new blog

Pretending anyone gives a fuck: there is a very good reason as to why these news items have become less and less frequent with all the legroom between. I’m going to open the next paragraph with said reason, but let it be known, I am a touch embarrassed over what it is.

Fitness! Oh my God, I can’t believe it, I am actually admitting this out-loud. I have these terrible day nightmares where I am running to work and a bus hits me and then I die. Can you imagine? In some newspaper it might say “Jared Woods, a runner, was killed by a bus this morning”. A runner? A RUNNER!? Will this one tiny aspect of my daily quest for greatness serve to summarise my entire life existence? Would all my countless projects dilute into irrelevance as a direct result of my untimely demise just because I went for a jog?? Imagine the horror!

But the truth is the truth: I (quite a long time ago) decided it was time to go to the gym. My reasons for joining were ones of vanity, but my reasons for staying were ones of euphoria. And the fact is, I am no longer happy unless I spend a fairly decent amount of designated week time towards helping my body look better naked, which is something the books recommend anyway. However, this approach of actually improving myself has come with the cost I fear most: less time.

As a result, projects have been brutally slaughtered and a strict enforcement of priorities has been implemented. As always, one of the first things to go would be these news items, because I don’t care. What this does mean though, is that I’ve worked on quite a few ventures which have gone undocumented, and I guess this has now hit boiling point because here I am, demanding this very news item receives a slot in my schedule somehow. So be warned, there is a big list of Jareds following, but if you have any interest in how this recession has affected my creative routine, they are scattered in amongst the following entries:

This Is Your Brain On Drugs

Rightfully so, this became the highest priority, and after four years in the making, I am beaming to announce that it’s complete. Written, designed, illustrated, formatted, print-ready to order. The only thing that’s missing ... is you.
That’s right. You. Simply put, I need your money. It sucks, because I hate asking for stuff (and I never have), but it simply won’t exist otherwise. But when considering it's pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever done, I reckon it's worthy of the funding, which is probably why it has already done very well. I mean, I wrote a book! Do you know how long this takes? I’m super proud of it anyway.
So please, for the love of God, check it out. I get interviewed by a hot girl and everything.

Juice Nothing

These blogs will always be a permanant priority. However, due to the aforementioned full-fucking-length novel, it has been pretty difficult to keep my head above the water on this front, but I managed (oh-so-fucking-barely). Last month's piece was late, and I’m not sure there will even be one for this month, but the way I see it is this: I wrote a book, so it’s fine. Did I mention I wrote a book?
Here are three articles you may have missed:

The 15 Greatest Smiths Lyrics Ever
The epitome of a throwaway piece, the history of this article comes from a short story I was writing. I intended to release said story in April, but as the end of the month approached, I realised I could either shove out a rushed pile of spaghetti, or I could quickly crap something else out and grant myself an extra month to perfect my craft. This Smiths blog, ladies and gentlemen, was that crap, taking about an hour to complete and the perfect example of style over substance. That said, it truly was a list I have always wanted to cover, and I’m still fond of it, oh-ho-oh.

Worst To Best: Stanley Kubrick
My fourth Worst to Best so far, and perhaps the landmark where I got sick of it all, idk. It’s a difficult concept to approach because my initial intention is to always stay true to myself, but when the fanboys on Reddit tell me how shit I am, I start to doubt my own opinions. Why did I put Lolita so high, again? Anyways, the point stands that it’s still a decent post, and at least I have proof that I’ve seen every Kubrick now, which makes me better than most people, I reckon.

10 Musicians Who Sold Their Soul To The Devil
This was launched right now! The idea itself has been knocking around for a few years, originally I wanted to submit it to Bizarre magazine, but then they shut down and my emotions mourned, unable to face the topic for decades. But, finally, it is here, and may I say that in a year of short stories and Best to Worsts, this is the only proper researched piece of writing I've managed in 2015. I hope you read it, because I think it's up there.

Ok, once the dust on this book thing settles a bit, hopefully I can push out another post before the customary best artwork of/worst artwork of/best albums of/Dear 2015 jazz comes out, but no promises.

The Goat's Nest

Much like the Juice Nothing blog posts, my short stories are treated as a constant priority: if it’s their turn, they will get their time.
That said, they have had way more than their fair share of attention in 2015. This Is Your Brain On Drugs aside, two completely unrelated short stories exposed themselves, which is unusual for any year. They were:

The Kübler-Ross Model
The idea for this short story actually hit me directly after The Triangular Theory of Love was released, as the sorta sequel. I even first mentioned way back in December 2012, here, just in case you were wondering how long this rubbish has been knocking around my brain. I even attempted to write it back then too, but completely scrapped the whole plan and still have no idea where those notes are.
Regardless, it took a few different angles to penetrate it, I penetrated it, and I am glad it’s out—perhaps not as my most immediately enjoyable story, but definitely a large one which boasts very thorough concepts (imo). It feels like a proper story, if you know what I mean. It’s also because of projects like this that I don’t have a girlfriend right now.

Raining Teeth
On a long distance plane ride to India, this one was written, and I am still not 100% sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it really flowed so naturally out of me, was a blast to write, and I think it has quite a few good ideas packed into a nice short space of time, as one very important piece to a much bigger story (isn’t everything?). On the other hand, I feel like I failed on some of the subtexts and it isn’t as linear as I would have preferred, in hindsight. Still, I love the characters, and at least I’m writing something, what are you up to?

As always, I know what my next short story will be, and I’m particularly excited about this one. The only thing I’ll reveal for now is that it will be aimed at a younger audience. Ooooh.

Coming Down Happy

The tragedy of CDH is that nothing (literally, NO-THING) has been nor will be released from the outlet this year. I tried various approaches, but the whole "time" thing again. Here is an elaboration on what I just said:

Sex is Disgusting
As yet another high priority, work for this EP has never fully ceased, and I have definitely hit some sorta wind at the moment, finally enjoying the process, and eager to work on it everyday. I’d say 6 of the 8 songs are 90% - 95% complete (excluding vocal recordings), but even with that kind of progress, it simply is not going to see the light of day in 2015. Hopefully it won’t be too far off that, but at very least you know I am not going to rush something shit out. Although it might still be shit, I’m not sure.

Music Video
This quickly became a low priority in the scramble. Pity, because it’s 100% shot and maybe like 65% edited, but how important is something like this? Not. However, as per everything else, once the book is out the way and we have more breathing room, it shall resurface and shouldn’t take too long after that. I guess I might as well tell you that it’s for the song The Best Stitches I’ve Ever Had.

If you remember, I also promised another new huge section on the Coming Down Happy website this year, but this got the hierarchy shit mauled out of it, and will have to chill. Don’t hold your sleep, because this is about as low as a priority can go (even if it’s pretty cool).

Hey, did I ever mention the spoken word album I was planning? No? Ok, don’t worry about that either then.

Band

Fuck, has it really been so long since I’ve addressed this? Obviously the band was hiiigh priority, but then Milz left London and the whole thing fell apart. There is no band anymore, and allow me to be the first to say GODFUCKINGDAMNIT ALL TO HELL THIS IS WHY I DON’T JOIN BANDS ANYMORE. This was a really special one too! :'(
Aaaanyway, I did find another guy, we jammed, we didn’t sound like Sonic Youth, so I quit.
There is another thing in the extremely recent pipeline as I type this, but until I squeeze the book out and get laid, I really shouldn’t be wasting too much energy.

Painting

This fell immediately into the depths of low priority, but fortunately only moments before the plummet, two new pieces solidified, and I quite like them both. They were:

Teletubbies Picasso
Ammr Khalifa

There probably won’t be anymore this year, but in January I have furious intentions of running full force back into these for a while. SO LOOK FORWARD TO THAT THEN.

The Funpowder Plot

Literally nothing. Based on what I’ve heard (I haven’t heard anything) and what I have planned (I haven’t got anything planned), I doubt we'll receive anything from this collective until 2016.
However, it should get much better from there. Personally, I have three (or four) ideas I would love to see next year, which include the ever elusive CDH video, a pilot for a friendly series, and something more cartoony like that Valentine’s Day thing.
The main issue is how impossible it has become to even get hold of these fuckers right now, but at least the Freewheelin’ Troubadour will be back from India in January, so I can probably rope him into something or other.


One final high priority is that a lot of my energy has gone into sorting my citizenship out, which obviously dominated a lot of time. This is fairly important, but I am getting there, and once it’s done I’ll travel the world and forget about all of you.

Which kinda relates to how much I have already been traveling this year. I was in India at the beginning of the year, and then skipped onward to Croatia a month or so ago, plus I’ll be visiting Spain in two weeks, so all in all, this hasn’t been the most creative year for reasons of inner-peace. It’s called Life people, you should try it out sometime.

ENOUGH.


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10 Reasons Why 10 is My Favourite Number

(1) 10 is the first double digit number in the whole entire Universe.
(2) 10 is the base of the decimal numeral system, most likely due to our 10 fingers.
(3) My name is Jared Woods. It's 10 letters long.
(4) J is the 10th letter of the alphabet.
(5) I was born on the 16th of October 1984 (16/10/94). October is the 10th month of the year.
(6) Back to 16/10/84: remove previous 10, and you’re left with 16/84. 16 + 84 = 100 = Ten 10s.
(7) In binary, 10 is like saying "yes no".
(8) It has heavy religious connotations (Ten Commandments, ten plagues on Egypt, Ten Martyrs in Jewish liturgy, ten generations between Noah and Abraham, the ten incarnations of Lord Maha Vishnu in Hinduism etc).
(9) It is the name of many music artists’ albums, including but not limited to: LL Cool J, New Kids on the Block, Wet Wet Wet, The Stranglers, Girls Aloud, and Pearl Jam.
(10) Finally, it represents the nature of all life, if you think about it: 1 seemingly phallic (looks like a penis), 0 seemingly yonic (looks like a vagina).

With that, here comes some stuff which is far less interesting: the latest on what’s been going on in my busy little creative life. Enjoy!

Juice Nothing

The 100 Best Songs Of The Decade So Far (2010 - 2014)
December is always the toughest month for my writing schedules, and so traditionally I like to take it easier in January. But, of course, when the above topic covers such a specific time period as this one, you can’t leave it too long before it becomes outdated. So I did the next best thing, and wrote 100 reviews for songs in 140 characters or less, like Twitter! Was a great experiment, a real test to push myself to condense my usual ramblings into a more concentrated length, and personally, I felt it was a success (even if no one else has really said so).

Worst To Best: David Bowie
As the third of my “Worst to Best” series, and the first one to venture into the world music, there could be no worthier candidate than the master of everything, David Bowie. I worked reaaaally hard on this blog, actually the whole of January was spent relistening to all of his albums in chronological order to rate them as such, carefully reviewing each one as I went along. I think it came out great, and a tough contender to beat for my favourite of the year.

20 Hottest Girls Ever (Part II)
Just launched this one, and everything you need to know is in the introduction. To summarise: (1) It is the sequel to my 2010 hit of the same name; (2) It is arguably the dumbest thing I've ever written; and (3) I did it for the hits. Please forgive me.

As per usual, lots of plans, lots of ideas. I have more blogs I wanted to write this year than I could possibly find time for, so everything is going to be ok on this side, don’t you worry.

This Very Blog

Without announcing it whatsoever, I secretly changed the overall design of this very site you’re reading right now, perhaps you noticed? If not, here is a refresher:

Muuuuch better, I’m sure you will agree. Perhaps now I can go back to the redesign of the Juice Nothing home page? Probably not.

Coming Down Happy

Nothing major to really report, except that I have been working damn hard on the Sex is Disgusting EP (there is a studio diary with more details here if you are interested) and it is finally coming together somewhat, to the point that I am actually excited about it for the first time in probably six months. There is a looooong way to go, I’m not even convinced I’ll finish it this year, but who cares? It’s only music.

Related: as I mentioned in the last news update, there is a really huge new section coming to the Coming Down Happy site within the first half of this year. No spoilers, but it’s moving along, looking pretty rad, and is well overdue.

More news about CDH in the FPP section below, scrolly scoll.

The Goat’s Nest

I am 90% sure that the next piece on this blog will be the sequel to The Triangular Theory of Love. It’s pretty much done. Just need a bit of polish and then come the end of April, it’s all yours (hopefully).

Furthermore, I will be on an aeroplane soon (more on that in the conclusion), and as is tradition, I will be starting my next short story on said flight. I guess I might as well tell you that it will be the continuation of Clean Birth.

Finally, This is Your Brain on Drugs, my full length fucking novel thing, is very very close now. There are only one or two illustrations left I think, then just a tiny amount of formatting and other bits and shits to take care of. Honestly, I shouldn’t be working on anything else until this is out, but it seriously could be any month now.

The Funpowder Plot

A new video! And I made it all by myself!
It’s called Valentine’s Day and was part of those “Monthly Projects” I spoke of last news item. The month in question was January, where armed with nothing but crayons and Adobe Flash, I spat this out. I am super stoked with it as was everyone else, and while it didn’t go viral as I always hope, it is still one decent player in the game of Jared, and it’s nice to have contributed to the Plot solo for once.

Besides this, The Freewheelin’ Troubadour is getting married soon and embarking on a massive long tour of the world, which leaves only me, Loose, and Ammr to hold the fort. Ammr himself has become very popular since that Shura video received over eight and a half million hits, and as a result, he has a lot of offers coming in, which should provide some great content for the site.

Of course, this means that the Coming Down Happy video has kinda been pushed back, and it looks like I will be tackling this one all by myself once again, which is good, because CDH was always a DIY thing anyway. Perhaps I may not have the technical genius of my comrades nor the fancy equipment, but I do have ideas and a big plan. I know how to get what I want, and I know how to make it look good. Slowly, this is becoming a priority.

Painting

Once again, as part of this “monthly projects” thing I’ve been doing, I started painting with acrylic over Feb, and loved it so much that I kinda let it leak into March. This is what I’ve spat out so far:
Miley Cyrus
Slender Man and Maddie
Goodbye Kitty

For a while, this art form really connected to my life for some reason, and it has been many years since I felt so passionate about an avenue. It’s so therapeutic, at points I didn’t go to parties just because this is what I want to spend my time doing. However, I will be taking a break now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more appear throughout the year, and perhaps some kind of a big announcement at the end. Yes, I know something you don’t.

Band

It is with a sad heart that I announce our guitarist, Andy, has left us to go live in Bristol. The decision was understood and the whole thing, while shit, happened on good terms. The rest of us spoke about it and decided we wanted to continue, but rather than replace Andy, Milz (previously vocals/violin) has moved to keyboards, and we honestly sound even better in my opinion. We have the workings of about five songs or so, and I actually really like them, which is a rare thing for me. I have had bad band experiences before, but God, I really hope this one at least makes it to some sort of recording/gigging stage. It’s so much fun.


Yup, I think that’s it. Now, as I touched upon earlier, I am off to India from the end of this month ‘til the the 11th of April. I am not sure if this is important, but it may be, as whatever was planned for said time period will obviously get no love whatsoever. I think things will be ok though, because everything always is.

Oh, finally, I have been taking Instagram heaps more cereal these days, so you should follow me! Seriously, please follow me. It gives my life meaning.

Ok bye,
Jared


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MMXV

Shit! I’m late! I’m soooo sorry, I've been really busy lately and, wait, what do you mean you didn’t notice?

It is a customary practice of mine to conclude any given year around the mid-to-late December point, honouring said 365 day company with one of these very news pieces. However, my integrity got lost in the mail this round while I was busy slivering bits of skin off my fingertips and picking white shit off my teeth just to provide enough fuel to complete all the other regular items. Such a melodramatic scene is the reason why this little bit of vomit could only be wrapped up and presented to you at this moment, and it’s also probably worth mentioning that I’ve never been very good at wrapping things. I don't really giving a shit any more. I’ve taken two sleeping pills and I’m tired.

If you’ve never met one of these such blabberings before, allow to me introduce and educate you as to what it is. You see, it's not just one of your regular trash can dumping grounds where I desperately try to convince you to check out the shit you may have recently missed in Jared World, but it also holds the unique title of attempting to predict what the up and coming year (2015, in case you’re lost) might have in store. I always get it wrong, but here I go anyway, armed with a cape super-glued to my shoulder blades and an ID sized photo of my puppet monkey in my pocket, reminding me what is important.

JUICE NOTHING

This has already happened:

The Rise And Fall Of Modern Day Feminism
Not really a blog per se, more of a rant I spat out in one sitting, but I had this very confused feminist demon living inside of me for a while, contradicting itself at every mention of the topic and upsetting my tummy. I tried to please it and I tried torture it just to get it the fuck out of there, but in the end I think this piece was the final exorcism, so read it, don’t read it, I wouldn’t read it.

10 Worst Album Covers of 2014/10 Best Album Covers of 2014
As per every year since last year, I gave a much deserved shout out to my 10 favourite album covers of 2014, as well as demeaning the 10 I deemed to be the most shitworthy. While I did so, I wore a monocle and spoke with a French accent, convinced I was an art critic just for one day.

The Top 50 Albums of 2014
Without going on about it, this yearly piece is consistently my highest praised work, and I think the reason for this is that people can smell my tears in between the lines. Still, I'm very proud of the outcome once again and the response has been very flattering to say the least (thank you!), so it’s probably the one thing you should take away from here.

Dear 2014,
This one was published very recently, and is part of my longest running regular series to date, growing like an energetic cancer, now so ridiculously over-detailed that I am always floored with how many people (claim to have) read it. If you have any interest whatsoever in all the amazing/horrible things that happened in EVERY area of the year (complete with an unhealthy gaping wound looking into my personal life), then this one is for you, honey.

JUICE NOTHING 2015

What sucks about being able to see into the future is that I have already planned every single blog piece which will be written this year, even if I probably have no idea. What’s worse is that I'm very precious about maintaining some element of surprise, and am not willing to reveal all that much to you, sorry. However, here are some clues as to what you could expect, maybe:

Two or three “Best to Worst” bits.
A kinda more specific version of that 20 Greatest Songs Of All Time wank.
A tainted spin-off from my very old (but hugely popular) 20 Hottest Girls Ever piece.
The Death Trilogy.
Greatest TV Shows Ever.
Bands I Hate.
The Greatest Things on the Internet.
How To Get Laid Using Facebook.
Songs I’ve Cried To.

And then, of course, November 2015 onwards will be the usual best-of crap, because routine keeps the brain competent at Tetris. Anyway (and by the way), if there are any of these ideas you like more than others, please do let me know, because I exist from the interest of others and there will be a better chance it’ll surface sooner if you’d like.

JUICE NOTHING v3.0

Over the last two years or so, I have spent countless hours redesigning the main Juice Nothing hub page, and then all of a sudden, I didn’t give a fuck any more. I wanted it to be so special that the amount of effort required outgrew my interest, and slowly it became the stock project to push aside when I need a spare hour or so. But what I will say is that while it may not appear any time soon (or ever), my focus on the webby area of life will not be completely lost, rather re-designated towards things like, for example, the overall design of this very blog. My crystal ball claims that this will happen by the end of Feb at latest, but it has a crack down the center and only displays in black and white, so I’m not convinced it works. It might even just be a television, I’m not sure.

COMING DOWN HAPPY 2015

As always, a lot planned here, some stuff I refuse to talk about, but I am happy to elaborate on my 100% rap project, the Sex is Disgusting EP, which is priority. The loops are complete minus the frills and the rough lyrics are around 31.25% written or so, so it is moving. Admittedly, I’ve been slack in recent times, but if you're keen, you can keep an eye on my unusually revealing studio blog, set up to give you more information than you could ever want.

For my own reference sake, I also want to overshoot myself and say there is potential for more than 14 songs to be released in 2015 (a bit of extra info further down). It will never happen, make no mistake of that, but I said potential, meaning there is hope, and sometimes hope is all we have. And once these are out of the way, there is only one thing left to do. The final EP completing the cartoon musical. But that’s 2016’s problem.

One final thing: There is a new section opening up on the Coming Down Happy website within the first half of 2015, I’d say. It’s the kind of section which no one would get excited about until I become famous (note the misguided certainty), but I feel it's very important because it has been in the works for like ... 15 years? It’s surprising I only thought to get it done now. You won’t care though. If it seems like I'm being a downer, it's because I have to live with me.

THE GOAT’S NEST 2015

Of all the outlets in the grooves of my brain, this area is probably the most promising in 2015. For the love of God I can’t believe it’s taken so long, but my debut novel This Is Your Brain On Drugs (as I have previously reported) is completely written and edited and formatted, missing nothing but a few illustrations before the pdfs piss on the printing machines. With so much work and effort riding on it, I am as nervous as I am excited, which is exactly the right place to be with anything worthwhile. Don’t quote me, but let’s propose a second quarter 2015 release date. It fucking better be, in all fairness.

Besides this thing, the sequel to The Triangular Theory of Love is 50%ish complete in rough, and I think it has stumbled into quite a solid direction, different than any of my other previous fiction. I can’t wait to finish it up, but considering how far it has already raced ahead of schedule, there is no need to to rush it, and I see it jumping effortlessly out the door by mid-year. What could possibly go wrong.

You know, the coolest thing about The Goat’s Nest children, is that I know pretty much everything that is going to happen for the next ten years, from four other novels to at least three other short stories in movement. It’s fucking mental in my head right now, time itself the only enemy. But keep your mouth open, and I will drip feed you until you are full, I promise.

THE FUNPOWDER PLOT 2015

I’m always unwarrantably optimistic about this film collaborative team, because almost every year it seems to bear minimal fruit despite all the water I throw at it. But as always, it’s still a machine with eager cogs turning, and at least three projects are being seriously discussed on a very regular basis, meetings in real life and everythang. Two of these projects I won’t be revealing at this point, but the other one is (gasp) the ever elusive Coming Down Happy music video. I talk about it a lot, I know, but the difference now is that we have chosen the song, we have a script, and above all else, we have motivation. Oh my God, you think it’ll happen this year? Something will.

CODE NAME: FOX TAIL

As reported before, this secret project may very well be dead and this could be its final mention. But at the same time, it also may not be, so I’ll just leave this here in case.

I’M IN A BAND NOW

Three very cool people and myself built a band from the ground up and we have been jamming regularly with some very interesting material taking some sort of a shape, albeit not a regular shape, more one of those shapes no one knows how to pronounce. Incidentally, we don’t have a name yet either but, I swear, I am having more fun with these guys than any band I’ve ever had before, purely because there is freedom and everyone is doing whatever the fuck they want. We are such an eclectic mix of people with completely different musical backgrounds, and for that reason, it’s pretty much the project I fantasise about the most, praying every day that it works, and optimistic that it will. Seriously, this one gets me hard in the morning.

MONTHLY PROJECTS

Back in November, I also started this other thing where I wanted to spend each month dedicating my weekends to something different, the idea being that I may find a creative avenue which really clicks within me and clicks within other people and makes people click things. It is the venture of a lost, desperate boy now running into every corner I can, hoping my nose doesn’t break until it slots in with the right brickwork it was always destined to meet. This is how it has gone so far:

November 2014: Video Album Reviews
Something I attempted (and kinda sucked at) was filming myself reviewing hyped albums each week. I loathed the process and it stressed me out, but I managed to spit out four of these fuckers, which were as follows:

Grouper - Ruins
Taylor Swift - 1989 (this was the best one, watch this one)
Foo Fighters - Sonic Highways
TV on the Radio - Seeds

People responded politely, I came out of the other side with a bit more video knowledge, and (most advantageous of all) another idea was birthed which could extend from this, an updated version very possibly appearing in another 2015 month, who knows.

December 2014: A New Coming Down Happy EP/Single
Back in my yout' I used to write and record songs in the space of 12 hours with complete disregard to production polish or outside opinion, and I adored the process. So in an attempt to recreate the former magic, I had a go at putting together some songs abiding to these strict restrictions. However, seeing as December is a very hectic month with all them blogs and shit, I didn’t get as far as I wanted, only managing three songs (all completely recorded already, btw), which go by the names of "Well I’m Sorry and Fuck You"; "Not Proud Of This"; and "Love Is A Stupid Thing To Write About".
The issue with this lot, however, is that they all suck balls and the shame within me refuses the release of any of them. I was kinda hoping that by some miracle one of these fellas would actually be decent, and then I’d release a single with a b-side, but the walls of my new house are so thin that I can't seem to get any words out in a confident manner. It doesn't matter, this experiment has expired, and even if I have three other potential songs written, they will have to wait for another time.
Although, I have been toying with the idea of perhaps creating a bunch more songs just like these sporadically over 2015, and then ultimately releasing them all as some sort of “Bootleg” type compilashit, but I have no idea. Whatever, the point is, I still finished what I was going for, even if nobody ever hears it but me.

For the rest of 2015, the monthly projects may or may not include things like:
A cartoon pilot.
A series of paintings.
A podcast.
An audio reading of my favourite Goat’s Nest short stories.
Twitter tutorials.
Video album reviews with a twist.
And another month of quick song recordings.


Ooookaaay, I think that’s pretty much all I have planned, which as always, is more than anyone with a full time job could chew, but even if I only get 50% of the way, 2015 is looking to be quite creative, wouldn’t you say? I dunno, it’s all about time manage though, isn’t it? And I am starting to realise that life isn’t necessarily exclusively about creative content either. Sometimes we need to focus on factors like health consciousness, professional ambition, world exploration (I'm going to India in April, yay), self help progression, financial opportunities, public performances, and other such type things I desire to pursue immediately. Plus, I also have this plan to meet the girl of my dreams pretty much any day now, which would undoubtedly fuck everything up.

Speculation is a fun time waster, and that’s pretty much what I just did. I speculated and I wasted your time. Let’s just agree to compare notes in December, k?

Love you or hate you, pick your poison,
Jared


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The Disdance

You know when you’re walking down the street, and someone is coming towards you, right, so you kinda aim yourself to out of their direction, but they do the same thing? So now you are heading straight towards each other once again, and so you compensate by turning the other way, but this person does the exact same movement? So now you’re like doing this weird little pavement salsa where you’re both turning at a frantic rate in order to avoid crashing into each other, yet find yourself continuously getting closer and closer to colliding into one another?

I propose we start calling this “the disdance”. Because that’s a really clever play on words, not only on the stupid dancing action you accidentally find yourself partaking in, but the fact that such an event is experienced from a distance. I find it places some humour on this otherwise cringeworthy ordeal, even though I’m sure you smile and apologise politely in your oh-so British manner.

That’s all I have to say on the topic. Here’s the news:

JUICE NOTHING

There have been two fre$h articles since I last wrote one of these news bits. They were:

The 30 Greatest Music Legends Of Our Time
As essentially an upgrade on My Top 30 Rock Gawds blog I wrote 7 years ago, it felt good to finally get this one off my chest, as it revolves around a conversation I find myself having a lot lately: “who will our musical era be remembered for?” I have all the answers, of course, and so now I can just post this link without ever experiencing that fucking conversation again. I hope you read it, mainly because hardly anyone did for some reason :(

Worst to Best: Kevin Smith
I just gone and made this one! Ever since the Ghibli success, I have been consumed with the idea of Worst to Best blogs, and threw together this follow up from a potential million other candidates. I mean, I'll never claim to be the biggest Smith fan, but I do dig the guy and it was a fun simple little piece to write which didn't bleak me as much as usual. Hopefully I don't get shouted at by Reddit this time.

And with those out the way, I will be playing my regular Get Out Of Jail Free card right now, which means no article will be released during October. This grants me the well needed breathing room to prepare for the chaotic end-of-year regulars, so that should be fun. Wish me luck!

THE GOAT’S NEST

After spending the whole year researching for my next short story, I am pleased to say that work on the sequel to The Triangular Theory of Love has begun. The advantage of spending so much time planning for it, is that it’s just pouring out of me, already nearly 50% of the first rough draft done. It’s very different to anything else I’ve attempted, dangerously more “character based” to the point that I feel their personalities all up inside of me. It’s fucked up.
That said, it’s a bit premature to talk about now anyway, as this story won’t be released until well into 2015, mainly because there is a writing waiting list in place to protect me and everything must wait its turn. However, this does mean that when its time comes, it should be in really decent shape, I hope. I’m looking forward to it wholeheartedly myself.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS

Still battling to get anywhere with this. Nine of the 20 drawings are done, so something is happening, but as it stands, I am now looking at a February 2015 release or so. I’m sorry, but life got in the way. Naughty naughty life.

CODE NAME: FOX TAIL

Word of advice, kids. Do not collaborate with other people, because other people have personalities, and personalities come with emotions, and sometimes emotions get in the way of professionalism. I no longer see a future for this project, like so many before.

COMING DOWN HAPPY

Probably the biggest news this round comes from my musical adventures. I am beyond gay that my new EP, Fear of Telephones, was released recently, even if nobody gave a fuck. Because I am superstoked with it, as it's the only real genuine thing in Coming Down Happy’s arsenal to date, and the first step at truly letting you know that CDH will never be anything you think it will be.
On that note, I also launched a Studio Blog for the next EP I am working on, titled Sex is Disgusting (for now?). Here, I will be letting everything out, not holding any details away from you, because I’ve never done things this way before and I like to scare myself. It’s going to be pure hip hop this round, and it's already fairly far along the way...

THE FUNPOWDER PLOT

Nothing to report. I wanted to make a video for one of the aforementioned Fear of Telephones tracks, but none of them songs really scream “single”, do they? Seriously, if you’re one of the 40 people who’ve listened to it coinciding with one of the 10 people reading these words, and you have an opinion about which song would work with a video, please do tell me. I’ll pretty much make it just because you said so.


Anyways, on a more personal note, it’s been a tough month(s) for me. I’m moving house and my 30th is coming up and I'm also dealing with a bunch of other stupid shit, so I wrote this news piece with the sole intention of just finishing it, which is why it's really shit. But as a trained optimist, I have a good feeling that things are on the rise for me, I just need to convince the other people inside of my head first.

Go wash your dishes.
Jared


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How To Wash Dishes Like Jared Woods

I must be getting old or something because not only have I found some weird therapeutic value in washing dishes, but I actually thought that writing an article about how I do so would be somewhat interesting to the general public. But the truth is, I have got this shit down to an art and I couldn't really hold it inside myself any longer. So here you go, follow this guide and you will have nice sparkly clean dishes to eat from in no time.

First and foremost, the key to washing dishes is to LOOK. I know this seems obvious, but I swear to God some people don’t know this, they just give a quick scrub and put that shit in the rack, bits of food still intact. You need that sponge to run over every single surface area of every single dish, which includes the bottom of plates, please. You should also spend extra time on the rim of all glasses and mugs because that’s where dirty lips go. Once you have rinsed it off, for the love of Jesus, fucking LOOK. Do it carefully. Is there still pieces of matter stuck there? Then rub those off before you deem an item reusable.

Another little related tip is that prevention is better than the cure. If you are too lazy to wash dishes immediately after your meal (and I suggest you do, because I do) at very least give that shit a rinse. The longer a plate is left dirty, the longer the dirt hardens and fuses itself to the surface, giving you a much harder cleaning time. Make this a religion: always rinse your plate as soon as you can. It will save you a load of effort in the long run.

Ok, so with the how-to’s out the way (which you should already know), I want to introduce to you the system I like to utilise. The reason being: it turns everything into a bit of a game and you will come out the other side with the sense of achievement that you have done more than your part in maintaining godliness.

So let’s hypothesis, and say you steamed some veggies, cooked a steak in the oven, and ate it with a load of gravy whilst enjoying a glass of water. You also have a cup of tea afterwards, because you are worth it. This means the damage would look something like:

A fork
A knife
A plate
2 mugs (for the gravy and tea)
2 spoons (for stirring the gravy and the tea)
A glass (for the water)
A pot
A sieve (for them veggies steams)
A cooking tray

This might not be 100% accurate depending on your methods, but the game remains the same. Get your dishwashing liquid and full the sink with water (or however you prefer to do it), and get ready to ROCK.

The magical process goes like this:

Wash one fork
Wash one knife
Wash one spoon
Wash one plate
Wash one bowl (but we didn’t use a bowl? hang on)
Wash one mug
Wash one glass
Wash one large item (tray, pot, sieve etc)
Wash one weird item (this could be anything from a can opener, a large knife, a wooden spoon, a lunch box, anything which doesn’t really fall into the above categories).

Done? Great, round 1 complete! If you followed this correctly, you should (in this example) have two large items left as well as one mug and a spoon. But instead of just washing those and getting it done with, you must repeat the magical process once again: one fork, one knife, one spoon… etc. If there are, say, no bowls in sight, then skip that one, but otherwise follow that list exactly.

Once you have reached the end of round 2, you should only have one large item left. You will be tempted to wash this item and then go back to your computer, but do not surrender to this. Start the magical process once again: one fork, one knife, one spoon… etc.

You must keep doing these rounds until the very last dirty item from your original list of dirty items is clean. This means that if, say, you had personally dirtied four mugs for your dinner, you must do four rounds, even if this means you clean way more than your share. For example (based on the above list, if followed correctly), you would’ve completed three rounds, having washed:

3 forks
3 knives
3 spoons
3 plates
3 bowls
3 mugs
3 glasses
3 large items
3 weird items

But why? Why would you do all of this? This question will apply even more furiously to those who (like me) live in a vile house share. You may think it’s a ridiculous idea to wash someone else's dishes, but hold up, there are a few reasons why you are doing this:

(1) Everyone wants to have a positive influence on life itself, unless you are an asshole. One of the easiest ways to achieve this, is to leave any given room better than when you found it. It also means that any dish you may have forgotten to clean throughout the day, will be effortlessly sorted during this quick one-time process.
(2) There is some relief in knowing that if you were left home alone for a few days, with minimal effort all the washing would get done even if every dish in the house was dirty, proving you are a functioning human being that your parents could be proud of.
(3) If your housemates aren’t like mine (mine have never even noticed I do this, BTFW), they might even be grateful. But don’t get your hopes up, lol.

I know what some of you more OCD people may be thinking. While you are there and have built up momentum in the system, why stop? Why not just wash all the dishes if you’ve already applied yourself to the cleaning process? Personally, I wouldn’t suggest you do this, otherwise people will never learn. In fact, in a small passive-aggressive way, I suggest you do the opposite. If there is a certain dirty item which is unique to one individual (perhaps a part of a blender, or a plate with a half eaten sandwich on top), make sure you place it on a more obvious platform of display, reminding the whole house that there is a dirty person in your midsts. If it still remains after a few days, take a photo of it and post it to their facebook wall, idk.


MARK MY WORDS, YOUR LIFE HAS JUST BEGUN, NOW HERE IS THE UNRELATED NEWS.


JUICE NOTHING
Since the last news update, there have been three new bloggythings, interestingly enough, none of which were about music. Don’t worry, it was intentional, the next one will be.
In case you missed them, this is what they were:

Worst To Best: Studio Ghibli
Now this was a biggie, much bigger than anticipated. I had been aching to write it since September last year, but opted to wait until The Wind Rises English release came out, which I reckon was a good idea. I also think my execution was pretty decent by my standard, to the point that I even dared to post it to the Studio Ghbili subreddit and was blown away when it received around 100 upvotes and a lot of debating beneath, turning into something I am really proud of, going on to gain more than 4800 hits, my second most read blog this year behind only that heartbreak one. I hope I did Ghibli justice, because they are my favourite thing of all time.
Furthermore (and what you don’t know), is that this first of a kind blog is just that: the first. I have big plans for this format.

My Brief Brushes With Greatness Part III
Released in conjunction with this very news article, I must add that I am past the point in my writings to care about such ridiculous topics, and yet by the time I had finished this third part of the series, I felt surprisingly stoked about it. It's a bit of fun with decent enough content, and I am fully aware that with so much powerful name dropping going on, these Greatness blogs do tend to stand strong as Google Gold. But as the conclusion states, let's hope this is the last one.


THE GOAT’S NEST
Clean Birth
In between all of that, there was 2014’s Goat’s Nest short story, and unlike most of my short stories, it’s actually relatively short! What’s even more weird about this particular offering, is that I can’t really remember where the idea came from, but in hindsight I kinda see it as a fictionalised slice of that Everything, All Of The Time puke I wrote last year.
Anyways, as is tradition, I attempted the first rough draft on a plane trip to South Africa in February, but it was so terrible that I threw it away and wrote it again, the second draft still pretty shit, but workable. Eventually it turned into quite a different, cool bit of writing in my opinion, working as not only some sort of a prequel to The Johnson Line but also as the start of a muuuuch bigger story which I've already sort of read in my mind. It should be good, but even if it’s not, look at the pictures! None of them were coloured in, all the textures you see (while watery and distorted) were taken from real life photographs! Fun!

With these behind us, it means there are only five more articles to be released this year, and I already know what they are, oooh.

Two trains of thought follow on from this one. The first, is that I have been making a few changes to this very blog you are reading right now, perhaps you've noticed? Basically, the font size is much larger and legible, plus there is some great behind the scenes SEO going on, which is probably why I received over 20,000 hits last month, a new J0 record. And it's only climbing higher, so perhaps one day I might actually get paid for simply being me.

The second train of thought stays on The Goat's Nest topic, whereas I wanted to quickly inform you that heavy research has begun for the next (long) short story. I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again, it is the sequel of sorts to my favourite Goat's Nest offering, The Triangular Theory of Love. Much like the aforementioned, it's going to be fuckoff disturbing, probably even more so than the original, to the point that I'm not very comfortable with how deep I'm going. Let's look at an early 2015 release, shall we?


THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS
It sucks, but my debut novel is still not ready. Far from it. The reason is not the writing (cos it's done) or the formatting (cos it's nearly done), but the fucking illustrations, man. I've completed five and they are super coolio imo, but I think I still have something like 15 to go, which should give you an indication as to why holding your breath will be your demise. Sorry. The thing is, for health reasons I have removed all deadlines from my life, so if this project drags into next year, so be it. I honestly can't work any harder. Just look around you.


FOX TAIL (SUPER SECRET CODE NAME)
For my own records, I want to state that this business is moving forward quite rapidly, and that's all you're getting. Juice Seven, fucker.


COMING DOWN HAPPY
As promised, I have been putting my recently acquired instruments (see last news item for money shot) to very good use, and the evidence popped out not so long ago with the release of My Favourite Asian In The Whole World. You can read about it in far too much detail over at this CDH news item, but in summary: it worked not only as a birthday present for my lovely friend Reiko, but also as a pipe cleaner; the test run for the next batch of musical cookies I have been mustering for quite some time now. I learned a lot and I think it set me up in a very sexy position.
And that position is coming sooner than you think. There is a new EP around the corner, I swear without reservation that in September, it will be born. Because it’s almost done. It’s going to be called Fear of Telephones. And I like it.


THE FUNPOWDER PLOT
It seems the theme of 2014 has been BIG IMPOSSIBLE PROJECTS. An EP made from real instruments? Juice Nothing complete redesign still crawling along? Fox Tail? A novel? Etc? And the Plot is no different. The biggest thing we’ve ever done is in the works, and yet much like everything else, there is no end in sight. Once again, let's just sit in our favourite chairs and get comfy, because patience will be rewarded with a fucking smack in the face.
On a side note though: a Coming Down Happy video plan is actually being mapped out, perhaps this time it’s for real!


And finally, something YouTubey is coming, maybe even sooner than any of the above, and it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever been involved with (if I am even involved at all).
Lol, you guys must hate how many projects I talk about without even talking about them.

Go wash your dishes.
Jared

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Don't Read This. Spend Your Time Better.

Always bite off more than you can chew, and then just spit out the parts you don’t like.

Hey kids! Today I want to talk to you about “priorities”. You see, in order to have the most constructive lifestyle possible, we must all learn the art of time management, and the very root of this art revolves around the skill of prioritising. That is (simply put), doing what is most important first, and then brutally cutting the fat off the process in order to streamline our focus and produce a sharp object to stab self-inflicted deadlines in the eye with.

I am forever juggling more projects than I can, and sometimes these goals tend to fall on top of me, suffocating my enthusiasm, murdering my potential. This kind of analogy works even better when considering I was in South Africa for just under three weeks in February, watching my little sister getting married and chilling with my family and having sex with people I’ve never had sex with before and whatnot. Don’t get me wrong, it was magical and made my life in London appear quite tedious, but more related to this, it carved out a huge hole in my usually reliable routine.

Once resurfacing my head above water and breathing once more, I had to prioritise. The redesign of Juice Nothing, for example, was the first to go. As much as I'm excited about the project, I could not justify allocating precious time to fixing something which was not quite broken. More on topic, the next easy casualty was these very news items. The reasons are obvious: nobody reads them, they take too long to write, and they are essentially stupid blabberings which serve very little purpose other than to keep a record of my own progress, a reference point so I can look back and pat myself on the head and rationalise another beer for lunch.

Luckily (and as the rest of this piece will detail), I managed to get back onto my feet relatively quickly and have finally caught up, now 100% on target for my quota, even if no one would notice besides me. Which is why after quite some time, here I am to tell you what has been going on in Juice World, and have much more news than usual. What a wonderful thing! Read it or die:


JUICE NOTHING
Since the last news update, I have released five full articles, all of which I feel were above average and worthy of your love. As follows:

Dear 2013
Jesus, this one feels like a million years old already, has it really been that long? Anyway, this was the fifth of my on-going end of year summary articles. As painful as ever to write, I do feel they serve a purpose: a fantastic way for anyone to look back on the year previous whilst slipping unimportant details about my own life in amongst the facts in order to con people into caring about me. I hate the imagery, but in general it was another substantial effort, proving I am getting quite good at executing the idea by now.

The 15 Greatest 'Fuck You's In Music
The rough idea for this one had been knocking at my door for about a year or so, hence why it was quite nice to finally let it in. The only unusual take on this piece was that I hardly researched for it at all, rather relying on musical conflicts which already resided in my memory. So I guess it's special in that way, whilst completely forgetting many much superior entries, I'm sure. People enjoyed it regardless.

How To Heal Heartbreak In 20 Steps
And then this one came out swinging like the lost hurt demon it was, crushing the popularity of any article released the whole of last year, snapping at 5,000 hits and still fighting. I feel confident that this will be the undefeated “article of the year” for 2014, with many many people already showering me with thanks, and it's not hard to see why. It's because it's a topic you have to be in a very unique place to write. It's because I put (what was left of my) heart and soul into its execution. It’s because I was there. I felt those thing. And I fixed it.

The 10 Coolest Things The Beatles Ever Did
Whilst in South Africa, a very quick conversation with some friends took place one evening. It was about The Beatles, obviously, and I came to remember what a very special group they were, and not even in the obvious ways. In the ways which most people aren't aware of, little achievements that put them on the map in angles so unique that it only further cemented their position in history. A month or so later, this piece was born, which was a refreshing process rather than the years upon years I usually spend picking away at most my other writings. And with such a popular topic, it's no wonder that it too has racked up thousands of reads, and the pictures were pretty good too.

The 20 Greatest Songs Of All Time
I just launched this one right now, and am quite stoked with it. I eagerly look forward to people telling me how much they hate it in the near future, because opinions are like assholes, and the internet is full of both those things.

As is the nature of my unfair self expectations, I already know every piece which will be written this year except for one. I am not going to give much away, but I will say the next three probably won't be music related, and there may also be a hint somewhere in here:


THE GOAT’S NEST
As predicted in the last news item, I managed to write a short story on the plane ride to South Africa. There was only one problem: it was uber lame. And so I threw those rough notes aside, and rewrote it without even looking at the original draft, which was better, but still not perfect. It needs some serious love and attention, and I am hoping to do that right now, my goal to shit it out within the next month or so. As I may have mentioned, it’s kind of a prequel to The Johnson Line, without actually being that whatsoever.


THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS
Related to the previous entry, is my debut novel. If you look at it one way, I am truly on the last stretch, putting the final touches on the final version, most of the book already neatly formatted and looking all professional like. However, if you look at it another way, there are still a stupid amount of other bits that need to be sorted out, so God knows when it will be released. I’m thinking July? August? September?? But I promise, this is moving forward with bloodthirsty vigour, and I adore every fucking second of it.


ANOTHER THING
I don't know why I love doing this, but I do. Here is confirmation that there is another little thing in the works which is very exciting and newsworthy, and yet I am going to tell you absolutely nothing about it. However, I will give it the code name Fox Tail for now as a reference point, but I honestly don't think it should take crazy long for more info to leak from me. It's a fictional thing. It's a collaborative thing. It's a rad thing.


COMING DOWN HAPPY
In January, the final piece of the The Black EP puzzle was released, namely Oh My God, Amen. It’s my favourite CDH song so far, and a few other people agreed, probably because it was less about perversion and child abuse, more about nintendo and surreal happiness. I am learning about target markets.
Anyways, with this release we came to the end of the second phase of three, and the gap between this and the next will be muuuuuch longer. I need it! I'm dying! Instead, I will be focusing on a brand new set of songs with a whole new approach, and this is already well underway. I’m not going to give too much away, except that they will feature real instruments! Look at what I gone and done:

Expect evidence soon. Like, real soon. Sooner than you think. But while you wait, why not listen to all my songs in a row with this Spotify exclusive compilation, The Grey Lp.


THE FUNPOWDER PLOT
Somehow, The Plot managed to spit out two videos this year already, equalling 2013’s efforts, which is a relief. They also had nothing to with me, which is also a relief. A little something like this:

Putin Wins Olympic Gold
This was Kris’ 22 second baby, attacking Putin’s expenditures on the Olympics whilst ignoring the country’s terrible drug problem. At least he could fund the addict’s habits a bit, right? I’m sure that’s what Kris meant. Simple yet effective, I am a fan.

Shura - Touch
Ammr directed this music video for Shura, and by God, it’s incredible. Incredible. One of the best music videos I’ve seen in years, in fact, and I beam with pride that my boy had so much to with it. Proof is in the pudding, as it’s already racked up to 182,500 views (and counting), more than any other FPP creation to date, getting write ups all over the internets. I think it’s the best thing ”we’ve” ever done, so it deserves every second of the attention.


Shew, I think that’s everything? I truly rushed this motherfucker, because, you know, priorities. Did I mention I am a model now?

It's quite late in the year to be saying stuff like this, but my motto for 2014 is as follows: “No more deadlines, much more lifelines”. Uhm, it needs work, but in summary, it means I will no longer be placing unnecessary pressure on my own creative missions, opting to instead spend more time with people I like and dealing out my time to them. Because I’ve been working my tits off the last few years to very little reward, and I reckon there is more to life than this.

That said, these plans tend to make themselves, and I am bound to have another panic attack any day now. Hope you enjoy it!

Jared


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MMXIV

And here are, yet again at another curtain call, the lights of 2013 dimming and the audience collecting their recycling to start afresh. Now, as tempting as it is for me to sit here and summarise what the year has meant to Juice Nothing and Jared Woods and all the self references between, there is a time and place for everything, and it’s called Dear 2013 (which will be the final article released moments before the 365 finish line). No, instead I will be spending this year's final news words much like I did with last years, by detailing what you should or should not be looking forward to in 2014, as well as anything else you may have missed in recent months. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.


JUICE NOTHING
10 Worst Album Covers of 2013/10 Best Album Covers of 2013
Last year I wrote The Top 20 Album Artworks of 2012 (according to me), and this year I continued the tradition with a slight twisted incarnation; a split article which does exactly as it says on the tin. For as much as it is great to praise those musicians who have spent a little extra bit of pride on their forefronted imagery, it can be even more fun to insult those who completely fucked it up. Which is why I am pretty sure this evolution of the original idea will become a regular fixture from now on until forever.

The Top 50 Albums of 2013
Released at the same time as this news item (complete with an expansion pack because I love nearly killing myself), pretty much my most worked on and (well-deserved) most popular annual blog has arrived. I am more pleased with this one than any other that came before, but I am also sick of talking about it, so just read. You will learn things.


JUICE NOTHING 2014
As per usual, I already have a stupidly long list of blogs I have started and want to kick out the door as soon as possible, and yet as per usual, God only know which ones (if any) will ever see the light of day. Regardless (and for the sake of just writing shit down), here are the ones I am willing to let you know about:

My Brief Brushes With Greatness III
The Greatest Films Ever
Greatest TV Shows Ever
Ode to Studio Ghibli
The Sister Article to that N-word One
Extension to Top 100 Songs Ever
Extension to Top 30 Rock Gawds
My Opinion on Feminism
My Opinion on the Definition of Art

And of course, the year end will include them Best Album Covers one, Top 2014 Albums one, and Dear 2014, just so long as I survive right until the end. I also have an extra personal one brewing for January, but.


JUICE NOTHING v3.0
As something I have already spoken about to death (without actually giving any concrete evidence of its existence), I spent a large portion of 2013 building a brand new Juice Nothing website, from the ground up, all from scratch. I can’t (bare to) imagine it taking any longer than another year, so I am (fairly) confident it will come out during the next 12 months. I really can’t emphasis this enough: I have pulled out every bit of artillery from every bodily pore I could locate, so even if it turns out to be one big mess, it will be a beautiful impressive mess.
And, yes, plans include the replacement for Formspring, don’t you worry.


COMING DOWN HAPPY
A month or so ago, I launched the 7th Coming Down Happy chapter, titled The Dakota Fanning Grape Movie. Without a doubt (and entirely intentionally) it was the filthiest most disgusting piece of art I could shit out, and probably that anyone should legally be able to get away with. Truth be told, I was quite nervous about the whole thing, anticipating loss of friends or perhaps even getting fired from my job, but something far worse happened: nothing at all. Still, there have been one or two people who dubbed it my “best work yet”, and even I figured it was decent enough, so check it out. It is truly THE turning point of the whole tale; where everything falls deadly sour.


COMING DOWN HAPPY 2014
Unfortunately (and despite my very best efforts, believe), one cannot rush good art, which is why the planned four-track Black EP couldn’t quite reach conclusion in 2013. It’s sad, but not the end of the world, it’s just music ffs. So, as a result, the first CDH release of 2014 will be the final song from said group, and I am stoked to report that it is incredibly close to completion. It literally just fell into place so quickly, which is a sign of a good song. And, yes, it is a good song, the risk of repeating myself not lost of me: I think it’s my favourite so far. Expect it late Jan/early Feb.

After which, the whole Coming Down Happy cartoon story will go on an extended break. As much as I know exactly where it is going and am eager to get there, I can’t really describe the painful amount of energy that gets pumped into each one of these videos to very little response. Which is why in 2014, I will be doing the exact opposite, recording songs in a hyper-speed fashion, looking to capture lightning rather than polishing a diamond. I am aiming for at least 9 songs in total to be produced next year, but in my mind I can see up to as much as 18. How could I possibly know such specific numbers? Easy. I’ve already written them all. Almost. Kinda. About halfway, actually.

On a side note, another full LP project is underway, which will be released slowly over many many years, but let’s rather cross that bridge once we find it.


THE GOAT’S NEST
For me, this is the side of my creativity which I am most amped about in 2014. This is owed mostly due to my debut novel This Is Your Brain On Drugs, which will no doubt be published during the year, probably somewhere around the middle. I am still editing away and making some little plot changes, as well as formatting the book itself (which is so much fun!), not to mention a load of other cool things I can’t really talk about just yet, but in many ways, I see this as my main priority.

Besides that awesomeness, I have two other short stories which will most likely be released from my brain vagina next year:

The first will be a sequel-of-sorts to The Johnson Line, which I will be writing on my plane trip to South Africa in February, almost exactly the same way The Johnson Line was written in the first place. This should be a good one, not only because of the concept but also because it’s going to be the first actual short short story I’ve ever written.

The second will be a sequel-of-sorts to The Triangular Theory of Love, which will be a much much bigger project. I started it ages ago (and have mentioned it before, if you were paying attention) but it was fucking terrible, and so I scrapped it. But recently I kind of remembered where the original inspiration came from, and have started to pick it apart again from a slightly different perspective. Then I remembered I had this other little idea for a short story, and figured out a way to merge the two tales together. It’s still in the very very early stages, but it’s snowballing.

Is it too early to mention I have a pretty thick plotline for my second novel? Or that there will be a version of the Coming Down Happy story in this medium? Shew, if this keeps up I may have to make a new website or something...


THE FUNPOWDER PLOT 2014
So as predicted, it happened. Ash left London to go back home to Australia to fight komodo dragons, and Kris left London to pursue his lifelong dream of fucking ladyboys in Thailand. In my mind, this meant the end of FPP, the band had broken up. We had a good run.

And then me and Ammr sat down and had a serious long chat about our potential future. That is to say, I am no longer concerned about the future of Funpowder Plot. No idea what we are going to do (or I have a very good idea and I’m just not telling you), but I honestly feel like the best is yet to come. Everything before was just childsplay. Please remember I said this.


The only other thing worth mentioning is my autobiography. Man, this is going to be awesome, I just need to start it. It does feel a bit stupid, in a way. Why would somebody who is essentially nobody write about a life no one cares for? OH BUT ONLY IF YOU KNEW. Still, I might as well write it, and then when I inevitably become the next Lennon, I’ll publish it immediately to rave reviews and a messiah like result.

Alright people, have a merry xmas and a happy new year. Get your coats on, let’s get ready for a big one.

Enough love to fill the Albert Hall,
Jared


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An Ode To Divorce

I just remembered this story this one time.

In high school (especially near the end), it wasn’t unusual for one of our scheduled lessons to be substituted for some life career inspirational speech type thing. I got the value, I really did. People at our age either had a solid direction of where they wanted to go or were in dire need of one, and if nothing else, it was generally a great distraction from the otherwise dull world of geography or getting our fingernails dirty in ceramic clay.

The particular speaker on this day was hired for some sort of a memory-secret he had developed, explaining how we could unlock our inner genius in ways which would benefit our futures or something else to that effect. I can picture myself now, as I leaned back the best I could on our only relatively comfortable seating area in the main hall. It was a raised plan, so each row of seats were elevated a foot higher than the one in front of them, and no doubt some kids legs were limiting my chance of a decent back rest, but I don’t really remember. What I can assume, however, is that I had very little interest in what was being said and naturally escaped into my happy world where I was king and the sheep were revolting.

“And by the way,” the man announced in the distance. “Don’t blame your parents if they get divorced the moment you leave school, as they were most likely staying together for your sake, waiting for the best opportunity to least affect your studies.”

This line woke me up from my daily vision. It seemed like a strange thing to say, out of place and unrelated to anything this man had said before. Perhaps this was something the speaker was going through right now, and he was talking about it out loud in order to justify his own actions in front of an audience. Some divorce in his personal life granting him the insight to rightfully dub himself an authority on the subject.

Even more peculiar still, my parents had recently sat me down to announce their own termination of marriage, which is probably why the line had echoed so much louder than whatever the fuck else this man had been teaching. Granted, my parents didn’t have the decency to wait for me to finish high school before making the split, but I guess when you’re fed up with a person, you’re fed up with a person. They’d been together for 25 years or something anyway, which is a decent run by today’s standards. Well done, mom and dad.

The abrupt ode to divorce had inconveniently woken me up from my fantasies, and so I looked around to reevaluate my surroundings. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary—some of our overachievers were over listening; the cooler kids looked bored and mumbled to each other; girls and boys passed little folded up notes between themselves—your typical uniformed high school scene. That was, except for Jimmy.

Jimmy was one of my bestest friends, a true mate, I knew him super well. But right now, he looked different. He had scored a fortunate seat a few below me, the ever favourable wall position, where one was allocated the luxury of being right at the end of the seating plan, able to turn sideways and lean their back against the wall. Except he looked anything but comfortable.

His face was distorted, frozen in an almost angry position, wrinkles folding in all the aggressive places. His lips curled tightly into a colourless line and his eyes looked swollen and puffy. The dude seemed like he was in pain, arms crossed in that bad body language type of way, posture all wrong, his whole demeanour suggesting he was about to cry or perhaps punch someone in the teeth.

It was then I put two and two together, and realised Jimmy was feeling what I felt in that very moment. I had been over to his house many many times, and knew both of his parents well. To any outsider, they seemed happy, almost your typical white picket fence two dogs one cat moviesque kinda family. But right here, I could tell this wasn’t the case. Who knew what happened behind closed doors anyway. His parents put on a smiley face when visitors were around, but Jimmy was fighting the same demons I was. The demons of confusion and rejection. The idea that the world you had grown comfortable in and secured yourself to, was about to be gutted and turned inside out.

I felt shameful as I related his pain to my life. How had I been so ignorant as to not pick up on this before? My mate, Jimmy, suffering in front of my own very eyes, experiencing the divorce battle which I thought I fought alone. And in that moment, I felt connected to him on a different level, and decided I needed to confide in and comfort the guy. I needed to go against my masculine training and open up to my buddy, and then perhaps neither of us had to face this struggle alone. That’s what friends are for, after all.

When the bell rang, I waited to catch him alone and then approached with care. His eyes still betrayed some deeper feelings, his expression still hinted at some agony, and so I compassionately placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, man. You alright?” I began.
“Yeah, I’m cool.” he sighed.
“I mean, like, is everything alright though? At home and stuff? Between your mom and dad, are they cool?”
“Huh?” he looked at me curiously. “Yeah, why?”
“I dunno. You just seemed really upset in that talk, is all.”
He laughed.
“Ah no, man. I’m just really stoned. That speech was fucking boring!”

Then we both laughed. I guess it was.



And now, here’s Jared Woods with the news:

JUICE NOTHING

Everything, All Of The Time: The History Of The Universe; The Meaning Of Life; The Future Of The Human Race; And All The Stuff In-Between
It was over a year ago that I was drunk on the tube and had an epiphany that went like this: OMG, I am super smart. The reason being that, over my lifetime, I have thought about a lot of deep stuff and stuff, and developed (what I figure is) a different but complex belief in the world and the Universe and everything else that exists, always. But the shame was that I’d never told anyone my conclusions, and yet I had this perfect blog platform where I could reveal my genius to the world. I quickly took out my notepad and scribbled down some key-notes, before falling asleep and missing my stop. Perhaps not that smart after all.
However, I felt it was a decent enough idea to pursue, except that as each month came and went, the thought of even trying to tackle the right words to reveal my perception on EVERYTHING put me right off, and I’d fall back into more silly music blabber or some other fruitless egotistical garbage. But something happened in my head last month, and I was just like, fukkit, whatever, I’m not doing anything else, let’s just get this one done.
So I did, and while I could never expect anyone to read what is essentially my own Bible, quite a few people did read it in the end, and I got a ton of unexpected positive feedback. Well, until I posted it to Reddit and they tore my anus out like a tube of mince, but hits are hits, so I’ll take what I can get.
The point is, if you have an hour or so to spare, please read it. It’s definitely the cleverestest thing I have ever written by quite a long shot, and maybe one day you’ll join my church, I dunno.

The Best 50 Bands I've Seen Live
Just released, and this is another one I have been planning to write since forever. Originally my plan (around 2008) was to write a blog detailing every single band I’ve ever seen, but as time went on, that feat turned into something impossible, because I see quite a lot of bands. So I decided to exclusively focus on the top 50, and nearly released the thing much earlier on in the year. That was until I realised I was going to Reading Festival last month, and figured it would be best to wait for that just in case some good ones cropped up there. Good thing I did too, as fucking eight bands from that festival passed the audition, so that was nice.
Anyways, I hope you read it, because YOU WILL NEVER HEAR FROM ME AGAIN. rofljk, but something similar:

Some of you may remember (lol) in the May News I told you guys I would be using my Get Out Of Jail Free Card the following month, but this never happened. So let me say this again, this time with feeling: I am using it now. There will be no article released in October. There are countless reasons for this, but none of which revolve around neglecting Juice Nothing whatsoever. A little further than tradition, I am contemplating launching four fucking pieces over November/December, and so make no false assumption that writing will be on a break. I’m speeding up. But it does mean you won’t read anything here for a while, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending whose side you’re on.

JUICE NOTHING v3.0

The new Juice Nothing design is going to take a long time, I make no light of that, and so until there is some actual news on the subject (which will be way into next year), I am going to drop it off of these regular updates all together. However, all you need to know is that it’s looking cool and I am having loads of fun with it, but as far priorities go, it is at the bottom of the foodchain. Life bro, wow.

THE FUNPOWDER PLOT

A Poet's Proposal
Member Freewheelin’ Troubadour has dominated the FPP year so far, and for good reason. Our newest video is something completely different, where a select few of us were let in on a little secret: our boy was going to propose to his lady-friend Sarah. So under the guise of one of his poetry gigs, we set up cameras and filmed the whole thing go down. It was beautifully romantic, the dude has a way with words, and above all else, it was so fucking cool to shoot something and have it out the door within a week and a bit. More of this is what we all want, except no one else wants to get married.

Related: Since before Funpowder Plot, there have been discussions of a very special type of video being shot, all my idea of course. I have actually spoken about it so many times over these news items without giving anything away, but it finally looks like everyone is on board. We even set a date, but due to some weird stuff happening like people having birthdays (selfish!) and me moving house, it simply hasn’t aligned properly yet. But we have never been so close to taking the plunge, I can smell the fear on all of us, and I pray that by the next time I update this news shit, this video will be out and viral. But I guess we can never know how these things pan out.

COMING DOWN HAPPY

Not much to report except that the third song off The Black EP is staring down the finish line, and as it stands (perhaps slightly prematurely), I consider it the best thing I’ve ever done. The music is probably about 90% composed; the lyrics are around 80% written; and the drawings are maybe like 30% done? It ain’t easy, but I am aiming for an end of October release, probably Halloween. I’m real eggs :D

The sad thing about this project is that it looks like I am going to miss my main 2013 goal. I wanted to get The Black EP done by the end of the year, but I have slowly fallen behind with each song through no fault of my own, and now it’s looking fairly impossible. I am sure the last song will see the light of day around January 2014 at latest, and then even radder stuff will happen, but I will confirm all of this at a later stage. Anyways, sorry I guess.

THE GOAT’S NEST/THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS

I have a saying that goes “I always keep my promises because I never make promises” but all of that turned out to be a lie. Last news item, I promised that my debut novella would see an end of year launch. However, I now know that this won’t be happening if I do it the way I want to do it, and I am going to do it the way I want to do it, so there you go. A big factor towards all of this is that I sent the first draft to a bunch people to get some feedback, and I received a lot of constructive yet disheartening opinions in return. Serves me right. Due to this, there will be one final rewrite, and only then can I begin the very difficult process of getting this thing out there in a way I hope everyone thinks is cool. But I swear, if there is one Juice Thing to get excited about next year, this would be it. Even if it’s just me who gets excited. I am excited, actually.


Anyways, class dismissed.
Jared


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