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.

A Stinging Rain Reissue Promo Poster

I know I just said we weren't promoting the band anymore, but over the last few weeks I've produced a magazine-sized promo poster for some spurious marketing opportunities which might arise. It doesn't look half bad, if I may say so myself.



Here's what the text says:

In the summer of 1993, the indie rock foursome Stinging Rain ascended into a vacant third floor and recorded their masterpiece, Face of Stephen.

Shortly afterward they disbanded, and their rhythmic brand of hopeful, melodic rock seemed consigned to the twilight of silent memory.

Now — after being out of print for 15 years — their full catalog of original studio tracks is available again via digital download. Visit:

cdbaby.com/all/stingingrain

Not too "over the top", but still attention-getting, I hope. At the bottom of the page I included the phrase "Clear Tears of Light", a line from Grey Shapes, the first song on our first album, then across from it "One Eternal Flame", from Nothing Ever Changes, the last song on our last album. The large text bordering the picture is, of course, from a middle song on our middle album, On Eagle's Wings from the dream, but I didn't really plan that one as much. "Come with me, take this hand, we'll travel far across the sea and land" has always been one of my favorite lines from the pen and the mind of Nathan Depew.

Click on the picture, look at the large photo and tell me I don't look like Harry Potter with the messy hair and the glasses.

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.

The "Suitcase" Photos

All right! Brett just sent me 31 scanned images of the photos which all ended up in one of the famous Brown Suitcases circa 1993. The collection consists of concert footage, shots of recording sessions, posed shots and photos of "life on the road".

Wow, I have hair in these photos. That's really nostalgic.

I'll be pasting these up from time to time; here's a great one to start off with. An "action shot" during the "Face of Stephen" sessions on the 3rd Floor in 1993. I call it the Famous Ladder Picture.


That's me on the left, Nathan's in the background on the right. He's got his mouth on the mike and he's playing an acoustic, so my guess is that we're doing a rehearsal of either Quiet Celebration or Minstrel's Song.

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!!!

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.

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.