Free prizes inside, honest!

We're running a competition and the star prize is one months free rehearsals!

We're keeping it super simple to enter and making the prizes as big as we can. Feel free to share the links with your friends and fellow band members to increase your chances of winning.

All you have to do is click the image below and enter your email, simple!

Entry closes on 30th November, winners announced 1st December.

Prizes include;

  • One Months Rehearsals

  • Individual Rehearsals

  • T-Shirts

  • Mugs

Good luck, and thanks for reading!

 

Speak to you Friday,

Josh.

10 Awesome People.

Afternoon folks, here it is. Friday 18th November's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

1) Video of the week.

Charlotte Carpenter - Fire

You can catch Charlotte on The Audio Works Podcast HERE.

2) Track of the week.

De La Soul - Royalty Capes.

3) Quote of the week.

“...if you apply experience, dedication, time, creativity, carelessness and care, study, patience and just tough hard work, to standup, you get better at it. If you apply all of that to parenting, you get worse.” 

― Louis CK.

4) Article of the week.

10 F*cking Awesome People I Only Know About Because Of The Joe Rogan Podcast

This is a great list, mine is into the hundreds having listened to every episode but these are a great start.

5) Gig of the week.

SBD presents "New Boots": Luna Rosa, Lois, Camping With Slough at Charles Bradlaugh, 18th November.

Speak to you Monday,

 

Josh.

There's No Such Thing As A Protest Vote.

Afternoon folks, here it is. Friday 11th November's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

1) Video of the week.

Anieshi Pearl - Take Cover

Another great track and mega-original video. We've been lucky enough to have Anieshi on the podcast, you can check  that out here.

2) Track of the week.

DJ Yuto - 2016 DMC winning performance.

When I first started learning to scratch 16 years ago, that's where I wanted to be, at the DMC's. I'm so far off this skill level now, but it's inspiring me to get back to it. Musicianship mastery.

3) Quote of the week.

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” 

― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky (Stolen from Tim Ferriss blog).

4) Article of the week.

There's No Such Thing As A Protest Vote

It's an interesting article that made me question my own ideas, which is usually a good thing.

5) Gig of the week.

Blitz Festival - Lizzie and the Banshees/Venus Fly Trap/Attrition/Vuduvox/Pat Fish at The Charles Bradlaugn Saturday 12th November, 8pm.

Speak to you Monday,

 

Josh.

One of the best vocoder uses ever.

Afternoon folks, here it is. Friday 4th November top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Charlotte Carpenter - In rehearsals...

2) Track of the week;

Blackstreet - Don't Leave Me

Some great late 90's R&B, excellent vocoder/talk box uses too.

3) Quote of the week;

“Focusing on the score attaches you to the result. Focusing on the process lets you access your greatest skill and increases your fun.” - Dr. John Duillard.

4) 2nd Video of the week;

Vinyl Destination - DJ Jazzy Jeff

5) Gig of the week;

Scroobius Pip Presents: We Are Lizards (MK11)

 

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(image found HERE)

Watch some of Northampton's finest, TONIGHT!

Afternoon folks, here it is. Friday 28th October top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Team Sleep - BLVD. NIGHTS - Woodstock Sessions.

2) Track of the week;

Mura Masa - Love$ick (featuring A$ap Rocky).

3) Quote of the week;

"“If you’re going to write a book, write a fucking book. - Michael Gerber, Author of The E-Myth Revisited.

4) Article of the week;

Tools of Titans - Tim Ferriss

The latest book due for release in December, check out the free chapter he recently posted on his blog HERE.

5) Gig of the week;

Century City @ The Garibladi, Friday 28th October

 

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(image found HERE)

Parkinsons Law explains why you don't have enough time.

Afternoon folks, here it is. Friday 21st October top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Charlotte Carpenter - Burn.

Charlotte also features on this weeks podcast, you can find it HERE.

2) Track of the week;

Loyle Carner - Florence (featuring Kwes).

3) Quote of the week;

"work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" - Parkinsons Law.

4) Article of the week;

The Largest Vocabulary in Hip Hop.

5) Gig of the week;

Happyness/Broadbay/OhBoy! @ The Picturedrome Northampton, Saturday 22nd October.

 

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

Unchained Melody.

I saw a video of a guy busking on Facebook. I posted it as a video of the day on our Audio Works Facebook page.

He's clearly a talented singer and it's crazy to see so many people walking by and not taking notice. Do they not understand his talent? Or is the bar so high that it doesn't turn heads? I'm not sure.

After watching the video of subway busker Mike Yung's beautiful rendition of "Unchained Melody" James invites Mike to Los Angeles to recreate the viral clip.


Anyway, I noticed today that he had a spot on James Corden's TV show and he has recorded the track. He even brought Reggie Watt's to tears, which is totally understandable when you hear his voice.

I'm going to take more notice of buskers (I usually don't), there's talented people everywhere and we're all better of for it.

Speak to you Friday,

- Josh

image found here

Alcohol borrows happiness from tomorrow

Afternoon guys, here it is. Friday 14th October top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Stiff Little Fingers - Alternative Ulster.

2) Track of the week;

letlive. - Over Being Under

3) Quote of the week;

"Alcohol borrows happiness from tomorrow." - Anon.

"I think I've reached the point where I'm borrowing happiness from next month." - Reddit user.

4) Article of the week;

Neil Gaiman - Make Good Art.

5) Gig of the week;

Chromatic Live at Borja, 14th October.

 

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(blog image found HERE.)

Stop listening to music.

I recently went camping for the night with a friend and it was great fun. We left at 2pm and got back at 8.30am the following day.

We didn't listen to any music at all, the only noise was conversation. I can't remember the last time I did that. I usually have music on in the studio constantly, and when I'm at home i'm usually listening to podcasts, while I'm walking i'm listening to podcasts, when I'm at the gym there's music on. The only silence I have is while sleeping, and I live in town so silence is hard to come by.

I noticed how much more I thought about stuff. I understand how some people don't like to be left alone with their thoughts, but I realised that I rarely am, and it can be very beneficial. Being forced to think about problems or issues and not having any distractions can really help you work out a solution, or at least give it more thought than you can usually.

When I got into work on Sunday morning, the music went straight back on again, and i certainly paid more attention to it, rather than being that constant background noise. I actively 'listened' to it.

So, I learnt something new, I'm going to take time off from music and headphones every now and then. I'll appreciate the quiet time, but also the music when I come back to it.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh

 

(image found HERE)

The God Father of Soul Himself.

Afternoon guys, here it is. Friday 7th October top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

The GFOS himself, James Brown - Live in Kinshasa, Zaire - 1974.

2) Track of the week;

 

Instra:Mental - Watching You.

3) Quote of the week;

"In the long run, resilience always outperforms sheer strength." - Seth Godin

4) Article of the week;

Why Quitting Your Job To Travel Probably Won't Make You Happier

5) Gig of the week;

Sharkteeth Grinder and Loose Tooth live at The Garibaldi., Saturday 8th October, 8pm.

 

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(blog image found HERE.)

What I read every day, without fail.

Afternoon guys, here it is. Friday 30th September's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Akala - Fire In The Booth Pt4

2) Track of the week;

DJ Jon1st and DJ Brace - Routine in a Day.

3) Quote of the week;

"organized sports are a tribal opportunity to vent without remorse." - Seth Godin

4) Article of the week;

Seth Godin's Blog - Primarily a marketing blog, but actually applies to most of live, my only unmissable daily read.

5) Gig of the week;

RAM Northampton - High Contrast Rene LaVice DC Breaks Frankee Annix: Hosted by Ic3 & 2Shy: 1st October: Roadmender

 

I'm a High Contrast fan and it's pretty decent that he's coming to town.

 

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(blog image found HERE.)

How to make 50 podcast episodes.

We're fast approaching episode 50 of The Audio Works Podcast and I'm not quite sure how that happened. It's actually the second attempt at running a podcast, the first one was more of a live session with a chat after, but the process of setting up, recording a session, then recording a podcast was way too time consuming. It took a team of three of us and about 6 hours of work, it wasn't sustainable.

The second time around I made it simple. I bought a mic and literally met up with folks and recorded our conversation. So much more mobile and fast, and only required myself to produce.

The Audio Works Podcast

The Audio Works Podcast

With any small town you soon find out that everyone knows everyone. Particularly in different scenes, wether that's music, rugby, fitness. These circles are small so you inevitably meet everyone involved.

If you're not involved in these scenes it's easy to not know of their existence at all. I knew that if I simply recorded some conversations with the plethora of interesting people in this town, it would make for interesting listening.

We've had musicians, doctors, business owners, exercise coaches, all sorts of diverse, successful and driven people and on hearing their attitudes and achievements I have pushed myself a little further, which is an excellent bi-product of communicating with them. Northampton is culturally rich, and this podcast is the tip of the iceberg.

So, feel free to give the podcast a listen, and maybe look at some of the guests work too. Let them know where you heard about them and I'm sure they'd love to talk to you.

Thanks for reading (and listening), and please leave a comment if you have any questions or opinions.

Speak to you Friday,

 

Josh.

Rollins Vs. Mel & Sue.

Afternoon guys, here it is. Friday 23rd September's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Alina Baraz - Can I.

2) Track of the week;

Hundred Reasons - Stories with Unhappy Endings.

3) Quote of the week;

"To be fair, Rollins has pointed out that in a system that has removed most revenue for musicians, monetising your credibility is entirely legitimate." - Stewart Lee.

4) Article of the week;

In Mel and Sue, the true spirit of punk lives on - Stewart Lee

5) Gig of the week;

Staylittle Presents - Climbing Trees 'Amber' Single Launch Show at The Lab, Northampton | 24.09.16

One of the support acts  are friends of the studio and they are bloody good, can't reccomend them enough. I haven't heard the other acts, but it promises to be a solid line-up.

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(blog image found HERE.)

If you really want to make it, be insane.

I was fortunate enough to see a covers band on Saturday that had been together for over 20 years. It was a reunion gig so they have had breaks throughout that time. It made me think about what current bands will be doing in 20 years time.

It's safe to assume that most members of covers bands started out playing original music. They then make the transition to make some extra money, or carry on playing music without the hassle of writing new material/chasing gigs.

The music industry, certainly regionally is a difficult nut to crack. It seems that you have three options

  1. Get a record deal and get paid to play original music.
  2. Play in a covers/function band and get up to a couple hundred a weekend.
  3. Perform your own original music, often for no more than petrol money.

Arguably, if you're doing it for the music then the money and fame doesn't matter. In reality it does, it costs money to be a musician, there's equipment, travel, rehearsal, recording and the hundreds of hours it takes to run a bands online presence. Unless you are already financially well off you need to be generating money to even be able to continue to do it.

The deciding factor is usually time. If you don't have the passion/love/stubbornness to carry on long after people have told you to quit you probably aren't going to make it (unless you got signed of your first single).

Any successful person will tell you that it's trial and error. It's true for other ventures too, be that technology (Steve Jobs) SEE VIDEO BELOW, Media (Gary Veynerchuk) or music (Anvil). If you keep going you well get there, or at least your significantly more likely to 'make it' if you don't quit.

I'm still in the trial and error phase but here's to hoping we're all going to get there.

Speak to you Friday,

 

Josh

(image found here.)

Free books inside, honestly.

Afternoon guys, here it is. Friday 16th September's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Deftones Live at Rock AM Ring.

2) Track of the week;

Life on The Road - David Brent

3) Quote of the week;

"Your network is your net-worth." - Porter Gale.

4) Thing of the week;

Audible. It's fairly cheap and the amount of audiobooks on there is impressive. They also do signing up offers, it's worth a shot. I gain nothing from recommending this to you, but i've gotten so much from it. If I didn't listen to audiobooks I would never read any books.

5) Gig of the week;

New cafe/restaurant/street food place Foodies is starting a movie night and the first one is this Sunday (18th September). Find out more HERE.

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(image found HERE.)

Doing nothing will get you nothing.

I was having a chat with a good friend of mine that has started a business overseas and he's doing well. We started discussing what happens if a venture doesn't reach the goals we have for them and how would we know if it's time to close the doors.

We came to the conclusion that it could be any time, wether that's not making enough money, having to work too many hours, or just not enjoying it. This also applies to being in a band.

I've had some experience of band break-ups and it's not very nice, it has so many similarities to a couples relationship and also business.

We invest time, money and sweat into projects that are heading in one direction, but that changes over time, even more so when you're working with other people. The chances that you'll all want the same thing for the life of the project is slim. Sometimes you grow apart, but sometimes it's not mutual.

Every band has a crisis of confidence from time to time. There is no formula to guarantee a record deal. You have to try what you can and hope for the best, some people are not comfortable with this uncertainty and that's understandable.

Providing you are enjoying the process the outcome doesn't matter. I think that's the point of most things. It's nice to get what you want but often the real achievement and happiness is in the process of working for it.

Nothing will come of nothing. - William Shakespeare

Speak to you Friday,

 

Josh.

p.s. Save this email address josh@audio-works.co.uk as I've had several people mention that they're missing the e-mails as they're getting filtered out.

p.p.s The image on this post is of my rad dad in his first band.

It's not a party if you don't have a 20 piece band.

Afternoon guys, here it is. Friday 9th September's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Finch - What It Is To Burn, Live.

2) Track of the week;

Hundred Reasons - Falter.

3) Quote of the week;

"It scratches the itch, but it doesn't make it go away"  - Anon.

4) Thing of the week;

Boso Drumsticks - High quality,] and good for the environment. Drummers take note, worth keeping an eye on this company and maybe treat yourself to some new sticks,

5) Gig of the week;

Year of the Yes presents: A Roaring Twenties Party - A 20 piece jazz big band and 20's costume, sounds awesome. 

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(image courtesy of Jazz Colossus)

Practice makes progress.

Practice makes progress

A good friend of mine and fantastic musician in his own right, Mark Ski commented that on a photo I posted on Instagram a year or two ago. I hadn't heard it before and it really stuck in my head.

We're fortunate to get many different types of bands at Audio Works. We also get varying abilities, from people with no experience, to lifetime musicians. This does mean that some of the rooms sound like a well oiled professional group and some like an after-school jam, BUT THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THIS PLACE IS FOR. I love the fact that people have the drive to come and expose their weaknesses and work on them, it's great to hear the improvements. 

It translates to all walks of life too. Wether you're beginning a get fit programme, removing sugar from your diet, learning a language or have just become a new parent every second you practice something, you're learning and therefore making progress.

Tim Ferriss, someone that I mention almost on a daily basis has a great tool for learning, it's called 'The Four Hour Chef'. The book uses cooking as a vehicle to teach you different learning methods, which you can then apply to any other subject. It's helped me and hundreds of thousand of others, you can actually download the torrent of the book and bonus info for free, HERE. The hard copy is significantly more useful, particularly when trying out the suggested recipes.

So practice something and make some progress. Feel free to share some links to what you're working on at the moment in the comments.

Speak to you Friday.

 

5 ways to boost your procrastination!

Afternoon guys, here it is. Friday 2nd September's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Tinie Tempah - Vice interview.

2) Track of the week;

letlive. - Dreamers Disease - As usual, I was a late comer to letlive, but all three of their albums are killer.

3) Quote of the week;

"No one owes you anything"  - Anon.

4) Thing of the week;

Billions. Again, it took me 4 different reccomendations to actually give this a try and it's great. Deceit, corruption and Giamatti, what more do you need?

5) Article of the week;

Some powerful words from the great Brian Eno...

 

Speak to you Monday.

Josh.

image found HERE.

It's basically the weekend already.

Hey folks, here it is. Friday 26th August's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Thrice - Black Honey

I saw these guys as a support to someone at The Roadmender in Northampton about 10 years ago. The singer mentioned how he was down to one pair of jeans as they ran out of money on tour. I had no idea that's how tight it can be, but it's true. GO SEE BANDS AND PAY FOR TICKETS.

2) Track of the week;

Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children - Full album and it's a cracker. If you like it, buy it HERE.

3) Quote of the week;

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."  - Chinese Proverb

4) Thing of the week;

Arctic Breeze USB Fan. It's been hot this week.

 

5) Gig of the week;

Ale Festival! The Lamplighter is a great place, and so is Ale. They will definitley have music on all weekend too.

 

Speak to you Monday.

Josh.

 

Image found HERE.