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Was that arm chopping thing a reference to the Once in a Lifetime video by Talking Heads?

Did you know that you can start the 108 in classic mode? Hold the swing-waltz button when pressing the power button!! Mine will arrive tomorrow, so have to check it but already read it in the manual!!

This is really great, so good to see some of what you do to get things working. Really love the new song too.

Nice to see my Ghost (Acoustic Demo) drawing in its frame!

I really wanted to say that the OCD box wasn't straight, but it was the one next to it that wasn't.... The new song sounds great... I love the colour of the wall... Audiovisual stuff is a nightmare even for us techies and is guaranteed to cock-up on the day... And finally, we all love you and your music Laura, so it wouldn't matter to us if you got flustered or things didn't work first time!

Is that a touch of flange I am hearing? Nice work. New follower😊

Thanks so much for this - really interesting and educational! That's a nice neat pedal board ... I went a bit mad with mine and then pared it back for rehearsals with Anna the drummer - just acoustic guitar and vocals so we were not having to waste time while I fiddled around with two synth pedals, a dual overdrive/distortion and an octave pedal! The Strymon sounds perfect for beefing things up without using an amp.

Hi - Ian from TemperToo here - I am 60 this year and definitely working harder than ever to build a fan base and community around both TemperToo’s and my own solo musical noises :) Never too late - Thank you SO much for your inspiring and really helpful videos. I only found your channel today. It feels like a homecoming experience - A fellow musical hooman, being open and honest about the struggles and how you deal with them. Brilliant!! Thank you! 😎🎸

The melody on "Seasons" 👍👍

Thanks for taking us backstage - LOVE that new track! 👏👏 Good luck starting on the recording for the album tomorrow! ✊

Comfy slippers.

The good old Sony ax33/53. 🙂

Love the fact you have your own 'curfew' and then do an encore of black car later 😁

Wishing you not too hot, not too cold and weather just so for your album recording sessions 🤞 Does it ever get too hot...or too cold, that you have to stop? At least if it's cold you can wrap up warm and have a hot water bottle. Not much fun trying to play guitar with frozen fingers though. Hope all goes well anyways. 😊

Always a great watch 👏

Get your FREE / pay what you can copy of my live album “Insect Applause” (the name will make sense when you listen!) here: ➡️ penfriendrocks.bandcamp.com/album/insect-applause-online-gig-july-2024 ** only available til midnight on Monday 15th July **

Laura has a Camcorder ❤❤❤❤

I remember Lennon and McCartney saying if they wrote a song and couldnt remember it the next day then it must have been 'bollocks', but that wasnt advice to anyone, that was just their method of doing things... so I agree with you

Loving the originality...... 🌈I'm a fan

While i would love to own one, I'm in a bad financial state and 800 $ is too much. I'll enjoy watching you play. I'll rather buy a yamaha mini for this price which comes with a few finctionalities.

The lyrics to the new song are truly beautiful. I hope to curl up with the one I love on a rainy day (the sunny & wintery ones are cool, too) and just listen. ❤ And thanks for the heads up about skipping. I did actually just wait for it to come back in for a couple of minutes, but I finally read the section notes.😊

Loved the opener so much. I feel like I needed that today to get hyped! 🔥 🔥 🔥 Hate that I missed this live - family visiting for a holiday.

I find when I'm not stressed stuff just happens. Try doing something in the studio once. To this day that song isn't finished. It will happen when I'm not thinking about it. Writing riffs on the other hand I can knock out in about 10 minutes

I was late for the live stream i couldn't get on via the link Nice to be able to catch up again now

Beautiful live music! Well done. The guitar was maybe a tick too quiet, but otherwise I like your energy 🫶🏻

Missed you thx to stupid tube not sending notification great show dig seasons you should leave "oh bollocks" in the lyrics LoL 🤣

Marvellous, gremlins and all😅 Sorry I missed the live stream due to some 🤬 hey ho... Loving the songs though and there was most definitely applause to be heard 👏👏 I know what you mean about new artist back catalogue overwhelm 😂 I shall order some stuff soon. Hopefully you still have some Obey Robots T shirts too 🤔😁 All the best for your album recording sessions. Hopefully this gig has banished all of the tech gremlins now and you hit that deadline with time to spare. I look forward to hearing the full tracks,.oh and love songs, well it depends. To some it may be sappy, to me it was 😭😭😭, but then I was widowed 11 and a half years ago, so sad summer song, yup...it was lovely though and made me think of the good times. Thanks Laura 😊

Gremlins visited this show SO here are some timestamps to help you skip past ;) 00:00 Hello there! 01:24 I'll Start A Fire 04:24 Not my new song - new album news! 08:02 Seventeen 12:50 Dispensable Body 17:28 Seasons - new song alert! 26:03 Chat gremlins - definitely skip this bit! 29:34 Chat fun! 40:42 Silent guitar gremlins - skip skip skip! 48:12 Seashaken 54:12 I FIXED THE GREMLINS!!! Hell Together 59:30 The Only Way Out Is Through

That is a bloody lovely guitar. Enjoyed this. Nice one x

I just ordered mine! Can't wait! I have Q-Chord, but I often wished for the new sus4 and add9 chords.

Very cool. Similar to the writing 1000 words a day, I used to set myself the task of writing and recording a demo track every month. Did that for a few years and some of those tracks ended up with the band - and on some of our records. A lot didn't, and right nowI'm going back through a lot of them to see what's wrong, if anything can be changed to improve them and make them work. A lot of the time it's structure (too long, slow buildups when not really required, etc.), sometimes it's the vocal melody not quite right, some lyrics that don't quite work. And I'm working on fixing that so they can get to the band, and can get onto future releases of ours.

The quintessential British word which encapsulatesthe entire sentiment towards the advice: Bollocks. No other word would suffice!

nice video! have you been able to figure out how to record the drum midi?

You are an inspiration Laura and that’s the truth

Just bought one on REVERB, hope I can play it as good as you 😁😄

Hi Laura. I spent ten years adding ideas to my first book. Similar problem in that I would have bursts of creativity then distracted by life. Genuinely thought I would never publish. Similar to your advice I stopped listening to other people's advice or searching for ideas in other people's creativity. Decided on a simple plan. Trust myself, write an hour daily ( Which often turned to lots of hours). Tasked myself with finishing a section or putting an idea on paper. The main thing that helped me was working on one document, however bare it started rather than lots of individual chapters. That seemed to galvanise me to complete it. I have completed 5 books now and am working on the 6th, so..........Not sure if that is helpful as you seem to have some great ideas yourself. Take care and looking forward to your new album. Kindest regards. Darren

As I’ve already mentioned, I’m a dreadful starter but an excellent finisher. If someone gives me a framework to work with that can help me start. Because I have an expectation to do everything I do to 100%, I think this hinders me starting. But once I start, I will often smash it. Often my wife will give me a piece of her work to edit & sense check. This is a strength of mine. But give me a job list & I freeze… But give me an idea, then I may just fly with it 😊

Timely information for me Laura as I have set myself 2 weeks to finish a song we've been working on for months!

Well, where did that best part of a day get to...got side tracked by life, re-installing a mass of music software which had gone wayward and making a jelly for my pud 😊.... Some very interesting thoughts from yourself and others on here that I may have to pinch and try out 😁...making list of things that need working on rather than just noodling, very often without recording any ideas 🙄 Setting a goal or release date....your working backwards 😊 Reducing phone use, taking breaks and getting outside. I do have a problem with getting bored working on my own music. Something that I thought at first was the best thing that I've ever come up with can turn into a whole load of meh quite quickly, so maybe forcing myself to keep at it until I make some progress may not be best for me. Maybe work in smaller chunks 🤔... Anyways, your video has actually given me a kick up the ar5e! It has reminded me that even though I haven't been anywhere near as productive as you, umm, two albums of instrumental electronic whatever in 20 years, and occasionally an odd track here or there. I did actually finish some stuff and put it out there, so I can do it again! Having a reason or someone to write some music for seems to help me finish things. Though ask me how I came up with some of the tracks I've finished, especially ones that I like the best, I haven't got a 🤬 clue....plucked from the ether maybe, who knows. Perhaps I need to say, yeah, I need someone to write for so why not for myself! 🙄 So here's a list to be getting on with.... 1. Put your phone down.....perhaps I should put that last or I'll never finish this comment 😂 2. Set a release date for my next release 3. Don't over do it. Make sure to take breaks 4. Don't feel guilty about taking a break 5. Stop playing the procastinettes and over thinking things 6. Drink more tea ....well that's a start. Thank you Laura and everyone else with useful ideas. Time to put my phone down, put the kettle on and make some tunes....bye for now 😁 P. S. I loved your "this is my face. It holds my brains in" 😂

I started a "solo EP" in 2003 . . . . . many many part written/demo'd songs and only one demo fully recorded so far, and I don't see that the snog demo'd will every go any further . . . . .

My Vitriol. Now that was an album. Shame they didn’t last beyond that first record.

I loved minidisc

Well lyrics are one thing the music however may take up to 1-3yrs to get right as it's rather complex like the songs itself I pushed myself for song 30/31 but had to re-write large sections of the lyrics and will probably change add re-write on 31 music for songs are way off from even being started

Good luck finishing up the writing process! 😁🙏👊 I always find the *finishing* a track to be 1,000 times harder than the starting. 😅 I often struggle with arrangement and trying to keep things interesting, while obsessing with trying to squeeze in more ear candy, but not overdo it. 🤭

The use of artificial (yet crucially manageable) deadlines has been really helpful for me in the past. A little story to elaborate: 8 years ago, before I started getting serious about this artist project, I was getting married and wanted to write a song for my wife to play on the day. I woke up one morning in February 2016 with a chord in my head and knew that it was the basis of this song. The wedding was in early April that year, so I had about 6 or 7 weeks to write the song from start to finish. Normally, whenever I’d write a song in the past, I’d get a little way in and I’d quickly say “Nah, that’s sh*t. You can come up with something better than that”. Rinse, repeat. However, with a less than two months until the wedding, I had something to help me push back and say “Tough sh*t! You’ve got to work with what you’ve got!”. I finished the song, my wife loved it, the wedding guests loved it, and I still play it to this day. I also went through a period of writing what I called “Six Day Songs” based around how Matt Stone & Trey Parker wrote for South Park. Early in my solo songwriting “career”, I’d attend an open mic night on a Thursday, so I’d start writing a brand new song on the Friday before to play for the open mic. I won’t lie: some of these songs were sh*t and have never been played since, but some I still play now (with a few tweaks here and there to improve on them - I’ve learned a lot more about songwriting economics since then). Other than that, all the stuff you’ve mentioned about exercise, getting outside and genuinely looking after yourself are all brilliant ways of giving your brain the rest and room to be creative. It sounds to me like you’re setting yourself up to succeed and that you’re going to smash it out of the park! (Re-wrote this last sentence about 5 times as I didn’t want it to sound patronising, only supportive).

Ah, so really big projects have to be, for me, to tackle one little manageable bit at a time. Write down what needs to be done to finish the (e.g) album and list what tasks are involved. Tick them off one day at a time 😊

For me, everything has its own soundtrack in my mind, and most tasks have a purpose or a finite end. I just figure if it's something I don't love, it can't last forever, and when it's something I like, I'd better enjoy it while it lasts. Also, everything's an adventure for me. In case there are any other corny analogy people out there: When I'm trying to find the gold at the end of the rainbow, I remember that I can enjoy seeing the rainbow, too - and sometimes the rain preceding it, and if I don't, it won't be there forever. I read about your 1000 words/day writing in the Penfriend email, and that's awesome! I like that you can/did also take a break and restart the process.

Bye bye Future Consumer, I guess. Shame, I like that one. As for your question about finishing projects, I'm the absolute worst person to ask about that. Unless someone tells me there's a deadline, I can procrastinate forever.

Get your free 12-track taster album of dreamy indie rock songs + bonus free gift here penfriend.rocks/hello

I’m a list person. Very satisfying to cross things off. I’ve got 3 weeks 2 & a half days left until the summer holidays start and I have quite the list to get through. Then there will be one for what I need to do before the new academic year starts, but that’s not going to be a long one as it’s my holiday and time for a much needed recharge!!!