Followers of this blog will remember how I have, on several occasions, noted (and not without a degree of smugness) that this or that collection now is complete, only to discover a short time later some new item I had missed. I’ve said it about my Warhol, Banksy, Kate Moss, Damien Hirst, Klaus Voormann and Peter Blake collections. The one I was most certain about was my collection of Peter Blake’s record covers. There just aren’t that many of them and so I thought I had it covered (pun intended).
Just imagine my chagrin earlier this week when I did a little search on Discogs that turned up not one, but FOUR covers that I had missed. Okay, so three of them were Paul Weller CD singles taken from his 1995 Stanley Road album that only incorporated small bits of Peter Blake art on their covers — I could sort of dismiss them as not really being Peter Blake covers. But there is one I can’t excuse: the cover to a 1990 U.S. 12″ promotional EP by The Fall called I’m Frank.
The Fall’s I’m Frank cover.
The track I’m Frank appeared on the Fall’s 1990 Extricate album and this 12″ includes two other tracks from the LP and a bonus track, Zandra. It was only released in the U.S. The EP isn’t included in The Fall’s discography on Rate Your Music.
The Paul Weller CD singles with Peter Blake art that I missed are: – You Do Something To Me – Digipak CD, – A French promo 2-track CD entitled Stanley Road, – Broken Stones – Digipak CD
The 4 DVD set of the Live 8 Concert from July 2nd 2005 includes a picture of Peter Blake’s poster for the event.
Peter Blake’s poster for the Live8 Concert.
So now I have to add all these to my book manuscript on Peter Blake’s Record Cover Art. But, I really can’t be sure that I now have found all the covers with Peter Blake’s art. I expect more to turn up as soon as I close this post.
I have only seen Sonic Youth live once. That was at Hultsfred”s Festival in 2002. The concert can be seen on YouTube. I don’t remember too much about the show, only Kim Gordon’s pink dress and that I thought there were very few people gathered for such a major band. The video, however, makes it look like there was a huge crowd.
I recently discovered that Kim Gordon was an art school-trained artist as well as a musician and that she had designed record covers. Quite unknowingly, I actually had one of her cover designs in my collection — Ciccone Youth’s 12″ maxi single Into the Groove(y)/Burnin’ Up. It was Guy Minnebach who pointed this out.
Kim Gordon’s cover for Ciccone Youth’s single.
Sonic Youth have used other monicas than Ciccone Youth. In 2004 the band released an album called simply Sonic Nurse, with Richard Prince’s painting of a nurse as its cover art. There were four different paintings on this beautiful cover.
Richard Prince’s Nurse paintings.
This was my first contact with Richard Prince’s art. To my mind it established a relationship between him and Sonic Youth. Prince is known as a painter and photographer and has even used found objects such as cars. He is also a musician and in 2015 recorded a song, Loud Song and released it on a CD.
Loud Song CD with photo of Richard Prince’s barn covered in vinyl records.
There was an exhibition of Richard Prince’s art in 2016 called It’s a Free Concert Now and for that exhibition Prince produced a limited edition, single-sided 12″ picture disc with the same title and two tracks, It’s a Free Concert Now and Loud Song. There were 25 numbered and signed copies and 25 unnumbered, unsigned copies.
Richard Prince used a detail from one of Kim Gordon’s paintings for the cover of his limited edition 12″ single Loud Song released in 2016. One edition of 250 was signed and numbered and the record pressed on white vinyl. However, my copy, while signed, is unnumbered and the record is pressed on black vinyl. I don’t know the size of this edition.
The front and rear covers of Richard Prince’s Loud Song 12″ (note the signature on the left of the back cover). Painting by Kim Gordon.
In 2019, The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh released a double album by Gordon, Bill Nace, Steve Gunn & John Trusinsky of the Sound for Andy Warhol’s KISS concert, held the previous year atthe Museum. The cover art was made up of stills from Andy Warhol’s Kiss film. The clear vinyl records also had similar stills on their labels.
Sound for Andy Warhol’s KISS.
A further Kim Gordon cover has appeared. The band Talk Normal released a 7″ single called Lone General in 2011 with cover art by Gordon, with very abstract impressionistic drips! This limited edition single was released on both black and clear vinyl.
The cover of the Lone General 7″ single.
I am on the lookout for more covers by both Richard Prince and Kim Gordon to add to my collection.
I found references to several magazines with articles about Andy Warhol while reading Blake Gopnik’s biography of the artist. I realised that I had a few of these in my collection as well as quite a few others as well as exhibition catalogues.
I have a couple of gallery exhibition publications. In 1983 Gallerie Börjeson in Malmö, Sweden, published an edition of Warhol’s portraits of Ingrid Bergman and simultaneously produced a leporello (or fold-out, concertina-like) book of the prints that contained 48 variations of the portraits.
The second gallery exhibition catalogue in my collection is the limited edition Reigning Queens exhibition in Odense, Denmark, in 1985. There is a plate-printed Andy Warhol autograph on the frontespiece.
Sometime in the 1980s I bought a bootleg LP by the Rolling Stones called Emotional Tattoo that used one of Warhol’s 1975 portraits of Mick Jagger on the cover.
The Emotional Tattoo cover image.
This image came from a series of ten prints published by New York’s Castelli Gallery in 1985. Leo Castelli used a set of postcards of the prints as invitations to the opening of the show and my friend, the late Daniel Brandt, sold me a set.
Castelli Gallery invitation cards.
Warhol painted portraits of many music stars for his major portraits. Many turned up on record covers, including Paul Anka, Diana Ross, Billy Squier and Debbie Harry. He also painted Michael Jackson for a March 1984 edition of Time Magazine and a portrait of Prince, painted in 1984, that was used on the cover of a commemorative magazine in August 2016.
Warhol’s portraits of Prince and Michael Jackson.
The first time Andy Warhol featured in a major amgazine was in May 1962 when Time Magazine ran a feature on Pop Art (though it didn’t use the term then).
Time Magazine, March 1962.
The source of one of Warhol’s Death & Destruction paintings From Life Magazine, May 17th 1963.
In addition, I managed to find a copy of the Museum of Modern Art’s programme for the 1940 Concert of Mexican Music in which Warhol found the picture he based his illustration for the Columbia Records 1949 10″ LP A Program of Mexican Music — one of Warhol’s very first commissions after moving to New York in the summer of 1949.
It is general knwledge that Andy Warhol was unhappy with Mick Jagger’s alterations to the design of the Rolling Stones Love You Live album, released in 1977. Warhol’s original design did not include the band’s name or the record’s title, but Jagger added them. Advertisements for the album, however, used Warhol’s original design without Jagger’s additions. A double page ad was placed in the June 1977 copy of Interview Magzine.
June 1977 edition of Interview Magazine with Love You Live poster.
It wasn’t until 1980 that Warhol made portraits of The Beatles for Geoffrey Stokes’s book of the same name. The hardback first edition of the book had a second dust jacket with Warhol’s Beatle portraits without the title.
Andy Warhol’s Beatles portraits on the cover of Geoffrey Stokes’s book The Beatles.
In 1981-2 Stockholm’s National Museum hosted an exhibition of record cover art, one of the first ever exhibitions that was devoted solely to record covers. The exhibition was called Ytans innehåll, which means the What’s inside the surface. I visited the exhibition and have the catalogue as well as the poster, autographed by Andy Warhol.
The poster for the exhibition of record cover art at National Muuseum 1981-1982.
The catalogue from the National Museum exhibition.
There is going to be a Warhol / Banksy exhibition in Catania, Sicily, this autumn. perhaps some of these items might appear there.
Record Store Day this year is once again affected by the Covid pandemic and there will be a double drop first on June 12th and then a second on July 17th.
I haven’t had much luck in the past finding RSD releases that fit in with my collections. In fact I have only two records in my collections from previous RSDs. The Norman Dolph Acetate version of the Velvet Underground & Nico from 2013.
The cover of the Norman Dolph Acetate reissue.
I bought that one soon after it was released and it would take until earlier this year before I bought my next RSD release. I started collecting David Shrigley’s record cover art and found that he had designed the cover for Stephen Malkmus & Friends’ live version of Can’s Ege Bamyasi album. This was a limited edition on released on red vinyl in the U.S. and green vinyl in Europe in 2013. Finding a copy wasn’t too easy, but I eventually found one on Discogs.
David Shrigley’s cover for Stephen Malkmus & Friends’ Can’s Ege Bamyasi LP.
When I saw the drop lists for 2021’s RSD releases I scrolled through without too much hope of finding anything that fitted in with my collections. However, I was excited to see that a 40th anniversary revamped album by The Who was listed. This was Face Dances, with cover design by Peter Blake.
The 40th anniversary edition of Face Dances.
I was really happy to find a copy and examine it thoroughly. While the cover art is still Peter Blake’s original design, the package has been art directed by Blake fan Richard Evans. Evans has been involved with The Who’s recod design evre since the original Face Dances album was released in 1981. He designed the cover to an album of an interview with Pete Townsend talking about Face Dances, called Filling in the Gaps. Note how he has copied Peter Blake’s handwriting on “The Who” at the top.
The cover of the Filling in the Gaps promotional LP by Richard Evans.
The new edition of Face Dances is a double album, one on translucent blue vinyl and one on yellow vinyl, with live tracks on side four. Richard Evans has included the cover image from Filling in the Gaps on the inner sleeve to the second disc. The package also conrtains four prints of the cover portraits.
The four posters.
So now there are the three Record Store Day LPs in my collection. I haven’t seen any from the July releases that would fit in my collections.
My friend Tasso von Haussen keeps me up to date on record and CD covers with Banksy connections. He recently sent me pictures of four 12″ releases on the Bow Wow label by Buckfunk 3000 (2 Much Booty, 2004), Product.01 (The Loud EP, 2004), Speed Baby – aka Tim Wright (Taken / Lurcher, 2004) and Bass Kittens (Rise of the Machines, 2005) that all use a modification of Banksy’s Dog with Rocket Launcher design.
Four Bow Wow 12″ covers.
Next he found a test pressing of a split EP by Embalming Theatre / Tersanjung XIII (Mommy Died – Mummified / Hellnoise) on the Rotten to the Core label. The six-track EP was released in 2013 in a limited edition — 100 copies on clear vinyl and 400 on black vinyl.
The cover of the limited edition EP.
However, the test pressing had a different cover.
The cover of the test pressing of the EP.
According to Discogs, there are fifteen copies of the test pressing and, after being in contact with the band, I have to admit that the chances of finding one are probably close to zero. The cover image is, of course, a modification of Banksy’s I Fought the Law print. I was surprised to learn from my discussions with the band that they had no idea this was a Banksy design. I then contacted the band’s record label, Rotten to the Core Records to ask who designed the cover of the test pressing. Here is the reply from Robert Janis, the company’s owner: It’s a Banksy piece. I’m the one who designed the test press cover. He even sent a copy of Banksy’s original artwork.
Banksy’s original I Fought the Law print.
Another friend supplied me with the original image from which Banksy created his print:
The original photo from which Banksy created his I Fought the Law print.
So, in order to keep my Banksy collection as complete as possible, I need to get hold of a copy of this test pressing… The only sure way seems to be to make my own. I asked for scans of the cover and record label and, after a considerable amount of work, this what I came up with.
The result.
I decided to make a limited edition of ten numbered copies, plus five artists proofs. The scan I had to base my design on was somewhat overexposed and I thought there was a thin white border round the greyish outer border. A later, better photo, showed that there was no white border. My first attempt was in pure monochrome, as shown above. However, a more recent, clearer photo, supplied by Tasso von Haussen, shows that the cover has a bluish tinge. I’m not sure how much the plastic protective cover controbutes to the bluishness, though.
I’m still trying to work out how to add the blue overcoat to the black an white image. In order to distinguish my reproductions from the origials, I have made proper sleeves that the record slips in and out of, rater than the single, foled sheet of paper that the real test pessings have.
I decided that it would be fun to use real Embalming Theatre / Tersanjung 13 EPs and give them white labels. So I got back in touch with the band and ordered more copies. Bear in mind that these are a limited edition of 400 black vinyl EPs, so now I own about 2,5 per cent of the edition.
Sometimes a record arrives that I’m really pleased to get hold of. I can’t claim to have found this rarity and I thank my friend Tasso von Haussen for finding it for me. Recognise the image?
The Player EP by TV Age (Not on label).
TV-Age’s The Player EP was released in Germany as a numbered, limited edition 12″ in 2016. My copy is No. 56/100 (handwritten on the inside of the rear cover.) I know nothing about the group and have never seen the record before. The cover is a hand silkscreened image of Banksy’s Every Time I Make Love I Think of Someone Else, and is simply beautiful. The rear cover is blank. The discs are pink vinyl.
The TV Age The Player EP.
Even the B-side label has a reproduction of Banksy’s dripping heart. The images come from Banksy’s acrylic paintings from 2002. There are two versions of the paintings:
I have not seen this image on a record cover before, and to see it so beautifully reproduced is amazing.
Apparently, Jason Mraz took the title for his eighth album from a David Shrigley cartoon. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the cartoon, but I’ve found Mraz’s album and love the designs.
We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things was released in May 2008, preceeded by three limited edition CD singles, We Sing (No. 1), We Dance (No. 2) and We Steal Things (No. 3) that was only available in a bundle from Mraz’s site and is consequently rare. Initally released on CD, it was also released on limited edition double LP. The album was quickly re-released as a limited edition double CD with DVD. The first CD with two extra tracks and the second including all thwe tracks from the three limited edition singles that preceded the album’s release. And in 2011, the album was reissued on vinyl . Again as a lmited edition; the music on three sides and the fourth side engraved with Shrigley designs.
Front and rear covers.
Album’s inner spread.
Even the record labels have been illustrated by Shrigley:
The record labels. Unfortunately, it is difficult to photograph the etched designs on side D.
And the inner sleeves are a bit special:
The inner sleeves.
One single, I’m Yours, was released as a seven-inch vinyl record.
The seven-inch single cover.
Several others were issued on CD or CD-r. These include: two versions of Lucky, one sung in English, featuring Colbie Caillat, and a Spanish version featuring Ximena Sarina.
Two Lucky CD-single covers.
Other singles are the three limited editions that preceded the release of the fiull album:
We Sing, We Dance and We Steal things CD covers.
The final three singles were Make it Mine, Butterfly and a digital only release of Coyotes.
The Make It Mine, Butterfly and Coyotes single covers.
I’m amazed that David Shrigley went to so much trouble to produce all this work. And kudos till Jason Mraz for commissioning it all. I will admit, though, that while I enjoy the artwork, I haven’t actually listened to the record yet.
I’d never heard of the hard rock band Warrior Soul until a friend a couple of weeks ago mailed me a picture of the cover of their album Destroy the War Machines and asked if it was a Banksy design. Well, it was a slightly modified version of Banksy’s CND Soldiers painting and I had to have a copy. The cover design and layout are credited to Ballsy. Collage credited to Joachim Ljungh and photos by Tim Hodgson and Dajana Winkel
Warrior Soul is a band based in New York centred around leader Kory Clarke (vocals) with members Janne Jarvis (bass), Johnny H (guitar), Johan Linstrom (drums) and Rille Lundell (guitar) from the U.S. and Scandinavia. The band’s first release was the album Last Decade Dead Century, released on Geffen records April 17th, 1990.
The front cover of Destroy the War Machine LP.
There were several for sale on Discogs, one of them from just round the corner, so I ordered it for the standard LP price of €23 + €7.50 shipping. It arrived two days later. My copy is number 255/333.
The rear cover of the Destroy the War Machine LP.
The album had been released on CD by Acetate Records in 2009 but the limited edition, numbered vinyl version was not released until August 2016 on the Night of the Vinyl Dead label. I had managed to miss it for almost five years! This album was banned from being advertised on Discogs the week after I bought my copy for unknown reasons but has since reappeared. Although it is listed on Warrior Soul’s official site as a legitimate release. At the time of writing, there is one copy for sale on Discogs for an asking price of €350!
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.)
In 2020, just when the Covid-19 pandemic was hitting hardest my friend Romain Beltram invited me to show some of my paintings in his Triphopshop gallery in central Stockholm. He already showed some of Iron’s work and for a month from 9th September Iron was to have an exhibition of his work at restaurant Riche — one of Stockholm’s hip places. The exhibition, curated by Carl Carboni och Lars Liljendahl, was centred around Iron’s portrait of Chinese president Xi Jinping as Bat Man — playing on the theory that the Covid-19 pandemic that started in Wuhan, China, might have spread from bats. Thus Iron portryed Xi Jinping as the Bat Man.
However, the exhibition was rapidly closed after complaints from the Chinese Embassy in Stockholm, objecting to the portrayal of the country’s president in this manner. Iron became an instant hero!
Iron’s Bat Man portrait.
He has also satirised Ronald McDonald as the fast food chain has been accused of being resposible for the increase in obesity in recent decades. Iron has portrayed Ronald begging for forgiveness.
Iron’s Ronald McDonald “Forgive Me”
I have also a unique painting by Iron. He has reimagined the cover of John Lennon’s and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy LP cover.
The Double Fantasy LP cover reimagined by IRON (2019).
I think the cover art is really striking and puts a “punk” feeling on the design, which I like.
recordart 