About two years ago my sister, Kristy, was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. As far as the disease goes it took some time but she defeated it and joined the mass of survivors. Throughout the process she had some pretty amazing experiences having been selected to be the national ambassador for Mother’s Day Walk to Empower® that May in Chicago. Not to make it sound all cherry, at the time it was the scariest moment of our lives, but she had such an amazing attitude during the whole thing that it’s hard to remember it that way.
Studio Erbo happily donated this cover (shown below) to a CD compilation of acoustic guitarists, where all proceeds go to breast cancer research. The album was produced by my father, musician, Carroll Cockrell, who is also featured on the album.
The album went off to press this week, I’ll post an update when it is available.
Studio Erbo just completed a relaunch of the blog for, ambient musician, Infinite Third. Infinite Third is the music outlet for Billy Mays III, son of the legendary, late pitchman, Billy Mays. Check out the blog for related postings, music release information, free downloads, and a mysterious changing QR code.
Studio Erbo recently provided a logo/avatar for, the Facebook acoustic guitarist community, Acoustic Notes. You can check them out at https://www.facebook.com/cockrellc49
About Acoustic Notes
Acoustic notes is a site dedicated to the acoustic guitar community. The people who make the music, record companies, guitar makers. Find acoustic artists links, check tour dates and bio’s. Come visit often. I guarantee you’ll hear great music and meet the people are the acoustic community
From The Wall Street Journal Website:
By ERIC FELTEN
The digital revolution was supposed to do away with a lot of fusty old relics. First compact discs took their toll on the long-playing (and long-played) vinyl record; then iPods and digital downloads began doing the same to CDs. But long after the eulogies had been delivered, the vinyl LP has been revived.
The LP still represents just a sliver of music sales. But last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan data, while CD sales fell by more than 5%, vinyl record sales grew more than 36%.
Johanna GoodmanThose who collect LPs swear by the virtues of analog.
The majority of vinyl sells in independent record stores, which have championed the format in their quixotic quest to survive. But now big-box stores such as Best Buy are carrying vinyl. Amazon—loath to let any niche escape its domination—has a “Vinyl Store” and recently introduced shipping boxes designed to coddle LP records in transit.
Not just the sales of records are growing, but the equipment to play them, too. As David Bakula, who follows LPs for Nielsen, puts it: “When I walked into Target and found turntables, then I knew we’ve arrived.”
United Record Pressing, the Nashville factory where the Beatles’ first U.S. singles were stamped nearly 50 years ago, is feeling the boom: “This plant often runs 24 hours,” says Jay Millar, its marketing director.
Who’s buying? Hipster-centric indie genres skew vinyl-heavy—alt rock, garage, punk. The list of last year’s best-selling LPs includes discs from the Black Keys, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes and Radiohead. Classic jazz does pretty well, and then there is classic rock: For several years running, the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” (1969) has been the top-selling vinyl LP.
Which is one clue to vinyl’s appeal. Yes, “Abbey Road” is an essential recording. But it also features what may be the most recognizable image in rock—the fab (and by then estranged) four scissoring across the street on a bright summer day. Such album artwork just isn’t quite the same shrank down for CDs or iPods.
Then there is the sound: Those who collect LPs swear by the virtues of analog. For decades a vinyl-dedicated subset of hard-core audiophiles have resisted the digital onslaught. They’ve rightly derided the brittle compression of CDs and given the cold shoulder to even the more robust digital formats, such as super-audio CDs. (Don’t get them started on the hopeless degradation of MP3s.)
And yet that narrow niche of audiophiles with their Ferrari-dear sound systems isn’t what has kept LPs alive. Even, it would seem, in the rarefied world of classical recordings. When the San Francisco Symphony packaged its acclaimed recordings of Gustav Mahler’s orchestral works, the set was first made available on SACD. But now it has been released on vinyl as well. According to the symphony’s general manager, John Kieser, the idea to release “The Mahler Project” on LPs started a few years ago with his then-teenage son, who collected vinyl and insisted that music sounds different in the old analog format.
Mr. Kieser was also keeping track of the sort of sales statistics Nielsen collects. The symphony released the 22-LP Mahler box in part because “vinyl is the only hard format that has seen any growth.” There were 500 boxed sets in the initial run, substantial both in price and heft—$750 and more than 30 pounds. Mr. Kieser says only one or two of the sets are left, a month after the official release.
The Mahler box features heavyweight 180-gram discs. That sort of luxury LP makes up about a quarter of the vinyl market. “It’s like picking up a toaster from the ’50s,” says Mr. Millar of United Record Pressing. “You feel like you’ve got something substantial.”
Substantial. That’s the word I keep hearing from the fans of vinyl. Records are admirably physical, the antithesis of the everywhere-and-nowhere airiness of “the cloud.”
The embrace of vinyl isn’t just some retro fad, but a push-back against the techno-triumphalism that insists there is no future for physical artifacts like books and newspapers. It’s a small declaration of independence, a refusal to let the march of progress stomp on one’s pleasures.
Vinyl is an assertion that efficiency isn’t everything. Cars may have done in the buggy, but there still are people who like horses. Engines on watercraft have long obviated the need to mess about with furling and unfurling canvas, luffing and gybing and all the other soggy inconveniences. And yet there are those who choose sailboats. Who needs wine corks when bottle-caps do the job?
Vinyl is decidedly inconvenient, which is the very reason it appeals. To play records, you have to be relatively engaged in the activity. The disc has to be taken off the shelf and out of its sleeve. It has to be placed on the platter. The needle has to be lowered just so. How different that is from the way we’ve been encouraged to consume music—as a sort of automated aural wallpaper best achieved by a digital playlist in shuffle mode. Vinyl demands—and encourages—more attention. “If I’m cooking or cleaning around the house, I’ll plug in the iPhone or play CDs,” says Nick Blandford, managing director of the Jagjaguwar record label, home to the indie-folk-rock band Bon Iver. “But if I’m sitting down deliberately to listen to music, I’ll listen to vinyl.”
The convenient size and super usefulness of Apple’s iPad 2 make it a tempting replacement for your laptop, which previously served as the tempting replacement for your desktop computer. Through a little experimentation I have found a nice routine using two different apps that either allow me to complete an illustration solely on the iPad or make it an instrumental tool in the production.
The first app is Adobe Ideas. Essentially the program allows the user to draw in vector images. As a professional graphic designer this ability is loaded with possibilities. Now you can draw and paint a logo with a stylus, just as you would with a pen on paper, which means no more stretching points with the pen tool in Illustrator. For this sort of task however Adobe Ideas is limited in that it can’t do type or change the colors of the shapes you’ve created. That’s what makes it a great companion program to Illustrator, rather than replacement. The graphics to the left show the logo for Cupcake Scoops in progress. The drawing of the cupcake was completed with Adobe Ideas, which was then brought into Illustrator for tweaking and all of the finishing touches.
As an illustrator I find that Adobe Ideas is also useful for nice clean linework. There is a bit of a learning curve since there is no pressure control. Some play back and forth between the pencil tool and the eraser tool is required to get a nice tapered edge. The linework for this baby dragon illustration was completed in Adobe Ideas.
The program I have found for completing illustrations on the iPad is Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro. The program allows you to bring a black & white file into it and color under it. You simply import the art to a new layer, position it on top of the stack and set it to “Multiply.”
Sketchbook Pro features a lot of the same tools you’ll find in Adobe Photoshop, and allows me to work in the program much like I would with Photoshop and my Cintiq. One of the downsides to both apps is their limit of layers. Ideas limits you to ten layers, while Sketchbook Pro allows for four in High Resolution mode. I tend to use a ton of layers in my art. In Sketchbook Pro this means you need to practice some serious layer management. To make this easier on myself I have learned to work from back to front and combine layers as I go.
Lineart done in Adobe Ideas.
Illustration completed in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.
Studio Erbo recently finished up a logo for, startup cupcake maker, Cupcake Scoops.
Of Cupcake Scoops, entrepreneur, Kim Forester says, “My vision for my shop is an old fashioned ice cream parlor but with cupcakes. My idea is to have ice cream flavored cupcakes. Just a few I have in mind are, mint chocolate chip, neapolitan. The traditional chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. A chocolate peanut butter, and more.” Sounds yummy to me.
Enter Studio Erbo’s first in a series of quarterly contests.
Prize: An Illustration of up to two people set in a theme of your choice. Prize will be delivered via email in the form of a high resolution graphic that the winner may use for any non-commercial purposes.
How to enter:
Email a photo of the two subjects, along with their names, and the theme of the illustration to contestq12012@studioerbo.com. Up to the first 20 entries, in order of submission, will qualify. One entry per household, per month.
This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. Participant is providing information to Studio Erbo and not to Facebook. Facebook functionality is not involved in the voting process, and the winner will be notified via email.
The entrants will be posted on a Facebook application linked to the Studio Erbo page, where there will be a vote. The posting will include the photos, first names, and theme of the illustration. Voting will be open for 60 days. One vote per person, per quarter. You may not change your vote, so vote carefully.
After seventeen years of freelance design work time has finally been put into the design of a proper logo.
The new Studio Erbo logo features the font-face of the previous logo due to its familiarity. The rest of the logo is influenced by my love for the city of Chicago and its history. I’ve altered the blue color of the two words in the name slightly to reflect the blue used in the two blue stripes of municipal flag of Chicago, which represent the north branch of the Chicago River & Lake Michigan and the south branch of the Chicago River & The Great Canal.
It’s the three red stars that are particularly dear to me. On the flag they represent four important events in the history of the city. When the flag was first conceived, in 1917, it featured two stars honoring The Columbian Exposition of 1893 and The Great Chicago Fire. The Columbian Exposition has been a long time interest of mine and as such is the star prominently featured at the top of the logo. Studio Erbo actually features a display case housing various relics, souvenirs and commemorative items from the fair. This fair, typically touted as the greatest Worlds Fair, led to the City Beautiful movement and left us the building that now houses The Museum of Science & Industry. This building is significant to me as it was the venue of my Wedding Reception on July 7, 2007. The six points of this star stand for the political entities Chicago has belonged to and the flags that have flown over the area: France 1693, Great Britain 1763, Virginia 1778, the Northwest Territory 1798, Indiana Territory 1802, and Illinois 1818.
The second star on the original flag symbolized the Great Chicago Fire, perhaps the most important defining moment of the City. Four square miles of the city were leveled and hundreds of lives lost on October 10, 1871. The cause of the fire is blamed on a cow kicking over a lamp, but that’s disputed and in all likelihood we’ll never know the full story. Regardless the city came together and built the second city of Chicago that we see today, giving it the moniker, “The Second City.” This event also has significance to my wedding in that the church where we held the ceremony is one of a handful of structures remaining in the city that predate the Great Chicago Fire. Another fun item of note on the fire is at one of my favorite places to visit in the city, the Chicago History Museum. If you go to the rear of the building and peak in the bushes around the patio you will find a large mound of melted metal. It is actually the remnants of a hardware store that burned down in the fire. The six points of this star represent the city’s virtues of religion, education, aesthetics, justice, beneficence, and civic pride.
In 1933 Chicago hosted it’s second international exposition and added its third star to mark the occasion. This was Chicago’s centennial year, so the fair was appropriately titled “the Century of Progress Exposition.” This exposition was so popular that it actually opened up for a second season the following year. This star’s six points refer to bragging rights: the United States’ 2nd Largest City (became 3rd largest in 1990 census when passed by L.A.), Chicago’s Latin Motto (Urbs in horto – City in a garden), Chicago’s “I Will” Motto, Great Central Marketplace, Wonder City, Convention City.
In 1939 the final star was added, this one commemorating Fort Dearborn. This installation was actually two forts that stood in succession from 1803-1813 and 1816 until the fire in 1871, though it was decommissioned in 1837. This star’s six points symbolize transportation, labor, commerce, finance, populousness, and salubrity.
The white outline around the text, as well as the two words in white represent the the three sides of the city, the north, west, and south sides.
If you made it this far into the post, I hope it gives you a good understanding as to the pride I take in this great city as well as my work, and the level of detail I incorporate into all of my projects. Thanks for taking this time and please leave a comment and let me know what you think!
I’ve very proud to announce the release of Mike Felumlee and Dan Andriano’s 2002 split album on vinyl. The project was a special one because it was the first album I ever did artwork for and that work never saw the light of day due to a technical error. The album features all new artwork, loaded with nods to the original as well as nods to all aspects of the careers of these Chicago legends. As an added bonus with the album you can download a 28 page booklet featuring song lyrics, photos, original concept artwork, and trivia.
“For the past six months, i’ve been working on getting everything ready for the first vinyl release on my new label, Artistic Integrity Records. it’s the Mike Felumlee and Dan Andriano split ep that came out on cd back in 2002 on Mike’s now defunct label Double Zero Records. this is the first time it has ever seen the vinyl treatment, and i’m super excited and proud to be a part of it.
For those of you that don’t know, Dan is the bass player for Alkaline Trio, and has been a part of other bands such as Slapstick, Tuesday, The Falcon, and his own solo project Dan Andriano In The Emergency Room. Mike was the drummer for Alkaline Trio from 1999-2001, and has also been in the Smoking Popes, Duvall, and has a solo career of his own under his name.
totally new artwork was created for this project by Eric J. Cockrell, although there are plenty of nods to the original release. for the first time ever, there are complete (and accurate) lyrics included with the album. there’s tons of great stuff that will be included in the digital download code, as well: a full acoustic set from Dan, an updated version of “Something Better” that Mike re-recorded in his home studio this past year, and a 28-page digital “CD booklet” full of photos from the time the album was written/recorded.
Everything is going to be hand-numbered out of the 1,000 copies pressed.
0001 – 0333 will be on navy blue marble vinyl
0334 – 1000 will be on black vinyl
For the completists out there, there are also 17 test pressings that exist, each with an incredible die-cut cover made by Grant Kersey. if you’re interested in grabbing one, shoot me an e-mail (artisticintegrityrecords@gmail.com) and we can try to work something out.
The release date is going to be new year’s day, 1.1.12. they will be available from my website www.artisticintegrityrecords.com for $11 each (plus shipping). full pressing information and other details are up on the site. there’s also photo galleries and information about my upcoming releases.
I’ve already got AIR-002 and AIR-003 in the works, as well. AIR-002 is a split 7″. it will feature two songs by The Ambulance Review (from Fredericksburg, Virginia) on one side, and three songs by Devon Kay & The Solutions (from Chicago) on the other. the tentative release date for that is going to be April 4, 2012.
AIR-003 is a 12″ full length. it will feature 4 songs (although nearly 42 minutes of music) by An Aesthetic Anaesthetic, who is another Chicago band. the album is going to be produced by Sanford Parker, who did Pelican’s debut album in 2001 and has become one of the biggest metal/experimental/post-rock producers in the industry since. the release date for this one is slated for July 7, 2012.
In the meantime, you can also “Like” my label’s page on facebook to stay updated:
Thanks to everybody for your interest and support so far. hope your holidays were great, and 2011 is going to finish with a bang for you. 2012 is already looking to be off to a great start…”
Motorola’s new promo for Spotify features Mike Felumlee’s “My Favorite Ghost” with his album cover (created by Studio Erbo) popping up around the :30 mark
![[FELTEN]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WK-BA668_FELTEN_DV_20120126124026.jpg)
Johanna GoodmanThose who collect LPs swear by the virtues of analog.
The first app is Adobe Ideas. Essentially the program allows the user to draw in vector images. As a professional graphic designer this ability is loaded with possibilities. Now you can draw and paint a logo with a stylus, just as you would with a pen on paper, which means no more stretching points with the pen tool in Illustrator. For this sort of task however Adobe Ideas is limited in that it can’t do type or change the colors of the shapes you’ve created. That’s what makes it a great companion program to Illustrator, rather than replacement. The graphics to the left show the logo for Cupcake Scoops in progress. The drawing of the cupcake was completed with Adobe Ideas, which was then brought into Illustrator for tweaking and all of the finishing touches.
The program I have found for completing illustrations on the iPad is Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro. The program allows you to bring a black & white file into it and color under it. You simply import the art to a new layer, position it on top of the stack and set it to “Multiply.”
It’s the three red stars that are particularly dear to me. On the flag they represent four important events in the history of the city. When the flag was first conceived, in 1917, it featured two stars honoring The Columbian Exposition of 1893 and The Great Chicago Fire. The Columbian Exposition has been a long time interest of mine and as such is the star prominently featured at the top of the logo. Studio Erbo actually features a display case housing various relics, souvenirs and commemorative items from the fair. This fair, typically touted as the greatest Worlds Fair, led to the City Beautiful movement and left us the building that now houses The Museum of Science & Industry. This building is significant to me as it was the venue of my Wedding Reception on July 7, 2007. The six points of this star stand for the political entities Chicago has belonged to and the flags that have flown over the area: France 1693, Great Britain 1763, Virginia 1778, the Northwest Territory 1798, Indiana Territory 1802, and Illinois 1818.
In 1933 Chicago hosted it’s second international exposition and added its third star to mark the occasion. This was Chicago’s centennial year, so the fair was appropriately titled “the Century of Progress Exposition.” This exposition was so popular that it actually opened up for a second season the following year. This star’s six points refer to bragging rights: the United States’ 2nd Largest City (became 3rd largest in 1990 census when passed by L.A.), Chicago’s Latin Motto (Urbs in horto – City in a garden), Chicago’s “I Will” Motto, Great Central Marketplace, Wonder City, Convention City.
