The first solo record that I made was done on a whim. If anything, it was more of a challenge to see if I could actually do it. The process was relatively simple. Albeit a costly one. For as long as I've been involved with playing in bands and recording music, the idea to release my own record was always the point of fascination. During the summer of 2011, I found myself in a position where making a record could became a feasible task. I wasted no time in making it happen. But where was I going to start? I gave myself a number of rules for follow. For one, all the songs had to be straight forward and to-the-point. Also, the shorter they were in the length, the better. I didn't want this project to be daunting or outside of my skill set. It had to be accessible and easy to produce. I also gave myself the restriction of only releasing 45's. This would cut down on the number of songs that I would have to record. And third, the ratio of audio to visual had to be unbalanced. Really, at this point I was more interested in how records looked as opposed to how they sounded. Which is kind of a backwards way of thinking. In this case, I was thinking about the package way before I plucked a single note on the guitar.
I had no musical equipment other than my bass which I had acquired back from storage. To keep things even simpler, I utilized my ipad as the main recording device. Not only did this allow a quick, easy, and simple way to recording music, but it was portable and hassle-free to set up. I eventually borrowed a number of instruments to help me craft the songs. I remember during my salad days when I had an entire basement full of drums, amps, and various four track machines to write and record music. Now, it was a simple as plugging an electric guitar into a computer the size of a magazine. What a weird future we live in.
I started off by digging through some of the song ideas that I had laying around in my head. There were a few tunes that I knew off hand, but for the most part, time had erased a lot of what I used to know. I wanted to start from scratch anyway. I demo-ed these new songs and arranged them to how I thought they should be. Once I had that in place, I began layering the tracks on top of one another until I had a cohesive mix. The whole process of writing and recording the songs was really quick. If I were tally up the number of hours, I don't think it would even be close to a weeks worth of work. But that was another approach that I wanted to take. I wanted it to be immediate and fresh without the trappings of really hammering out all the details. If there were mistakes, I would leave them be. Part of charm was leaving the final product slightly defective and covered in blemishes. As soon as the recording was mixed down, I called upon my good buddy Zabby from Minneapolis. He ran a cool garage punk label called Big Action. I knew that it would be something that he would dig. Sure enough, we struck a deal with releasing my first solo record through hi Big Action label. It had crossed my mind to produce it under a "self released" tag, but I wanted people to understand where the record was coming from. Big Action had enough of an appeal to help give my record a little credit. Plus, Zabby knew the kind of audience that I was going after and helped out tremendously in putting my record into their hands.
My favorite aspect of making this record came in the package design. Like I said before, I wanted the visual side of the record to come off strong. I imagined someone in a record store flipping though the 7-inch bin. As soon as they came across mine, I wanted them to pick it up out of sheer curiosity. Even if the music wouldn't appeal to their tastes, I would at least want to head them off in the cover. There are an endless amount of records that I bought simply based on the packaging alone. Some of it good. Some of it not. But it was the art of the package that spoke to me. That's something that I wanted to delve deeper into. The original idea was to make a sort of collage for the front using photo booth pictures. This gradually morphed over time as I continued to play around with the layout. Interesting tidbit of info: the images on the front cover were taken with an ipad as well. There is a great photo booth app that snaps off as many pictures as you want automatically. I choose a closed in area (my closet) as the location. The main thing that I noticed was that all the pictures had a slight tannish tint to them. I believe it was the lighting. Actually, this was a benefit considering that the title of the record was called "Cola Kids hanging Out in the Bubble Dome". The tannish tint had a certain "soft-drink-soda" tone to it which I think worked really well. The whole thing reminded me of cream soda. I took this further by eye-dropping out some of the background color and applying it to the rest of the design.
My initial concept for the type design was to follow a sort of childlike 60's poster feel. I was looking at fonts which found themselves littered all over surf records of the 50's and 60's. I liked how a lot of them looked but since the layout was veering on something a bit more sophisticated, I opted for the type to follow a similar feel. I wanted it kitchy and retro, yet at the same time sleek and modern. In this regard, I chose to build out all the type in slab serif fonts with Rosewood Standard and Aldine being the most prominent. Rosewood garnered a strong presence in recent advertising, but I feel that it's run its course. I don't see it as often as I used to. Aldine is a great new typeface from the folks at Lost Type Co-Op. They've been doing a bang up job making some really rad fonts available to the public. I wanted the type to represent something that was playful yet refined. I felt the Aldine font fell on the side of playful while the Rosewood standard became the conservative footing. What ended up happening was a sort of 'psychedelic western' motif. I kept the tan/cream monochromatic theme running strong in the type. However, I decided to press the record in a coke bottle clear color. Not only was this adhering to the "soda-cola" theme, but the greenish tint complimented the tans and browns well. It was a nice contrast and something that would hopefully surprise the listener once they pulled the record out of the sleeve. I chose to keep the color of the label as close to the coke bottle clear color as much as possible. I didn't want TOO much clashing in the color scheme.
The record was released on January 3rd of 2012. As a bonus, each record came with an "owners manual" insert. This consisted of a tri-fold brochure which acted as not only an instruction manual but a cut-out/mailable warranty card as well. The whole thing had a tongue and cheek vibe about it. It was more in good fun than an actual education manual. In addition to crafting a powerful package, I wanted the record to stand on it's own as a unique specimen. The idea was to produce something that wouldn't normally be perceived as a standard rock n' roll record. Anyone can write, record, and make a record. I wanted mine to take a few weird turns and hopefully communicate something that hasn't been said before. Even if it doesn't completely make a lot of sense. I would hope that in the end, it would be seen as something entertaining. It's certainly a strange oddity from the world of rock n' roll. One of the reviews nails it on the head and I don't think I could have said it better. "…….That about sums this up. A weird message in a bottle. Finding someone's stack of personal photos in the gutter…….. a lot of specifics are missing but theres a big story here." --Jason Dean, 7inches Blog
