June 2022 Patreon rewards: The FINAL (and Patreon exclusive) Nick Standing Cover EP "520" + back to Better Than The Book, another Leslie video, a Pokemon parody & more!
Hello everyone and hope you're having a great time since Jabun's Tides album was launched last month! It's the beginning of June which means time for some more Patreon rewards, but this time it's both extra special and the end of an era as I'm uploading the FINAL piece of my back catalogue after almost 4 years of monthly uploads on Patreon! Not only that, but this final piece has never been shared ANYWHERE publicly since it was given to a single person on June 1st 2014, and if you're not within the less than a dozen people to have heard it with me in person since then, then count yourself lucky today as you're among a very few people to have heard this now! Some monthly updates as usual to get to though let's get started with this extra special and final monthly reward post on Patreon!
This 6 track (mostly) acoustic covers EP was given to Eva on her 22nd birthday, the first birthday I spent with her since we'd got together 9 months prior. It's titled "520 Kisses, 22 Years, 9 Months, 1 Eva", 520 being an in-reference between us which you can find out what it means with a quick Google search, and contains a selection of tracks that reminded me of Eva or us, or were lovely dovey / sappy songs I like. It's mostly acoustic with some surprises I won't spoil, and the lyrics for Trumpets have been changed with some in-jokes and references to make it more suitable being sung from me to Eva. Like all the musical gifts I've given since starting to release music again in 2012, this is free from any pitch or elastic audio timing correction, and back when I recorded this, my traditional editing techniques nor my performance were nearly as good as they are now, so this EP is unapologetically raw in terms of its performance and production with some strained vocals, fluffed guitars and more, but all in all one of the most heartfelt set of performances I'd made at the time and still in my discography now. Listening to this 8 years on (oof), it brings back memories of simpler times, less polished times (for better or worse,) but warts and all I still love it a lot, especially some of my vocal arrangements and Trumpets. It's definitely not my best performance or production, but I'm very excited to share it with you, and the full track list is as follows:
520 Kisses, 22 Years, 9 Months, 1 Eva - Nick Standing
01 Best Of Me - Starting Line
02 M+Ms - Blink 182
03 So Small - ItaloBrothers
04 Trumpets - Jason Derulo (edited lyrics)
05 Adieu - Enter Shikari
06 All The Small Things - Blink 182
Oh, and the run time is exactly 22 minutes too! Neat (and nice to be able to play with fade outs to get that exact)! I hope you enjoy the 520 EP, an excusive final monthly reward to you who's supported my music for so long on Patreon, and I look forward to sharing more new music with you when the time comes!
All Patreon supporters will be receiving an exclusive download of the EP (including music and artwork) this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have a collection of behind the scenes photos/videos from building the Leslie Speaker to look forward to! If that sounds good to you then join me on Patreon to read more and download the rewards below as well as check out all of this month's project updates in full. Remember you'll be receiving all past rewards for your tier too when you sign up so check out the archives (which are due to be updated next month) to see everything you can catch up on and hope to see you there!
$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/66087031
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/66087036
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
Onto the monthy updates, it's been a fairly busy one over here since releasing Tides last month! Despite my plans to take a full month away from music making and thoughts about not doing any more ambient music for a while, not only have I already been back to recording ambient ideas in my free time (though not for any concrete album stuff), but after about 8 months away from it, I'm finally back to working on the long time in the works upcoming 3rd full-length Better Than The Book album (and more)! It's been tricky getting back into the swing of things, but I've been back to some light vocal training along with arranging horn parts to get started! 1 horn part is fully done now with just 8 more to go in various stages of completeness, and although it's still going to be a long while until the album is complete, it's great to finally be back to it. I can't wait to show you what I've been up to since Hopes and Dreams!
On top of the music stuff, my month has been filled with some technical work as well servicing my bass for the first time in too long as well as giving my newly built Leslie speaker a full and what will be yearly service! It's sounding much mechanically quieter/smoother with some cleaned and freshly oiled motors and is playing extremely well in the newly updated organ rig! Have a listen to a quick jam on "Ask DNA" by Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts on my Yamaha combo organ to get a jist of that rotary speaker vibe. I'm super pleased with it (though excuse the squeaky chair):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTyyeuNBctU
There's some other super amazing music tech news that I've been working on over the past few weeks too which I'm super excited to tell you about but not sure if I'm allowed to share yet. Hopefully I'll be able to reveal some updates on it next month but until then you'll just have to use your imagination! It's big stuff!
Lastly this month, something very silly to share with you! A few weeks back, a Newgrounds/YouTube animator Codus came to me to ask permission to use a Pokemon cover song I'd made YEARS ago (for another animation) in his own Pokemon parody. He showed me what he wanted to use it for and it was just too good (and silly) not to be a part of. Thanks Codus for getting in touch and super happy to hear people are enjoying the quick video! Don't expect a think piece here, just enjoy the ride and I hope you get a chuckle from this:
That about wraps things up for this time! With all the past rewards available to my Patreon supporters now and the busy times recently with Jabun's Tides album release, there will not be any Patreon reward posts next month, as I'll be updating the reward archives and general Patreon page. I will be posting an update with what my future plans are for Patreon, rewards and more though, as well as some usual monthly updates, and as you can probably appreciate, things are going to be a little different now that all my past discography is all out. Nevertheless I hope you're excited for new music to come and thanks as always for supporting my music on Patreon, and however you can! Enjoy the 520 EP and I'll see you next month for some updated Reward Archives, and discussions on what's coming next! Take care!