The SAVE THE SKA SHOW fundraising album feat. BTTB is OUT NOW on Bandcamp, writing for Better Than The Book's next album is (almost) complete, Bandcamp Friday, more $1+ Patreon rewards: Sonnet For A Spider Girl + setting and reflecting on monthly goals!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week and start to February so far! Boy has it been an exciting and busy one over here and there's a tonne of news to share with you as you can probably tell by the title! Let's dive straight into it with the release of the first compilation album to feature my music: The Ska Show with Beefy's "Save The Ska Show"!

Following the big announcement last week, I'm super pleased to tell you that the Save The Ska Show compilation album was finally released on Saturday and man is it a monster of a compilation! Featuring 64 ska bands from around the world in all sorts of ska flavours, this album will be acting as a fundraiser to help keep the great Ska Show with Beefy (proudly the 2nd most listened to Ska music show in the world) broadcasting during these crazy times. You'll even recognise my own contribution to the album on track 62: Better Than The Book's The Hardest Part! Check out the full album on Bandcamp below and I hope you enjoy it!

https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

It's been an absolute honour to be part of this fundraising compilation (the first EVER compilation album I've been a part of in fact), and if you're a lover of ska music and/or the show, then that's 64 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! Pick it up!

Next on the news this week, some more ska punk updates from Better Than The Book as I'm super excited to announce that songwriting for the project's next album (AND EP) are just about almost done! First draft lyric sheets are completed with rough demos of all tracks recorded as well; a total of 10 brand new tracks for the project's 3rd full length album (running in at ~35 minutes) + a subsequent EP of 4 bonus tracks including one new song + 3 alternative versions from the main album (running in at ~13 minutes)! Of course I also plan on making instrumental releases for these projects too, so that's 4 Better Than The Book releases (at least) to look forward to over the next few years! Due to restrictions from the pandemic, as well as general project timescales, I'm doubtful I'll be able to release the first of these before the end of 2021, but I aim to be well into the recording and production process at the very least! There's still a little preparation needed before it's time to start recording for real, including servicing instruments and setting up project worksheets/sessions etc... but next thing on the cards will be to go through these 14 demos and make sure I'm happy with all the general arrangements etc... before I get started recording for real. That'll be one of the goals this month (which we'll get into at the end of this post), but things are certainly exciting for Better Than The Book at the moment! More details to come as and when, but if you really want a closer sneak peek at the writing process then head over to Patreon and become a $10 supporter where I've already started sharing sneak peeks and demos at the progress so far! Remember you'll be gaining access to the entire back catalogue of rewards too, when you sign up so come get a backstage pass to the action and I look forward to seeing you there!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding 

And speaking of Patreon, yesterday was the 1st Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some more $1+ Patreon rewards! This month we're going waaay back to Halloween 2012 for my first acoustic solo track as plain old Nick Standing: "Sonnet For A Spider Girl". Read more about it below and become a patron to d0wnload the track (as well as my entire Patreon back catalogue so far). I hope you enjoy it!

Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792410/
$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792397/
Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding 

Next this week, building on the success of last year's campaign in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is again waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight Pacific Time (that's tomorrow) for Bandcamp Friday! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 5th of February, the artists you support (including myself) will get more of the sales revenue than usual since Bandcamp doesn't take its cut, and you'll be able to support the music you love more directly than ever on the platform!
 
If you've been itching to pick up Jabun's new 15-4-20 album, Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" or "Two Years On" albums (the latter of which celebrates its 5th anniversary on February 6th! Man how time has flown!) or the new Save The Ska Show compilation album, now's the best time to do so! Check out the Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can, it really means a lot:

Better Than The Book
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Jabun
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/
 
Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)
https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/

Save The Ska Show:
https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

Finally this week, it's the beginning of another month and so time to reflect on and set some new goals as usual! Here's what I set for January:

​1) Sort the Bandcamp, RouteNote and streaming uploads for Jabun's 3rd album (proof listening)
2) Make an announcement video for Jabun's 3rd album
3) Make a promo schedule for Jabun's 3rd album
4) Try to finish another 3+ 1st draft lyric sheets for Better Than The Book's next album
​
And overall a great turnout! All the music uploads have been sorted, RouteNote's even been approved for worldwide distribution too, the announcement video has been made and uploaded, and I've sorted out a solid promo schedule which lasts from March to mid-May as well (lots of work ahead for me). I also finished not 3 but 4 first draft lyric sheets for Better Than The Book's next album/EP project, as well a few horn parts and other things! Good progress! Next month is looking to be similar in terms of goals and things to do so let's aim for this:

1) Sort Patreon rewards for the next 2 months (related to Jabun's 3rd album)
2) Fully sort the Bandcamp page for Jabun's 3rd album
3) Sort all the streaming descriptions/tags/scheduling for the online uploads of the album (YouTube, Newgrounds, and SoundCloud teaser)
4) Finish assessing and finalising the 14 BTTB demos as mentioned earlier and set up a spreadsheet for the album production progress

That seems like a tonne of work to do, but hopefully just about doable (and I still have other non-JabunAudio goals for this month too). Of course I aim to keep up with my Better Than The Book live practice too as best I can, though still not sure when that's going to be put to good use... Anyways! A Long (short) month of hard work ahead methinks! Wish me luck and I hope you're able to achieve your goals too! Feel free to share them in the comments below!

That about wraps things up for this post! Seems like I've got a lot of typing in my week ahead to look forward to, but hoping for some BTTB practice and demo time too! Until the next blog post whenever that may be (February 24th at the very latest), I hope you have a great month ahead and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects (and the things they're connected to) in any way you can! Hope you enjoy the new compilation album and looking forward to sharing even more Better Than The Book and Jabun with you soon! All the best and take care!