the video shoot for 'Touched A Nerve'

Hello friends,

With the album approaching completion, it was time to start work on all the publicity stuff, you know, standard music fare, bit of video, bit of photo, bit of logo stuff...

'Touched A Nerve' single cover

Our debut single is 'Touched A Nerve' released 9th March 2011, available on Itunes and other music providing places for people that hate Itunes and have not yet fallen under Angel Steve Jobs zombie mind control spell. We made a video for it, and this is the blog about the video shoot.

So, let's walk through the shoot bit by bit and paint the picture for our activities back on the 3rd of March. We had an early start for musicians, meeting at midday. The plan was to shoot mostly outside, and the weather had chosen to be iffy at best, with rain on the agenda from early on. This was a problem, we didn't really want a rainy shoot because we were planning to be where mud was, and mud and rain are good friends, sticking together closely and then hugging shoes and trouser legs for all they are worth. This was not what we had wanted, we wanted nice blue skies and dry dry mud.

Beauty had screen printed up two T-shirts for Donny and me ([adj]) to wear, they have the alien thumbs up logo on, as well as both our names. I quickly slipped into mine and proudly wore it the whole weekend.

We all met up at my place, by which time the rain had stopped (how typically English of me to complain about the weather so much!), we packed up the car and began the short drive round the corner to the park of choice. In typical forgetful musician style, I managed to forget my guitar, so I had to run back and get it (duh!). Peter (the director) and Beauty (my beauty) were on camera duties, stills being lovingly taken by Beauty and the filming being done by Pete. Donny Stax was both star and driver, and [adj] (me) was going to be in it too, but not do any driving because I am not qualified to do that.

We filmed up by this awesome tree that has loads of tree eyes up it's trunk, scars of branches past, limbs hacked from it by either humans with chainsaws or harsh weather conditions (there I go with the weather again!). They looked amazing, and deserved to be filmed. With the song playing to us from a laptop and a camera in our face, Donny and I sung our song in the cold.

After a few passes by the eye tree we headed back to mine for coffee and tea, while there we did a couple of passes of Donny and I sat on the bench out the back.

Once we were full of caffeine and sugar we headed for the car once more to go up to the rolling fields of Brighton known as The South Downs. Pete enjoyed the ride so much, and Dan's road rage, that he filmed us in the car as well.

Reaching the Downs we ventured onto the muddy path with all our equipment and trudged up to where we hoped to find cows. The sun was breaking through the clouds and by the time we made it to where the cows weren't, the sky was blue. It was windy up there though, and there was lots of poop to be avoided, but no cows anywhere. So, cowless, we filmed us playing the song between some lovely electricity towers, while my hair danced in the wind and Donny's hair stayed gelled firmly in position.

Once we made it back to the car and scraped the mud from out shoes and trousers, it was back to Donny's studio for some more caffeine and the final part of filming. We de-shoed and went into the studio, doing a couple of passes of Donny and I playing in front of the computer we mixed on, and then doing a couple of passes of us in front of the microphone in the recording booth. Then we stopped.

Once I got home I was so tired from constant guitar strumming and vocaling that the rest of the day was spent past out in front of DVD's, drinking tea. I didn't care if it rained again, I wasn't going out for anything.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed making it.

Peace and infinite love

[adj] - Andy D Jackson xx

B-Side problems...

Hello friends,

There appears to be new regulations in the music world! Again! Now, you can only release single songs as singles, no more B-sides. If you want to put out two songs as a single, they are two separate singles, no longer an A track and a B track. It used to be that a single would have as many as 4 songs on it, those were the days when artists could put out the material that didn't make the album for people to enjoy. I guess that Pop acts have trouble with this level of output, since they are manufactured fluff, and having extra tracks to release is not on their agenda. Oh well, this probably isn't that new is it, I'm just well out of touch with it. It's touched a nerve with me, which is appropriate for our single I guess.

So, since we have a B side track prepared, we will release it in another way. It won't be a single, it was never destined for that. But it will be released to the world, oh yes it will.

the B-side gets it's own flappin' cover!

This is the cover for the B-side, not the single, that's the one below.

'Unordinary Day' was the first track that Donny Stax and [adj] (me) did together, it's a nice little tune, but it didn't make the album cut. It was us getting to know how each of us worked and learning to make it gel. Now if that's not the kind of tune that should make up a B-side then I don't know what is. Of course, mainstream artists don't need a learning curve, it's all pre-done for them so they can go learn the choreography for their little swooshy dance number that goes with their [s]hit single 'Oh Baby Yeah', and no B-side is required, putting rubbish remixers out of a job. Good work music industry (sigh).

the single cover, which makes sense, unlike a B-side cover

Sorry to rant on about it, but I feel a little disheartened as an artist, us creatives need ways to express our creativity, sometimes it's not album worthy, but it still deserves to be heard.

We have a second single in the works too, to help promote our upcoming album. We also have a B-side ready for that single, so I guess it will be getting the same treatment as this one and probably it's own flappin' cover.

Oh well, back to it I suppose...

Peace and infinite love

[adj] - Andy D Jackson

xx

Old Private Familiar

Hi friends,

It's been a while since I put up a new track, so thought I should. Track 6 from my Autumn album 'In the Light of the Goddess'. This one is called 'Old Private Familiar' and is about how distorted views of the past can be. Enjoy :)




There are still 6 songs to come from this record, and they will come out in the next few month I promise. In the meantime though, the debut single by Donny Stax & [adj] 'Touched A Nerve' will be available from Itunes from 9th March.

Thanks for listening

Peace and infinite love

[adj] - Andy D Jackson xx

Donny Stax & [adj] present...

Hello friends,

For the last couple of months I have been working with my good friend Dan Stocks aka Donny Stax, hip hop producer and rap master. It started as just a track or two we were going to make to feature on Donny Stax's album, but it became clear quite quickly that we had a good chemistry and could make a lot more music together then just a couple of tunes. So now, two months later, we have 14 tracks in the bag (it's a big bag) and will be releasing an album in the next couple of months.

The first single 'Touched a Nerve' will be available from Itunes very soon, but until then it can be heard on soundcloud, or right here in this blog, just underneath these very words.

Would love to know what you think of it, quite a different direction from my previous offerings. This is my first proper venture into the world of Hip Hop. I have quite an eclectic musical history to my many stage names, but for this project I am going by [adj], the same as my singer/songwriter work of 2011.

We have a facebook page already right here where you can keep up with our musical and visual droppings. We will be shooting a video for 'Touched a Nerve' in a couple of weeks which will be available on all good youtube accounts once it is finished. I'll blog about it when we make it :)

So, just a quick peek at our alien thumbs up logo, which is also our facebook logo atm. This will make more sense once you hear our second single 'Live Up There', but that won't be for a month at least.

Making this album has been one of the most enjoyable music projects I have ever been involved in, mainly thanks to Donny Stax who is both very focused and very open to ideas. We had lots of fun trying out some crazy things, and I tripped balls just by staring at the back wall in his recording booth. I look forward to sharing the fruits of our work with the world, I think the world might enjoy it if it can get past the X factor nightmare that swamps the whole music world at the moment. Remember people, music has been around for ages, it wasn't invented by Simon Cowell to fill a void in weekend TV schedules.

So just to end this little blog, here is a big picture of our single cover.

Peace and infinite love to you all

Andy xx [adj]

It's all going on

Hello friends,

Quick update for you, I am busy working on an album with my good friend Donny Stax, we are almost finished on the writing part and will hopefully be putting out a single at the end of this month. More to come on that soon.

I came across a great article about success stories that started out busking http://www.rentersinsurance.com/10-musicians-who-got-their-start-playing-in-the-streets - worth a read for any buskers out there, or if you were thinking of giving busking a go. It's hard work, but can be quite rewarding :)

I have a new demo track for you from my Autumn session.



There are a few more to come from that session, but they might get a bit side lined when my shit with Donny starts coming out (it's more polished then my solo efforts).

Peace and infinite love

Andy x

New Year, New Direction

Hello friends,

Happy (Belated) New Year to all, 2012, the big one for the Mayan's, the end of the age, shifting of humanity and all that jive.

This adventuring creative has been on shut down for the last month or so, hiding away back in the UK waiting for my Beauty to recover from her operation. Now it's time to look forward to what the year ahead might hold.

I have been working on a new musical project with a good friend of mine Dan Stocks aka Donny Stax, it started out as a couple of tracks but has quickly evolved into an album project. I like working on albums, last year I did an album project for the seasons, I still have to do the winter one, but that's on hold for the time being while I finnish up work with Dan. I will get back to my 4 seasons project soon.

I had some computer problems which stopped the releasing of the Autumn album. Before that happened though I did manage to release track 3, Mr. Gnome


Mr. Gnome by [adj]-Andy D Jackson

More to come, I promise :)

Peace and infinite love

Andy x

Work of Passion

So friends,

We move on to track 2 from 'In the Light of the Goddess', this song is about driving forces, the things that matter to us, our works of passion rather then in pursuit of money. The song is called Work of Passion. I made a weird arty video to go with it...


Work of Passion by [adj]-Andy D Jackson

That's just the song, and here is the arty video to go with it...

Thanks for watching :) Peace and infinite love Andy