Wednesday I got to the penultimate stage of this long road I am on, releasing my own CD.
It took quite a while, as I have documented, to get the artwork done, but a lot of that was my fault, as I kept changing my mind.
Finally I had the CD with the artwork in hand. I burnt a new copy of the CD and of course had to listen to the whole thing, something that I hadn’t done in some time. I was pleased to find that I still liked it, but it’s a good thing I didn’t listen to it for some time. Those repeated listenings when I was mixing and mastering were making me crazee-baby!
Now I found myself walking across downtown toward the NW district, past the oh-so-trendy Peal area and over to where it is a mixture of old warehouses and chic new lofts to CD Forge. It’s a nice mixture, new and funky, very Portland ya know.
I get to the building where CD Forge lives and up into their offices. There is the company dog there, and the fellow I spoke with before. Somehow it seems a bit less personable than last time, but maybe its just me.
He takes the artwork and manipulates the art for the CD itself onto its target, then burns a blank CD with the art on it for me to see. I mention that it has taken me so long to get to this point – probably close to two years – and he tells me that, hey, that’s nothing he has been helping his friend make his CD for four years now, and still not finished! Suddenly I feel quite speedy.
Some moments go by while the art is written to the CD and then I have in my hand the culmination of all those long nights and days – a flat circle of plastic with my band name, name of the CD, the art and all the rest on it. I look at it, its (thankfully) not one of those old 80s style shiny plastic CDs, but matt finished. Its really quite a bit of work, very professional looking, but somehow it feels a bit of an anti-climax.
Was I expecting the heavens to open up and receive me? Of course not, but some how I thought I would feel more fulfilled. I think part of this is due to the long wait from when I finished the music until I actually was able to get it reproduced.
I write a large check, sign some paperwork and find out it will be next week when I get the CDs delivered. On the way back to work, I take the CD out of my pocket several times and look at it, and wonder, really wonder, if it was worth all the time and trouble I took over it. I know that I won’t have any idea about this until it is on the CD baby web site, so I can look at it and with any large amount of luck, sell some of these things. I am really looking forward to that.
At least, at the very least, I will have accomplished what I set out to do so long ago. Perhaps now I will get to the point of playing out live, but I am also starting to finally work with Jeff, and that is taking up some time also. But that’s for another day of writing……..