sneakyimp

I hope it is acceptable etiquette to post this video my friend put together.

After an eternity of delays, first pressing of THE TOWER by Old Grey Horror is now shipping. Lavishly illustrated gatefold sleeve with matte finish. Inner sleeve printed with lyrics and detail of WW1 trench map. Clean & pristine 140g black vinyl. Limited edition of 500 copies. Lacquers cut by the legendary Scott Hull, chief engineer at Masterdisk. Purchase via bandcamp comes with free download of digital files, and there's an extra download card inside the sleeve for a friend. Old Grey Horror is the solo project of Jason Adams, member of Lustra, and co-writer of the RIAA Gold-certified song Scotty Doesn't Know from the movie Eurotrip. THE TOWER is a concept album about the First World War in the grand old tradition. More detail at OldGreyHorror.com. Available for purchase on bandcamp. Ships right away, delivery typically 2-5 business days: https://oldgreyhorror.bandcamp.com/merch "The album is magnificent." - Carmelita & Tez, Bay State Rock Podcast "Please listen to this from start to end." - Mark J., Devil's Horns Zine "Chilly and atmospheric in its own unique way. Cool." - Ron Ben-Tovim, Machine Music "A very, very diverse album. Loads and loads of twists and turns on it." - Steve Woodier, Deathrattle Podcast

Uhhh HEAR YE HEAR YE I'd like to officially announce that I have product for sale. As suggested by @januarytwenty, I made a product announcement and AMA. TIA in advance for your ebullient engagement there!

I am pleased to announce that my record, THE TOWER--a rock/metal concept album about the First World War--is available for preorder at oldgreyhorror.bandcamp.com. This record -- the Feel-Good Album of the Century, the Album to End All Albums -- has been in the works for nearly ten years. It's now available for preorder. We have in hand a limited run of 100 cassettes and await a run of 500 vinyl lavishly packaged gatefold LPs. Both cassette and vinyl come with a free digital download via Bandcamp. Zip over to bandcamp now and you can hear the title track. Cassettes will ship October 5th. Vinyl will probably ship around December 1st, just in time for the Holidays. You can also pre-order the digital tracks from iTunes if that's your thing. If you like stoner rock, doom, thrash, and some exotic acoustic tunes, you might really enjoy this. For more info, check out my dinky website at OldGreyHorror.com. EDIT: Umm, my marketing person (let's call this person 'Sarge') tells me that I have to mention that my name is J. Adams and I played guitar in Lustra. I am one of the co-writers of the song Scotty Doesn't Know from the movie Eurotrip. As suggested by @januarytwenty, I am making this thread an AMA. Soooo...ask me anything.

Yeah the shipping costs will be clearly advertised. I suppose I could hype the product with 'shipped in sturdy cardboard cassette mailers' or something.

Total monsters. DON'T BUY ULINE.

I would watch a youtube video of you assembling these.

Received any in those cardboard cassette mailers? And, if so, were they intact? Seems like the extra 60 cents might be worth it if it eliminates the hassle of dealing with broken merch.

Thanks, @thefavoriteplay -- however, the padded envelopes are a fraction of the cost of the cardboard boxes. E.g., these bubble mailers are about 20 cents each, whereas these cardboard cassette mailers are 82 cents each -- about four times as much. I wonder if the cardboard really helps all that much? If anyone out there has mailed a bunch of individual cassettes (or pairs, threes, small orders), I'd appreciate knowing what experience says about shipping cassettes.

I'm wondering if anyone here could suggest a good package in which to mail cassettes? I'm about to announce some cassettes for sale on bandcamp and want to be ready to ship as quickly & cost-effectively as possible. I'm also extremely curious what people ordinarily use to ship -- the USPS has a whole complicated description of Media Mail. I'm wondering what practical experience people have shipping cassettes -- like, is an envelope enough or do the tapes arrive all smashed? Is there some cardboard mailer that works well? Where do you buy mailers (NOT ULINE F*** THOSE WEIRDOS). Any wisdom/advice would be much appreciated.

I'm aware that it is important to get the master lacquer to the metal plating folks as quickly as possible. Masterdisk, who recommended VDP in the first place, will be overnighting my master lacquer to Paris. I am already committed to VDP so I'll have to just hope for the best at this point.

I'm happy to report some progress. A friend had wisely advised me to make sure I had everything in hand (artwork, masters, possibly my own lacquer, money) before contacting the pressing company. I decided it was finally time to look at getting lacquers cut -- even though I was worried about getting a lacquer cut and nowhere to press it -- and finally talked to my mastering guy (Alex DeTurk, who is really great) and asked who he'd recommend to cut a lacquer and he referred me to Scott Hull at Masterdisk. This really broke the log jam. Scott Hull is not cheap, but he's quite well known and Masterdisk has some of the best gear in the world. His secret weapon is his studio manager, Mickie Steier, who is super nice and friendly and who directly introduced me to 3 different contacts at three different pressing companies. She first mentioned Vinyl De Paris, saying they had done some 'beautiful test pressings.' She also said Microforum in Canada was good. And lastly, she connected me to someone at Gotta Groove. Mickie's introduction cleared away a lot of the suspicion I might otherwise have encountered by contacting these companies directly because they know she works at Masterdisk and that she's serious. It also reassured me to have her recommendation because Masterdisk knows what they are doing. I contacted all 3 companies and learned that Gotta Groove currently has a 10-month turnaround time. Microforum estimated 26 to 28 weeks for turnaround (although I think they'll let you pay a rush fee to reduce this considerably) and VDP said their turnaround time was 14 weeks. I decided to go with VDP and have sent off my artwork. Unfortunately, everyone in Paris goes on vacation in August, so this will slow things down by 4 weeks, but I should receive my vinyl around November if all goes well. I've received my test lacquer from Scott Hull and I played it and I'm PUMPED. My experience with Scott & Mickie at Masterdisk has been really encouraging, and VDP has been very helpful, too. They answer all my questions clearly and promptly, and I'm impressed with their attention to detail so far.

Not that anyone cares, but just got off the phone with discmakers. I asked who they use to press their vinyl (which takes 26 weeks for delivery) and they declined to answer. The person explained that they have numerous partners and must opportunistically use whoever is available, depending on market circumstances.

These look nice! Thanks for the link. I had been looking at The Vinyl Factory. I have some contacts in UK so this is interesting.

I had no idea CDBaby offered vinyl pressing. I guess the be-wary-of-newcomers warning should be applied. I'd be very curious what results your friend gets.

The off-topic responses do tend to undermine its intended purpose, which is to identify a reputable, reliable vinyl pressing organization that is actually accepting orders.

This is what I've heard, and precisely what I'm afraid of. Have you any idea which plants were responsible for the botched product? Wanna name any names about the records?

Has anyone ever ordered a *new* record and gotten bad product? Any real-world examples?

I've been sternly warned about newcomers to vinyl pressing -- pressing vinyl is quirky and inexperienced companies can roll out a lot of junk. Or so I've heard, anyway. Copy Cats appears to specialize in CDs. I will sniff around some more, though. Who knows, they may just be a broker/agent for one of the other pressing companies?

Thanks for the warning. Not really sure what transpired there, but I doubt Dreamworks or Universal made any licensing deal with Ross/ETR without our consent. Nobody paid me a cent in royalties -- or even offered me a copy of it.

Ha! You're welcome. Matty's a tool, I'll bet.

This is very helpful! I've been googlin' and googlin' and it sounds like GZ is a big operation and YES I've seen mixed reports on them. My mastering guy has a dude I want to use to cut a lacquer. I plan to call my dude tomorrow and I'll have to ask about DMM so thanks also for that tidbit. I'm ready to press 500 copies and I'm not that concerned about shipping amid all the other costs. That said, I'm in Los Angeles. Isn't RTI in Cali somewhere?

That was a bootleg, which was pressed without my consent or knowledge. Maybe I should call them up? Does anybody know if it was a good pressing?

**OFF-TOPIC** I appreciate your kind interest but plz direct your queries to suitable FB/twitter (which we never respond to). We need some followers TBH.

Ehhh i should not have mentioned it. I got defensive when youspinmeround said I have 'no experience.' It's SDK in the movie Eurotrip. I share credit with three other guys.