Tag Archives: writing

Caution: Shameless Self-Promotion Ahead.

(Album cover by Christopher Rinehart, using photo by Paul Cory Photography.)

What is this ‘CD Baby’ talk? Just pointing out that my CD, Truths and Lies and Make-Believe, is now being distributed through the CD Baby web site and digital distribution program. Folks can purchase a digital version or a physical CD through the site, and additional distribution through iTunes and other outlets should start soon.

For folks who may not have heard about it before, the album has ten original songs:

• “Steampunk Pirates”
• “Another Romulan Ale”
• “The Monster Hunter Ballad”
• “Dare to Do Great Things”
• “Mortal Men”
• “Tauntauns to Glory”
• “Help My Unbelief”
• “I Think I’ll Run for Congress”
• “Day to Day Disguises”
• “Finding Serenity”

Finally, if you’re local or we happen to be in the same place at the same time, I usually have three or four copies close at hand. I’ll happily sell you one!

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P.S. If you have the chance, tell your friends (or even your enemies) about Truths and Lies and Make-Believe!

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Today we made a hard decision about the very last song on the album.

(The ‘Question’ looks on, probably wondering why Gray hasn’t written any songs based on comic books. Image by Paul Cory Photography.)

The mix we had planned to use wasn’t up to the standards of my friend who’s mastering the album, so my engineer friend made a new mix to consider in addition to an earlier (and simpler) version of the song. Of course, we could only pick one, but we didn’t all agree on which one to use. I suppose that’s the nature of things sometimes. Keeping in mind that (as my former Commander used to say) we shouldn’t “let perfect be the enemy of good,” I think this was a case of having two pretty-good-but-not-perfect options to choose from, each of which was good for a different reason.

So I’ve made the decision, and I’m confident it’s the right one. However, as I used to tell the troops who worked for me, decisions are “right” or “wrong” based on what we know at the time we make them, but they’re only “good” or “bad” later, when we’ve experienced the outcomes. So I won’t know if this decision is good or bad until more folks have heard the song.

Unfortunately, this delay puts the schedule I had in my mind in jeopardy. All I can say at the moment is that the album is coming, but I can’t say when exactly.

We’ll see what happens.

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The album is in the mastering process right now, which unfortunately has not gone as smoothly as I hoped.

(Image by Paul Cory Photography.)

On the other hand, the artwork process is proceeding apace. The plan is for the audio master to be ready when the cover and CD art are, at which time I will order a limited run of physical CDs.

For folks who no longer bother with physical CDs, I will make the album available on my BandCamp page, which currently only has one of the songs on it. I am investigating which digital distribution service I want to use with respect to iTunes, Spotify, etc.

This might be a real thing, one of these days.

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Work on my album — Truths and Lies and Make-Believe — continues as time permits. Here’s the latest status chart, showing that seven of the ten tunes are complete.*

If I include the progress we’ve made on the remaining three songs, then the initial recording process is about 85% complete.

In other production news, I’ve found two candidate locations for the album cover photo shoot, which I hope to complete before the end of the month.

It’s coming together … slowly, but hopefully surely!

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*It also shows that I’ve rearranged the order of the songs.

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