At long last, we have sent off the CD master and artwork for production! I had a panic attack yesterday when I realized that I did not have color separations for the disc artwork, but then Ryan remembered that his old pal from Mexico, Roberto, was not only proficient in such matters – being a graphic designer – but recently moved nearby. Lucky for us, Roberto was more than willing to drop by and help us get all our unruly files into order. Not only did he create the color separations, but he cleaned up the Chillcuts logo and gave me a pretty thorough crash course in Photoshop pre-press techniques. In turn, I loaded him up with CDs, postcards, photos, and posters, plus we shared a tasty bottle of Rose and some of my home cooking. Always best to mix pleasure with business! It looks like he’ll also be helping us to get together some much needed business cards and new band glossies. It’s so good to have a friend connected to the print business! What a life saver! Muchas gracias, Roberto!

Just thought I’d address the fact that we’re lagging on getting out the new podcast… There’s a few reasons for this. One, I am totally wrapped up in designing the album art, which always takes longer than I think it will because I am such a perfectionist. Two, we’ve had no less than 3 weddings to attend in the last 2 months. Three, it is too fricken hot to go into the studio right now. We’re in the midst of a record high heatwave for this area, and there is no airflow in the studio, so once those monitors and computers come on, it heats up real fast! Maybe I’ll break down and try recording something using my Griffin iTalk peripheral, just to get through this little phase, or maybe I’ll send out this Lovespirals/LSD Chillcuts feature I put together about 2 weeks ago but haven’t had time to convert and upload to Chillcuts yet. I dunno yet. Anyone have a preference?

I’ve always hated working in Quark and view it merely as a necessary evil when going to print. I have been known to throw a cat across the room in frustration when working on a project… I’ve been trying to translate my CD design from Photoshop to Quark and was getting really frustrated yesterday working up the disc art. Anyway to make a long story short, a cool old friend of ours was nice enough to let me check out Adobe’s InDesign and WOW! I love that program! Why have I not used it before? I worked up the disc art in no time and feel much more confident about it than I did my Quark document. The learning curve was really quick and the whole experience was much more intuitive. Hooray for Adobe!

Been meaning to give an update. That very same day I prayed a muse would visit me for the Free & Easy artwork, well, I guess she heard, because I had a breakthrough. Got the cover figured out and Ryan loved it. Also came up with the inside 2 panel concept. I’m just not sure about the back cover now… Sometimes I wish I weren’t such a perfectionist. I think I could get a lot more done if I weren’t so picky.

We’ve pretty much got the master disc together for the new album, but now we’re stuck on the artwork. That was kinda the case with Windblown Kiss, as I recall… Back then, we flew out to San Fran for a whirlwind photography session with Susan Jennings, but this year she has been too busy to hook up, so we’re trying to go it alone. We’ve been crazy mad busy, too, honestly. Even with the last album, I put together the cover only to have Projekt reject (or should I say rejekt) it and had to start over. I was lucky to find a few nature shots alongside the band photos that were pretty cool.

This time around, I think Ryan would like to try something different from his past albums. You know, everything up to now has been an indistinct fuzzy image made up more of color than form, in the tradition of early 4AD and Projekt. Now that we’re on our own, I think we want something more representative of us. I’ve been tossing around various ideas for the cover, but I’m not sure anything has quite stuck yet. Plus it’s been so fricken hot that I just don’t feel creative. Especially not sitting here at my computer in this bright hot room. Yuck. I just pray that some muse appears and rescues me!