Pressing Matters

I've blogged on here somewhere about how we've been banking all along on a particular pressing deal. It would have gotten us 200 pressed CD's in DigiPaks for a great price. We set the release date and declared that the May 22nd show would be our record release, thinking that we could have it all in time. We were a little later than we'd liked getting the masters, and I uploaded them to all the online stores as soon as I got them. I also e-mailed the company and asked about the special price.

Then I waited.

And waited. Three days later, they e-mail me to tell me they had forwarded my request to their pressing department. The next day, the pressing department said they aren't taking new orders as they are closing down and to use someone else. I found a company with a comparable deal and hastily paid to get it done.

Then I read the fine print.

The 15-20 day turn around starts after you send them the discs and artwork and after they approve it and after you approve the artwork.

We need the CD's by Saturday, May 22nd. That's 21 business days from today. If everything gets there on time and they approve it as fast as they say it will (two big if's), the 15-20 day pressing period will begin. That will be 18 business days before the show if all goes according to plan. That will be a close shave to get the record for the release show. Can we do it?

This begs the question of whether we should pay more to get it pressed faster. How much is it worth to us to get the record that fast? That's where they stick us on the price. I guess we'll have to wait until everything is approved before we look at the shipping date.

In the meantime, we have kicked the practice into high gear for the release show. We're working up the three songs from the record that have never been played live. The rest are getting infused with new energy now that the record is completely behind us. We've sped them up, tightened them up, and really learned how to PLAY them, and it's so much more fun this way.

After the release show, we booked the closest thing we can do to a tour with our work schedules, booking four shows in three weeks for the mid summer. Hopefully we can generate some sales. We are most excited about finally playing Maryville, the hometown for Daniel and Josh and me. That's going to be a very wild night.