Yeah, what she said.

So, how do i convert talent into cash? Anyone? No one will hire me full-time because I have been freelance for so long. Or because I am too old. The only people that will hire me can’t afford to pay me because no one sells records any more.

So here I am like thousands of others (says Virginia Heffernan) who are too old to compete but still have too much valuable talent to waste. Wasting precious time designing a blog is like trying to fit a microwave into a breadbox. Once set up it WILL save me a lot of time inputting new info and projects, and serve as some sort of platform for promotion. But i can’t get it to look like I want it to look. And I don’t have the money to pay someone to make it look like i want it to look. So again. I’m stuck. But will soldier on, try to ignore the look and concentrate on content.

And quit whining.

Lavish… akin to a perfect museum exhibition… [Spin]

Perhaps the greatest archival reissue in the cd age. No love was spared, from the gorgeously retro design and nearly over-the-top packaging… [Billboard.com]

A work of mad and magical obsessiveness… worth every penny… [Newsweek]

Takes the do-something-properly-or-don’t-do-it philosophy to its absolute conclusion. [Folkroots (UK)]

A set that marks a new standard in packaging and meticulous attention to every conceivable detail. The major labels could do worse than to emulate this box. [Denver Post]

Ranks easily amongst the most superb, complete, thoughtful and genuinely great achievements to be commercially issued in years. [Artvoice]

This box set makes any other that came before it look like it was made with construction paper and crayons… simply the finest of its kind. [Othermusic.com]

The single greatest piece of packaging art I have ever scarfed an eyeload on… this set must surely be absolute art. [Pat Conte, SecretMuseum, WFMU]

At the outset, Revenant label co-owner Dean Blackwood directed that this was to be a box set like no other before it. We would construct a slipcase that would house a 78 style record album that would include 128 pages of essays, maps, photos, liner notes, and lyrics, 11 pages of 66 record label stickers, 6 black and white pull out reproductions of 1929 Paramount ads, and seven record sleeves with cd caddies and cds to resemble 78s. We would also build pockets into the inside front and back covers of the album for a 112 page reproduction of a paperback book written by John Fahey, the other label co-owner, and a Xeroxed tract to fit inside the back cover of the album. We went months specifying materials and weights and sizes and engineering mock-ups.

The challenges were:

- One existing photo of Patton, in poor shape. Fill 128 pages with illustrative graphics.

- Display an excruciating amount of minutiae, detailed reference material.

- Work with manufacturers to specify, design and build something never made before.

- Do it relatively cheaply. Squeeze every penny. No pay for illustrators or photographers (see first bullet).

Just like the sound engineers who had to start with scratchy abused records, I was asked to make clean reproductions out of some pretty poor source material. I had to do painstaking Photoshop work to clean up. It took me about 8 hours for each ad.

For more information: Revenant Records

The first release is “Mickey Newbury: An American Trilogy.” with 3 cds and a nice booklet with photos and essay housed in a small wooden box.

This is blog category.