Cover Tunes

This week we'll look at last semester's final project for my Illustration class. The assignment was to create an album cover. Not a CD cover, but a 12" x 12" jacket for a vinyl LP. The idea was to combine two completely divergent musical styles, and create a band name that would indicate what genres are being cobbled together. The first name I chose was "The New Age Red-Necks" which I soon changed to "Angels Wear Mullets". We had our choice of medium, and I went with acrylic paint as I had not used them in a while and I needed bold, psychedelic colors. The title of the Angels Wear Mullets LP is "Off-Road 2 Atlantis".

Note the truck's mud-flap. Instead of the stereotypical, busty, nude woman in silhouette; this woman is seated as if meditating in the Lotus position.

On the back cover are images of the individual band members and what they play. 

The mud-flap woman appears again on the disc label where the songs are listed. The part I enjoyed the most on this project was generating fun song titles, and naming the band members.

I received a good grade on this project. There was high praise for my concept however I need to continue working on my painting technique.

Like many others of a certain age I grew up listening to vinyl records. CDs and MP3s have some advantages but I really miss the warmth of the analog recording process; along with the often times amazing art that adorned the album jackets. On CDs there is just not enough space for a decent image, and most detail gets lost. It just lacks the visual impact of a traditional rock LP cover.

There were artists in the 60's and 70's who used to make their entire living by designing album covers. Many of these became iconic images that helped define the genre and the times. For most creative types the idea of creating album art for a favorite band would be a dream come true.This project gave me a taste of what that would be like.

Redneck Employment Program

Traditionally, Country & Western is an uncomplicated, and uncluttered style of music that requires only a few instruments. One of the signature attributes of C&W is the use of space within the song composition. This being true it has always puzzled me that in many C&W bands there are a plethora of guitar players. Far more than necessary. Multitudes and minimalism are in opposition to each other and yet there is a strong tendency to fill the stage with guys holding "ghee-tarz". This idea may be a holdover from back in the days when playing music was a big social activity, so the more participants the better. The fun and challenging part about drawing this cartoon was creating a different look for each one of the extraneous guitarists. 

The Rock, Metal, and Pop genres have their own set of quirks as well and literally beg for parody. This has been brilliantly accomplished by the likes of: Frank Zappa, Spinal Tap, Weird Al, Tenacious D, and most recently Steel Panthers.

The approaching 2nd anniversary of BuckToonz blog has me feeling a bit magnanimous today-- so here is a bonus cartoon. This toon was originally created in the 90s for submission to a music magazine. The editors enjoyed my effort but there was no room for unsolicited work. I have left it unaltered in it's original, glorious, black & white. Enjoy.