Here’s Woody

The first copies have just arrived from the printers – here’s a look at the new Woody Guthrie set from Bear Family:

The set collects the recordings (feat. 20 previously unissued tracks) from the two Tribute Concerts at the Carnegie Hall in 1968 and at the Hollywood Bowl in 1970 and includes two hardcover books: one is packed with photos from the concerts (by Jim Marshall and David Gahr) and rehearsals/soundchecks, plus essays focusing on several aspects of Woody’s life and work. And of course a proper Bear Family set wouldn’t be complete without hundreds of illustrations – albums of Woody Guthrie’s music from around the world, covers of foreign editions of his books, as well as rare pictures from the Guthry Family archives.

The second book is a reprint of the “TRO Tribute Songbook” featuring lyrics and musical notation of most of the songs performed at the concerts. And even if you think you know Woody’s songs by heart, here’s your chance to discover brilliantly magic lines like

“In the misty crystal glitter of that wild and windward spray…”

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Tales From Noise (Part 2: Vicious Circle)

In our job as “creative consultants” at Noise Records we sometimes got detailed instructions for the record covers from the musicians themselves – usually when a mini-LP was planned. Here’s an example of the creative input from the band. This colourful drawing landed on our desk in September 1984:

It came with an “explanation”: “Lightning strikes into the devil’s horn. The devil glows. Lightning is diverted through the devil’s tail and discharges into an explosion. The band logo has to look metallic, like steel, you know…”

As we were too lazy to make a flashy airbrush painting (and Karl “you guys will be my ruin someday” the label boss wouldn’t pay for it) we proposed a comic-style drawing – it was the time of magazines like “Metal Hurlant” and “Heavy Metal”, after all. And we had a few entertaining days digging out some old Jack Kirby comic books.

So this is what hit the shops in fall that year – in a glorious, glossy 12-inch sleeve:

Tales From Noise (Part 1: Kreator)

In the mid-80s we were working for Modern Music, a record label in Berlin. Apart from designing the covers for their “Diadem” releases we did a lot of stuff for their heavy metal label, Noise Records. As the covers were mostly painted by a guy called Lawvere, we were only involved at the printing stage – we had to make sure that the bass player’s scribbles for the inner sleeve were printable, and sleeve notes (usually six sheets of bad handwriting) were submitted for typesetting with instructions about the correct size and font (usually something gothic or “germanic”).

In April 1985 Karl the label boss (“they all want 1500!”) sent us a sketch for a logo from a young band from Essen.

They weren’t sure about their new name at this point (they were still called “Tormentor”), but Karl suggested we design something “like Iron Maiden”. He also decided spelling the name with a “K”.

Several suggestions, more sketches from the drummer, and a couple of mock-ups followed, until a final decision was made:

Apart from producing a printer-friendly line drawing (done with our trusty Rotring pens on thick artboards from Scotland) our biggest contribution to the Kreator logo probably was that we could convince the Noise guys to forget about “steel finish”, dripping blood, and their usual 3-D and airbrush effects – it was supposed to be a classic “trademark” that could be used in any colour and appearance. Luckily the band was quite good and successful, and they’re still using the logo nowadays, three decades later.

The logo was first shown on their debut album, which of course came with a Lawvere cover. The album title was decided at the last minute (by Karl, naturally), and we had to produce a line drawing of the phrase “Endless Pain” while a bicycle courier on his way to the printers was waiting in our studio.

Here’s the original LP cover, and Phil Lawvere’s painting in full:

Kreator’s Noise albums have just been reissued on CD.

Tea Time

Alternative History

More Jazz!

New from BE! Jazz – a six CD-box set of recordings from the “Jazz am Rhein” open air festival 1967 & 1968, featuring big bands like the Kurt Edelhagen All Star Band as well as smaller combos with Manfred Schoof, Peter Trunk, George Gruntz and Dusko Goykovich. The booklet has contemporary reviews in German and English plus concert pictures, posters, tickets and more.

Classic Hank Snow

Watch out for a new print run of the first Hank Snow box from Bear Family coming soon. The new set has an expanded 20-page book with a few additional pictures and an updated discography with  LP and EP track listings (and cover pix). (The music is the same as before – no new mastering or such.)