Thursday, January 22, 2009

First look at the Mouthpiece discography



Yesterday I pulled up to my house after coming home from work, to find two boxes sitting on my porch. I had been patiently awaiting the arrival of the actual CD's for the Mouthpiece - "Can't Kill What's Inside" discography and it looked like they had finally arrived. I got my kids out of the car, hopped up to the porch, grabbed the two boxes and pushed my way into the house.

I grabbed a nail and sliced through the tape as quickly as I could. The first box I opened was an un-glued, un-folded, sample LP jacket and an LP lyric sheet. I looked over both quickly and moved on to the second box, which was the CD's. Again I slashed the tape with a nail and the first thing I saw when the box opened was a row of shiny CD case spines. I pulled one out, gazed at the cover, flipped it over, gazed at the back cover, popped it open, checked out the CD, pulled the CD off and looked at the photo underneath, then I carefully pulled out the booklet. Page by page I went through it as if I had never seen it before in my life. I was reading lyrics, checking out the show listings, staring at the photos, soaking it all in. Keep in mind, this is a project that I have been working on for four years. Finally seeing the actual finished product in my hands felt a little surreal. Sure I spent this past year working back and forth with co-designer and former band roadie Ed McKirdy on the layouts and of course we had printed our own mock ups as things progressed, but there's nothing like seeing the actual finished product. All that work, all that time, all that effort, all those late nights sitting in front of my computer, all those drives to the studios, this was the result.

Today I came home to two more boxes from Revelation. A box of LP test pressings and another box with various merch. The first Revelation Mouthpiece shirt design, some stickers and a couple different pins. Again, this was all stuff that Ed and I sat up many late nights, doing screen shares and designing until our eyes went bloodshot. Seeing the shirts in front of me, the stickers, the pins, all for the first time... yeah, it was all worth it.

I think it's finally starting to set in, this project is finished and Mouthpiece now has it's final resting place on Revelation Records. Who would have thought? I know we never did. I remember ordering the Gorilla Biscuits 7", the Side By Side 7" and the Chain Of Strength 7" all from Rev when they came out, I remember ordering a Side By Side and Gorilla Biscuits shirts from them in 1988. Getting those Revelation packages in the mail with that cool Revelation stamp was always something I couldn't wait to see in my mail box. I continued ordering from Revelation so many times over the years, even as recent as the Judge discog on vinyl. Still, the excitement of seeing that package never seems to dull. Now this time around, finding my own bands record in that package... as it was said, "mission accomplished, good job men". -Tim DCXX


16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome. xxx

-cja said...

despite wanting the vinyl over the CD, i think i'll be buying both. you guys came a long way since the night we went on the photoshoot, haha. glad to see it's finally been realized now.

Anonymous said...

congrats.

JD said...

Looks amazing. Congrats.

Anonymous said...

I can only imagine how thats gotta feel. Stoked on this!

Ferox said...

Incredible! I'm stoked for you! Can't wait to check out the discography myself!

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm....a Mouthpiece test press!! Wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of those...hint, hint....LOL

J/K! Anyway that's rad Tim, I'll be picking that up this weekend for sure!

Youth Crimes... said...

Congrats Tim! I know that warm fuzzy feeling of FINALLY seeing something you put so much time/effort into in it's real/final form.

Getting 36 cases of my finished printed book back from the printer on a big wood pallet was so surreal - especially after 3 years of working on it.

I held the first copy I unpacked and just stared at it as if I had never seen it before.

Dave B

Anonymous said...

Man! i cannot wait to get my hands on the vinyl! will probably order a tshirt as well!!

LD

Benj said...

congrats tim - i have been listening to this nonstop since wednesday and it sounds great and brings back some memories.

mcs said...

The first new release I have been excited about in a LONG time. Nice work!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the discography. It looks FANTASTIC, by the way.

Ken said...

You should be proud man, I cant wait to pick this up.

xpatedgex said...

I sat reading this, and tears came to my eyes, Tim. I remember first reading about Mouthpiece in Thrasher, and I had to find the first 7". Being a bigger tape collector than records, I lucked out and found the cassette version at a record store on the West side of Cleveland. That fucker stayed in my tape player in my Chevy the entire summer of '94, along with Outspoken's "Current".

My box came from Revelation this weekened. In it was the disc and my shirt. I instantly put it on my iPod (had to import the live tracks from the hidden file on the disc), and had my shirt laid out for my morning workout.

I hit the gym at 7 am yesterday, armed with the live and studio tracks, army shorts, low-top Vans, and my new XXl Mouthpiece shirt. I stayed in the gym for a couple hours, went to work, and went right back to the gym at 4.

Wash, rinse, repeat today, except my new shirt was all sweaty. So, I had to dust off my old shirt with the "X-fist" on the front. (Got that the same day I got the tape).

I'm very excited to have this in my hands, in my ears, and part of my everyday routine. Good job Tim!

Anonymous said...

Hey- what's the deal with the vinyl release of this? I noticed it's not on RevHQ, and I just assumed the vinyl isn't pressed or whatever. Where/when will there be a record version? thanks

DOUBLE CROSS said...

The test presses for the vinyl came in late last week. I need to sit down and listen to the test press, than give Jordan the thumbs up or down. As soon as I give Jordan the word, he'll schedule the vinyl to be pressed.

We intended for everything to be released at the same time, but as you know it's rare for everything to go as planned. I'd expect the vinyl out pretty soon, I know the cover and lyric sheets are done and ready to go. I'll give a heads up when I know it done.

By the way, thanks to everyone for their kind words. I really appreciate it and it's great to see that people are as excited about this as we are. -Tim DCXX