24 hours to launch

24 Hours to go!
24 Hours to go!
24 Hours to go!

Less than 24 hours remain until the album is officially released and I’m sitting here doing nothing but waiting. [false]

For the past two months I’ve been running around like a chicken without its head, not literally but pretty much. In case you didn’t know, If you’re an artist and you’re pretty much doing everything yourself you don’t just sit there and wait for your album to be out, and specially if you’re relatively a newly established artist. You have to become and “Armchair Activist.”

So what have I been doing all this time?

  1. Putting together a good looking website.
  2. Creating the teaser video.
  3. Setting up the online store.
  4. Setting up the mailing list.
  5. Figuring out what to give away to the fans where and when.
  6. Creating all the designs for the merchandise.
  7. Preparing all mp3s and tagging them.
  8. Putting together a decent press kit.
  9. Writing the press release (thanks for the help Alex!)
  10. Contacting web’zines and radio stations.
  11. Setting up profiles on gazillions of music related sites.
  12. Setting up the Facebook fan page, Twitter, MySpace, BandCamp, Youtube, Reverbnation, Last.fm, SoundCloud … Can I stop here. please ? Did I forget to mention maintaining all these pages and keeping them updated with posts and whatnot ?
  13. Sending promo copies here and there.
  14. hours and hours of endless photoshopping and preparing images, illustrations and photos.
  15. Responding to fans!
  16. Signing posters, wrapping, packing, sealing, printing, shipping.
  17. Reading tons of articles.
  18. Blogging (in disguise) … not to mention setting it up, which took me almost 2 days

I’m not sure if I’m forgetting anything, but hey most of these are fun to do and I’m not complaining at all, but can you imagine the amount of time each item needs to complete? Of course I can go in detail into the process for every single item, but I’m not going to bore you. Sometimes I forget to breathe, I really do, the amount of information available to us artists today is really overwhelming. I wish I had more time to do more.

I should be sleeping, it’s the big day tomorrow!

How Did it All Happen?

Andy Kuntz (vocals)

I always wanted to do a solo project, packed with epic guitar and keyboard melody lines and solos.

The project started back in early December 2010, with the idea of creating an instrumental rock and metal album with leading guitar melodies, which later on developed to include keyboardist Derek Sherinian to guest on some of the tracks. At that point the drummer was yet unidentified, but drummer Aram Kalousdian (previous band mate from Nu.Clear.Dawn) was an obvious choice at that point, Aram is a great drummer that I’ve worked with from 1996 to 2005. But recent problems in the middle east has slowed down the process and productivity to almost 0%, which led me to start thinking about other options, and it was Virgil Donati.

Virgil is a world class drummer who also played with Derek Sherinian in Planet X, and was one of the drummers being auditioned for the Dream Theater album after former Mike Portnoy left the band. It was very natural for me to contact Virgil Donati and ask him if he’d like to play on the album. Of course he was more than happy to be reunited with an old band mate.

And as for the bassist, who else would be the best fit other than Ric Fierabracci who also played with Derek and Virgil in Planet X. Ric played in a lot of bands and projects, he is an expert and a virtuoso, working with him felt like working with a band-mate who’d been playing with you for years. His touch and sound on the album is very obvious and original, something you can’t really miss.

Andy Kuntz (vocals)
Andy Kuntz (vocals)

I met with Andy Kuntz back in summer of 2004, when we we performed in a 3 day long metal festival in Istanbul, Turkey. We were sitting at the hotel restaurant, having breakfast before we left to the venue, when Andy and his band-mates from Vanden Plas walked in. Andy is one of the most friendly and supportive musicians I have ever met, everything he has done for Nu.Clear.Dawn has left us speechless.
When I went to Europe in 2011, I met with Andy again and asked him if he’d like to sing on one of the tracks, when I gave Andy the demos, he gave it a quick spin and he was in love with the melodies and music and he agreed to sing on as many tracks I liked.
Once again we were more than welcomed, as he invited us to a special (VIP) Vanden Plas show they had, not more than 100 people were invited, and they were all die hard Vanden Plas fans. It was a great honor to be among them.

I had a great time working with all these musicians, it was a wild ride for me these past two years. The result of which is now in your hands and ears.

So I decided to start blogging (in disguise)

wordpress-grey-xlHello everyone!

First of all thank you for checking out the blog!

There’s a whole lot going on right now, and of all the things I am busy doing lately, handling the orders, packing, shipping, promoting, doing interviews, sending out promo copies etc… I, out of the blue, decided to start blogging !
Well… it’s not completely out of the blue, since I was thinking where could I post press items, reviews, interviews and such, and wanted to keep them all kind of separate from the main Semantic Saturation website.

So be it! When I have a task in mind I must do it, and I must do it NOW!

This blog will indeed keep you guys up to date to the latest things and projects I’m up to, and it will keep all my ideas in one place. Of course I won’t always post about how good my music is and where to buy blah blah, I’ll try to keep this place more friendly and post about various stuff.

You’re probably wondering why is it called “Blogging in Disguise” ?
Basically I was thinking of modifying one of the track names from the debut album Solipsistic. Starblog, Blogdust, What if We All Blog, Blog of Singularity .. all didn’t sound as good as the track name “#5 Blessing in Disguise” so “Blogging in Disguise” it was.
What do you think ?