Travels Through Carcass Country Part 2

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We stepped out of the van into the Albuquerque sun behind the aptly named Sunshine Theater. Instantly, I could feel the carcinogens forming in my skin. This place was dastardly hot. The only place to unload our gear was currently baking in the open sunlight, so we opted to leave loading until we could find shade for our multitude of meltable props. Sean and I headed in an Uber to Home Depot and picked up more crap to fix all our broken hardware. We came, we played, we got paid, we were on our way for a two-day drive to Memphis. Until…

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We were flagged down on the road by a woman pointing at our front left tire. I pulled off to the next rest stop and had a look. The rubber had quite literally been baked off the steel-belt of the tire, likely by the amazing New Mexico heat the day before. We avoided a blow out, but we did’t avoid being flummoxed by the lack of a tire iron in our rented van.

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Travels Through Carcass Country Part 1

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The Battle Bus is dead. Long live the Battle Bus.

ghoul battle bus

I mean, seriously, where to even begin? I’d say it was the worst start of a tour ever, but then again, I had one tour start where our guitarist and friend was near death with a burst appendix. Perspective, ya know? Losing a bus and all the money invested is really nothing so long as nobody is hurt. It costs a bunch, but that’s what credit cards are for.

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Ludicra – The Tenant: Kunstwerk

Doktor Ross Sewage3 Comments

This last weekend, I was helping my wife out taking some band photos of our friends’ band, Serpent Crown. At one point I hoisted her on my shoulders to try for a bird’s eye view. I was reminded of seven years previous, going through some similar extreme measures to get photographs for Ludicra’s The Tenant. I wasn’t blogging at the time, stupidly, so here’s a Throwback Thursday post about this cover.

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Sadly, not sold out and in the virtual bargain bin at profound lore.com

At the time this came out in 2009, some people commented “why did they photoshop a dumb door onto the water?” Well, fuck you. First, don’t use a product name as a verb in a sentence. Second, Photoshop was not involved in editing this door into a body of water. It was me and my own damn two hands what did the work putting a real door into a real body of water.

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Sodom – Persecution Mania re-issue

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While I wait for a bunch of other cool shit to appear, this release follows hot on the heels of the last Sodom re-issue that I did layouts for. Persecution Mania: Sodom’s second full length (and really superior to the first) available for order now from Wax Maniax.

PM... packaging mania.
Sodom: Packaging Mania

This is quite a cool package. Doubly vinyl, gatefold, full lyrics, etc. This release has never been better. But it’s not for want of trying to be worse. It seems that when it comes to the 1980s, there was a little to be desired in terms of archiving all the media that went into creating such a milestone record of thrash metal.

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Sodom – Obsessed by Cruelty re-issue

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Well, this was quite an honor… doing layouts for the re-issue of Sodom’s first LP, Obsessed by Cruelty. I got the gig thanks to my good friend Dan at Mammoth Sound Mastering. He introduced me to the fellas at Wax Maniax. My first gig (not my last) for them was just for, oh, I don’t know, one of the best thrash bands ever? All in all, I think it came out quite smashing.

Sodom Obsessed by Cruelty

This version includes both recordings of the album, one that was released on vinyl in Germany and the other that is pretty much the only version most people have heard. It’s a long story. In any case, I got to sift through photos provided by Tom Angelripper and make a bad-ass photo collage. I tried my damnedest to correct the shoddy, original lyrics sheet, and did a lot of photo correction. Even the LP labels reflect the original releases’ designs of Metal Blade and Steamhammer Records.

This beauty sold out in just a couple weeks, but I’m sure they’ll eventually have more over at the Wax Maniax website.

Path of Dissent Art Show

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If you’re in the Boston area, I’ll be part of a group exhibition featuring some amazing artists. Putrid, Mark Richards, Lucas Ruggieri, and Dan Seagrave are just a few of the talents that my wholly crappy work will be put up next to. I’ll just have a couple prints on exhibition and for sale. I won’t be able to attend myself, unfortunately. Here’s the information if you can.

path of dissent small

Eridanos Tattoo & Gallery
36 Prospect St.
Cambridge, MA 02139

The Fast and the Furious Star Wars

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Being very, very excited at the new Star Trek trailer and its use of 1990’s rap hits to really hit upon the cerebral nature of a show set in the 23rd Century, I decided to see what it would be like if director Justin Lin took on another famous franchise. Here’s my interpretation of Justin Lin’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

 

New HD Cover Art Standards

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It’s weird to get an email from Universal Music Group, but that’s the manufacturer used by Willowtip Records for the Impaled “The Dead Still Dead Remain” CD. So, I get the same mass email from them as someone doing layouts for Los Tigres Del Norte and probably Adele.

The gist of this latest email has something to do with HD digital media and a lot to do with Apple. The standard requirement of art provided for an album used to be for CD cover layout size of 1:1 print at 300 DPI. The streaming companies are now asking for cover art to be available in 600 DPI at minimum 5×5 inch. This makes a lot of sense when you consider people are digesting their music more and more digitally and throwing it up on big, oversize monitors and flat screens.

It also means bigger file sizes and my personal need for better photo gear. Shiiiiiit. Well, you need some damn big art as LPs take prominence in the merch market these days, anyway.

Full details are provided here by UMG for any designery folk to check out: Universal Music Group cover standards