I’m constantly on the look out for record and CD covers with cover art by the artist known as Banksy. Ebay seems to be a real treasure trove and a great place to do research. I recently saw a copy of a cover for a seven inch version of DJ Danger Mouse’s 2008 unofficial Keep It Real / Laugh Now single. Well I have never seen one of these before and was immediately suspicious that it could be a fake. However, as a well-known faker myself, there was one detail in the item description that suggested that it may actually be genuine. If I was going to make a seven inch cover of this record that, as far as I know, has only been released as a 12″, I would simply photograph the front and rear of the cover, reduce the photos to the correct size in Photoshop, align them together and get my printer to print the result on glossy 300 gm paper. But the photos of this Ebay item showed that the artist, record title and catalogue number were printed on the spine. I’ve tried to replicate text on a thin strip to use as a spine and have found it nigh on impossible–so the appearance of text on the spine of this cover suggests to me it is genuine.

I made an offer for it and after some haggling managed to buy it. It is beautiful and in mint condition.

The front cover of the 7″ single.

The rear cover of the 7″ single.

The seller told me that he had acquired the cover along with a couple of printers’ proofs sometime around 2011. apparently Danger Mouse had planned to release a seven inch version of the single and had a limited number of covers printed before abandoning the idea.

Here’s what the cover looks like with a single inserted.

It’s a lovely addition to my collection.