'd class Jabun's Lost Tracks as an album? More so a collection (for the moment). Setting some new goals for 2026, I think I'll go with:

1) Play Better Than The Book's first LIVE Show
2) Finish Jabun's Lost Tracks collection (not necessarily a proper release)
3) Release the upcoming secret Better Than The Book single

We do plan on recording the live show so I'd like to add BTTB's first LIVE album(?!) to that list too, but let's focus on playing the show first! I'd also like to make an effort to try to slow down a bit too. 2025 was a busy year, but I don't think that level is sustainable, so once the LIVE show is done, I'm hoping I can slow down a bit and try pace myself better. Maybe play some more live shows too if things go well? We'll see! Wish me luck and I hope you have great years ahead for yourselves too!

That about wraps things up for this post! It's gonna be a heck of a busy month until the show in February, but I've ordered myself a new little audio toy/tool too (an Electro Harmonix Attack Decay Pedal (the 2019 one)), so I'm looking forward to having some fun with that when I can. It's been a long while since I bought some new equipment for the fun of it! Until the next post, I hope you have a great start to the year, come grab a ticket for the show and thanks as always for supporting my music and various projects however you can! Here's to a great 2025 and an even better (but not necessarily busier) 2026 to come! Take care!

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