No one cares about your creative integrity.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

HERE IS FRIDAY 7TH DECEMBER’S TOP 5 ALL THINGS AWESOME.

LET'S GET INTO IT...

1) Track of the week.

Rival Schools - (live) The Five Spot Philadelphia,Pa 6.01

2) Video of the week.

Mac Miller - Jet Fuel

3) Quote of the week.

“No one cares about your creative integrity, all that matters is that you’re here, working.”
- Marc Rebillet

4) Interesting thing of the week.

How to make Prodigy's legendary track "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton. Video describes, which samples were used by Liam in this wonderful track. Reworked by Jim Pavloff.

5) Gig of the week.

Pieces with Glam Racket DJ’s.

Local legends Pieces play louder than hell and do it well, with Glam Racket DJ’s to finish, guaranteed to be a busy one so get in early.

Speak to you next Friday,

One of them is called something.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

HERE IS FRIDAY 23RD NOVEMBER’S TOP 5 ALL THINGS AWESOME.

LET'S GET INTO IT...

1) Track of the week.

Official Promo Video for Radiohead's "Pyramid Song".

Another fantastic song from Radiohead, forget just how much amazing music they’ve put out over the last couple of decades.

2) Video of the week.

DJ Jon1st performs an impromptu set for Boxout.fm.

3) Quote of the week.

“One of them is called something and the other one, likewise, is named as well.”
- Bob Mortimer

4) Interesting thing of the week.

I’ve had a hectic week this week so haven’t read much at all, any suggestions?

5) Gig of the week.

Collective Vinyl Sessions - Aidy West & Rich Bee, Sat 24th Nov

A very interesting new club night at Maule Collective. Awesome beer, awesome music.

Speak to you next Friday,

Josh

I Wish.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

HERE IS FRIDAY 16TH NOVEMBER’S TOP 5 ALL THINGS AWESOME.

LET'S GET INTO IT...

1) Track of the week.

Download at iTunes Skee-lo I Wish (EP) : http://tinyurl.com/cyn2e3o Download at iTunes Skee-lo I Wish (Album) : http://tinyurl.com/conjur8 Stream with Spotify ; http://tinyurl.com/m89p5o5 [p]1995 Sunshine Entertainment under excl. license to Altra Moda Music. "I Wish" is a hip-hop song by rapper Skee-Lo released in 1995 as the first single from his debut album of the same name.

2) Video of the week.

This is the track 'Harmony' taken from the Secret Records DVD 'Hundred Reasons: Live At Freakscene' available now. Filmed at The Lemon Grove, Exeter on the 23rd November 2004 and features many of their most popular songs 'Answers', 'What You Get', 'Soapbox Rally', 'What Thought Did' and 'Silver'.

3) Quote of the week.

“Nothing good ever came from your comfort zone.”
- Ross Edgley

4) Interesting thing of the week.

WW1 guns fall silent.

5) Gig of the week.

Charlotte Carpenter, Alessi’s Ark, Beth Monroe live at The Playhouse, see you there.

Speak to you next Friday,

Josh

Strange things happen in the nighttime hours.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

HERE IS FRIDAY 2ND NOVEMBER’S TOP 5 ALL THINGS AWESOME.

LET'S GET INTO IT...

1) Track of the week.

More Bounce featuring Tranzformer, Grey Era and Spray Money. Scratches and cuts by Dj Mark Ski. Filmed, produced and edited by J-Sci Films.

More Bounce featuring Tranzformer, Grey Era and Spray Money (with cuts from Northampton’s finest Mark Ski),

2) Video of the week.

"The first full length album by Alexisonfire completely embodies the sound of late teens and early 20's. Full of dumb confidence and lacking in concentration. Hundreds of parts and riffs strung together in to a fun little hodge podge. We were living and writing freely. Sometimes too much freedom isn't always a good thing."

Alexisonfire - Documentary. A great look into the highs and lows of musical success.

3) Quote of the week.

“Everything's sh*t, so f*ck off.”
- Anon

4) Interesting thing of the week.

Thom Yorke performs Unmade live at Maida Vale studios for BBC Radio 6 Music This track was written by Thom Yorke as part of the score for the horror movie Suspiria & is featured in Mary Anne Hobbs' 6 Music show on Sunday 28th October.

Thom Yorke - Unmade, Live on BBC 6Music.

5) Gig of the week.

Wolfmania - S.G. Wolfgang/Future Love/Pieces/Howlin' Owls

Speak to you next Friday,

Josh

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

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.

How to have the perfect band rehearsal.

We've had a fair few bands through our doors at Audio Works Rehearsal Studio, over 5,000 rehearsal slots in the last 5 or so years. We've learnt a lot about how different bands rehearse and now you can too...

The shortest rehearsal we've had was 30 minutes, the longest was 6 hours. The smallest band was one person, and the largest was seven.

Top 5 most common practices;

1.  2 hours average duration.
2. Average of 4 band members.
3. 1 ten minute break.
4. First half jamming or writing.
5. Second half set run through.

It does seem that the bands that rehearse for 3+ hours get more rehearsal time, particularly as they tend to stay in for the duration of the slot, rather than having several breaks. Perhaps it's that 3 hours is more of a commitment, therefore the attitude is get in the room and get the work done. It's not clear why, but obviously with more rehearsal comes more productivity.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book outliers, posed that it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in any field. That's 13 years of two hours music rehearsal a day. Obviously, you don't have to be a master to play music and have fun, but the more you know, the more you can do.

In summary, It's important to find the best way your particular band works well. I also think it's important to push yourself, and try out new things. I've been to many rehearsals with a less than perfect attitude. If I had pushed myself a little more, tried a new style/technique to further my musicianship I definitely would have benefitted from it.

Ultimately, I think you need find your way, find your preferred style, but push the limits a little to help yourself grow. I'm trying to do this with my own pursuits and it certainly seems to be working.

Speak to you Friday.

Josh.

p.s. How long is your band practice? Do you have any band rehearsal rules? Let us know in the comments.

The one upgrade to rule them all.

If I just get that piece of kit everything will be fine.

I've thought that a lot over the last 6 years, mainly because starting a business means all funds go to that and any personal purchases need to be REALLY justified. I often think that this extra piece of kit, this upgrade, or this new thing will make my mediocre thing exceptional, and that's rarely the case.

I put off starting a podcast for 2 years because I was waiting for the money to setup a professional broadcast quality studio, I finally realised it's more important to get it going, than get it perfect from the start (which is nearly impossible).

I bit the bullet, bought a budget all rounder microphone (Zoom H2n) and got cracking. I'm so glad I did because I've got to have long conversations with people I really respect and am intrigued by. If you haven't heard it treat yourself to an hours listening, CLICK HERE for iTunes or here to listen in your browser. Pick one at random and if you like it subscribe. There are so many amazing people, and they're all around us. It could be better sound quality, it could be more polished and produced, but I'd rather have it in it's current form than not at all.

It's the same with this blog. I was holding out for some kind of approval that I had interesting stuff to say, but in the end I knew I had to stop making excuses and get going. I'm not a great writer, and maybe I'm not interesting to you, but as with anything some of you will like it and some of you will hate it, and that's OK.

So, stop making excuses and get going, it's far better to get started and adjust along the way than it is to postpone for the ever-evading perfect moment.

If I can help you with what you're doing please get in touch josh@audio-works.co.uk.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh

What I've learnt from 5,000 rehearsals.

I worked out yesterday that we've had somewhere in the region of 5,000 rehearsal sessions booked at Audio Works. That's amazing. It's also really nice to know that people like to rehearse here.

Some people practice on their own, some bands have 10 members. Some sessions are 30 minutes and some are 6 hours. Some bands come in and don't leave the room until their session is finished, and others have a cigarette break every 20 minutes. But what makes a good rehearsal?

Whenever I'm practicing anything I consider it useful, worthwhile or successful if I've improved what I was practising or constructed something that didn't exist before I started. It depends on your objective. I've had successful rehearsals when I've jammed for 60 minutes, and also had good practice when I focussed on one specific, minute detail.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, states that to achieve expertise in any field you need to spend roughly 10,000 hours. Now, clearly this depends on how you define expertise, and not many people start out with the goal of becoming an expert. Most of the fun is in the journey, the learning and failing, and trying again. That does show however, that if 0 hours is no knowledge and 10,000 is maximum knowledge, then we need to start putting some hours in.

Most of the bands at Audio Works rehearse once a week for 2 hours with no breaks. Know, that's not to say that if you don't do that you're good or bad, I think we all know when we've put in the time, and that's what drives me to progress. Whenever I do something that turns out not good enough, I know if I've put the time in so I know what needs to be done and where the mistakes where.

My overriding motto while practising/rehearsing is 'practice makes progress', a good friend of mine, Mark Ski (funkbyfunk) added that as a comment to an image I posted a while ago and it's stuck in my head ever since. I'm not sure perfection can be achieved, but that's OK because most of my most personally satisfying work has come from the pursuit (and failure) of finding perfection.

PRACTICE MAKES PROGRESS.

See you next week,

Josh