Category Archives: music

cover art

Some fly-by-night publication that promises to get to the bottom of the Paul Is Dead controversy. It succeeds only in confusing its reader more. I, for one, am confused as to why they couldn’t find a picture of Paul without such severe razor burn on his neck.

Life Magazine did its own investigation in late 69. This issue included a statement from Paul himself:

“It is all bloody stupid. I picked up that O.P.D. badge in Canada. It was a police badge. Perhaps it means Ontario Police Department or something. I was wearing a black flower because they ran out of red ones. It is John, not me, dressed in black on the cover and inside of Magical Mystery Tour. On Abbey Road we were wearing our ordinary clothes. I was walking barefoot because it was a hot day. The Volkswagen just happened to be parked there.

Perhaps the rumor started because I haven’t been much in the press lately. I have done enough press for a lifetime and I don’t have anything to say these days. I am happy to be with my family and I will work when I work. I was switched on for ten years and I never switched off. Now I am switching off whenever I can. I would rather be a little less famous these days.

I would rather do what I began by doing, which is making music. We make good music and we want to go on making good music. But the Beatle thing is over. It has been exploded, partly by what we have done and partly by by other people. We are individuals, all different. John married Yoko, I married Linda. We didn’t marry the same girl. The people who are making up these rumors should look to themselves a little more. There is not enough time in life. They should worry about themselves instead of worrying whether I am dead or not.

What I have to say is all in the music. If I want to say anything I write a song. Can you spread it around that I am just an ordinary person and want to live in peace? We have to go now, we have two children at home.”

paul is dead batman

By June 1970, Batman, whose artists seemed to think the fabs still dressed as though it were 1967, was on the thinly veiled case.

years after the event (john and yoko march 1970)

march photos

Two Virgins. Photograph: John Lennon

march 1970

john and yoko 3-70

In order to jazz up these John and Yoko posts, I figure I’ll add some sound. Here’s what sounds to me like Dakota-dwelling era Lennon covering Jimmy Cliff‘s “Many River’s To Cross.”

vintage jam (guilty pleasure edition)

Like anyone with a soul, I was never too impressed by Tupac Shakur. But this evening I watched a TV show that used his hit “Keep Ya Head Up” as incidental music. I always secretly liked this one telling myself that its success has as much to do with The Five Stairstep’s “O-o-h Child” as it does Tupac’s lyrics. Whatever. It’s good stuff–shame about the quality of the video below but I guess that’s what one expects from a Tupac fan.

And how weird is this?

nine three shit

cute couple alert

The Beatles’ style council: Brian Epstein and Astrid Kirchherr.

king of pop

king of pop

When I heard last week that Michael Jackson was planning a series of concerts this summer, like everyone else, I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “yeah, that’ll happen.” It’s not like the guy doesn’t have a HIStory of backing out of things like this. Though I doubt even ticket buyers will have high expectations for these shows actually occurring, this latest attention-grabbing stunt gives me an excuse to post this video of Michael while he was still at the height of his powers.

Michael Jackson

years after the event (john and yoko february 1970)

february photos

Through many lenses, many pauses, dreaming of one another.
The last performance of Yoko before meeting John.
The last performance of John before meeting Yoko.

february 1970

john and yoko 2-70

luck on every finger

crooked

Here we have the cover of Pavement’s 1994 LP, Crooked Rain Crooked Rain. And below we have a page from the March 1978 issue of National Geographic. What a find!

pills ‘n’ thrills and bellyaches

facd320

When the Happy Mondays’ third LP was released in November of 1990, one UK music magazine reviewed it under the headline “Shambolic Mancunians In Really Good Album Shock.” The two prior Mondays LPs were at best sporadically decent with perhaps at least one brilliant moment, but Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches was, and remains, fantastic. It comfortably blended the dance and rock genres; (perhaps unfortunately) gave U2 the musical blueprint for their first comeback and proved for the Mondays (but not Shaun Ryder) an impossible act to follow.

It also has an impossibly fantastic cover. The sleeve, with its dozens of copyright violations, must have worried someone at Electra, the band’s U.S label, because the cover that appeared in the States is considerably different. While the U.S cover is not entirely awful–it is still garishly colored and overly busy–it certainly pales in comparison to the one with the candy on it. The “censored” cover has seemingly crossed the Atlantic and was for a while the only one that was available in the U.K. as well.

There appear to be at least two different versions of the candy cover. In the one above, the image of Minnie Mouse in the A and P of Happy is conspicuous in its absence. Below is the sleeve as I believe nature intended. The cover was designed by Central Station Design, who often contributed artwork to Factory and Mondays releases.

pills n thrills 6

This label was affixed to some initial copies of the LP.

pills n thrills label

pills n thrills record label

The front and back of the U.S. edition.

pills n thrills seven

pills n thrills 8

The cover of one of the many (but none authoritative) Mondays best-of comps out there. Hideous.

loads

The next five images were, I believe, created for the 2007 U.K. only reissue, which restored the cover to the candy original.

pills n thrills 5

pills n thrills 4

pills n thrills 3

pills n thrills 2

pills n thrills 1

years after the event (john and yoko january 1970)

Here is the first installment of the John and Yoko 1970 Calendar. The first page had brief “autobiographical sketches” and after that it’s on with the year.

cover

january photos

Beginning of the beginning

january 1970

john and yoko 1-70

cute couple alert

justine damon

As the blur reunion picks up steam (God, that Graham Coxon has got to be the worst dressed pop star of all time and one of the more irrititating), here’s Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann. She’s more or less residing in the where-are-they-now file (Colorado really).