I’m sorry that Romain Beltrame has had to close his Triphopshop — a combination record store and art gallery. Romain is a fan of hip hop, street art, and fashion, revamping tired jeans jackets by painting on them. Another of his specialties is re-imagining LP covers and I bought a couple from him last year. Now, as he is closing the gallery, I traded a couple of paintings for seven more of his re-imagined covers.
There are two David Bowie albums – Pinups and Diamond Dogs, The Doors’ Waiting for the Sun, Prince’s Parade, Grace Jones’s Living My Life, an album of religious Indian music called L’Inde and Madonna’s True Blue.
I think the Doors and L’Inde cover are the most successful, but I also like the others, too, especially the Pinups cover as it is one of my favourite Bowie ablums (I have a soft spot for cover albums.)
Collecting David Shrigley’s record cover art has proved much easier than I had thought it would be. My main research engines have been Ebay and Discogs plus some targeted Internet searches. In my last post on Shrigley’s record cover art I said I had identified twenty-one records. CDs and cassettes with his art. I have been working hard since then and my tally is now up to forty-two records, tapes and CDs/CDrs plus three items that are not strictly records/record covers. These last include David Shrigley’s limited edition I Am Deep in Thought print included with David Grubbs 2003 Cosmic Structure LP, Shrigley’s 2005 book Worried Noodles: The Empty Cover and his I Collect Records Records Frisbee. The frisbee was created in 2014 after David Shrigley’s Life and Life Drawing exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia. Despite these not being true record covers I decided to include them in my Shrigley collection.
David Grubbs’ Cosmic Structure LP With David Shrigley’s “I Am Deep in Thought” print.
David Shrigley’s book “Worried Noodles: The Empty Cover” contains a record inner sleeve with an LP printed on it, but no record inside:
David Shrigley’s “I Collect records” frisbee.
Many, if not the majority, of David Shrigley’s record, CD and cassette covers are limited editions. These are often produced by museums or art galleries in conjunction with exhibitions of Shrigley’s art. However, the first three releases that I have been able to identify (from 2002-3) are two CDs by the Scottish band Ballboy — A Guide for the Daylight Hours and The Sash My Father Wore And Other Stories and the cover for Blur’s Good Song DVD (the only release from Blur’s Think Tank album that had cover art by someone other than Banksy.
Two Ballboy CDs and the Blur DVD single.
In 2005 Shrigley allowed the group The Singing Adams to use his Untitled (Wild Animal) print design on the cover of their 2004 CD Problems.
The Singing Adams “Problems” CD.
Shrigley’s next release was a limited edition LP (500 copies) entitled Forced to Speak With Others which was also released on CD.
Forced to Speak With Others LP cover.
And this was followed by a very limited seven-inch single called Ding Dong released in connection with David Shrigley’s exhibition at the Dundee Contemporary Art museum in 2006. Side one has the “ding” sound of a doorbell and side two the “dong” sound.
The front cover of Shrigley’s Ding Dong single.
Two other seven-inch singles appeared in 2006; A split single with Belle & Sebastian’s Casaco Marron (Latenitetales) coupled with David Shrigley’s When I was a Little Girl, and a picture disc The Perfect Me by the American band Deerhoof. Designer and record cover artist Jan Lankisch who was working at Tomlab records introduced David to Deerhoof and he designed this single and agreed to make the cover for Deerhoof’s forthcoming Friend Opportunity album as well as a further picture disc single Matchbook Seeks Maniac (Dedication Mix) / MaKko Shobu.
The Friend Opportunity album contained twelve alternative cover designs produced by David Shrigley.
The twelve alternative covers included in the “Friend Opportunity” LP.
There would be three more releases in 2007. Malcolm Middleton, a member of Arab Strap (among other constellations) recorded his A Brighter Beat album released on both LP and CD. The CD came in a standard issue and a limited edition. All three had cover art by Shrigley.
Cover art for A Brighter Beat: Left the LP and standard CD cover, at right the limited edition CD.
The final release of 2007 was by R. Stevie Moore a prolific American musician/guitarist who put music to poems from Shrigley’s Worried Noodles book and released a cassette and CDr of these tracks called Shrigley Field. The CD was released in a limited edition of 20 numbered copies signed by David Shrigley.
I suspect that this cover is R. Stevie Moore’s rendition of David Shrigley’s portrait of Moore that appeared in BOMB magazine (No 101, July 13, 2010).
I shall continue the story of David Shrigley’s record cover art in the next post.
I don’t like to comment on people’s appearance, but David Shrigley is about ten centimetres taller than me. He is well-known for his often comical drawings and artworks. He was born in Glasgow, studied art at the Glasgow School of Art and has had many solo shows both in the U.K. and internationally. He had an exhibition at Stockholm’s Spritmuseum from 27 September to 28 March, 2019 where he filled the exhibition space with inflatable swans. It was quite exciting to see the twenty-or-so giant swans slowly inflate and raise their heads and then slowly deflate again. Shrigley attended the opening and the closing of the exhibition and I made sure I would be on the final day.
Spritmuseum¨s curator Mia Sundgren interviews David Shrigley.
My interest in David Shrigley’s art was peaked when I discovered that he had designed the cover to Castle Face & Friends’ rendition of the Velvet Underground & Nico’s eponymous album in 2012.
Castle Face & Friends — Velvet Underground & Nico cover signed by David Shrigley on 14th March 2019 at Spritmuseum, Stockholm.
To round off the evening David Shrigley offered to design tattoos for anyone attending and many people let him draw little figures on arms, legs or anywhere they wished. Then a tattoo artist fixed the designs permanently. Somehow I didn’t manage to get a tattoo, but I did manage to get David to sign my LP cover.
David Shrigley signing my album cover.
Just recently I bought David Shrigley & Régis Laugier’s Play Something Awful LP with cover design by David. I realised that he’s been involved in writing lyrics as well as designing record and CD covers. He wrote lyrics for the San Francisco band Deerhoof’s Friend Opportunity LP in 2007 and even did the cover for Jason Mraz’s 2008 We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things LP/CD.
There are a few rare covers that Shrigley has designed. The one I would most like to get is Stephen Malkmus & Friends Can’s Ege Bambyasi LP released for record Store Day 2013. I’m sorry I missed it.
I’ll return to David Shrigley’s record cover art in a future post as I research his designs further.
Today was a bit of a special day! I discovered two CDs with Banksy artwork that I had never seen. I was casually surfing the Internet when I came across a picture of a CD cover that I didn’t recognise but that had classic Banksy artwork. The CD in question is an 11-track compilation released by Seven Magazine and called Seven Magazine Presents the Soundtrack to Sizzler Parties, and contains tracks by Blak Twang (Twixstar) and the Röyksopp remix of The Mecons Please Stay. This CD was released in 2002, so I don’t really understand how it has eluded me for so long!
The second CD, Orange City by a Canadian band called One Bad Son, was released in 2007. The front cover didn’t look promising — probably explaining why I had missed this release.
It isn’t until you open the jewel case and see the CD that the Banksy connection appears.
Here the Bomb Hugger girl image appears both on the CD and on the inside of the rear of the jewel case. I suspect that this is an unofficial use of this particular Banksy image that appeared officially on the Peace Not War compilation CD that accompanied the February 2004 number of the Big Issue magazine.
As I write this, my collection of Banksy records and CDs is moving from the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa to the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara until September 2020 and then from September to December to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto. Perhaps I should add these rare CDs to the exhibit.
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 spine.
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.
We had been planning a revamp of our wardrobes almost from the moment we moved into out current abode seven years ago. Finally, last spring, we finally decided that we should get on with it. This involved moving a wall to enlarge our closet so that we could fit wardobes and cupboards on both sides. I planned for three metres of shelf space to house my record and CD collection. Unfortunately, there was no way to fit the three metres horizontally, so I had to arrange them vertically. And in mid-October everything was complete and I could fetch a crate of records from our storeroom in the cellar and arrange them om the new shelves.
My collection of Andy Warhol record covers was returned from the exhibition at Moderna Museet in Malmö at the same time and I could unpack the records and shelve them somewhat haphazardly until I had time to sort them properly. Almost simultaneously my collection of Banksy record and CD covers was dispatched to Genoa for the “Il Secondo Principio di un artista chiamatio Banksy” exhibition there.
Over the past weeks I have sorted the records and CDs according to designers–a shelf for Peter Blake’s record covers, two for Andy Warhol covers, spaces for Damien Hirst’s and Klaus Voormann’s covers and separate shelves for CDs (where all artists’ covers are collected together for the first time).
The three missing Warhol covers.
But as I began sorting the covers returned from the Warhol 1968 exhibition in Malmö I couldn’t find three covers that I knew had been returned but just didn’t seem to be among all the others. Two were irreplaceable–Paul Anka’s The Painter album signed by both Anka and Andy Warhol and Ultra Violet by Superstar Ultra Violet. The third album was the US promo of John Cale’s The Academy in Peril, which isn’t too hard to find. I was desperate. I could buy a new copy of the John Cale album but I wouldn’t be able to afford new copies of the Ultra Violet and Paul Anka covers, even if they were available.
I spent three days going through every cover looking for these three. I took all the covers out looking for them, even opening gatefold sleeves to see if they had slipped inside but to no avail. I really thought the covers were lost. Had I really got them back from Malmö? I was about to contact Moderna Museet when I remembered that I had checked the returned covers by clipping the album title out from the delivery list accompanying the delivery and slipped each clipping into each respective record’s plastic protective sleeve (you can see the little strips in each cover in the photo). So, obviously I had received the records–so where were they? I spent the third night worrying and slept badly. On the fourth day I decided I’d go through the shelves for a final time.I started at the top and removed box sets and opened them to see if I had unconsciously put the records in them. They weren’t there, of course, but I did find some singles/EPs that I thought I had lost when I sold the major part of my record collection nearly six years ago–among them three German-pressed Count Basie EPs with Andy Warhol’s Basie portrait on the covers and two rare promotional CDs for the Hours’ Ali in the Jungle in a silver-covered booklet.
The three Count Basie EPs I had considered lost.
The front and rear covers of The Hours’ promo booklet for Ali in the Jungle.
Miguel Bosé’s singles with Warhol cover art.
And, in addition, I found some other singles with Warhol cover art–The Silver Apples (Fractal Flow / Lovefingers), Jeanne Moreau & Günther Kaufmann (Each Man Kills the Things He Loves) and the seven inch EP box of Hugo Winterhalter’s recording of Rhapsody in Blue / Grand Canyon Suite. I am very pleased to be able to reintroduce these “lost” items into my collection.
I went through all seven shelves of records starting at the top, took out all the CDs sifted through a pile of singles and when I finally reached the bottom shelf, I found the three missing Warhol albums together right at the start of the covers lined up there. It was as if someone had removed them knowing I would be sorting the collection and then taken pity on me seeing my misery and carefully replaced them! Had they been there previously I would have found them. I mean I took every record out several times. Poltergeist? Someone or something from “the other side”? Any other explanaiton?
Anyway, having found the missing LPs–and a load more stuff I thought I’d lost–I can at last store my records where I can find them and have everything in order.
I don’t suppose I’ll ever again be able to add as many covers to my collection as I did in 2017–partly because most of my collections are complete or very nearly so.
I added a few new areas of collection during 2016 and added new covers in these in 2017. I managed to find several new covers featuring Kate Moss and some Banksy covers. It was the 50th Anniversary of many important albums. I have already written about “The Velvet Underground & Nico” reissues. 2017 was also the 50th anniversary of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and there was a magnificent box set released to mark the occasion. I also found an interesting pastiche of the Blake / Haworth cover art by Jun Fukamachi. And, while on the subject of pastiches I collected several “Velvet Undergound & Nico” pastiches, too.
So, here’s a list of covers by other artists that came into my collection in 2017: BANKSY: Capoeira Twins – Four (4 x 3) / Truth Will Out” – Promotional 12″ single with hand sprayed cover. Boys in Blue – Funk Tha Police” – 12″ limited edition single. Skitz – Badmeaningood, Vol 1 – Digipak CD. Roots Manuva – Badmeaningood, Vol 2 – Digipak CD. Peanut Butter Wolf – Badmeaningood, Vol 3 – Digipak CD. Scratch Perverts – Badmeaningood, Vol 4 – Digipak CD. Monk & Canatella – Do Community Service – CD.
PETER BLAKE The Beatles – Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – 50th anniversary box set. The Beatles – Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (outtakes) – Bootleg gatefold LP The Beatles – Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – Japanese origami stage set.
Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – Pastiche Jun Fukamachi – The Beatles – Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – 12″ LP.
Gilbert & George. Gilbert & George – The Thoughts of Gilbert & George – Limited edition 12″ LP.
Karin “Mamma” Andersson: Beck – I Won’t Be Long – 12″ single. Beck – Defriended – 12″ single. Beck – Gimme” – Double 12″ single.
Kate Moss: 6majik9 – Kate Moss – Hand painted CD cover. Babyshambles – Shotter’s Nation – 2×12″ LP. Bryan Ferry – Alphaville / Me Oh My – Limited edition 12″ single. Bryan Ferry – You Can Dance – Limited edition 12″ single. Bryan Ferry – Alphaville (Remixes) – Limited edition 12″ single. Bryan Ferry – Olympia – Limited edition, autographed, 2 CD + DVD and book. Bryan Ferry – Olympia Remixes – Digital file. Bryan Ferry – Heartache by Numbers – Promotional CD single. Primal Scream & Kate Moss – Some Velvet Morning – 12″ maxi single. Primal Scream & Kate Moss – Some Velvet Morning (Luke Fair Remix) – 12″ single. Vomit – Kate Moss – 7″ EP.
BANKSY:
I had an almost complete collection of covers on both vinyl and CD with Banksy art and was just missing the elusive Capoeira Twins’ “Four (4 x 3) / Truth Will Out” promotional single with the hand sprayed cover. None (apart from a couple sold by art galleries) seemed to have been sold for several years but suddenly there appeared a spate of them on Ebay in the latter half of 2017. I managed to get one of them, though unfortunately not the cheapest. And just as I was congratulating myself on completing my collection, a new Banksy cover appeared by a band I have never heard of called Boys in Blue. This was said to be a limited edition of 100 copies featuring Banksy’s “Rude Copper” on the cover. I snapped up a couple of copies!
“Four (4 x 3)” by the Capoiera Twins (BLOWP008).
The cover of the Boys in Blue’s 12″ single “Funk tha Police”.
I also added some CDs–the four “Badmeaningood” series in Digipak covers and a second copy of Monk & Canatella’s “Do Community Service” that came in a batch of 23 CDs that I bought for £3 plus £7 shipping!
PETER BLAKE:
2017 was not a good year for Peter Blake’s record cover art as no new covers appeared. It was partially saved by the 50th anniversary of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and Apple released a generous 4CD box set with a hardcover book and posters to celebrate. The box had a lenticuar reproduction of the original Blake / Haworth cover art. Though initially I thought I didn’t need this in my collection, I finally succumbed and bought a copy only to be pleased to find that each CD had a different version of the original cover art photo session.
The Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” 50th anniversary box set.
The Japanese version of the 50th anniversary box set included an insert which the handier collectors could cut out and assemble into a montage of the Pepper band in a stage-like frame. I found one of these cut outs at a record fair and could buy it to add to my UK box set.
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” – Pastiche:
The Japanese composer Jun Fukamachi released an album called “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in 1977. The cover was painted by Fumio Tamabuchi showed the Pepper scene with backs turned to the viewer.
The cover of Jun Fukamachi’s “Sgt. Pepper” album painted by Fumio Tamabuchi.
Additions to my collection of covers featuring Kate Moss:
As I already had covers by Damien Hirst and Banksy that featured Kate Moss I thought it would be fun to collect all the covers I could find that she appeared on. I turned up ten more in 2017:
The most interesting were the limited edition 12″ Bryan Ferry singles released by The Vinyl Factory in 2010-2011 with tracks taken from Ferry’s 2010 “Olympia” album. There were seven singles released from “Olympia” but only six made it onto Vinyl Factory 12″-ers. “Heartache By Numbers” was the exception and apparently only released as a promotional CD single in The Netherlands.
There was a hand painted CD entlitled “Kate Moss” by the band 6majik9 that was only made in an edition of 100 copies that I was luck to find on Discogs:
2007 6majik9 “Kate Moss” CD-r with handmade cover. Music Your Mind Will Love You.
And a 7″ EP by the American grunge/punk band Vomit also called “Kate Moss” that had a fold-out sleeve with about thirteen Kate Mosses all told.
The gatefold cover of Vomit’s 7″ single Kate Moss with at least thirteen portraits of Kate.
Kate Moss was for a while involved with Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty and she appeared on a few of the band’s tracks. Sje appears in person on the cover of the Band’s “Shotter’s Nation” album:
Kate was also in a duet with Primal Scream on the classic Lee Hazlewood song “Some Velvet Morning” and this was released as a 12″ single and a Luke Fair remix was also released in a black dye-cut sleeve. Some copies, however, had photos of Kate taken by Kate Garner in 1992.
2003 – Primal Scream & Kate Moss “Some Velvet Morning”, Columbia 12″.
“Some Velvet Morning” remix 12″ with one of Jane Garner’s 1992 portraits of Kate on front and rear covers.
So, quite a number of interesting additions thus far.
I begin to repeat myself! I know I should never, NEVER, say that I’ve completed a collection, but this time I may actually have… I have finally got hold of all the covers on my Kate Moss Cover List. Just publishing this post, will, I’m sure, unearth more. But for now, what the heck, I’ll say I’ve got ’em all.
So here, in alphabetical order, are the new additions:
BABYSHAMBLES – “Shotter’s Nation” – Parlophone LP
BRYAN FERRY – You Can Dance Remixes – Vinyl Factory 12″
BRYAN FERRY – Alphaville Remixes – Vinyl Factory 12″
6majik9 – Kate Moss – Musicyourmindstilllove you CDr
PRIMAL SCREAM & KATE MOSS – Some Velvet Morning – Columbia 12″
2007 6majik9 “Kate Moss” CD-r with handmade cover. Music Your Mind Will Love You.
2003 – Primal Scream & Kate Moss “Some Velvet Morning”, Columbia 12″.
The “Shotter’s Nation” album was Babyshambles‘ third full length album after “HQ Sessions Second Wave” and “Down in Albion“. The album artwork is credited to Pete Doherty and Traffic and the cover painting to the French artist, painter, writer (5 novels so far) and photographer Alizé Meurisse, who has designed several covers for Babyshambles and Pete Doherty. Despite being released as recently as 2007, the vinyl album has become quite scarce. I assume the female figure on the cover with her back to the viewer is Kate Moss.
The Vinyl Factory released seven limited vinyl editions of Bryan Ferry‘s 2010 album “Olympia” and remixes of six singles taken from it. All featured portraits of Kate Moss in various poses photographed by Adam Whitehead. The first was “You Can Dance Remixes” and then came “Alphaville” remixes on two separate 12″ EPs, then “Heartache by Numbers“, which thus far I have only identified as a rare Dutch promotional CD single. The final two 12” EPs are “Shameless” and “BF Base (Ode to Olympia)“. The arrival of the “You Can Dance Remixes” and the second “Alphaville” 12-inchers completes my collection of all seven Bryan Ferry/Kate Moss covers.
6majik9 is a loose Australian collective fronted by Michael Donelly who formed Music Your Mind Still Love Records which released a number of CD-rs in limited numbers (usually less than 100 copies) with hand painted covers. The “Kate Moss” CD-r comes in a handmade card cover with a stencilled portrait of Kate in black and with a hand-painted red slash that varies from cover to cover. The rear cover has a stencilled pentagram. Mike Donnelly has told me that it was he who made the “Kate Moss” cover by stencilling the face and painting the red overlay.
The final addition is the oldest cover (from 2003) featuring Kate Moss;Primal Scream and Kate Moss “Some Velvet Morning” with cover design by INTRO and illustrated by British illustrator Julie Verhoeven, who has designed the cover of Kasabian‘s “Empire” and several for Nouvelle Vague.
Now I can show all the Kate Moss covers in a single post. Here they are in chronological order:
2003 – Primal Scream & Kate Moss “Some Velvet Morning”, Columbia 12″.
So there you have it! All eighteen covers that I have found featuring Kate Moss. Now I’ll sit back and wait for someone to point out a cover I haven’t found.
My collection of Andy Warhol‘s record cover art is nearing completion. There are only a few original covers left to find. Moondog‘s album “The Story of Moondog” is one I have been chasing since I started collection in earnest nearly ten years ago. You can read more about the Moondog album in my previous Recordart post. The album was released on the Prestige label in America in 1957 on LP and somewhere I have read that there were probably about 5,000 copies pressed records originally. The record doesn’t seem too rare as copies regularly appear on Ebay but most copies I have seen have been in very poor condition with the cover severely yellowed or stained.
Towards the end of November 2016, I saw what looked like a perfect copy advertised on Discogs and from Spain. Photos showed it to be a really pristine copy with only minor yellowing of the front cover.The record itself was in near mint condition but I couldn’t afford the asking price! I made a cheeky offer which, to my surprise, was accepted. One big advantage of buying it from Spain is that there would be no import charges for items sold within the European Union.
The seller wanted payment via Payoneer–a service I had never heard of and that took over a week to process my payment. So by the 12th December I hoped my record would be on its way. Then fate took a hand. The seller’s father fell ill and ended up in hospital, so the seller had to leave Madrid and my Moondog album to go to his bedside. Having paid, I was naturally worried that this was a ruse and that I might never receive the record. However, the seller kept in regular contact and apolgising for the delay. Sadly his father died in early January and a week later the seller had returned to Madrid and could ship the record, which arrived in perfect condition on 17th January.
the cover is is amazing condition with absolutely no ringwear, only very minor yellowing and crisp corners, an intact spine with clear printing and a near perfect rear cover. I hadn’t expected the front cover to be laminated, but this copy’s was.
So, now there are only three important Warhol covers to find…
When Noel Gallagher was planning Oasis‘s retrospective album “Stop the Clocks” in 2006 he wanted Peter Blake to design the cover. The story that I have heard is that Peter Blake allowed Noel to select items from Peter‘s collection to fill Blake‘s Blue Cupboard–an artwork that Blake had created in 1959. Blake then placed other objects, including an antique dartboard, beside the open cupboard.
The front cover of Oasis’s “Stop the Clocks” album with two dartboards behind the table on the right.
Blake designed the cover slipcase and the inner sleeves of the tripple LP set as well as using the dartboard as the cover image of the double EP also entitled “Stop the Clocks“.
The cover of the double 7″ EP “Stop the Clocks”. This was a numbered, limited edition of 5000.
What I didn’t know until very recently (June 2016) that Oasis‘s record company (Sony Music) had produced a promotional item of the dartboard with three darts with tailfeathers bearing the Oasis logo. This would be a great addition to my Peter Blake collection.
The dartboard is obviously a facsimile of Peter Blake‘s originals. This would look great displayed beside the record covers!
recordart 