advice to this day.
in a basement. The review was a glowing one Never in the daytime. I let her know that I had
but I was unsure of what to do. This was back been working on some new (acoustic!) music
After about two weeks I had ten acoustic in the days that very few people were releasing and might release it but I needed artwork done.
songs and ten electric songs. A friend of mine their own records without a record company By chance she was a graphic artist, something
who mixed records for a living asked how the and certainly not with distribution. And I really I was not aware of. I sent her the liner notes and
recording was going. I played him the electric didn’t have any of the relevant resources. I didn’t some photos another friend happened to have
record because that’s what I was supposed really know how to get the record mastered, that suited the vibe of the album perfectly. I had
to be working on. He said, “Okay... what else the art work done and the distribution covered. my artwork, a glowing review and a small ad in
do you have?” So I played him the acoustic This was before online sales, internet download the back of a magazine. But I also needed to
stuff and he started to really like it. He asked if purchases, streaming or anything else we know press CDs. So, I borrowed some money from
I would let him mix it. I was thrilled at his offer. and take for granted these days. family (my God Mother Faye and cousin Mark)
and got a thousand CDs pressed. (That’s what
He made his way down to the basement in SYNCHRONICITY 1: NIGHT TIME ARTWORK IN Queens and mixed the record in 9 hours with THE DAYTIME one blown tweeter in the right speaker. Hmm… While walking in Manhattan I ran into a friend of SYNCHRONICITY 2: HOLD ONTO BIRTHDAY CARDS.
not sure how that happened. Ha! mine that I had only ever seen at night in clubs. I needed more artwork done and film output
we did in those days.)
Afterwards I still had a bad electric record, but
I also had a really great sounding and fun to
listen to acoustic record. Now up to this point
I was known as Mr. Rock n’ Roll… screaming,
soaring rock guitars with a bit of a groove.
Certainly not acoustic mellow relaxing music. I
had no Idea what I was going to do with this
recording and I still needed to fix or start over
with the electric record.
THE UNEXPECTED REVIEW
I went for a walk to try and figure all of this
out. I stopped at a guitar magazine’s place of
business that was home to a number of people
I knew. My friend there Rob asked how the
recording was going and if he could listen to it. I
played him a cassette (that’s what we had back
then) of the acoustic recording. He liked it and
asked for a copy. That was on a Friday. Monday
Rob called and asked if I had art work for the
record. I replied that I wasn’t sure what I was
going to do with that recording yet. He said well
it got a great review and they wanted to put the
review in the next issue of the magazine. I was
always under the impression that magazines
worked on a 3 month lead time but this was
going to be in the next issue. Rob told me I had
until the end of the week to get him art work if
I wanted a review along with a small ad. This
pushed me to figure out if I was really going
to go through with this and release a mellow
acoustic record on my own that I had recorded
photo by Bill Bungard
Sep Oct 2017
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