Louis Thomas Hardin (a.k.a. Moondog, a.k.a. The viking of 6th Avenue) was born in Kansas in 1916 and was blinded in an accidental explosion when he was 16 years old. He attended various music schools for the blind but developed his own composing skill. Hardin moved to New York in 1942 where his original musicianship was recognised by many celebrated musicians, both from the classical and jazz fields. He wrote poetry and set many to music. He lived as a street musician between 1942 to 1972 wearing a viking cloak and a horned helmet which earned him the moniker “the viking of 6th Avenue.” Hardin adopted the Moondog alias in 1947 in honour of a dog who used at the moon. Hardin emigrated to Germany in 1974 where he lived for the remainder of his life. He died on 8th September 1999.
Originally released by Prestige Records in 1957, this LP has long been one I have been looking for. I suspected that this record was incredibly rare, but there are over fifty copies listed on http://www.popsike.com and two appeared on Ebay in the same week in May 2015. Both these copies’ front covers were considerably yellowed but they still sold for over $250 each. Needless to say, I didn’t win either of them!
The original record was recorded in 1956-7 and Reid Miles, Prestige record’s art director approached Andy Warhol to ask his mother Julia to write out Stewart Preston’s eulogy to Moondog in her characteristic calligraphic style. According to Paul Maréchal in “Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Record Covers, 1949-1987” she wrote out the text but – as was her wont – the lines tended to slope up to right so Andy cut them into strips to fit onto the cover. The text was credited to Preston and the calligraphy to Andy Worhol’s mother – with Warhol wrongly spelt. Design was credited to Reid Miles and the credits were place vertically at lower right on the front cover.
“The Story of Moondog” has been re-issued several times. First in 2009 on the Honest John Records Label with an entirely different cover and then in 2010 on the 4 Men With Beards label with the original cover but without the Prestige 7099 on the front cover and with the credits to Stewart Preston and Andy Worhol ‘s [sic] mother and Reid Miles removed. The latest re-release in 2011 was in a numbered limited edition box set by DOXY Records with the same cover as the 4 Men With Beards release.
The 2009 re-issue of Moondog’s “the Story of Moondog”.
The album was re-released in a remastered version on CD in 2014 in Japan, once again on the Prestige Label. The Japanese seem to be particularly good at doing the re-issue job properly as evidenced by their CDs in mini LP sleeves. So the CD booklet recreates the original LP cover art – both front an rear covers exactly. The CD cost one-tenth of what one of the copies recently sold on Ebay cost!
“The Story of Moondog” CD from 2014. Note the “Prestige 7099” at top right and the minute credits along the lower right hand edge.
The CD has a poster showing the original LP rear cover and the CD itself is a copy of the LP’s original label, but with a new catalogue number.
The CD with a recreated Prestige record label.
I shall have to make do with the CD until a decent copy of the original LP turns up.
I know that sometime ago I boasted that I had completed my collection of record covers designed by Damien Hirst. Well, I was premature. I have also said that that I own copies of all the records designed by Sir Peter Blake – again I was premature. At least I have never (yet) said I have every Warhol cover design.
Like most collectors, I do regular Internet searches looking for new items designed by my favourite record sleeve designers. One regular Ebay vendor manages with surprising regularity to find covers that I have missed. You can imagine how irritated that makes me, particularly as these covers are usually quite difficult to find at other (cheaper) sites. Well, this vendor turned up a Dave Stewart 12″ maxi single of remixes of his “Heart of Stone” single. I couldn’t find another copy anywhere else at the time so I bought this one. It cost me an arm and a leg, but that’s he way it goes sometimes. When checking Dave Stewart’s discography later I found the there was another 12″ remix EP with cover art by Damien Hirst and Jason Beard. I managed to find a copy for $4 so that felt better.
Heart of Stone – The Dance Remixes, which cost me an arm and a leg.Heart of Stone – The Sure Is Pure Remixes. Bought for $4.
Just a few weeks ago I saw another little Damien Hirst gem on Ebay that I had never seen before. This time from a seller in the US. It was a promotional USB stick for The Hours’ album “See the Light”. The stick was shaped like a skull with clock faces in each eye socket – typical Damien Hirst! There cannot be many of these around as I haven’t seen one advertised before (there is one on Discogs just now). The asking price was $99 + shipping. It didn’t sell the first couple of times it was advertised, so I put in a cheeky bid of $50, which the vendor accepted! So now it has joined my collection.
I was scanning different sites looking for any new Peter Blake cover art when I saw that an art gallery in Brighton was offering two limited edition posters of the cover art for Brian Wilson’s “Gettin’ in Over My Head” and Landscape’s “Manhattan Boogie-Woogie” albums. These were editions of 250 each and were 48.25 x 48.25 cm (19 x 19″) in size. They are priced at £1200 each! Peter Blake had told me about the four cover designs he had made that were never used. The Landscape design was one and thus I didn’t have the cover. The other three were for albums by Steeleye Span, Ray Davies and Robbie Williams. Apparently the Steeleye Span and Ray Davies designs are lost. Robbie Williams wanted to use his portrait by Peter Blake on a cover but the record company refused.
Well, I got hold of a high definition file of the “Manhattan Boogie-Woogie” print and scaled it down to LP format and printed a poster and several record album slicks. I took my copy of the Landscape album and photographed the back cover and got it printed in LP format and stuck the front and back together to make a sort of album cover for my collection. I don’t dare say my Peter Blake album collection is complete, though, just in case one of the “lost” covers turns up sometime!
Peter Blake’s cover design for Landscape’s “Manhattan Boogie-Woogie” album.
Well – Sir Peter Blake, Damien Hirst, Banksy and Klaus Voormann are all still alive and kicking, so hopefully more covers will come from all of them. I hope I shall be around to collect them.
2008 – Forrest, Richard -“Happy Birthday, Andy Warhol” – Exhibition catalogue . Piteå Museum.
2008 – Maréchal, Paul – “Andy Warhol: The Record Covers, 1949-1987. Catalogue Raisonné” – Prestel. pp 236.
2008 – Forrest, Richard – “His Art on His Sleeve” – Record Collector, December 2008.
2011 – Martinelli, Bianca – “Andy Warhol Music Show”. Castelvecchi, pp 256 (in Italian).
There were two record shops selling albums imported from America in central London from the late sixties on; One Stop Records in South Moulton Street and Musicland in Berwick Street. Well, it all started for me in the summer of ’67 when I went into One Stop Records – behind HMV’s Oxford Street store. I was a regular visitor there but never did learn the names of the extremely knowledgeable guys who worked there. They sort of knew me as a regular customer, and one summer’s day showed me an album with a banana on the cover. The album was by a band I’d never heard of apparently (according to the record cover) called Andy Warhol. I was corrected that the band was The Velvet Underground & Nico and that the record was something completely psychedelic. So I bought it. My copy was, I was to find out much later, a second pressing – with Eric Emerson’s features on the rear cover airbrushed out. I really did not enjoy the music at first, it was way too jangly and difficult and I was definitely not enamoured of the druggy sound. The next year I was given a US import copy of The Velvet’s album “White Light/White Heat” with the skull cover.
Fast forward four years to April 1971. The pre-release hype for The Rolling Stones’ new album, Sticky Fingers – the first to be released on their own Rolling Stones label – made me dash down to Musicland in Berwick Street to buy a copy in the first week after it was released. The cover, with its working zip, was revolutionary. So, I had three records with cover art by Andy Warhol. In 1971 the Tate Gallery (now The Tate Britain) had an exhibition of Andy Warhol’s art. My particular memory of this retrospective is the Flowers paintings, which I fell in love with.
I moved to Sweden in the autumn of 1971. Ten years later in October 1981, Stockholm’s Nationalmuseum hosted an exhibition of record cover art, entitled simply “Skivomslag” (Record Covers). The exhibition had been put together by Aarhus kunstmuseum and included (assuming I have counted correctly) 717 covers. In the exhibition catalogue, Bo Nilsson wrote what I read as the first description of Warhol’s record cover art and his essay included pictures of seven covers; two by Kenny Burrell, Johnny Griffin’s “The Congregation”, The Velvet Underground & Nico (in colour) and The Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers” and “Love You Live”. Nilsson also mentions “The Nation’s Nightmare” and the Count Basie album, which he says was entitled “Portrait”. Those were, apparently, all the covers known to be by Warhol at that time. There is an alternative catalogue entitled “Ytans innehåll” (approximately: The surface’s content), with a similar “banana” cover but with the banana’s stem peeled bact to reveal the top of the pink banana beneath. I have the exhibition poster beautifully autographed by Warhol.
On Father’s Day (in Sweden, celebrated in November) the following year (1982) I was given a copy of Diana Ross’ LP “Silk Electric” with it’s Warhol cover. My fourth Warhol cover. Now I had a collection! From then on I decided I would collect every record cover with Andy Warhol’s art. After all, I did not think it would be too difficult – there could not be too many – or so I thought.
There were several more records with cover art by Andy Warhol released in the 1980s, Paul Anka’s “The Painter”, Aretha Franklin’s “Aretha”, John Lennon’s “Menlove Ave” and it was easy to collect these. I even managed to collect all four colour variations of Debbie Harry’s “Rockbird” album, thinking that it had been designed by Warhol. I assumed that the photo of Debbie was one of those Warhol had taken for his Interview magazine. It was only much later that I found out the photo was by Canadian couple “Guzman” (Constance Hansen & Russell Peacock) and that the cover was really designed by Stephen Sprouse.
The advent of the Internet made searching for record covers easy: no more dragging round secondhand record shops in the hope of finding the odd cover I needed. I soon found out that there were many covers designed or illustrated by Warhol from before The Velvet Underground & Nico album. By about 2005 I had found the Kenny Burrell and Johnny Griffin albums with Warhol’s drawings as well as the “Cool Gabriels” LP. Somehow I got to know Guy Minnebach via the ‘Net. He tipped me off on a number of covers such as the Smetterling recording of Chopin’s Nocturnes, Carlos Chavez’s “A Program of Mexican Music”, “Alexander Nevsky” and even sold me his duplicates of “The Nation’s Nightmare”, “WIlliam Tell Overture” 10″ LP. Guy also told me about Klaus Gier’s 2001 German thesis entitled “Andy Warhol’s Record- und Cover Design. I managed to get a copy in May 2008. The covers pictured in the thesis came from collector Klaus Knop’s collection, which included a copy of “Giant Size $1.57 Each” numbered 21/75 pictured on the book’s front and rear cover.
The next book I bought was the giant 320 x 420 x 55 mm “Andy Warhol: Giant Size” published by Phaidon in January 2006. This was the first book that I had come across that included some record covers in a review of Warhol’s art. The book’s title, while confirming the original editions huge dimensions, it also alludes to Warhol’s famous 1963 record cover “Giant Size $1.57 Each”. There was, of course, a picture of “The Velvet Underground & Nico” and also Nico’s “Chelsea Girl” cover and the Count Basie cover.
Andy Warhol’s Giant Size, published in a giant format.
Though originally published in 2003, I did not buy Nick de Ville’s beautifully researched, large format book “Album – Style and Image in Sleeve Design” until February 2007. Nick de Ville is, of course, a famous cover designer having been involved in designing many of Roxy Music’s covers. His is one of the best books to document great record cover design in a chronological manner, from the beginnings of record production via Alex Steinweiss and his protegé Jim Flora up to the 1990s with a double spread devoted to Andy Warhol. The Left hand page shows “The Velvet Underground & Nico” almost full size while smaller pictures on the right hand page show Kenny Burrell’s “Kenny Burrell”, John Lennon’s “Menlove Ave”, The Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers” and Diana Ross’ “Silk Electric”. De Ville also mentions Aretha Franklin’s “Aretha, Paul Anka’s “The Painter” and the Stones’ “Love You Live” but seems unaware of Warhol’s record covers from before the “The Velvet Underground & Nico” cover.
The catalogue from Moderna Museet’s exhibition “Andy Warhol: 706 Items in 2 Hours 56 Minutes”.
Stockholm’s Moderna Museet hosted the Warhol retrospective that I had seen at The Haywood Gallery in London in May 2008 and I bought the catalogue “Andy Warhol – A Guide to 706 Items in 2 Hours 56 Minutes”. If I remember correctly, there were 26 album covers shown at the exhibition and the catalogue shows twelve of them. By that time I already had more than twenty six in my collection!
From 1999, I had been associated with the Piteå Dansar & Ler city festival held on the last weekend of July each year. Jan Wimander, for a time the festival’s CEO, and I had discussed putting on an “art exhibition” to broaden the festival’s appeal. Jan knew about my collection of Warhol covers and we discussed showing them at Piteå’s museum, which happened to be just outside the festival area. So, we planned to put on the exhibition to coincide with 2008’s festival. There were several important covers that I did not have to make the list of covers complete and I explained the project to Guy. He was reticent at first, as he had been told of the upcoming “Warhol Live!” exhibition to open in Montreal, Canada, in October 2008. But he agreed to help Jan and me and sent several rare covers to me to be photographed for inclusion in our exhibition. I wrote a catalogue text and catalogues were printed. The exhibition was to run from 23rd July to 31st August 2008. Andy Warhol’s birthday was 6th August and in 2008 he would have been 80, so the exhibition was called “Happy Birthday, Andy Warhol!” Guy Minnebach not only lent me the missing covers, but came to help with the hanging of the covers and to be at the exhibition’s opening.
After the festival I rewrote the catalogue and submitted an article to Record Collector Magazine which was to be published in the December number. However, a month after the “Happy Birthday, Andy Warhol!” exhibition closed, a friend told me about a Swedish band called RATFAB (Roland and the Flying Albatross Band) that had had a single released with cover art by Andy Warhol! A sensation! I found two copies quite quickly and sent one to Guy as a “thank you” for his help with the exhibition. I managed to add the cover to the Record Collector article – and the news was out. Early in 2009 I managed to find a third copy but the price had already escalated. This I donated to The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Later, Matt Wrbican, Chief Archivist at the museum wanted a copy of the “Happy Birthday, Andy Warhol!” exhibition catalogue, which I also sent.
Paul Maréchal had published his catalogue raisonné of Andy Warhol’s record covers to coincide with the “Warhol Live!” exhibiiton at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts which ran from 25th September 2008 to 18th January 2009.
Paul Maréchal’s book “Andy Warhol – The Record Covers”
Maréchal’s book was a watershed. Although I had a good overview of Warhol’s known record covers, Maréchal had discovered at least one that no one else had seen. He included the promotional box set “Night Beat” – a recording of a pilot radio show about the nighttime activities of a fictitious Chicago reporter. But the RATFAB cover was not included as I had not found out about it until after the book was published. So, there were obviously more Warhol covers yet to be identified.
About this time I found another book that pictured twenty six of Andy Warhol’s record covers. This was Valerio Deho’s “Sound Zero”, from 2007, which had a 3-D picture of “The Velvet Underground & Nico” cover on its front. View the book full on and you see the cover picture with the banana skin on; hold it at an angle and you see the peeled banana! This book was the catalogue of an exhibition held in Merano, Italy, between 9th September 2006 and 7th January 2007 entitled “Art and Music from Pop to Street Art”. The exhibition included Klaus Knop’s collection of Warhol covers (the same collection that Klaus Gier had access to when writing his thesis) as well as a great selection of psychedelic posters from San Fransisco and some street art (though no Banksy).
Sometime around 2006 I bought a copy of a recording of a “Program of Mexican Music” on a 10 inch LP from 1949 illustrated by Andy Warhol. Fellow Warhol Cover Collectors Club member Niklas Lindberg had found a booklet published by the Museum of Modern Art in New York where the concert was held to coincide with an exhibition of “Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art”. The booklet provided an introduction to the works played at the concerts and, surprisingly when considering that it was published in 1940, was easy to find on Amazon and very cheap. So I decided to buy a copy. On page thirteen, was a picture of Aztec musicians playing traditional instruments that had been drawn in the Spanish conquistadors’ Codex Florentinus. Warhol must have used this picture as the basis for his record cover illustration.
Fellow Warhol Cover Collectors Club members Niklas Lindberg and Guy Minnebach tipped me off about an Italian book purporting to be “La prima “discografia” illustrata dedicata al genio della Pop Art” (the first illustrated discography of dedicated to the genius of Pop Art, my translation) by Bianca Martinelli. This book contains photos of Warhol’s covers, many of which are take from Paul Maréchal’s book. It also contains many errors. How does The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” come to be included. I suppose one could excuse the inclusion of Grant Green’s “Matador” cover, as it DOES look like a Warhol blotted line drawing, but it is by Japanese artists Tanaka and Fujiyama. And Martinelli thinks the “Night Beat” box is by Sam Cooke (admittedly, Sam Cooke DID release an album called “Night Beat”, but it WAS NOT this one)! She also suggests that “The Nation’s Nightmare” came in two colour variations, one brown and one grey. The grey cover is probably only a bleached version of the original brown.
The Museum of Modern Art’s booklet “Mexican Music” published to accompany the concerts held there in May 1940.
The most recent Warhol cover that I picked up is an unusual CD released in Japan in 1996. It is a double CD with two Mozart recordings on one CD and Mahler’s 5th Symphony on the other. The cover illustration, also printed on each CD, is of an ear, several arrows pointing to the ear and the single word “ear” in Warhol’s handstyle. Guy Minnebach immediately recognised the drawing as coming from a book drawn by Warhol in the 1950s entitled “Play Book of You S Bruce 2:30 – 4:00”. This was a drawing block which Warhol drew at Steven Bruce’s cafe/restaurant Serendipity III in New York, which Warhol often visited. One afternoon he filled his drawing block with portraits of Bruce, the iceman who happened to make a delivery while Andy was there and various features of Bruce’s anatomy, including one ear. The drawing lock had been sold at Sotheby’s for £111000 in 2008 and the drawings had been shown in an exhibition in Germany in 1989 and a book published with all the drawings to accompany the exhibition.
“Play Book of You S Bruce 2:30 – 4:00”. Edition Auerbach 1989.Drawing of Steven Bruce’s ear in “Play Book of You S Bruce 2:30 – 4:00”.
The Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, north north west of Detroit, is currently exhibiting called “Warhol on Vinyl – The Record Covers 1949-1987”. This is the first comprehensive exhibition of Andy Warhol’s record cover art since the Montreal exhibition “Warhol Live!” in 2008. Of course, many record covers with art by Andy Warhol have been unearthed since that exhibition thus making the Cranbrook show essential viewing for anyone interested in this aspect of Warhol’s oevre. Included in the Cranbrook exhibition are such recently discovered covers as Lew White’s “Melodic Magic” EP on the Camden label.
Lew White’s EP “Melodic Magic”.
Others include two LP covers on the RCA Victor Bluebird label; Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, and “Porgy & Bess / Grieg’s Symphonic Dances which join the Byron Janis recording of “Rhapsody in Blue” as being acknowledged Warhol covers.
Tchaikovky’s Violin Concerto.Cover of the “Porgy & Bess / Symphonic Dances” album.
A number of bootleg albums that use Warhol’s art were also included including three Velvet Underground boots: “Screen Test: Falling in Love with the Falling Spikes”, “NYC” and “Orange Disaster”, The Rolling Stones’ “Live in Laxington”, Mick Jagger’s “Suntory D R Y Beer”.
The search for more records and CDs with Warhol’s art continues. I recently added a couple more to my collection. I had bought the re-issue version of the CRI CD coupling Matias Pickjer’s “Keys to the City” with Marc Blitzstein’s “Piano Concerto” with a smaller image of Warhol’s “Brooklyn Bridge” print:
The re-issue cover for the Picker-Blitzstein CD.
The original cover image for the CD on the CRI label.
And I also found an unusual CD of a classical concert including Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” and “Prague Symphony (No. 38)” performed by the NHK Orchestra on one disc and Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5″ on the second, released by an organisation called NTT Data. The cover had an intriguing Warhol drawing on the front and on each CD that I could not resist. When I showed photographs to members of The Warhol Cover Collectors Club they could identify the drawing as one from a series that Warhol did in a book for ‘Play Book of You S. Bruce from 2:30-4:00”. It was a very special portfolio because only 1 copy was made. Subject of all portraits is Stephen Bruce, the owner of the Serendipity restaurant in New York where Warhol used to hang out a lot in the Fifties. He must have had a crush on Bruce, because he made this drawings supposedly in one night, in ballpoint pen and offered Bruce the portfolio. The portfolio was sold at Sotheby’s in 2010 for £181.250 [Thanks to Guy Minnebach for this information]. There is book of the drawings as well.
The Cult’s “Edie (Ciao Baby)” single is often offered for sale as an “Andy Warhol cover”. The only Warhol connection is through Gerard Malanga, who took the photo of Edie Sedgwick that was used on the cover. It comes from the film “Ciao! Manhatten”, directed by John Palmer and David Weisman. Thus Andy Warhol was not involeved in any way.
This homage to Warhol superstar and poor little rich girl Edie Sedgwick was released in 1989, eighteen years after Edie’s suicide in 1971. The song was included on The Cult’s fourth album “Sonic Temple”. Ian Astbury, vocalist and songwriter has said the song was inspired by the film Ciao! Manhatten and the image on the cover of the single is said to have been taken from the film. It was photographed by Gerard Malanga, another of Warhol’s co-workers and Factory acolytes.
The single was released on 26th July 1989 and a promotional 7″ was released a week earlier. In addition to the promotional single, there was a gatefold numbered 7″ released in an edition of 5000 copies (with “Bleeding Heart Graffiti” on the B-side) as well as a 12″ three-track single (with the added tracks “Sun King” and “She Sells Sanctuary”). The 12″ was also released in a black plastic slip envelope with a hologram image.Promotional 7″ singleThe 7″ single’s front cover.The hologram slip case for the 12″ EP.The cover of the limited edition 12″ with the hologram slip case. Malanga’s portrait of Edie seen through a window in the cover.
Here are the song lyrics:
Always said you were a youth quaker, Edie
A stormy little world shaker
Oh, Warhol’s darling queen, Edie
An angel with a broken wing
The dogs lay at your feet, Edie
Oh, we caressed your cheek
Ooh, stars wrapped in your hair
Ooh, life without a care
But your not there
Oh, caught up in an endless scene, Edie
Yeah, paradise, a shattered dream
Oh, wired on the pills you took, Edie
Your innocence dripped blood, sweet child
The dogs lay at your feet, Edie
Oh, we caressed your cheek
Ooh, stars wrapped in your hair
Ooh, life without a care
Ciao baby
Shake it, boy
Oh, sweet little sugar talker
Paradise dream stealer
Oh, Warhol’s little queen, Edie
An angel with a broken wing, oh
The dogs lay at your feet, Edie
Oh, we caressed your cheek, well
Stars wrapped in your hair
Ooh, life without a care
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Why did you kiss the world goodbye?
Ciao baby
Don’t you know paradise takes time?
Ciao, yeah
Why did you kiss the world goodbye?
Ciao baby
Don’t you know paradise takes time?
Ciao, yeah
Damien Hirst in August 2008. Photo by David Bailey.
On October 25th 2013 Damien Hirst’s 22nd record cover for Babyshambles’ “Fall From Grace”, the band’s second single from their “Sequel to the Prequel” album was released on September 2nd 2013. The album cover as well as both singles had cover design by Hirst, who with this latest cover passed the number of covers designed by Sir Peter Blake. Depending a little on how one defines a Peter Blake cover, Blake has produced 21 covers in the 47 years since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in 1967. This cover was, of course, designed by Blake and his then wife Jann Haworth – and so should be regarded as a joint effort. The cover for Madness’ limited edition CD version of “Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da, Da” has him pictured on the cover, but the design is by Paul Agar with photography by Perou.
I do not suppose many would argue with me if I suggest that much of Damien Hirst’s art is ugly. Dissected animals or fish in formalin tanks, skulls (even when encrusted with diamonds) do not appear beautiful to these eyes. And Damien Hirst’s record covers fit the mould. His first record cover art was for Dave Stewart’s “Greetings From the Gutter” released in 1994. Hirst’s first covers are really unremarkable – the six variously coloured gas tubes with tubing attached on the Dave Stewart album and the dissection of an egg by two rubber-gloved hands on the “Heart of Stone” single from Stewart’s album are hardly design masterpieces. These are followed by Hirst’s ugliest covers; the CD for Fat Les’ “Vindaloo” with foldout poster and “Yalla Yalla” the single from Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros’ album “Rock Art & The X-ray Style” from 1999. For the album, Hirst drew a series of matchstick men reminiscent of stone-age cave paintings or aboriginal art and these figures appeared on the “Bankrobber 99” promotional single as well. Joe Strummer & The Meascaleros’ “Rock Art & the X-ray Style” LP cover.
In 2006, Hirst became manager for the band The Hours and designed the covers for their first album “Narcissus Road” and the singles taken from it; “Ali in the Jungle” and “Back When You Were Good”. These were released on the A & M label.
Hirst made a limited edition of 210 spin-painted skulls as holders for the CD retailing at a cool £4,500 each! Damien Hirst’s spin-painted skull holder for The Hours’ “Narcissus Road” CD.
Hirst then started his own record label “Is Good” and The Hours’ second album “See the Light” was released on the label, again with cover art by him. The album was released on gatefold vinyl and a double 12″ single “See the Light” was also released. And, as had been for the singles from “Narcissus Road”, each was decorated with more of Hirst’s skull designs.
In February 2008 the cover of TAR Magazine used Damien Hirst’s portrait of Kate Moss where the right side of her face was dissected down to the muscles. The following year, Hirst released a white vinyl, one-sided 12″ single with the same image on the cover. Hirst’s given name was misspelt on the record label: “Damian”. The single was released in a numbered edition of 666 copies and is currently very sought after. Damien Hirst’s portrait of Kate Moss from TAR Magazine to his “Use Money, Cheat Death” 12″ single cover.
Hirst’s next cover “I’m With You” for The Red Hot Chili Peppers (2011) revisited two of his earlier subjects, drugs represented by a coloured capsule and decay, represented by a single fly on the capsule. Red Hot Chili Peppers’ album “I’m With You”.
Hirst designed the cover for the band 30 Seconds to Mars’ fourth album “Love Lust Faith & Dreams” in May 2013 and used his polka dot pattern. The album was released on CD and vinyl and in a limited edition boxed set with the LP, a double CD, a book and four prints. 30 Seconds to Mars’ super de luxe promo box set of Love, Lust & Faith
Later the same year Hirst designed the covers for Babyshambles’ “Sequel to the Prequel” album and the two singles released from it that autumn; “Nothing Comes From Nothing” and “Fall From Grace”. According to Babyshambles’ bassist Drew McConnell reported in NME: “It happened kind of naturally and in the spirit you’d hope for. We asked Damien to suggest someone to put something together, then to our amazement he offered to do it himself. The fact that he used a pic taken by Pennie Smith, who shot all those iconic photos of The Clash (Damien’s old pal Joe Strummer’s band), just makes it make even more sense.”
So those are Damien Hirst’s first 22 covers from his first twenty years of record cover design 1994 – 2013.
And, as is my wont, I’ll list one cover ascribed to Damien Hirst that is not by him. According to Wikipedia Hirst did prepare a design for the cover for the Band Aid 20 single “Do They Know It’a Christmas?”. His design showing the grim reaper and a starving child was considered too scary and was dropped. Mat Maitland at Big Active, a designer in his own right who has designed covers for Michael Jackson and others was commissioned to design the replacement. Rumour has it that Hirst released a limited edition print of his design for the cover. But I have, thus far, not been able to find one.
In a previous post, I promised a continuation of my list of 45 rpm discs with Andy Warhol cover art. Well, I’m still working on the list, which continues to grow as I do more research.
The Rolling Stones released their “Sticky Fingers” LP with cover photography by Andy Warhol and package design by Craig Braun on 23rd April 1971. The cover art and packaging received a Grammy nomination in 1972 – but did not win. However, the album cover was later voted No 1 in VH1’s list of the best record sleeves of all time.
The design concept was by Andy Warhol and many credit him with the photography, which according to others, was by Factory associate Billy Name. Sticky Fingers was the first LP released on the Rolling Stones own record label.
Here I will only discuss the various versions of The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” single and EP with Warhol cover art. There are many issues from all over the world with either generic company covers or alternative cover art.
The original single was released in the UK on 16th April 1971, one week prior to the Sticky Fingers LP, as a three-track single with “Brown Sugar” coupled with “Bitch” and “Let It Rock”. The covers for the UK and US singles used a photograph by American photographer David Montgomery (thank you Guy Minnebach for this information.) The rear cover used the same photo as the “Sticky Fingers” LP with a jeans-clad posterior. Interestingly, the German version of the single had the Montgomery photograph reversed on the front – that is with Jagger apparently standing at far left instead of at far right as on the UK and US versions.
In addition to the standard single, there was a shaped picture disc (SUGAR1).
“Brown Sugar” was released in Mexico both as a single (coupled with “Perdida” (Bitch)) and as an EP (coupled with “Caballos salvajes” (“Wild Horses”) and “Ecos de mi onda” (“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”)) both had a fold-over covers that bore the “Sticky Fingers” artwork on the front.
The “Brown Sugar” single was re-issued in it’s original cover for Record Store Day in 2011 as a numbered edition of 10,000 copies. My copy has number 7385.
The thing that makes the past year’s collecting Andy Warhol’s record cover art most exciting is, without a doubt, the informal convening of The Warhol Cover Collectors’ Club (WCCC). The Club’s four other members have contributed enormous amounts of enthusiasm and knowledge and found a many record covers with art either by Warhol or that is clearly influenced by him. I cannot thank them all enough for their input and stimulus to keep me up to date.
I have been trying to keep my list of Warhol covers up to date and members of the WCCC have pointed put omissions. I realised during the past year that I have been naive when maintaining this list. I had not realised that it had become a reference site and that posting records there influenced sales of covers and thus prices. In retrospect, I should never have advertised the RATFAB cover – I could have gone on buying copies for under $10 had I not shared its existence with viewers of my list. I’ve learned my lesson, however, and keep “mum” about one rare cover….
I have prided myself on having a fairly good and representative collection of Andy Warhol’s record cover art, although my collection lacked some of the rarer early Warhol covers. Over the past twelve months I have managed to fill several of the major gaps as prices for some of the not-quite-so-rare items have come down somewhat. Thus I have added both volumes of “Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish”, “Latin Rhythms by The Boston Pops”, Vladimir Horowitz’ “Piano Music of Mendelssohn and Lizst” to my collection. I was, however, convinced that a couple of the seriously rare covers, such as the “Night Beat” promotional box and the “Waltzes by Johann Strauss, Jr.” would never find their way into my collection. So, I hatched the idea of making my own and supplying the WCCC with copies for their collections. 2013 just happened to be the fiftieth anniversary of the first production of Andy Warhol’s “Giant Size $1.57 Each” record cover. I hade made a digital copy of this cover for the 2008 “Happy Birthday, Andy Warhol!” exhibition in Piteå, Sweden, but now wanted to produce true copies exactly as Warhol had done. That meant spraying record sleeves with paint and then silkscreening his “Giant Size” image over the painted sleeve. Warhol made prints of the sleeve in five colour variations: red, orange, yellow, green and white. His placement of the silkscreen on each cover was quite sloppy and he was not too bothered if areas of the “Giant Size” motif failed to print. From pictures that I have seen of the rear covers it is clear that he stacked covers on top of one another before the paint was completely dry as there is paint residue on the rear of many sleeves.
In addition to making the “Giant Size $1.57 Each” record covers, I decided to make ten and seven inch versions of the unreleased “Progressive Piano” record as well as the the “Night Beat” promotional box and the “Waltzes by Johann Strauss, Jr.” EP. Thus I was able to add nine new covers to my collection; “Night Beat”, the “Waltzes by Johann Strauss, Jr.” and ten and seven inch versions of the “Progressive Piano” album and the five colour variants of the “Giant Size” sleeve.
During the year I also managed to find copies of Keely Smith’s “I Wish You Love” (both LP and EP versions), The Velvet Underground’s bootlegs “Paris 1990” and the red version of “Screen Test: Falling in Love With the Falling Spikes” and several EPs that I was missing, including Joe Newman Octet’s “I’m Still Swinging” (in several variations), Tchaikovsky’s “Violin Concerto” in a three EP box, German pressings of Artie Shaw’s “Both Feet in the Groove” and Joe Newman Octet’s “I’m Still Swinging” and a few CDs with Andy Warhol art including Mark Blixtstein / Tobias Pinker “Piano Concerto / Keys to the City” CD, David Cronenberg’s “Cronenberg on Warhol” and Rasmussen’s “Three friends” CD. I also found copies of Walter Steding’s “Dancing in Heaven” LP and “Secret Spy” 45, Aretha Franklin’s “Jerry Lee”, “Rock-a-lott” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and Enola Gay’s “Döda djur” singles and The Smith’s “Sheila Take a Bow” 12 inch.
All in all I have, over the past twelve months, added forty-one titles, including the eight replicas I have made myself, to my collection of Warhol covers. And I have added a few records with covers that resemble Andy Warhol’s art such as The Darling Buds’ “It’s All up to You” and The Velvet Underground’s “Velvet Redux – Live MCMXCIII” Video disc and “Harvest” CD. There are a few bootlegs that I have yet to find, but – as far as I can tell today – no official releases. The final addition to my collection this year is not really a Warhol cover, but the record and catalogue from the 1963 “Popular Image Exhibition” recorded by Billy Klüver with cover art by Warhol’s fellow Pop Artist, Jim Dine.
Here’s wishing all readers a Happy 2014 and much success in their continued collecting of Andy Warhol’s record cover art. I hope we will see a new exhibition of his record sleeves during the year.
In my recent list of the rarest Warhol record covers, I put the “Night Beat” promotional box of three 45 RPM EPs at number 2. Top of the list is the “Progressive Piano” cover, which was never released. However, there is – as far as I know – only one known copy of the “Night Beat” box; the one in Paul Maréchal’s collection. Not even The Warhol Museum has a copy. Matt Wrbican, Chief Archivist at The Warhol, told me in a recent email, that the radio stations that received the “Night Beat” boxes would, in all probability, have thrown them away once the episode had been broadcast, which probably means that very few have survived. Indeed, I have never seen a copy appear on Ebay or in art galleries.
So what is a poor collector to do if he/she wants to complete a collection? The answer, of course, is to make a copy. Using the picture in Paul Maréchal’s book as a starting point and with the help of my daughter who performed some Photoshop magic and Urban Westling, at Urban Print, who did some further tweeking in InDesign and printed the result, I made a slick that would cover a standard EP box. Once I had the slick it only took about fifteen mintes to glue it over the old, discarded box of EPs and the result was way beyond my expectations.
The “Night Beat” box
My main problem has been finding suitable boxes here at home in order to supply all the members of The Warhol Cover Club with their own boxes. Founder member, Kevin Kinney and his wife have volunteered to find more boxes for me and as soon as they arrive I will make more boxes.
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