I’ve been looking for more record covers designed by Banksy and via Ebay found a guy who has really collected a lot of Banksy related stuff. I succumbed (again) to temptation and bought both versions of Dirty Funker’s “Let’s Get Dirty” 12″ single – the one with the Kate Moss portrait cover. There are two versions: the first pressing just had Kate’s portrait on front and rear with no titles or tracklisting, while the second pressing had a title banner placed over Kate’s eyes on front and rear.

Banksy has designed covers for other Dirty Funker records, including “Future” with five colour variations of Radar Rat on the covers.

I’m also interested in Klaus Voormann’s record cover art. His covers span over 50 years from his first cover for the German band The Typhons (or should it be Typhoons?) in 1960. Through his friendship with The Beatles he was introduced to the Liverpool music scene and in about 1965 joined the Liverpool band The Eyes and drew the cover to their single “She” b/w “Peanut Butter”, released in Germany in 1966. He was straight from art school in Hamburg when he made The Typhons‘ cover and was commissioned by Coral Records to design the covers for a series of twenty EPs of jazz pioneers. These covers show great sophistication and are reminiscent of some 50s record cover designers. Individual copies come up for sale on Ebay quite regularly, but finding all 20 will not be easy. But collecting Voormann’s cover art ought not to be expensive. Most records only cost about what an album costs today.

I have not been buying many records lately. I’ve been trying to make an exhaustive list of street artist Banksy’s record cover art. I usually do this sort of research by checking what is on offer on Ebay. Yesterday was bingo! I bought a promo copy of Benjamin Zephaniah’s ‘Naked’ CD which has several Banksy images in the booklet. And another vendor had seven Banksy covers for sale, including the elusive Dirty Funkers’ “Let’s Get Dirty” single with Banksy’s (in)famous portrait of Kate Moss done in a sort of Andy Warhol style. There are two pressings of this 12″ single; the rare first pressing had the portrait in different colours on the cover’s front and rear with no title. The, not so rare, second pressing had the same images but with a title band across Kate’s eyes making her unidentifiable.

This vendor was offering both covers on a ‘Buy it Now’ basis, together with a couple of other 12″s and three CD compilations with classic Banksy images. I had managed to sell a few duplicate records and had some extra funds, so I fell for temptation and bought the lot! I think (hope?) the rarer Banksy covers will appreciate in value – particularly the Kate Moss cover. Speaking of which, Damien Hirst put out a limited edition 12″ single in 2009 using the cover image of a dissected Kate Moss that he had used on the cover of TAR magazine. This was a one-sided white vinyl record issued in 666 copies with what sounds like Kate Moss talking on the telephone for about 30 seconds and then some noise before Hirst expounds on the subject of it being okay for artists to earn money.

I’m not sure of the artistic quality of this cover, but it fits with Damien Hirst’s interest in death.

Anyway, now I’ve added a lot more Banksy covers to my collection.