“Givin’ him somethin’ he can feel. To let him know this love is real. This love is real.”
- En Vogue / Curtis Mayfield
In 2012, physical record releases are inching closer to a novel place in music. While preparing the release of Buzzards Boy I got a sense that my impulse to create physical product kinda dates me, but while pouring over packaging details, I got re-acquainted with one of the reasons behind my need to make records: getting shit out there is awesome. I am still susceptible to the magic of physical music forms.
Growing up, cover art felt like an extension of an artist’s vision and gave me even more to identify with. The details bands chose to share (and not share) in liner notes lead to more questions and got me nagging my parents for rides to the city to see music. (Wayne Coyne wasn’t tweeting back then and shit, I had questions.) This mystery inevitably led me to making my own albums and is why I spend a good amount of time conjuring art work for everything.
On May 8th Buzzards Boy will be available digitally and also on CD and LP format. Vinyl was pressed at Brooklynphono in Gowanus near where I live and it’s been cool working with them and watching how records get manufactured. Numbers dictated that I could not make every piece by hand this time (see Here Now 7″) but I’ve done what I could to make these packages fulfilling. At the very least, listeners should know who contributed to the record and have the opportunity to roll a joint on it’s sleeve.
Being a musician now, I’ve almost fully accepted that most people will skim the surface of Buzzards Boy with a partial download or Spotify stream. But for people who’s relationships with albums transcend the Internet, these physical releases are intended to be as rewarding as possible. What excites me is that there’s room to do something special in this twilight of the physical. So the deal is, if you come to a show, I’m gonna do whatever I can to package these LPs with extra content (mix tapes, drawings, love notes) so you can leave with something that won’t disappear in a cloud.
