Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Tower Groove Records Singles Subscription

                                                                          Ransom Note

At some point in 2012 a meeting was held at the Heavy Anchor with the principles of the local record label Tower Groove Records. This meeting was to inform everyone of the plan to release a 7 inch vinyl single for each month in the year 2013. Each record would feature 2 bands, a single song on each side. We were told the bands involved and the months the records would be released. The reason I had been invited to the meeting was to see if I’d be interested in painting covers for 3 of the releases. Since there are 2 bands for each release, that really meant 6 covers would be needed for each side of the 3 records. And that’s what I’ve been doing since September. The paintings needed to be completed by Jan 1 so they could be photographed and sent off to the printers in time for the release date. Just made it in time by the skin of my teeth.

In all, there are 4 artists who are contributing artwork for the covers. Jeff Robtoy, Adam Watkins, Mark Stephens and myself. My pieces will be featured on The Skekses/CaveofswordS, Tone Rodent/Kisser and Ransom Note/Nee records which are released in April, May and June. You can purchase the singles individually or you can get a subscription and receive all the singles put out for the entire year for only $60.00, that is 5 bucks a record. Sixty dollars may sound like a lot but you’re getting a limited edition of releases that were specifically recorded for this series as well as the original artwork that was done by all the artists. In short, it’s a great deal.
 
Your next chance to purchase a subscription in person directly from Tower Groove will be on Saturday Jan 19 at Off BroadwayOld Lights and Demonlover will perform in celebration of the singles series being released.  As always you can buy online safely and securely from the TGR merchandise page - http://towergrooverecords.com/merch/
 
While in the midst of painting all these pictures, I was offered a solo show at the recently opened SOHA Gallery on Macklind owned by the wonderful Julie Malone. I thought this would be a great opportunity to organize a show of all the record/CD covers I’ve done over the years along with a few newer pieces. The artwork mentioned above will be included along with paintings done for bands like Bunnygrunt, The Dirty 30s, The Union Electric, The May Day Orchestra, Eric Hall, SHed SHot, and possibly some others I’m forgetting at the moment. The paintings will be on display along with the records/CDs they were used for and a “listening station” will be available for people to hear a song or two from each release.
 
I’m very excited about this show but also have a lot of work to do to prepare for it.
 
now playing - Ransom Note