I decided to end with something simple, yet wonderful. Originally, it was the label logo that caught my eye here (Pet Records!), but then I realized how amusing and strange it was to see the “song titles” laid out like that, which is why I’m posting both sides.
Playing the record, these tracks consist of a couple of minutes of each phrase being repeated over and over again, alternating right channel/left channel each time (to provoke an extra stimulating learning experience for the bird, apparently).
This Pet Records label is also relevant to my situation this weekend, as a pet mouse we have escaped from his house and is running around loose in the apartment. As of this writing, I still haven’t succeeded in capturing the little mofo.
It’s been a fun two weeks contributing to the blog, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the labels I’ve shared. Thanks to Alexander for inviting me. I realize in retrospect that I posted a lot of wacky ones. But there were so many elegant, beautiful, stylish ones posted already, that I wanted to toss in a number of bizarro examples. Well, at least I can sensibly go out with a squeak.
This one was hard to scan. I ended up using a “backlight correction” feature in Photoshop to bring out some of the etched detail, though it’s still not as clear as I’d like it. But you get the idea! Not really much to say about this one, really. It’s a split, etched 5” record with Lucky Dragons on one side and Goodiepal (who I believe also did the pressing of the record) on the other. And what you’re seeing in these pictures is the entire record, not just the center part. There’s only a couple minutes of music on each side.
Tomorrow: my last post!!
One more film-related label! In my archiving job, I work on the films of experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, so I couldn’t resist posting this one. This album is a collaboration between his then-wife Jane Brakhage (story) and Architects Office (music), with a cover taken from a Brakhage film (Fireloop), and a center label based on Brakhage’s characteristic signature scratched into the black leader at the end of many his films. That's probably my fingerprint on the label.
This is my friend Peter’s band, but I didn’t pick this center label out of simple, everyday nepotism. As I mentioned back on August 10, I work in a film archive, in particular on 16mm and other (as we call it) small-gauge stuff. I also have what I guess you could call a general appreciation for photochemical image-making and analog sound-making, and shoot super 8 and 16mm film too. So this center label speaks to that part of me with a generous amount of warm humor and dorky delight: the A-side is designed to look like a super 8 Kodachrome box (sadly no longer made), while the B-side is lovely 1/4” tape.
Peter’s various bands, including Mono Pause, Neung Phak, Malcolm Mooney and the Tenth Planet, and Negativland (hmmm... possibly others) are all very much worth checking out, by the way. But in particular, if you get a chance to see his group Wet Gate, don’t miss that opportunity. They’re a three-person ensemble that exclusively plays film loops on 16mm projectors to create live sound and (secondarily) image collages!
Another band that I thought of immediately when beginning to consider my contributions to this blog. Longtime Bay Area mystery group Caroliner has released a bunch of records since the early-mid-‘80s, every single individual one of them hand-assembled and -decorated, making each copy truly unique.
So actually, although their center labels are interesting and worthy, the outer artwork is really where it’s at. There’s usually some basic underlying printed motifs or artwork, or object inclusion, but each copy always has its own additional modification. Their live shows are intensely and inimitably visual too.
Out of the records I have of theirs (which are also difficult to store due to their unconventional shapes, sizes, and the frequent fragility of their packaging), Banknotes, Dreams, & Signatures had a particularly nice set of center labels. I had one other possibility, for which the center label had been slathered with paint during the decoration of the cover artwork, but didn’t like the design as much (even though it probably illustrates the band’s design sense better). Plus I thought the B-side here complemented the Ten Foot Faces A-side from yesterday.
By the way, the band is generally known as Caroliner, but each release also boasts a renewed take on their name, usually in the form of a long, automatic writing-esque sentence fragment (hence Caroliner Rainbow Scrambled Egg Taken for a Wife, in this example).
Can’t even remember what these guys are like. I’ll give this a fresh listen before I put it away. But look at that label! Holy jeez. Courtesy of IPR (Independent Project Records), a label I knew from the beginning would have excellent possibilities for this blog. I had to resist posting several here over the course of my contributions.
If you’re not familiar with IPR, it’s a label started in the early '80s by Bruce Licher, musically known best for his role as founder of the excellent band Savage Republic. He also operates a letterpress printing outfit and did the majority of the IPR sleeves, center labels, and inserts on his own letterpress, which he now operates under the name Licher Art and Design. In addition to a lot of the Savage Republic stuff, the original LP release of Camper Van Beethoven’s debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory, was put out by IPR with a gorgeous sleeve definitely worth seeking out.
The IPR aesthetic has the unique quality of being consistent (due to the regular use of letterpress printing), and yet incredibly diverse, with a very inventive and eclectic approach to design and text/image interaction. I mean, I like a bunch of stuff on the Sacred Bones label, and like their consistent design approach in theory, but it feels a little monotonous sometimes. IPR never feels that way to me. I don’t totally love every sleeve, but they’re always an unusual visual feast in some way or another, and many are really outstanding. I honestly don’t know how much input the bands had with Bruce in the design of their sleeves, and I would imagine he exercised quite a bit of control in this area. The original sleeve for his own band Savage Republic’s essential album Tragic Figures is simply fantastic, and he’s even done plenty of gorgeous and surprising fold-out CD sleeve constructions, including those for his less abrasive followup to SR, Scenic.
In the case of this Ten Foot Faces 7”, the outer sleeve, though nice, is pretty mild compared to some of the other IPR releases. But the center label is another story. Not only do we get the bizarre but striking band photo on the B-side, but we get a full-on zoetrope on the A-side.
I got into IPR in the mid-late ‘90s through an accidental introduction to Savage Republic, and discovered a number of the vinyl releases were actually pretty easy to find used at Amoeba in Berkeley, where I shopped most often. (This is still somewhat the case, depending on what you’re looking for, and I suppose being in California helps.) Turns out the label actually released some pretty diverse and high quality stuff, i.e. they’re not just worth picking up for the design, though that’s nearly reason alone. A number of the bands are pretty damn good, including the aforementioned few, plus Indian Bingo, Party Boys, Human Hands, The Dentists, For Against, and others. I haven’t yet heard Red Temple Spirits, but they sound like they might be interesting too. And of course, check into Savage Republic if you haven’t yet – really ragged, intense, percussion-heavy ‘80s L.A. post-punk!
This was a record I just spotted at some shop (can’t remember which), and immediately had to get it. The 1964 NY World’s Fair is fairly legendary. I’ve been meaning to visit the site in for years now, where some of the crazy monuments still remain, but just haven’t gotten around to it.
Anyhow, Travelers Insurance (which also has a connection for me, as I’m originally from Connecticut) put this little 33rpm 7” out as a home version of their exhibit, I suppose. It’s amazing enough that their portion of the Fair was called ‘The Triumph of Man’, but I like it even better taking the record as an object unto itself – this little red umbrella and the words ‘The Triumph of Man’ – beautiful. It’s also just a great, odd center label. I should digitize the audio and put it online somewhere. Alexander, when’re you gonna do a followup blog of weird, found 7”es?
One of many many classic Eugene Chadbourne albums. All of Dr. Chad’s center labels tend to be pretty nuts, but I chose this one because of the special interactivity with the center hole.
I figured Ralph Records/Cryptic Corp. related bands would have interesting labels, so I poked around among the stuff I have (Residents, Fred Frith, Renaldo and the Loaf, etc.) and was surprised to discover that a lot of ‘em have the same two or three center labels. I think it’s mainly because the copies of the earlier albums that I have – which may have had more unique labels in their original releases – are slightly later reissues on Ralph, and have a more uniform label design.
Eskimo was the only one I turned up that had a particularly cool one, perhaps because it seems to be an original release, but I’m not positive about that. It basically reproduces the back cover artwork of this album (one of my favorites of theirs), but I love the font and the weird constellation-like design in the sky.
One anecdotal aside about this album is that maybe 10 years ago I was watching a video of the (then) recently restored Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc at home, and it had this contemporary “Voices of Light” soundtrack accompanying it, which I REALLY disliked. It was bothering me so much that in frustration I for some reason put Eskimo on instead, and I liked it much better. (I’ve since had a chance to see the film theatrically, totally silent, and that’s pretty amazing.)
Nothing much to say about this one. I just love how this looks, and love the album too, though Ayler's Spirits Rejoice (1965) remains my favorite. A very basic label with an excellent style sense, sharp use of ultra-clear lowercase lettering, nice color choice against the off-white background... beautiful in its simplicity and directness. ESP-Disk' releases are usually a good place to look for nice center labels (and sleeves).
The band’s wacky, somewhat regrettable name is what first got my attention, I’m pretty positive about that. I’m pretty sure I first heard of them in 1999, soon after I arrived in Rochester, NY, where I lived for not quite a year. I bought the Introducing... CD which was apparently designed by their label to introduce these ‘90s-’00s Welsh psych/pop/folk folks to an American audience. I don’t know if it worked in general, but it worked on me, at least. I totally fell in love with their music; it was exactly what I needed at that moment in time.
At age 23, I was coming back to an appreciation of good pop songwriting from an extended sojourn in experimental, prog, art rock, Krautrock, and generally listening to disagreeable stuff like Henry Cow, Eugene Chadbourne, Frank Zappa, John Zorn, and plenty of noisy other stuff. Gorky’s were heavily influenced by Kevin Ayers, Gong, Robert Wyatt and the Canterbury scene in general, combining an intuitive pop sensibility with a fair amount of experimentation and screwing around, and that was perfect. They were super young when they started, so they still had this exuberant, undisciplined quality which was charming and contagious. They came across as unpretentious and music-loving, and their songwriting and presence had an embracing, smiling quality that was quite memorable and affecting, as well as playful, inventive, and unexpected. Euros Childs had a great voice for the music, the arrangements were alternately delicate and unruly, and they frequently sang in Welsh, which was curious at the time (the much more well-known Super Furry Animals had yet to really do so at that point). John Peel was one of their big supporters, and John Cale was supposedly a fan, but they never hit it really big.
Over a very short period of time, I furiously collected all their albums and singles, which was pretty tough, since almost none of it was released stateside. There seems to still be a certain appreciation for singles – in the ‘60s pop sense – in the UK. Gorky’s released a lot of singles, often containing really great B-sides and other non-album stuff. I got to see them live a few times, which was fun, and I even got to interview them for KALX (the UC Berkeley station I DJed at from 2001-2003), which was great fun. Very nice folks. I even got them to record a station ID in Welsh, but there was too much ambient noise on the recording to make any of it usable.
Their artwork, particularly on their first few singles and albums (including Bwyd Time), is all by a guy named Alan Holmes, who besides doing artwork for Gorky’s, also plays in the band Ectogram (and the little known and interesting Fflaps before that). His Gorky’s covers and labels are all in the same general style, which is a sort of pointillist neo-psychedelia which for me somehow totally fails to be as crappy as that description would normally suggest. I dig it. For the blog, I almost picked the labels for their Amber Gambler EP (one of their best releases), but instead went with their excellent LP Bwyd Time.
If you’re not familiar with these guys, and my vague descriptions sound even remotely interesting, I’d recommend Bwyd Time and the 2003 singles comp called 20 (which actually contains the entirety of Amber Gambler) as good starting points for the earlier, more unhinged stuff. The singles comp also contains their fantastic cover of Kevin Ayers’/Soft Machine’s “Why are we Sleeping?” For their gentler, folkier side, their mini-album The Blue Trees has some gorgeous stuff on it. Barafundle is also an excellent full-length, and Spanish Dance Troupe and Gorky 5 have lots of high points. I’m not as familiar with the very early or very late albums. There’s plenty of worthwhile stuff to check out. (And by the way, the ‘Mynci’ part of their name is pronounced as ‘monkey’.)
I have a handful of Klaus Schulze’s records, which are mostly on Brain Records, but apparently the label design changed in 1976 or 1977 or so, from a simpler line drawing to this more unambiguously, uh... heady variation. A variation which I find cooler. Brain was quite a label if you’re into Krautrock. They released stuff by Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia, Grobschnitt, Embryo, Popol Vuh, Guru Guru, and many others, including Klaus here.
And Klaus Schulze is also quite a guy. He was on the respective first albums of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel before going solo, and he’s released a ton of stuff of his own, not to mention running a label that released stuff in the ‘80s and ‘90s by young, up-and-coming electronic music artists. Of Klaus’s own stuff, I actually don’t really know anything later than Dune, which is from 1979, and which I haven’t listened to since I got it maybe 7 or 8 years ago. But the mid-‘70s stuff like Blackdance and Timewind I’ve listened to many times, and are really great. Sparse, minimal soundscapes and synth stuff, fairly subtle and hypnotic, quietly enveloping. Often the tracks are side-long (check out the length of the Dune side A shown above!)
I’ll share one minor anecdote here. When I first moved to LA in 2003, I listened regularly to a fantastic Sunday night radio show on KXLU called Alien Air Music (it’s still on, check it out). One night, the DJ played what I remember to be a really great track by a band I’d never heard of, called Peak, off their album Ebondazzar. I called him up and asked him about it, and he said it was a really obscure 1980 release on Klaus Schulze’s label Innovative Communication (IC for short). I could not for the life of me track down a copy of the record anywhere, so I actually got in touch with Klaus Schulze’s rep/biographer/webmaster/archivist/etc., whose name was also Klaus. Anyway, he told me to forget about it. When I pressed him, he said something to the effect of “Why can’t you just move on? We all have!” It was mildly irritating and hilarious at the same time. I tried to find the email exchange in my inbox, but I don’t seem to have saved it.
Post-script:
The above events occurred in 2003, before there were really insane amounts of mp3 blogs with tons of obscure, out-of-print albums available for absurdly instant download-type acquisition. I just now searched for the Peak album and found it immediately. How disappointingly boringly easy.
I do film restoration work at an archive in Los Angeles, and one of my co-workers is a guy named Cameron, aka Sun Araw. Sun Araw is awesome, and I recommend you not only pick up his records, but definitely check him out live when you get a chance. Anyhow, besides laying out deep, swampy slabs of tropical-flavored psych/dub jams that sound like they were recorded inside a sweltering, cramped, wood-paneled gymnasium during a blackout and a dry lightning storm, Cameron also has a unique and memorable design sense that I cotton to quite a bit. All of his records have a great look to ‘em, and I think they really connect and add some character to the experience of his sound. Of the handful of LPs I have, Heavy Deeds had the center label I wanted to share here. Included above are the A and B sides, which are similar, but complement each other nicely by their differences.
Thanks very much to Alexander for the opportunity to participate in this blog. It had me searching through just about my whole record collection, realizing that there’s a learning curve of sorts to guessing what kinds of records will have the good center labels. First and most important lesson: major labels don’t vary all that much, and are often not that interesting to begin with. At any rate, I’m going to begin my two-week stint with something slightly elaborate, and hope I don’t get booted for it.
Made sense to me to start here, because this is the first record I thought of when asked to contribute. Like most folks, I first heard Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet through The Kids in the Hall. Although it’s probably been a few years since I put one of the records on, I still consider myself a fan. There’s something so lovable about these guys.
In fact, they represent one of my biggest show-going regrets. On July 15, 1993, I decided not to attempt to get the night off of work when I was 17 and they were playing the Cattle Club in Sacramento. A year or two later, I was at the Club for another show, and happened to ask the owner/booker, Jerry Perry, if he remembered the Shadowy show, and if so, how it had gone. He said it was the best show they’d had all that year. Plus, the band had played their live-only tune “16 Encores”, which was an ever-changing collage of dozens (not just 16) of famous riffs from tons of other bands’ songs, including stuff like "All the Young Dudes", "Dueling Banjos", "Rock and Roll (part 2)", and the theme from Green Acres. Never had another chance to see them.
OK, so the reason I immediately thought of the Schlagers! single for this blog is that it’s not just a center label. It’s also a spinner thingy for a board game. The above images show you the center label of the 7”’s two sides, but these images will show a little of how it works:
By the way, their followup 7”, Explosion of Taste, was sold for a limited time as the lid of an actual Jiffy Pop stovetop popcorn package, (with record underneath the cover artwork). The B-side of that one is actually the sound of someone making stovetop popcorn.
