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Showing posts with label Juice Nothing News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juice Nothing News. Show all posts

Wednesday 9 September 2015

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.


Wednesday 25 March 2015

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