Monthly Music Challenge podcast 1.9 Superspectacular - with your hosts Cosmic Bos

 Hello wonderful you,

Welcome to the Monthly Music Challenge MMC 1.9 - Superspectacular

Join Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) as we explore the spectacular, super spectacular in factular, freshist, most organic, juiciest indie music being made today, with all the songs having been made in September of 2023 around the theme of Superspectacular, and we must say it is something rather special indeed.

You are in for a treat here, the music served up this month is all of the highest degree, truly awesome sauce on the hotdog of life, with amazeballs tracks by John Serrano and Raul Lupianez, Andrew Hartshorn, TexMex Shaman, Mario Marino, Trench Gun, Above the Snow Line, Hellwaddler, Notehead, A Sea Warren, Broken Nomads, Mobidextrous, Taylor Lidstone and of course your idiotic hosts, Cosmic Bos.

It really is something to behold, please support all this amazing indie music that is as up to date as you can get, comments, likes, subscribes, support is what makes it all worthwhile, and these artists are truly something else, well worth your time.

You can listen to and purchase all of Cosmic Bos's Superspectacular tracks in a hand EP on bandcamp https://cosmicbos.bandcamp.com/album/mmc-19-superspectacular and if you are so inclinded, a comment makes our dayz.

Big shout out the Only the Host and his crispy crew of awesomeness, Cosmic Bos loves you all and can't wait for more of you to join the MMC, we have rooms all ready on the MMC challenger, come along for the musical ride.

Here is the full Super Spectacular Tracklist (or SuperSpectrackulist if you prefer):

1. Super Spectacular - Cosmic Bos
2. Can't Get You Out of my Head - John Serrano and Raul Lupianez
3. Atlantis part 1. The Majesty (single) - Andrew Hartshorn
4. Super - TexMex Shaman
5. Mecha Funk - Mario Marino
6. Inside Job (instrumental) - Cosmic Bos
7. War is a Drug - Trench Gun
8. Atlantis part 2. The Wrath of the Gods (twingle) - Andrew Hartshorn
9. Super-Spectacular - Above the Snow Line
10. Epiphany - Hellwaddler
11. Ballad of the Rainbow Disco Chicken vs Autotunebots from the Future - Cosmic Bos
12. Superspectacular - Notehead
13. No. 12 Quartet in C Minor - A Sea Warren
14. Star Cry - Broken Nomads
15. Atlantis part 3. The Aftermarth (tringle) - Andrew Hartshorn
16. Spectacularis - Mobidextrous
17. Dreamscape Promises (Late Sub for Dreams) - Taylor Lidstone
18. Keeping it Old School - Cosmic Bos

There you have it, amazeballs all over the pit. Probably time to tell you what the final theme of MMC1 is going to be. Without further ado, MMC 1.10 will be Finale, that's Finale

MMC 1.10 - Finale (coming 4th November)

You have till the 3rd of November to send your 'Finale' songs to us, please email an mp3 and a lil blurb to cosmicbos@gmail.com . You can always send Late Sub's to us on any of the previous themes for the year, we have a special section for them in the show.

MMC 1.10 Finale will be the last theme for 2023, but fear not, we shall return in 2024 with MMC2, 10 more themes to build an album around. Before that though, we will do the Best of MMC1 Awards, where we will give out awards to our favourite tracks from across the years monthly music challenging. We will also do a Rest of MMC1 because there's a lot to go over.

Please like, share and subscribe to Cosmic Bos, and comments are the best thing ever, so if you've got one in you please drop it on our podcast somewhere (YouTube's good for comments), pwease and thank yow.

Peace and infinite crispy love

Cosmic Bos

Here's our lyric video for Super Spectacular, we went full gween squeen

P.S - Big Mick?

P.P.S - Cosmic Bos Superspectacular EP is available here https://cosmicbos.bandcamp.com/album/mmc-19-superspectacular

Or listen on this handy embed, maybe pick yourself up a copy? or drop a comment?

Barbenheimer - Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson & Warren (New Single OUT NOW!)

 Hello Barbie boys and girls,

The partners of Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson & Warren have just released a new single, 'Barbenheimer'

You can purchase this fine product on bandcamp here from the handy embedded link.

You can also find the song on Spotify and all other streaming sites

Barbenheimer was born from a song that Andrew Hartshorn had originally written for his Monthly Music Challenge album, it was his Mother Earth entry called 'Terra Mater'. He had floated the idea of expanding the song to be a Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson & Warren track, and once the outline existed, it wasn't too long before Andy Jackson had written the lyric, Nick Jackson had recorded some Bass and accent guitar, and Al Warren had added some Brass, and Barbenheimer was born.

Given the fact that the video department of HJJ&W had yet to provide any promotional video material for the partners, it only seemed right that they pulled out all the stops to provide something special for the single that followed their debut album 'Sound Investments' which you can still purchase to this very day.

Please leave us comments and subscribe to our work all over the internet, your support means the world to us.

Thank you for your time,

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

Monthly Music Challenge MMC 1.8 - Dreams

 Hello friends,

Welcome to the Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos Podcast (the MMC)

This is Episode 1.8 Dreams

Join Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) as we delve deep into dreamland, listening for clue as to if this is a wonderful dream we have found ourselves in, or a twisted nightmare from which we can not escape!

With the world in the questionable state it is currently in, it only seemed right to let the musicians of the MMC explore the internal space, where the mind is allowed to explore freely, to ponder the more existential elements of our shared experience, it could all, the whole darn lot of everything everywhere, be a dream, or a simulation, or even just the passing thoughts of an interdimentional hyper disco chicken cruising the open rainbow road! Who knows? Well not us, but maybe some answers lie in the music of this months music challenge.

So prepare to explore the world of Dreams with the musical stylings of Mobidextrous, Man of Arun, Notehead, TexMex Shaman (& StonerJazz), Tonal Drift, Andrew Hartshorn, A Sea Warren, Michel Debois, Chemical Shift (Broken Nomads), Peter Hawkey, Hellwaddler, John Serrano and your hosts Cosmic Bos, as well as a special presentation by the supergroup collaboration of Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson and Warren! What more could you ask for?

Cosmic Bos put out our tracks as an EP on all good sites, but they also put it out on bandcamp where you can exchange money for music, it's a clever system that was developed by Gnomes a long time ago, but it seems to still be working to this very day. Here is the link to our EP, it has an alternative cover on BC too!

https://cosmicbos.bandcamp.com/album/mmc-18-dreams

You can also find several of the tracks in the show on Bandcamp or soundcloud or YouTube, depends where the amazing artists post them. Please support these awesome indie artists by visiting, listening and possibly even buying their music on Bandcamp. I know for a fact that John Serrano's track 'Crisp' is available on Bandcamp and you probably all should buy it, as well as HJJ&W's track too (from the 22nd September).

Super outergalactic shout out to Only the Host and his amazing team, we love you guys and gals. And the Music Weeklies peeps too, keeping new music fresh on the internet.

The next theme for the Monthly Music Challenge is our 9th one, and it is #SuperSpectacular, that's MMC 1.9 - SuperSpectacular 

Send your mp3's with a little write up about the song (and a bio about yourself if you haven't been on the show already) to cosmicbos@gmail.com 

The EP bandcamp alternative cover

You have until the 6th of October to get your SuperSpectacular songs to us for inclusion, we still have the late Subs section so if you wish to submit something under any of our previous themes then you can and we might play it in the Late Subs portion of the episode.

SuperSpectacular will be the penultimate episode of MMC1, with only a final, as yet unknown theme, to go with MMC 1.10, but feel free to submit anything from the Late Sub category whenever you like. If you have played along all year, or are considering going back to take on the challenge, then on completion you will have a 10 track album, and that's pretty winning in our kindles.

Please take the time to comment, follow, share, subscribe to all the amazing artists featured on the show, and buy their music, it's absolutely worth every smeckle, the least you can do is leave a comment, and comments make artists feel validated, so pwease, pwease, pwease we beg you, leave a comment or two to feed our dopimine addictions.

Here is the full MMC 1.8 Dreams tracklist:

1. Could This All Be A Dream? - Cosmic Bos @CosmicBos
2. Confounding Dream (single) - Mobidextrous 
3. Nothing But a Dream - Man of Arun
4. Lonely in Lucidity (single) - Notehead
5. Planks - TexMex Shaman
6. Unsettled Sleep - Tonal Drift
7. Dream's Over, Now Get to Work! - Cosmic Bos
8. The Dream's of Morpheus - Andrew Hartshorn
9. Caged Dreams - A Sea Warren
10. Barbenheimer - Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson and Warren
11. Impossible Perks (twingle) - Mobidextrous
12. Dream Anthem - Michel Debois
13. All Through Me (twingle) - Notehead
14. Polarsken - Chemical Shift
15. Perseverance - Peter Hawkey
16. Persevere - Cosmic Bos
17. Resonant Dream (tringle) - Mobidextrous
18. Nanos Ex Machina (tringle) - Notehead
19. (LATE SUBS) Poo Poo Kickin' and Toad Lickin' - TexMex Shaman and StonerJazz
20. Princess in the Snow - Hellwaddler
21. Crisp - John Serrano
22. Lasting Impressions of Psycho Delia - Cosmic Bos

Thank you for listening to our show, please like, share and subscribe, leave a comment and help spread the word that the indie music scene is still alive and kicking in monthly challenge form.

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

P.S - Here's our lyric video for our song Could This All Be A Dream?

Graphic designed by Only The Host, what a total legend! Go check him out now.

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 Podcast - 1.7 - Mother Earth

 Hello friends,

I do apologise for the lateness of this blog, the episode has been out for quite some time, but life has been busy and the blog got forgot, soz.

Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos

Episode 1.7 - Mother Earth

Join Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) as we explore the musical interpretations created for our wonderful Mother Earth by some of the most talented musicians in the whole world. What did we all choose to say about Gaia, the great ball on which we all reside ? Well you are in for a treat friends, as all this music has been environmentally sourced, has an extremely low carbon footprint and has travelled from around our great planet without clocking in any airmiles (email miles don't count).

Prepare to give praise to Gaia, Mother Earth, the big Blue & Green, with the musical stylings of Mobidextrous, Andrew Hartshorn, Hellwaddler, Trench Gun, Aye Nevo, Man of Arun, TexMex Shaman, Taylor Lidstone, A Sea Warren, Notehead, JPeck, Trommelfell.MB and your idiotic hosts Cosmic Bos with special guests Joe Philogene and Dayne Howcroft.

Cosmic Bos put out their songs on an EP, which coincidently always has the same title as the coresponding episode of the Monthly Music Challenge. It will be available everywhere, but on bandcamp it will be purchasable. You can also pick up singles, twingles, EPs and Albums by most of the great artists featured in this episode. Please check them all out and share the musical connections.

The next theme for MMC 1.8 is Dreams #Dreams 

Please send your mp3's with a little write up about the song to cosmicbos@gmail.com 

If you are a first time submitter please send a bio about yourself too, otherwise Nick and Andy will make something up and it will likely be very silly, music is a serious business and Cosmic Bos's style of podcast most certainly isn't serious.

You have until the 8th September 2023 to get your Dreams songs in, as well as any late submissions for the previous themes. (previous themes are 1. New Beginnings, 2. Escape, 3. Ignorance, 4. Winning, 5. Razzmajazz, 6. Artificial Intelligence and now 7. Mother Earth)

Good luck! Get your dreamy brain on and make up a song.

Please take the time to comment, follow all the amazing artists featured on their socials, likes, shares, subscriptions and comments are the bread and butter of the indie music scene, please distribute them generously.

Here is the full track list for the episode, all tracks are on the theme of Mother Earth (except for the 'late sub' found near the end of the episode)

1. Earth's Children - Cosmic Bos ft. Joe Philogene & Dayne Howcroft
2. Mother/Earth - Mobidextrous
3. Orbit - Faith - Mobidextrous
4. Terra Mater - Andrew Hartshorn
5. Gaia's Moonshine Merriment - Hellwaddler
6. Gaeacide - Trench Gun
7. A Price to be Paid - Aye Nevo
8. Circles in the Crops - Cosmic Bos
9. Earthy - Mobidextrous
10. Back to Nature (Dub version) - Mobidextrous
11. The Assassination of Mother Earth - Man of Arun
12. Poo Poo Kickin' & Toad Lickin' - TexMex Shaman
13. Mother Nature - Taylor Lidstone
14. So Many Songs for You - A Sea Warren
15. Salt on the Speakers - Cosmic Bos
16. Evil Earth - Notehead
17. They Lied to Me - J Peck
18. Ann Miller - Trench Gun
19. She Won't Let you Fly - Hellwaddler
20. Gaia - Mobidextrous
21. On Some Nights - Mobidextrous
22. (LATE SUB) Flowers - Trommelfell.MB
23. Milked it - Cosmic Bos

Thanks for listening, please like, share and subscribe to all the amazing artists featured in the MMC.

Big Outergalactic shoutout to the newbies that joined this month, Taylor Lidstone, Aye Nevo and Trommelfell.MB - you all are amazeballs and we have musical cabins for all of you on the Monthly Music Challenger astral submarine thing we made up a bunch of episodes ago.

So quick reminder, the next theme is Dreams

Here's the YouTube link to the podcast episode, should you prefer that

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos

Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos - MMC 1.6 - Artificial Intelligence

 Welcome human and bot alike,

You have reached the blog of the Monthly Music Challenge, and this particular entry refers to the 6th outing of the MMC in it's first year...embedding player now...

Episode 1.6 - Artificial Intelligence

Join Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) as we explore the musical side of artificial intelligence, what can we learn from our robotic offspring? Will they ultimately rise up and destroy us all? Can we find a way to live in harmony? All these important questions and more will not be answered here, this is a music challenge podcast, with a couple of idiots in the hosting chairs, if you want deep philosophical discussions on A.I then please check out other more informed podcasts, if, however, you want lots of musical explorations of the theme, ranging from Electropop to Orchestral to Heavy Metal, then you are in the right place. Welcome.

We have a humdinger of an episode for you this month, with some Beeeeeeeeautiful songs by MMC regulars like Andrew Hartshorn, TexMex Shaman, Tonal Drift, Hellwaddler, Notehead, A Sea Warren, Man of Arun, Scowsh Molosh, Peter Hawkey, Mobidextrous and Trench Gun as well as 3 exceptional new additions from Natalie Williams Calhoun, Voltage Poetry Project and JPeck.

Outergalactic shoutout to the wonderful peeps of Music Weeklies, which continues to supply the MMC with some of the most exciting musicians working in the world today, we love you guys 

The next hashtag (for MMC 1.7) is Mother Earth #MotherEarth

You have until the 4th August 2023 to get your songs about the Earth into us for inclusion in the main section of the show, alternatively, you can still submit songs based on the previous 6 themes to be included in our Late Subs section. (Previous themes 1. New Beginnings, 2. Escape, 3. Ignorance, 4. Winning, 5. Razzmajazz and now 6. Artificial Intelligence). Send an Mp3 and a write up about your song, along with a bio (for new subs) to cosmicbos@gmail.com 

Please take the time to comment, follow all the amazing artists featured, like, share and subscribe

Without further ado, here is the full tracklist for the episode:

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE songs

1. There's No A.I in Team - Cosmic Bos @CosmicBos 
2. Clouds Dissolve - TexMex Shaman & Tea R Sea 
3. Talos - Andrew Hartshorn
4. Techno Sapience - Tonal Drift
5. Silent Rebellion - Hellwaddler @Hellwaddler
6. A.I God - Notehead
7. Art's Official Intelligence - ASeaWarren @aseawarren
8. Dichotomy - Natalie Williams Calhoun
9. Uncanny Valley - Man of Arun @ManofArun
10. Era Oeuvre - Voltage Poetry Project
11. Ghost in the Machine - jpeck

There you have it, a whole heap of very real intelligence taking on the artificial world and very clearly coming out on top (for now). Exceptional work all, and a huge welcome to the newbies Natalie Williams Calhoun (NWC!), Voltage Poetry Project (VPP!), jpeck (JPC!) and Tea R Sea (slipping in on the TexMex track), thank you so much for contributing, we wish you a long and musicially rewarding stay on the MMChallenger. Truly wonderful stuff.

There was also a few other hashtags from the music weeklies peoples that produced some interesting songs this month. Firstly there was a MimicAGame challenge which produced some stunning interpretations of classic VGM (Go check out the Music Weeklies site or twitter or discord), we present one of these tracks by our good friends.

12. La Cosa En El Umbral - Trench Gun

As Cosmic Bos are a little out of the gaming loop we took the opportunity to revisit a song from over 10 years ago, and slipped out this little gem.

13. Money Zombies - Cosmic Bos

This challenge was followed up by Bittersweet

14. Bittersweet - Peter Hawkey @peter_hawkey
15. Bittersweet - Cosmic Bos

Then to mix things up a bit, we did early Late Subs:

16. Hummingbird - TexMex Shaman & Stonerjazz (Razzmajazz)
17. Save the Bees - Trench Gun (MiniMe)

Cheeky little newbie sneaking in there, big shout out to Jeff aka Stonerjazz for your exceptional work with TexMex. Right back on the hashtag train for ComingOut and Smart

18. Third Eye Pride - Cosmic Bos
19. Smart - Scowsh Molosh @scowsh
20. Smart - Tonal Drift
21. Watch Your Six - Mobidextrous
22. Get a Little Bit Smarter Everyday - Cosmic Bos

As is tradition now, Cosmic Bos put all our songs onto a handy EP which can be purchased from Bandcamp https://cosmicbos.bandcamp.com/album/mmc-16-artificial-intelligence

So quick reminder, the next theme is Mother Earth and you have till the 4th August 2023.

Also, we have finally done the deed and set up a Discord server, come join us there 

Before the next episode we will be doing a special presentation for the Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson and Warren album 'Sound Investments', which will be available on CD and Bandcamp on the 4th August from Monochrome Motif Records, we are all really excited to share our Business themed album with you all, Spoiler Alert! it's pretty good.

Here is the youtube playlist of the podcast 

Peace and infinite robot love

Cosmic Bos

Tribute to Tribute - Cosmic Bos's tribute to Tribute by Tenacious D

 Hello my rockin' amigo's,

Welcome to the gates of Hell! Where musicians must fight demon's to save the very fabric of our existence. Andy and Nick Jackson (Cosmic Bos) stood before such a demon and used the powers of Tenacious D to save us all. Here is the video evidence of this mighty quest.

Tribute by Tenacious D is arguably the greatest tribute to the greatest song in the world that has even been made. Cosmic Bos have chosen to honour the greatest song in the world by doing a tribute to the tribute to the greatest song in the world.

Brothers Andy and Nick (Jackson) - Cosmic Bos, have been making music for a long time, one of the very first bonding experiences with music for the Jackson brothers was the self titled debut album by Tenacious D - Jack Black and Kyle Gass created a masterpiece with that album, and it was whist visiting America (Florida to be precise, for the theme parks) that the very British Jackson brothers did stumble upon Tenacious D. Purchased from a record store in an outlet mall along with the Spinal Tap Soundtrack, Nick and Andy proceeded to spend their two week holiday learning every lyric, skit and harmony that the album had to offer. Nick was 15 at the time, Andy was 21, and their vocal only rendition of 'F**k Her Gently' on the boat ride to Disneyland was both inappropriate and hilarious.

Tribute is the stand out song on the album, it is a true masterpiece on its own. The video is also a masterpiece in Cosmic Bos's opinion. Nick and Andy learnt to play and perform the song shortly after returning from America. Several years later it would be their party piece, once an acoustic guitar had been located at a party it wouldn't be long before the pre Cosmic Bos brothers would be flig-a-guinging their way through a ropey rendition of Tribute.

Now all these many moons later, Nick and Andy have been making music together as Cosmic Bos for over 5 years, embodying the spirit of the D, continuing their quest to find the greatest song in the world and share it with everyone. They found it only fitting to honour the song that inspired their lifelong quest, give praise to the musical gods that Jack Black and Kyle Gass are, and offer to help them in their quest to be the greatest band in the world, maybe take the septa for a while, maybe even take over as they are getting on a bit now.

Tribute to Tribute is Cosmic Bos's tribute to Tribute by Tenacious D, Andy and Nick attempted to lovingly recreate the original video as much as they could. Not having access to a suitable 'recording booth' as in the original video, the lads just decided to skip all that and cut straight to the song.

Please consider subscribing to us on YouTube

And like, share and comment on the video, especially if you are Jack Black or Kyle Gass (we love you guys)

Peace and infinite success

Cosmic Bos

P.S - here is our audio only page on youtube, please consider subscribing there too :)