Geologic News

INTERROBANG is now an AWARD WINNING CD. Dig it.
The creative team at Sheer Brick Studio (namely Donna, Geo, and Oscar) have won both a Gold and a Best In Show for Print at the Greater Lehigh Valley ADDY® Awards for the packaging of INTERROBANG.

Thanks to our friends at John Sterling Ruth Studio for the excellent photography (and warm studio) and the team at Christmas City Printing for the spot-on offset litho. As always, you make us look good.

• From the Morning Call (Dan Shope, reporting)
• Donna Mugavero thought the Lehigh Valley needed a company run by a woman with tenacity. She started Sheer Brick, which produces annual reports and media guides for companies such as Binney & Smith. She's hard-core ink and paper.
• [she was a] big winner at the recent Greater Lehigh Valley Ad Club's annual ADDY Awards…
• …And then there's Sheer Brick. Opened in 1993, it won for its entry "Interrobang," a CD packaging for Geologic Records.
• "Interrobang" by George Hrab has been described on one Web site as "a musical journey of self doubt, naked ambition, personal revelation, and the challenge of living up to a philosophy … plus a song about squirrels."
• "I focus on print," said Mugavero, 46, who remains the company's only employee.
• Using the tenacity of "sheer brick," she now has a list of clients that include Binney, USA Basketball, the Ivy League colleges … the Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem and DeSales University.
• "I don't do all the work for these clients," she said. "But I focus on doing a part."

• Interrobang recieves 3.5 stars on Sea of Tranquility website
• March 10th 2006
• Hrab, George: Interrobang
• Time to come clean: I've never heard of George Hrab. And even though his fifth album, Interrobang, apparently is as confessional and personal as the drummer-turned-multi-instrumental vocalist gets, Hrab warns liner-notes readers: "Don't you assume you really know me." That established — and without even hearing a single note on this odd 60-minute CD influenced by Talking Heads, Frank Zappa and Prince — it's clear that Hrab isn't your typical do-it-yourself indie recording artist. The tall, bespectacled and bald man poses nude (save for a pair of red high-top sneakers) on the cover, the detailed and mind-bending liner notes explain the theory of relativity, and the disc itself is packaged in one of those sleek, clear-plastic DVD cases. It won't fit on your shelf between the Bruce Hornsby and Hum Machine CDs, but if it's any consolation, Interrobang did recently nab an ADDY® Award for its packaging design.
• But, you ask, what about the music? Well, the music is a fun and delightful cornucopia of rock and pop song structures (as opposed to the funk and R&B leanings of Hrab's earlier albums) with lyrics that'll make you think more than you want to. The bald naked guy performs an awesome drum solo on "We're Looking for Something a Bit More Ethnic," paraphrases Carly Simon on "Out of My Mind" and takes plenty of shots at the GOP on "?" — which comes with 17(!) footnotes in Interrobang's booklet. The album gets a bit blustery and self-indulgent near its conclusion — a song about squirrels? — but at the end of it all, Hrab thanks me for listening to Interrobang, and that makes up for everything else.
• Cheers, George.
• Reviewer: Michael Popke