A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Music
top: William Henry (1967); Victor Moscoso (1967).
bottom: Victor Moscoso (1967); Kelley/Mouse (1967).
Marvellous. Oldhandbills.com has a lot of this stuff, loads of designs I’ve never seen before. Via Arthur.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The poster art of Marian Zazeela
Anyone who subscribes to the stereotype about Japanese people always being quiet and unassuming has never seen a Japanese rock band. Last time I returned from a gig with my ears ringing the way they are now was after seeing Acid Mothers Temple a few years ago. Tonight it was the turn of Boredoms who drummed up an absolute storm in a sweaty, airless dungeon under the Student’s Union. Boredoms have been active since the mid-Eighties in various shapes and sizes, more recently working under variations on their name. Early albums were always experimental but tended to be nastily noisy with it. They really caught my attention at the end of the Nineties with Super Ae (1998) and Vision Creation Newsun (2000), a pair of drum-powered albums that owe a great deal to the “kosmische” atmosphere of the best Krautrock, especially Amon Düül II circa Yeti.
Tonight we had a great deal of the thundering cross-patterns of drum rhythms amended by some of the piercing extended crescendos found on VCN. Very loud and very powerful. There was some unusual instrumentation involved as well, including what appeared to be hand-held lightbulbs triggering samples and harmonised feedback, and also a rack of guitar necks (above) with what I assume must be open tunings given the way these were used as percussion devices. It was difficult to tell who was doing what (or using what) for much of the time due to the density of the crowd. But such details are beside the point, this was a tremendous performance that was overwhelmingly intense at times. It’s rare indeed to find a band still working at this peak after 21 years. Along with the very different performance by Machinefabriek in May, best gig of the year so far.
When It Takes Three People to Make a Duet
| Robert Plant, Alison Krauss & T Bone Burnett.
“I was trapped into being alive”
| The great Robert Wyatt.
Hypnotique by Martin Denny (1959).
In Waikiki, where I live whenever I get the chance, a bistro known as the Daggar Bar and its accompanying Bora Bora Lounge has for some time been the mecca of people who enjoy a new type of music. I’m one of the gang that gathers there to hear the fresh, clean tropical sounds of Martin Denny and his group.
By the time James Michener wrote the sleeve notes for Hypnotique, Martin Denny‘s fifth album, the composer was attempting to broaden his horizons and outpace his imitators by introducing strings and vocals to augment his “fresh, clean tropical sounds”. This perhaps explains the curious jumble of objects on the album sleeve (a rifle?), my favourite among the wonderful covers Liberty Records’ art department supplied for Denny’s work. The best of these feature model Sandy Warner who appears in a variety of guises, shown here as a cross between a Japanese temptress (if we take the paper mobiles as a cue) and a precursor of Carolyn Jones as Morticia Addams. The art direction was by Bill Pate with photography by Garrett-Howard.
top left: Exotica (1957); top right: Primitiva (1958).
bottom left: Afro-Desia (1959); bottom right: Exotica vol. III (1959).
Sandy Warner appeared on 16 album sleeves for Denny and was even persuaded to record an album of her own to capitalise on her renown as “Miss Exotica”. In design terms, these sleeves are some of the more successful products of the late Fifties’ fad for tribal kitsch. Other covers were crazier or more garish—and few could resist flaunting a bikini-clad woman—but Bill Pate showed more care with his layouts and Sandy Warner’s alluring presence went a long way towards conjuring the required mystique. Denny’s records aren’t too bad either although when it comes to tiki-fuelled easy listening I tend to prefer his rival Arthur Lyman, especially Taboo from 1958.
Large copies of the covers shown here can been seen at Shellac.org. There are many more sites with galleries devoted to this style of music and sleeve art; Space Age Pop A Go-Go and 317x are two of the better ones. And let’s not forget Dana Countryman’s Virtual Museum of Unusual LP Covers or LP Cover Lover (check the great blogroll) or the Retro Records Flickr Pool…
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive