A Turntable Reborn.

It's Friday 13th so it must be time for five powerful points. 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.

 Claudia La Debla - Flamenco at Peña La Platería.

2) Track of the week.

Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road, Live at London Hammersmith.

3) Quote of the week.

"Good taste is an incredibly valuable skill, and you can acquire it with practice." - Seth Godin

4) Article of the week.

A Turntable Reborn Turns Its Back on Its Hip-Hop Legacy

5) Gig of the week.

Hana Brooks - Live and Acoustic @ The Charles Bradlaugh.

Speak to you Monday,

Josh.

(blog Image found HERE)

The 5 best things this week, EVER.

Hey, here it is. Friday 10th June's top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

DJ Brace - 2016 Online DMC Finals.

I'm a newcomer to DJ Brace, but as you can see he is both technical and musical in his turntablism style, which is a rarity. I don't think the perfectly timed seagull at the end is planned, which is a sign in itself. On a similar note checkout Jon1st, he has both been on The Audio Works Podcast and is a former DMC champion.

2) Gig of the week;

Knees last ever show!

Local band Knees are unfortunately splitting up, and to join them on their last show are Big Evil Grin and Bloodvisions (at The Garibaldi on Saturday 11th June). This gig will be busy and it will be mighty, three powerhouses on one night, get involved. Hopefully it will be a good show an they'll realise they shouldn't be splitting up anyway.

See you there.

3) Quote of the week;

"I'll burn it down, and build it up better." - Billy Lockett.

This is a lyric from Billy Lockett's single, Burn It Down. It's a great example of what I admire in lyrics, concise but emotional and you understand the feeling immediately.

4) A̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶ Book of the week;

The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band. - by Neil Strauss

New York Times Best Selling author Neil Strauss wrote this fantastic book on the history of Mötley Crüe, and it is shocking, really shocking, not like TMZ shocking, but crazy rock and roll shocking. We have a copy at the studio so please feel free to come and give it a read.

5) Thing of the week;

Arctic Breeze USB Fan

It's hot, and if you don't have air conditioning where you are (or you are not in control of the thermostat) this is the answer. It's cheap and effective, stay cool, be cool.

Speak to you Monday.

Josh.

Train hard, fight easy.

Train hard, fight easy.

It's an age old adage that you hear from athlete's, chess champions, musicians and military alike. The idea being that if you train harder than the competition/event/gig/war it will be easy to accomplish when the time comes.

It's a great theory, and I'd argue that it's true. It's only through pushing yourself to the point of failure that you really understand what you're capable of. The added bonus is that once you know where your failure point is, you can train to extend it, and therefore improve. Without that test you simply don't know what you're capable of and therefore can't improve.

I remember listening to DJ Craze explain that he trained 8 hours a day for the upcoming Technics DMC World Championship. That's 8 hours a day practicing turntablism, the same as a full time job and probably the same or more than most professional athletes. Now, if you want to be the world champion at something or even just competitive then clearly you need to put more time in than the hobbyist.

This does still apply to the average person on the street however. Most of us are doing something that requires learning, wether that's exercise, music, art, or chess for example. All of these hobbies require a sequence of learning and evaluating. You learn the new skill, test that it works and then move on to the next problem.

If you do it right it enables you to struggle less and potentially enjoy the event itself too, rather than grinding it out because you haven't prepared enough.

Practice more, get better and breeze through the big day, whatever that may be.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh.

p.s. The Obstacle is The Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity into Advantage by Ryan Holiday is a great book. The simple change of attitude towards potential road blocks/problems really helped me working through them, I thoroughly reccomend it.