Moving right along on things today. Got through the second & third drafts of Worms #5 & laid it out & sent it off to Kimberlee Traub to draw. For the first time ever I actually included reference photos for an artist. Normally I leave everything up to the artist to draw, but there was a reference to the type of fuel tanks where I use to work at the airport & I don’t think it’s that intuitive how those things look & how the stairs are set up on them if you haven’t worked around them before. I was realizing as I was writing the issue that part of the surreality of the series makes it feel like it might go into the “Owl Creek Bridge” it was all a dream thing & I would like to make a public statement that I never plan to use that trick in anything I write. Maybe I’d use a cop out where somebody shoots there mind back in time into their own body with the new knowledge to avoid an occasion from happening. Though then again I have been thinking of doing an XO spin-off that would explicitly be dreams. In fact at one point the Just A Man storyline was going to be the original XO Dreams (I think of them as similar characters, but I guess they’re not perceived as such based on recent reviews).
Worked out the second & third drafts of Remora’s Derivative press release. Just need to do the final layout in Pagemaker & it will be ready.
Had a long talk with Brian McKenzie (Electric Bird Noise) about things on the new Vlor record about some EQ changes & shortening a track or two. He thinks the bass is a little too loud & that a bunch of songs would sound more clear with rolling off a lot of things under 75 Hz. I need to listen to the disc on a boombox to figure out exactly what needs to happen since I feel studio headphones & monitors don’t give an accurate interpretation of sound & my stereo is currently using a DVD player for a CD player & it distorts sound & my car stereo is busted. I’m giving this disc way more attention than anything else I’ve ever worked on & hopefully that’s the model for the rest of my career.
Speaking of Electric Bird Noise, you can check out a recording I did of their recent live show here.
We are going to try to do a remix EP for the new Aarktica album. If you think you’d be interested in working on something for it, please contact me. Jon DeRosa will be in charge of it in the end, so you could go to him directly as well.