I wrote a song a week for a year - this is my journey with the music weeklies challenge August 2022 to August 2023

 Hello, my name is Andy Jackson, and I am one half of Cosmic Bos, with my brother Nick Jackson being the other half (we aren't married to each other, we are married, but to our respective lady partners). We make music, lots of it, and host a monthly music challenge podcast called the Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos. 

I made a behind the scenes video of how I make a song for the music weeklies challenges, to celebrate reaching a full year of making a song a week. 52 songs baby!

And here is the finished product, after just a few hours from concept to lyric video

Let's flashback to where this all began.

So in the Summer of 2022, I was introduced to the Music Weeklies challenges on X (formerly Twitter) by a jolly good friend Trench Gun. The basic premise of music weeklies is to make a song or piece of music in a week around a hashtag. The week I was introduced to it, the hashtag was #NotAFan.

Full playlist of the 52 songs (plus a few other alternative versions of some of them) here

The first handful that I made I did using tiktok filters, and just my acoustic guitar and voice. In fact, quite a few of them were like that to begin with. It would be my 5th week of doing it that the first shift happened, the hashtag was Spaceship, and I love writing about space, so I wrote 'Spaceship Earth'

This one was good, not as throw away as the handful before it, the song was solid, had a unique feel to it and could easily take an upgrade, which is what happened (see video above) when it was picked for inclusion on our Virtual Normality 2 EP. Along with Morning Coffee, Burning Rings of Power and Nun in a Kayak. The list stayed pretty much acoustic only up until 14, where Plum and Dates was about time signatures and beats so I had to change my tactic a little. This influenced the next set to, making them take on a slightly bigger feel.

For Christmas I received an interface which allowed me to properly record guitar and synths and vocals like the pro's do it. So the songs started to change, getting much bigger, with layers and layers. Nick and I also launched the Monthly Music Challenge in conjunction with the Music Weeklies peeps.

From songs 23 to 52 I had the interface and the MMC to think about, so the songs drastically changed, becoming full on proper big things. Nude Beginnings onward, no acoustic tracks, all bigger affairs.

With the monthly challenge breaking things up into nice EP sized nuggets, the songs were getting a proper release on all platforms. We put them out on band camp and all the other places too.

Time marched on, songs kept coming week after week.

Until, before I knew it I was getting ready to write my year anniversary song!

I did a busking style set to celebrate my achievement, and here it is for you

It'a been a wild and crazy fun year of music making, in addition to the 52 songs of the music weeklies challenge, Nick and I worked with Monochrome Motif records on 'Poseidon's Realm', and teamed up with Andrew Hartshorn and Al Warren to form the supergroup Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson and Warren. 

Our debut album came out in August 2023. Go buy it.

2023 has been so musical it's close to being labelled on Broadway! with still more to come before the year is done. I am stepping back from doing a song a week now, to focus on the other projects that we have going on with Cosmic Bos. There are still 3 episodes of the Monthly Music Challenge year 1 to go, and then we have the end of year celebration to plan (which Spoiler Alert! We are already planning)

Thanks so much for spending time with us, you da best!

Peace and infinite love

Andy from Cosmic Bos

Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos - MMC 1.5 - Razzmajazz

 Hello cool cats,

Welcome to the Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos

Episode 1.5 - Razzmajazz

Come on a jazzy journey with Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) as we venture through the razz and the matazz of the musical world of jazz. This is one interesting ride you are in for, as Cosmic Bos guide us through the fascinating land of the razzmajazz.

With stunning songs by Andrew Hartshorn, Notehead, Tonal Drift, ASeaWarren, Scowsh Molosh, Hellwaddler, Man of Arun, Trench Gun, Peter Hawkey and of course your ever idiotic hosts Cosmic Bos, this is a trip your ears deserve to go on.

Razzmajazz marks our last collaboration hashtag with the wonderful musicians of Music Weeklies, a massive thank you to them for helping get the Monthly Music Challenge off the ground, and we will continue to play songs made for their hashtags until the end of this season of MMC.

The next hashtag (for MMC 1.6) is Artificial Intelligence #ArtificialIntelligence and you have until the 7th of July (2023) to get your AI songs to us for inclusion. You can alternatively submit on any of the previous tags we have had (1. New Beginnings, 2. Escape, 3. Ignorance, 4. Winning and now 5. Razzmajazz) to be considered for our coverted Late Subs section. Just send an mp3 with a little bit of info about yourself and your song to cosmicbos@gmail.com 

Here is the full tracklist for MMC 1.5 Razzmajazz

Razzmajazz songs

1. Razzmajazz - Cosmic Bos @CosmicBos
2. The Jazzman's Trumpet - Andrew Hartshorn
3. This is Fine - Notehead
4. Razmajazz - Tonal Drift
5. No.7 Quartet in Bb - ASeaWarren @aseawarren
6. razzmajazz - Scowsh Molosh @scowsh
7. Just Make It Up - Hellwaddler @Hellwaddler

What a trip! Some real Jazztastic fun sitting there being all quirky and interesting, also notice that all the members of Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson and Warren are present (n.b Cosmic Bos are the two Jacksons) as is tradition at this point on the MMC.

For the other hashtags of music weeklies month of May we have:

#minime 

8. The Wasted Youth - Cosmic Bos @CosmicBos
9. Talkin' - Man of Arun @ManofArun
10. Warped - Scowsh Molosh @scowsh
11. Kody - Trench Gun 
12. Minime - Hellwaddler @Hellwaddler

HopeAndDespair

13. Remaining Forever Hopeful - Cosmic Bos @CosmicBos
14. Hope and Despair - Peter Hawkey @peter_hawkey

#Sandcastle

15. The Sand King - Notehead
16. Basic Sandcastle Destruction - Cosmic Bos @CosmicBos

And there you have the full set list for the episode, #SpoilerAlert, there were no late subs this month so no subs for you!

Cosmic Bos always pop their tunes for the MMC onto a handy little EP which is available on bandcamp right here https://cosmicbos.bandcamp.com/album/mmc-15-razzmajazz

And as mentioned several times during the episode, you can check out Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson and Warren's single (Playing Office) Playing Office - HJJW on Soundcloud

Hartshorn Jackson Jackson Warren · Playing Office

in the singles playlist over on soundcloud for the #albumwritingclub 2023 - full playlist here

and there is a handy voting page where you can pick your 3 favourites from the 34 singles (Congratulations to everyone who took part in AlbumWritingClub this year, you are all winners for getting to the finish line), playlist found on link just above.

You can vote here on this link right here

Please like, share and subscribe to the Monthly Music Challenge, tell your friends and musical rivals.

Our YouTube is here is you fancy some visual stimulation to go with your audio

Peace and infinite jazz

Cosmic Bos

Idiots (weeklies version) by Cosmic Bos for the #Ignorance Monthly Music Challenge

 Hello friends,

Check out Idiots (weeklies version) by Cosmic Bos

And here's the YouTube video link if you wish to see Andy doing his Beavis and Butt-head impression

We are deep into Monthly Music Challenge 1.3 - Ignorance, with several submissions already received it is shaping up to be one hell of a show I'm telling you. Our entry (Cosmic Bos) for the #Ignorance challenge is 'Idiots', the version you hear here is the version we put together for the Music Weeklies challenge, they only give you one week to make your song, where as here at Monthly Music Challenge we give you the added bonus time of One Whole Calendar month to make your song. 

It's very exciting, you should come get involved, here is the link to the podcast itself, please go and subscribe to it where ever you do your podcasting (it should be there, just search Monthly Music Challenge) or direct link HERE (OFFICIAL PODCAST PAGE)

Our last episode MMC 1.2 - Escape was an absolute blast and a half, check it out!

Thanks for the review Scowsh

Big thanks to New Music Saturday for spinning our weeklies version of Idiots, and also big thanks for crediting us on TexMex Shamans new song, alas, we had nothing to do with it's creation, it was prompted by the Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos, we don't deserve any of the credit. Spoiler Alert! we've had a late submission for Escape, by the awesome TexMex Shaman, we will spin it on the next
episode in a new segment we will probably call Late Subs, or something equally juvenile knowing us.

In other news, the Lights and Lines Album in a Month competition is returning in May, hosted once again by the enigmatic Mike5, Cosmic Bos will be taking part this year, but in a bit of a different way from last year. More to come on that for sure.

Also, also, while we are doing news, the last hashtag by Music Weeklies was #UpsideDown and I (Andy) made a little song for it, as is my songwriting duty, and here it is for you, on the end of this blog, it's called Down for the Upside

Thanks for stopping by, love ya

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

Family Tree - Cosmic Bos #Family music weeklies challenge entry

 Hello fam,

Straight off the bat I want to say, I love you, you are amazing, thank you for coming to our little corner of the internet, we hope you enjoy your time here.

Family Tree by Cosmic Bos

For the #Family weeklies music challenge, the final hashtag of Feb 2023.

I (Andy) really love and respect my family, they have been instrumental in my development as a human being and I am eternally grateful to them all, and my friends as well, love you all. This song is for all of you, every human that is part of the great human family tree.

Here's the TikTok video I made for it, on youtube 

Also, quick heads up, Monthly Music Challenge 1.2 Escape is coming on the 5th March, and our EP of 5 tracks from Feb is available right now on bandcamp (and everywhere else tomorrow). We will do a proper blog about it tomorrow, but in the meanwhile,

Here's the embedded Bandcamp link

Please consider purchasing this fine collection of recently put together songs, we love you either way.

Have a great rest of the day fam, stay beautiful

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

But What Does Freedom Mean? New Demo song by Cosmic Bos for the #Freedom music weeklies challenge

 Hello friends,

But What Does Freedom Mean? By Cosmic Bos   

Made for the Music weeklies  #freedom challenge

 I went with a serious tone this time, choosing to ponder the question

 what does freedom mean?

 Big shout outs to the legends Russell Brand and Duncan Truffles for being amazing question askers and journeyers through the mind, love you both infinitely 

 Video version on youtube https://youtu.be/sz8znkctOTY 

Subscribe to our podcast https://cosmicbos.libsyn.com

You can still submit #Escape songs to Cosmic Bos for Monthly Music Challenge 1.2, you can also submit #Freedom songs too, until the 3rd of March 2023

send your mp3s to cosmicbos@gmail.com for inclusion in the podcast, your songs have to be on the themes of the month, that's the requirement for potential inclusion. This month already has quite a few more submissions then last month did, excited to explore everyones take on the Escape theme.

Anyway, have a wonderful weekend, 

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

Make Good Our Escape - Weeklies Version by Cosmic Bos for the #Escape Monthly Music Challenge

 Hello friends,

The hashtag for MMC 1.2 has been out for a week, and #Escape has produced some wonderful pieces for the Music Weeklies challenge, go to Twitter to check them out, in a bit, first off, check out Cosmic Bos's entry to the weekly

So the Monthly Music Challenge is well on it's way now, into the second hashtag (#Escape if you weren't aware), and the challenge is coming to a close for the music makers of the Music Weeklies, there has been some excellent submissions to the MMC from that bunch (looking at you Trench Gun), and all you other music makers that need a bit more time, you still have until the 3rd March to submit your songs to the podcast.

As for this song, Make Good Our Escape (weeklies version), Nick and I (Andy) worked out some guitar at the weekend, I then recorded a musical outline (using just 3 guitars), put some drum loops in, wrote the lyric, sung the lyric, released the video to the music weeklies world. 

The song is about being ready to escape when things go bad, and getting out together, not leaving anyone behind. For all the crazy in the world, it's not a problem if we can make good our escape.

Please like, share and subscribe Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos

And send your Escape songs to us before the 3rd of March 2023.

Here is the YouTube video version - extracted from Tiktok 

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

https://linktr.ee/cosmicbos 

We Worked Hard for You (demo) - by Cosmic Bos for #industrial

 Hello workers,

Welcome to this quick little podcast containing Cosmic Bos's entry to the #industrial music challenge presented by Music Weeklies.

We Worked Hard for You by Cosmic Bos

This is my (Andy's) song about industrial action, going on strike, standing up for workers rights.

#Industrial marks the final hashtag for January and you can submit tracks made under this banner up until the 3rd Feb 2023 (just in case you are reading this in the future, which you most defiantly are because it is impossible for you to be reading it at the point I am writing it, unless you have some kind of time travel camera that can film the past as if it were now, in which case, please share that technology with us)

The weekend will be Monthly Music Challenge 1.1 New Beginnings, and you can still submit your songs made around that banner until the 3rd Feb too (as well as Pixels and Geisha).

Please like, share and subscribe, and tell all your musical friends to listen and take part.

https://linktr.ee/cosmicbos 

We have made a video to go with our #NewBeginnings track, which we will drop at the weekend too, excited for you all to hear it, Nick has done a bang up job and the opening track to our Monthly Music Challenge Album is, well, a banger.

Here's the YouTube version of We Worked Hard for You, with the video I made for it.

So, finally, we will be putting out MMC 1.1 - New Beginnings as an EP, containing our 4 Music Weeklies tracks (Nude Beginnings, One Pixel at a Time, The Geisha Song and We Worked Hard for You), it will be available for bandcamp Friday, so please get your wallets ready. 

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

One Pixel at a Time (Demo) by Cosmic Bos for the Music Weeklies #Pixels Music Challenge

 Hello NPC's,

As the Monthly Music Challenge is now underway, I (Andy) have turned my attention back to the wonderful world of Music Weeklies and their extra hashtags for the month. Nick is busy working on Nude Beginnings for our Monthly submission (see other blogs on this page for details), while I have been having some fun with some synthesisers.

I present to you, my submission for #Pixels - One Pixel at a Time 

This was a fun one to make, neglecting the guitar in favour of pure synthetic sound, something a singer/songwriter has trouble doing, but it can be a refreshing change of pace, and since we are in New Beginnings January it seemed appropriate to go all in on something different.

The submissions have been coming in for the Monthly Music Challenge, you still have a bit of time if you wanted to get in on the fun from the start. #NewBeginnings - make a song up around that theme, go, get it done and then send it to Cosmic Bos and they will spin it on their podcast. You have till the 3rd of Feb 2023 to get them in for this hashtag, next months tag will be revealed on the 3rd Feb in the evening.

Right, have a wonderful week you lovely people,

Back to the musical grindstone for me

Peace and infinite love

Andy (Cosmic Bos)

Check out our link tree for lots of our handy links

https://linktr.ee/cosmicbos

Also, here's the intro episode to the Monthly Music Challenge should you wish to listen here

Monthly Music Challenge #MMC1 with Cosmic Bos - Introduction

 Hello wonderful you,

Welcome to the blog where the Monthly Music Challenge takes place, this is the introduction 

Welcome to the Monthly Music Challenge with @CosmicBos podcast

This is the introduction episode, laying out how it's going to go down for the rest of the year.

Let Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) be your guides through the wonderful world of music creation, working with the sublime musicians of Music Weeklies @MusicWeeklies CB will be making a new song every week in line with their rules, but on the side CB will be offering up the chance for music made within the month (leaning heavily on the first hashtag of each month) to be played on this podcast, and get comments from Nick and Andy.

Podcast play (PP) will not be reserved exclusively for the first hashtag (which btw is #NewBeginnings), and any of Music Weeklies hashtags generated in the given month are viable for PP, please send your mp3's (not WAVs, our inbox will die) to cosmicbos@gmail.com with the hashtag in the subject line, and a bit of info about yourself so we can give you the promo in the podcast that you deserve.

We won't be playing any material that doesn't meet the Music Weeklies guidelines or our Monthly Music Challenge ones either, to get airplay and PP for such songs you should go check out the New Music Saturdays guys (they have a podcast of their show too, check it out).

So, get to work lovely musicians, songwriters, audio creatives 

You have until the 3rd of Feb (2023) to submit for the January hashtags, of which the first one (and the one you can have a month to work on) is #NewBeginnings 

Check back on Twitter on the 13th, 20th and 27th of Jan to find out the other three hashtags that we will accept PP on.

This should be fun, we can't wait to hear from you

Any questions please come find us on Twitter @CosmicBos where we will attempt to answer them (SPOILER ALERT! we might not be able to)

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

Here's the Youtube link to the podcast episode.

https://linktr.ee/cosmicbos

Check out our band camp for musical purchases

https://cosmicbos.bandcamp.com/album/virtual-normality-2

Songs found on this introduction episode are all by Cosmic Bos

1. The Drunky Song (for #Drunk)
2. You Find Out When You Die (for #Afterlife)
3. Morning Coffee acoustic (for #MorningCoffee)
4. Morning Coffee Full Blend version (from Virtual Normality 2)

Links for all of these can be found on our YouTube page

Cosmic Bos YouTube Channel

Please like, share and subscribe, we love you

NUN in a KAYAK - Cosmic Bos (Official Lyric video) - A Palindrome song

 Hello friends,

https://linktr.ee/cosmicbos - check out our link tree for all your Cosmic Bos needs. 

You are here for the Nun though right? Well here you go.

NUN in a KAYAK - From Cosmic Bos Virtual Normality 2 EP

Findable on Bandcamp right here right now

Nun in a Kayak was originally written for the Music Weeklies hashtag challenge on Twitter, for the hashtag Palinloop, or Palindrome. The song is full of Palindromes, it hasn't got all of the ones in existence, because I couldn't work out how to get a Racecar into the story without ruining the calm imagery of a Nun in a Kayak.

The central song on our new EP, and one we did live at our annual gig (but the video isn't quite up to scratch so you won't get to see it), it will get another airing later this year on Bos Live #2 (2022) - oh yeah, SPOILER ALERT! We are doing another Live album. (in fact, it's already recorded, just needs some Nick tweaking magic) which we are planning to drop on Christmas Day (25th of December for any non-Crizzies). 

We also have our Best of Season 4, which, Spoiler Alert, contains this Nun and Kayak based song, we considered it one of the best of the year. That will be with you even sooner than the aforementioned Spoiled Live album, around the 10th of December we recon. Just got some eyes to dot and some teas to cross. It has been a great year, and we look forward to staring up our own bumholes and talking about how amazing we are, but also all the actual amazing people we got to work with this year. Spoiler Alert! it's been the best year of Bos yet.

So, that's where we's at. A couple more videos to come before the year is done, until then, let's have some cake, or wine, or both, or neither, whatever you want, have it.

If you like your videos Tubed up for you, then here is the handy Bos embedded YouTube link 

Please like, share and subscribe to us

Peace and infinite wine

Cosmic Bos

Morning Coffee by Cosmic Bos - from our new EP Virtual Normality 2

 Good morning wherever you are,

First thing in the mourning I always turn to the bean for a smooth kickstarter blend to get the day going...

Here's a lyric video to illustrate that point. it's from our podcast which you can find on our link tree here

https://linktr.ee/cosmicbos

Taken from our new EP Virtual Normality 2 which you can find on bandcamp here https://cosmicbos.bandcamp.com/album/virtual-normality-2

Amazing cover art by Gecko

Originally written as part of the Music Weeklies Hashtag challenge on Twitter, (the hashtag being #MorningCoffee) I (Andy) felt pretty confident that Nick could help me turn this acoustic little ditty into a full blown morning banger, which he most certainly did.

The first of 4 hashtag challenge songs on the EP, as well as a special remix by Cosmic Bos of the awesome False Promises by Andrew Hartshorn (ft. Natalie Williams Calhoun) with a vocal by Cosmic Bos and some extra instrumentation too.

Here's the Youtube version

And the link to the whole darn record on the tube.

Full podcast breakdown of the EP coming sooner than soon.

Have a day everyone, love you lots

Peace and infinite love (see! told you I loved ya lots)

Cosmic Bos

Virtual Normality 2 - Cosmic Bos New EP OUT NOW!

 Hello fellow traveller on Spaceship Earth,

Welcome to the blog, here you will find music by Cosmic Bos

Released 11/11/22 was Virtual Normality 2 - Cosmic Bos's new 5 track EP

Purchasable from the very link above

5 new songs, 4 of which come from the Music Weeklies Hashtag challenge on Twitter, 1 which is a Cosmic Bos mix of a phenomenal song by Andrew Hartshorn. 

Last year we made Virtual Normality as a statement of where we intended to take Cosmic Bos in the future, and as a template for what we have done this year (2022) it worked out nicely, plus it had an awesome cover done by iamGecko. 

So as we reach the ending of 2022 we wanted to honour where our direction seems to be going, with the tail end of '22 having been music challenge time (much like the first half of the year was), and developing deeper musical connections with fellow artists, and becoming more involved in the musical community on the interweb thanks to The Album Writing Club and Music Weeklies, as well as Nick having another baby (Outer Space Jazz) and Theo growing up fast (Space Baby Classic), as well as the world crumbling apart around us all, it's seemed only prudent to do a sequel to Virtual Normality. 

So we tweaked the colours of the cover, added a big 2 and slapped 5 songs on it just like the first. 

Here's the YouTube playlist embedded - please like, share and subscribe if you are a tuber

And it's all over Spotify and other online music prisons

Nick and I (Andy) will do a proper podcast to go along with the album, with us talking all about the tracks, but we've had to postpone it's recording so we can take part in the Off the Records Music Festival at the Brunswick in Hove tomorrow (12th November), hopefully we'll get a bit of video footage to share with you from it.

After the podcast for VN2 we will look to close the year off with a Best of (as is now tradition) and a Live acoustic album of songs from the year.

We are deep in planning for next year too, going to revamp the podcast a bit, give it a new focus, more to follow.

Morning Coffee video to follow too

Thanks for being awesome

Peace and infinite air miles

Cosmic Bos

NUN in a KAYAK by Cosmic Bos (Music Weeklies #Palinloop Challenge song - normal and PCP versions)

 Hello friends,

I  have been taking part in the Music Weeklies Challenges on Twitter, and they are lots of fun, allowing me to stretch my writing muscles into some interesting places.

It is the 4 year anniversary of Music Weeklies Challenges, and they are doing exciting anniversary based things all month. Check out there website here https://www.musicweeklieschallenge.com 

So the challenge for the 1st week of October is #Palinloop - write something that involves palindromes and loops in some way.

Here's what I did - NUN in a KAYAK

And here is the speedy version - NUN in a KAYAK on PCP

I have really enjoyed making these songs, and I've done 8 of them now, and 4 of them are currently being remade by Nick and myself to form our next release - Virtual Normality 2. Watch this space for more on that!

Please go check out the Music Weeklies chaps, they are lots of fun and a great community for musicians to interact and get some genuine feedback on your work. https://www.musicweeklieschallenge.com

Peace and infinite love

Andy (Cosmic Bos)

Spaceship Earth - Cosmic Bos New Song - both versions in one blog - part of the Music Weeklies Challenge for #Spaceship

 Hello dear you,

How's it going? Well I hope.

Orange Moon rising over Spaceship Earth

So I (Andy) have been taking part in a fun weekly musical challenge on Twitter, probably should have blogged about it ages ago, but I've been busy and lazy. Plus the blog is more for the work I do with Nick on Cosmic Bos, and that is still flowing. The summer of Bos has a couple more weeks in it, with Episode 5 of our special presentation podcast - Making of an Album coming on the 24th of this month, a video for 'Here's Tom with the Weather' featuring Bill Hicks coming out on the 23rd, and a video for Patient Mystery dropping on the 16th (probably out by the time you read this). It's a busy end to a busy Summer for Cosmic Bos.

You probably didn't click on this blog for the ramblings of a musician, you wanted to hear the Spaceship Earth song that is teased in the title, and most likely you wouldn't have even read the bit above or this bit either and just skipped straight to the goods, and I don't blame you, and if you have been foolish enough to waste time reading this bit then I commend you for your dedication to the written word in this age of image based entertainment. Long live the text!

Spaceship Earth - Music Weeklies Challenge Song #Spaceship

Version 1

This was the first version I recorded on Tiktok, the other version was recorded on Tiktok as well, just in case you were wondering.

Version 2

Version 2 took longer to make because of putting all the lyrics on the screen. 

Check out other things related to the Twitter awesomeness of Music Weeklies Challenges, and I will get round to blogging about it better in the future, I might even go back and blog about the 4 other ones I did over the summer, who knows?

Peace and infinite love

Andy (Cosmic Bos)