Splashleigh
11-18-2010, 02:37 AM
I work in a book shop and Richard Evans's The Art of the Album Cover (Compendium 2010) came in today and this is what the Beastie Boys entry says:
"Beastie Boys' producer, Rick Rubin, claimed that he had been reading Hammer of the Gods, a biography of LEd Zeppelin by rock journalist Stephen Davis. The book relates some of the wild excesses of the band's heyday, including details of the "Starship", the coverted Boeing 720B that all the mammoth acts of the 1970s used for touring. Rubin thought the Beastie Boys needed their own jet, remaking: "I wanted to embrace and somehow distinguish in a sarcastic way, the larger than life rock'n'roll lifestyle."
CBS art director Steve Byram recalls thinking up the idea for the cover while flying back from LA with Rubin, who was also part owner of Def Jam Records. "I was given the job", he said, "as I was considered the weirdo in the creative department at the time."
Steve got in touch with his illustrator friend, David Gamboli, who, for reasons known only to himself, likes to be known as World B. Omes. To produce the alarming image of a plane smashing into a vertical cliff, Omes made a collection of photographs of various sections and elements of plane parts and gradually built up a montage and hand-colored the picture with semi-transparent colors, using water-soluble crayons.
The Beastie Boys' logo appears on the tail and is a very loose translation of the Harley Davidson logo. It was designed by Stacey Drummond, an art director at CBS. In front of the band logo is the plane's identification number, 3MTA3. If you hold the album cover up to a mirror it reads, "Eat Me".
As the album cover is a gatefold, it hides the full story. The front cover - the right half seen above- shows just the tail section of the airplane, but when the sleeve is opened out the full horrifying picture is revealed.
Rick Rubin was pleased with the finished album cover, although the Beasties gave it a mixed response when they first saw it. What was it he was trying to tell them? "
I just copied that out on my break. You're welcome :)
"Beastie Boys' producer, Rick Rubin, claimed that he had been reading Hammer of the Gods, a biography of LEd Zeppelin by rock journalist Stephen Davis. The book relates some of the wild excesses of the band's heyday, including details of the "Starship", the coverted Boeing 720B that all the mammoth acts of the 1970s used for touring. Rubin thought the Beastie Boys needed their own jet, remaking: "I wanted to embrace and somehow distinguish in a sarcastic way, the larger than life rock'n'roll lifestyle."
CBS art director Steve Byram recalls thinking up the idea for the cover while flying back from LA with Rubin, who was also part owner of Def Jam Records. "I was given the job", he said, "as I was considered the weirdo in the creative department at the time."
Steve got in touch with his illustrator friend, David Gamboli, who, for reasons known only to himself, likes to be known as World B. Omes. To produce the alarming image of a plane smashing into a vertical cliff, Omes made a collection of photographs of various sections and elements of plane parts and gradually built up a montage and hand-colored the picture with semi-transparent colors, using water-soluble crayons.
The Beastie Boys' logo appears on the tail and is a very loose translation of the Harley Davidson logo. It was designed by Stacey Drummond, an art director at CBS. In front of the band logo is the plane's identification number, 3MTA3. If you hold the album cover up to a mirror it reads, "Eat Me".
As the album cover is a gatefold, it hides the full story. The front cover - the right half seen above- shows just the tail section of the airplane, but when the sleeve is opened out the full horrifying picture is revealed.
Rick Rubin was pleased with the finished album cover, although the Beasties gave it a mixed response when they first saw it. What was it he was trying to tell them? "
I just copied that out on my break. You're welcome :)