Secret Radio Tree House: Cover Art

I can’t believe it’s gotten to be Saturday morning and I haven’t even thought about what to write for the blog yet.

…

Nothing!

Okay, lets just do an update and then I will talk about cover art.

I haven’t heard anything about the status of the NPR Monitormix Bass Solo Contest. I don’t even know when they will post the finalists. When I know of something I’ll surely say so here in the blog.

The plan of late has been to do some quick and dirty videos of my solo performances song by song for my own evalueation. Because I’m also some sort of exhibitionist masochist show-and-tell addict, I seem to think it’s a fine idea to post these primal efforts for you to see. If this were not such a small and intimate audience I might think twice.

Alas, the next two songs I’ve been rehearsing for this purpose aren’t even ready to embarrass myself with here yet. I hope to have at least one posted in next week's blog.

I’ve found rehearsing with an actual PA system has been very helpful. Audra said my performance instantly improved once I started singing into a microphone and having a monitor blasting back up at me. However, it’s been hard to get much done only rehearsing at my in-laws’ pool house only two days a week. They live in Highland where I have my studio and my PA system set up. It’s far enough away that it's only practical to spend a couple days at a time. This coming ‘weekend’ (Tuesday-Wednesday for me) we are staying here in town to give ourselves a rest from the constant treks to the desert. Also it’s getting hotter out there as summer and the trip to the Rochester, NY area in August is headed towards me like a freight train.

I think it's finally time. I need to break down rent some rehearsal space here in LA. I’m not sure where to begin. I can’t afford my own space so I’ll have to find another band to share one with. This brings with it all sorts of problems but there is no affordable alternative at present. For this coming week I will rent a space by the hour. That will be easy but a little expensive. There are loads of rehearsal studios in LA that come with bass and guitar amps, a drum kit and a PA system though all I need is really the PA system. Some can be dingy and smelly and there always seems to be a death metal band quaking the walls in the next room. It will have to do for this week.

The trip East will include my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary most importantly, but it will also give me an opportunity to perform once or twice in the area and there’s much to be done to have my act up to snuff.

“Up to snuff”, where the heck did that expression come from anyway?

I haven't contacted any Rochester venues yet till I have some more videos under my belt to show them. I have a couple good ideas of where I can play.

Not only to I need to be ready to perform as a solo act—something I’ve never really done before—I also want to have at least a demo version of my CD available for those who would like a copy. I’ll probably charge five bucks for two copies—one for you and one to give to a friend.

It will be a great opportunity to get feedback on the songs and the mixes as well as to raise some capital to have a final version of the CD professionally mastered and manufactured. It will also be a good incentive to get things moving. Most of the tracks are recorded. I have to record all my final vocals and bring in some women to track some backing vocals including my friend Danielle who’s been waiting patiently since January when she agreed to come in and sing. Then there's mixing and mastering. I'm not going to get too fancy on those this time around.

Cover art is something else I will have to finish up. I have spent time on graphics since the beginning. I fancy myself an amateur graphic artist and will be doing my own album art. Not only does this save money but I can take my time to get exactly what I want. I also find it to be a lot of fun.

Here are some concepts I have played with so far. Please give me some honest feedback.

The rental on that astronaut suit was a killer

This concept started out as a picture of the foundation dig for an apartment building being built on our street. When I removed the color from the dirt it looked like moon dust. I took off from there. Unfortunately the end result doesn’t seem very eye catching and not very hip.

Hipness is a danger zone. I’m not hip; I know that. I’m not even the kind of hip some can achieve by being decidedly un-hip. I certainly don’t want to appear to be the kind of pathetic wanna-be one can become from trying.

Perhaps there’s something to be said for having someone else do your artwork. You are, in effect, hiring someone hip to be hip for you.

See also: interior designers, professional shoppers, image consultants and campaign managers.

Back in my world, it’s still just dorky old me and my attempts to save a buck while not looking like I’m trying too hard. The moon thing to me not only looks unhip, it looks like I’m trying to be.

One cover concept evolved from my wife’s boredom. I was leaving to play a gig and wouldn’t be back till the wee hours of the morning. Audra said she was going to be painfully bored so I gave her a task: “Do something you’ve never done before,” I said.

When I returned she, as always, amazed me. I was thinking she could visit a website she’d never been to or make up a new word. Instead, she put on her headphones, cranked up the tunes, took a dry erase marker and drew a life-sized self portrait of herself drawing a life-sized self portrait on the mirror of the studio.

We left that portrait on the mirror with the intent of photographing it before we destroyed it. It stayed there for over a year while I pondered, put-off and procrastinated its preservation.

It was not a simple task. Since the drawing was on a mirror it had to be shot at an angle so that the camera could not be seen. It should be a low angle too so that the featureless ceiling would provide a flat background the art could be plainly seen against. The low angle, however, would distort the perspective of the drawing though and the camera would be too close to get the whole drawing in one frame.

We were expecting guests that would be staying in that room. The mirror had to be cleaned off. What to do?

Finally, I got an idea. Using a different colored dry-erase marker, I took a yard stick and drew straight lines on either side of the drawing and marked them with ticks at regular distances. This would give the drawing a reference of to a regular grid that I could use to return it to its proper persective. I photographed the mirror from a low angle at three or four different heights to capture different parts of the drawing. Then I combined the images in Photoshop using the lines and ticks to bend and stretch the different photos back to a flat perspective and line up together as one unbroken image.

Here are all the photos composited and straightened using the reference
of the red lines and ticks. You can see the real artist/model in the background

I meticulously traced the image in Photoshop till the lines Audra had drawn were free of any background.

Up till this point I was only interested in preserving her artwork, but after looking at it for that long, I decided it might make really cool artwork for the album.

I came up with these two concepts.

Audra never finished drawing her feet on the mirror so
I drew her coming out of a flower pot in Photoshop.
Not so much for an edgy artistic touch, I just can't draw feet.

This reminded me to much of bad ‘80s album art. It also begs the question: What exactly is she drawing?

I answered that question with a portrait of myself drawn from tracing over a photo on a simple white background.

Better, but it still didn’t exactly blow my skirt up. At the time I was thinking of naming the album “None Taken”. Later I changed the name to "82 Feet of Water" after the first cut; a song about a ship wreck

Here is an idea in keeping with that theme.

I'm not sure what I think of this. At first I think it's kinda cool but the album title has a bad horror movie quality I hadn't intended and it could be thought of as a Nirvana rip-off.

I love to take pictures in low light, leaving the shutter open for several seconds or longer to get an exposure. The next two examples started out with me doing just that.

During a full Moon in my in-laws’ back yard I took this picture that I turned in a potential cover.

My good friend and producer Juan, pointed out to me that it resembles a Johnny Cash album cover.

All the better!

Conceptually, this is my favorite. I think for a real cover will have to be re-shot with a better camera and lens and it might be more appropriate for the album title “82 Feet of Water” if there was ocean in the background.

The other cover was done in the same back yard with a fifteen second exposure and a flashlight with a red LED. I wrote the “JTJ” with the flashlight while the open lens captured its motion (it took many tries). The smaller parts of my name I faked in Photoshop which I think will have to be done a little better ultimately. At this point this concept will likely be the cover of the demo I will be selling at gigs.