Found the ol' Wiki site

One semi-bored night about a year and a half ago, I started a Stinging Rain Wiki, and I just found it again today. Fun stuff. There is a great page on this guy. I also threw the images up on the site for fun.

At some point I'll put some more scans up, if I ever get around to scanning all the great pics that are... well, they're somewhere, let's put it that way.

The Dream

Nate sent me several copies of the Dream. I received the parcel last night. Thanks, Nate.

The first thing I noticed about the song "The Dream" was that the strong influence of Talk Talk/Spirit of Eden can be felt not just in the orchestration but in the vocals as well. Nate's note trail echoes reminded me of Mark Hollis's more than ever.

The effect is a little bit accentuated by the fact that the tune is sandwiched between two faster numbers, Like a Child and On Eagle's Wings.

Had fun with the scan. I pretty much re-manufactured it, stripping out the picture then re-adding the border and the lettering.


Didn't mess with the brightness at all.

But back to the music. I've been listening to all the stuff which we had on all the time back at The Plant. I remember picking up a cassette of Spirit of Eden in 1989 -- out of the bargain bin -- and having it just blow me away. Yeah, it went to the bargain bin within a year of it's 1988 release. Needless to say that cassette got a lot of play.

I was reading on the web the other day where Hollis points out that "I believe in you" was a kind of anti-heroin song, and that he never shot up himself, just saw what it did to others. Kind of cool; a lot of people back in the day said they were junkies -- at least that clears up the record.

Still no Dream

Nate just visited the blog to check it out. He pointed out some other bands we played with, like Live. I had totally forgotten them! I don't think they got too chummy with us, to put it mildly, but hey -- at least they didn't make us carry their instruments! I don't remember any of their songs, however I'm sure if they stumbled onto this site they'd think "Stinging who?"

I searched far and wide and still have not located a copy of The Dream. I may actually have to get a band mate to send me a CD. However during my search I did manage to locate my copy of Happy Hour by Shonen Knife. So I'm happy chillin' to that currently. Konnichiwa, baby.

Artwork: I'm on a roll, call me "Mr. Scanner"

Got the Shadows cover artwork down.



This is a JPEG of the million-pixel TIFF format that CD Baby likes. Once again, I did very little tweaking. I added darkening in the scanning process and upped the contrast. I also trimmed the top and bottom very slightly and moved the top lettering downward a tad.

This is such a cool photo, taken by Stephanie Gaydos. It was a double-exposure, then she used a special process to get the ultra grainy look.She really did some great photography for us. I googled her name and turned up a studio in San Diego that might be hers. I'm planning on calling to see if it's her place.

Another funny thing about the photo shoot was that the field we were in was replete with burr-laden weeds, so naturally Duane and Jon were throwing the sticky seed-pods at each other, the object being to get them to stick to the other's clothes. They were both laughing in the exposure where they are facing each other. As I recall, everyone had been tossing them at some point.

Shadows of Reality & The Dream

I'm laughing at myself a little right now because it turns out that I don't possess — or cannot find — a copy of "The Dream". I do have a copy of Shadows still in shrink-wrap. As a recording, it is the least desirable to us, probably because it's our first and can find many faults with it. I will probably submit all the songs from both Shadows and Dream to be available electronically once everything is set with FoS.

Maybe even the live stuff from the 4-song cassette-only release. (Bet y'all forgot about that one....)

Submitted to CD Baby

I got everything done today for CD Baby digital distribution. I was pleased to find an entire list of our tunes at BMI's site. Perusing that information help me feel confident that I was entering the correct publishing info.

I messed around a little bit with the album cover design. I really just had a scan from my Epson CX6000 to work with, and the background was a little too grey, the design too bright. So I toned down the brightness in the preview function, then I turned up the contrast slightly as well as the saturation. Here's a JPG of the resulting image:



I had been thinking of re-doing the text, but I was worried that it would look too fake. I did eliminate a bunch of little dust-like specks scattered throughout the black. Otherwise I managed to preserve the look and feel of the cover, even though the effect may be a little dull by today's artwork standards. We'll see what the page looks like on CD Baby when it's all loaded.

Unofficial Introduction

Well, we needed somewhere on the web to call home. This is mainly because I've finally decided to take some time out from my post-band existence to get our music electronically distributed. Soon we'll be available on iTunes, Napster, etc.

I'm going to try also to get some photos in here. I believe I have one that my 2 year old hasn't torn up which I could scan. If not, I'm sure Brett has one hidden somewhere in his beard.