"I KNOW it’s in here! I just cataloged ‘em and put ‘em into chronological order less than a week ago! Where is that flippin’ show?” How many times have you gone to your CD rack looking for a specific gig and were unable to find it quickly because there is no artwork or U-card in the case? How about taking a show with you in your car or on a trip and not known what the track listing is because you don’t have any artwork or inserts? Unless it is a favorite you have come to know by heart you must resort to the scan button on your player. We have all seen the postings’ asking for site addresses that house scans of original boot artwork. Many of us have even tackled the problem by designing our own. Still, there is nothing like the real thing. To help remedy the situation and to make copies of the original artwork readily available for all I proposed a solution to Frayed and thanks to his help and generosity a new cover art database is now available at the Black Moonshine webpage. What does this all mean? Anyone with original boots can scan the artwork and submit it to the database. This will allow all traders access to the inserts and will eliminate the need to send it as an attachment or folding it and sending it with the discs. This site can also house original artwork made by fans that wish to share their talents with the rest of their fellow Amoricans. If you are thinking to yourself, “Great, but I don’t know a thing about making inserts” don’t fret. It is easier than you may think. There are many programs available that help you create jewel case inserts quickly and easily. If purchasing new software is out of the question another option is the built in templates in such programs as Microsoft’s Word, Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator or CorelDraw. You just have to make sure the final product (your cover art) is a standard image file such as "jpg, gif, bmp, tif", etc. Although having labels helps locating specific shows easier not all labels are beneficial. A debate concerning adhesive labels or writing the disc information on the disc itself is a heated one. Although recordable discs have not been around very long many feel that after time adhesives and ink can bleed through the media and damage the data. Companies such as Kodak claim their discs have a life of 100 years but also warn that not much is known about the possible damage writing or labels can do to the disc. It is also known that if a label is not centered correctly the balance of the disc will be thrown off and can cause problems with the player or recorder. To avoid having problems it is suggested you write only on the inside ring (clear portion) of the CD. That is if you feel you need to write on it at all. Soon our search for artwork will be over. You are invited to submit any boot artwork or original artwork you may have to Frayed so that it can be added to the database. Remember most, if not all, of the artwork we see on bootlegs was designed by people just like you and me…. fans. Together we can help one another out and possibly find what we were looking for in our CD racks without driving ourselves mad. To submit artwork please email it to: Frayed and put “Cover art submission” in the subject line. The database is available at the Black Moonshine homepage - please chack the artwork database for info on size and pixel specs. |