CD Baby Gets a Facelift

CD Baby has a new and improved look; I like it. There are now "Artist Pages", so all our stuff is available here, whereas before it was on the seller-centric all page which is still available.


The CD Baby page is a little more up-to-date, but it has retained its homey cuteness, sporting a bubbly seventies font on the lowercase logo and a scribbled arrow pointing to the login link. If anything, the site has been simplified for customers and artists alike. To me, it's great to see the kind of concern for ease of use, up-keep and style which all serve to maintain viability for a company I've come to greatly admire and appreciate.

Merry Christmas! Some news....

I meant to post this earlier, but I discounted the prices on all three MP3-CDs for the holiday season. So if you need a last minute gift, consider some Stinging Rain MP3s. (Of course, you can get us on iTunes also, but not discounted....)

We continue to keep friend of the band, David Bailey, in our prayers. David survived brain cancer surgery again, and is recovering. Keep up with the news about David here.

Lastly, I signed the band up for a page on amaze.fm & put a few tunes out there, so maybe we'll get some new fans.

Merry Christmas & Happy 2009 from the band!

Full Catalog on iTunes

I posted them "backwards".

First Face of Stephen was out there on the internet's top download service, then the dream and finally Shadows of Reality is available on iTunes. I suppose in retrospect I could have submitted everything in the chronological order of the albums' release dates. But I wanted Face of Stephen out there in the worst way, and I figured that if I keeled over from a heart attack after the first one at least our favorite would be available.

The singular reason for getting our tunes out there is universal availability. We're obviously no longer gigging, touring or attempting to promote the band. But from time to time someone will call Nate requesting CDs. Well, CDs are about plumb run out, as they might say in certain regions, and the internet has become the never-ending storage place for the long-forgotten. We can now direct those several requestors to iTunes if they subscribe, or CD Baby, which I feel is a superior service.

The Dream is now available on iTunes

Click the image to go to iTunes page for the dream. I am sure that at some point this will get old and I will no longer be impressed by seeing our tunes available for download. And without promotion it's not like anything will be "flying off the shelves."

Of course, those quote marks show the beauty of it. There are no shelves, dude. There's no big decision about whether to add anything to inventory or give a no-name band a break. There's just a bunch of servers and surfers. And inventory will never, ever run out or get stale. That means that hey, given enough time and a modicum of interest we might yet sell a million downloads. Who knows?

And thanks again to Derek Sivers for making CD Baby, his dream, a reality. Thou art the man.

Man.

News, Digital Update & Other Coolness

I forgot to mention it, but I ended up figuring out how to burn an exact duplicate of Shadows of Reality with CDA tracks and everything, so I was able to send that in without sacrificing my final copy. It's being processed currently. The Dream is in the queue at iTunes and although it's not available yet, I expect it to be available there any day.

Here's a shot of the boys in action at Bethany. Circa 19??


My Face of Stephen google searches are starting to turn up more relevant stuff, e.g., we're on the PayPlay site now. I did a few promotional forum posts and they're starting to show up too, so good. So we're slowly pushing down some of the static in the searches. I also added the CD Baby pages to technorati so I can track links. When I finally get all 25 titles -- MWA-HA-HA -- available via iTunes I'm going to do a big "spam" email to a whole pile of fans and aquaintances, just to get the word out.

And here's a last but not least a bit of coolness supremo: I set up a page on Purevolume.com! It's kind of a respectable version of myspace for bands, indie mostly. I put a non-downloadable sample MP3 from each CD and a bunch of photos on there as well. We'll see what happens. So far I'm only out of pocket on this for a net of $140.00 and way too many hours, but I'm having fun.

Latest Update and Dilemma

My latest dilemma in the drama of digital distribution for Stinging Rain is that I possess only one copy of the Shadows of Reality CD, and I need to send a non-returnable copy in to CD Baby. I sort of feel attached to it; this is the end product of my first studio recording experience. Nate doesn't know where any extra copies are currently. But on the other hand, I'd really like to see this up on CD Baby, especially since The Dream should be available soon. (Keep checking our "all" page.)

In the end, I'll probably just "cast my bread upon the waters" and send it in. I know there are other extant copies of it in this world, possibly ones in even better shape. Once we have all 26 recordings available* I'll feel more like telling the world "Hey! We're online!" So my "sacrifice" will be worth it.

As always, I cannot praise CD Baby enough for the yeoman's work they do for small musicians.

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* - Of course, I'm including both versions of music of my world. The count is 25 by the official BMI list.

Face now available on iTunes!

This is way too cool! I am kvelling. To the max.

As Darth Vader said, "You may download at will."

I really have got to hand it to CD Baby because, honestly, they made this whole process incredibly simple. This is what I had to do:

• Fill in database fields by entering a bunch of publishing information, song names, album title, etc. I had to look up a few things on BMI's site, otherwise all the info was in my brain or even closer at hand in the liner notes.


• Write a short bio of the band and answer some questions about digital distribution.


• Read through and sign the digital distribution contract, which as a legal contract is comparatively short and easy to read.


• Mail one copy of the CD to their home office out in Oregon.


• Submit a scanned image of the album cover artwork.


• Pay $55.00 which included $35 to do the listing and $20 for them to create the barcode which is necessary for sales.

The artwork scanning was probably the biggest single chore in terms of effort; I detailed that process back here.

I was reading this blog post yesterday and I realized what a great company Derek Sivers started. An inexpensive distribution deal for anyone with product with little or no barrier to entry into the market. Viva CD Baby!!!

Digital Delivery Report from CD Baby

The latest update to our CD Baby status page shows that as of Thursday, 3/13, the Face of Stephen tracks have been submitted to 7 digital distribution companies: iTunes, Napster, Verizon, PayPlay, Amie Street, Tradebit and MusicIsHere. The page predicts 2 or 3 weeks before the tracks show up for download from those services.

Of course, anybody can download Face of Stephen from CD Baby right now, but far more people have iTunes or accounts on other services. I'm a Napster guy myself, and I'll probably buy a $0.99 track or two just for the fun of it when the stuff shows up.

In other news, my dad cut the live tracks from our Crawford show onto CD for me the other day. I'm still not sure I'm going to submit the live stuff; I'm thinking I should have used them as "bonus tracks" on FoS, but too late for that now. I listened to the Violin live track at Nate's house over the weekend. It was with the original bass line, which I'd forgotten, along with the dozens of other things which have fallen through the ever-widening memory hole.

But hearing a tune from that gig brought a smile to my face. I remember receiving an off-stage rebuke from the... uh, "powers that be" because over six hundred people showed up—far more than expected—and there was a stage rush at the beginning of the show. That was a little too wild for GCC; we were such rebels.

Sent out "the dream" today

So once CD Baby does their magic we'll have number 2 ready to download.

I've been listening to the dream a lot lately. I remember being ecstatic about the recording when it came out because the bass was a lot higher in the mix than in Shadows. Earlier today I was admiring the artwork on the top of the disc; I decided to include a scan of it here.

The songs which have been going through my head the most have been The Dream, Quest and Darkness at Twilight. I copied the lyrics to The Dream below.

The Dream
by Nathan Depew

Spirit exalt yourself
Give me the words to live this dream --
This dream called life
These strange things all around
Why do these people sound so scared?
So shaking scared?

I hope someday I can see you
To find if I have really lived
I hope someday you will breathe for me
I get so tired of breathing

I have found emptiness
In almost everything I've seen
(Close your eyes.)
A Dove born from the sky
Bathed in Love's Pure Light
I dream this--it's more than real.

I hope some day I can see you --
To find if I have really lived
I hope someday you will breathe for me.
I get so tired of breathing.

I forget whose idea it was to have a group whistling of "Row, row, row your boat" in the background at the end, but that always brings a smile to my face.

Stinging Rain Enters the 21st Century

Here we are! At long last, Stinging Rain formally enters the age of digital music! Instant gratification downloading for the two hundred or so people out there who have been jonesing to relive their halcyon days -- rockin' the Grove City Sportsman's Club, rushing the stage at Crawford Auditorium and trekking to the Upstage Lounge. Or maybe you're counted among the more elite group who first saw the band perform at Kelli's birthday party. (That was before they "sold out", you know, and bought professional quality instruments.)

For now, I just have Face of Stephen posted on CD Baby. I hope to get the other two albums posted within the next several weeks.

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.