Sunday, June 27, 2010

Grateful…

We have moved on to the second phase of CD creation. The music part is easy, labor intensive and time consuming for sure, but we are musicians. It is what we do. CD production, on the other hand, different beast. The process moves from auditory to visual, and that is just not my strength. It is these moments that I realize how truly fortunate I am to have an amazing supporting cast, and they are all more than willing to help us.

Yesterday I contacted Scott Church to see if we could use one of his photos for the cover. In true SM fashion I reached out via Twitter. Here is his response:



To put this into context, Scott is famous. Dude travels all over the word conducting Photography Workshops, his art is hung in amazing galleries, he has 5 or 6 books to his credit, and photography is how he makes a living. He could have easily said no or charged me an exorbitant fee to use an image or lifted a fine art nose and not even responded, but this is the same Scott that was in the Gulf with me onboard the U.S.S. Tarawa, the same Scott that took me to my first coffeehouse and was there to support me the first time I did a poetry reading, the same Scott that gave me my first Kerouac.

But it doesn’t stop there…Corey Woodruff, former bandmate of mine and up-and-coming photographer. When we needed band photos, Corey stepped in, planned the shoot, and captured some amazing moments.


We certainly cannot forget Stephanie Tolle. Not only did she create our first logo and all of the images for our tour posters, she has also taken the best videos of the band and shot the coolest live images of us:


You’d think I would be done at this point, but NO! Enright’s girlfriend, Amanda is constantly helping us create fun and fresh handbills.



And it would be impossible to forget Nathan Hutchison who did the layout and design for my last 4 CDs.


Moments like these make me realize how truly fortunate I am.

Although I am not skilled in the visual arts, I am hopeful I can still make you see things, enjoy:

waking with manufactured images
creating a water ballet in grey matter

merging ancient images with modern stills
forming the movie that greeted cognition with smiles

embracing the sensation of you in my chest
breathing in unison as it was meant to be

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