Throwing Glory Almost Here!

 

Who Have You Been With is the first track on our new album, Throwing Glory.  The physical CD is now in production and should be delivered to my doorstep within the next two weeks.  We finished the recording back in February so it is exciting to be at this stage of the process.  There is no doubt that down loads has taken over much of the way music is shared these days, but there remains something wonderful about the physical artifact that you can hold in your hand. 

I had a lot of fun developing the package design with my friends at GreyMatter Group. I did several different design mock ups that I shared with Rick Devon at GM and also with my band mates.  We took what we felt was the best of a couple different designs and put them together to make what we have as the final package. Everything I do is all old school drawing, collage and woodblock cutting.  At Greymatter they are experts with what the computer can do to an image so it becomes a wonderful marriage of two different approaches.

I love both visual art and making music.  I am always looking for ways that they can overlap in my life. Making a cool CD package is one of those places.

Working On Throwing Glory

 

This is where we are in the design of the new Wealthy Orphans album titled Throwing Glory.  These are woodblock images that are first developed with pencil sketches and then transferred to pieces of cherry wood which are then carved into the surface of the wood.  The next step is printing on to paper which is done by rolling ink on to the surface of the carved wood block, carefully laying a trimmed piece of paper down and then burnishing the paper that is laying on the inked block being careful not to allow the paper to shift in the process which would ruin the print.  The paper is removed and then allowed to dry.  This process of reproducing images is thousands of years old and done in the same way it has always been done.

Taking the time to make an elaborate hand crafted CD package design in an era of free music down loads becomes a potent statement and labor of love.  We want to send out something beautiful and valuable out into the world and this is what we are in the process of doing to our best ability.

Live Music Makes Us More Alive

Photo of The Wealthy Orphans by Hunter Richards

A live performance is something that is alive in the moment.  When the show comes to an end and the instruments are all unplugged and put back in their cases and the cords wound up it is over and everyone goes home. Maybe some one downloads some songs when they get home and later feel some how disappointed that the magic of the night before some how didn't make it into their iPod.

As a visual artist I have become accustomed to a certain physicality in the production of drawings and paintings. An artist working in the studio has the material accumulation of work for an art show somewhere and when you have been at it long enough the work spreads out around the world to hang in peoples homes and work places.  These people are now living with the physical out put of your creative journey in a very tangible way.  It is not the same with music for by its nature music is just more ethereal.

We have CDs and now again we can buy vinyl records. We have stickers and posters and digital photos of the show to post to flickr and yet the transitory experience of that show is as fleeting as dying persons last breath and always will be. Perhaps we can say that we are sometimes changed by the experience of live music. It is possible that not only can our soul be rivived like a cell phone gets recharged, but sometimes we are internally altered by the experience. It is as if the frame of our soul has been straightened out and our front suspension realigned. A good live performance is just that, alive, and to be present to it gives us the opportunity to become more alive ourselves again and again.