Cover Story #8: Fire Up the Trash! The Shit-Shovelin' Album Art of Estrus Records
estrus (noun): a recurring period of sexual receptivity
and fertility in many female mammals; heat.
While "estrus" isn't a word frequently used by commoners, you've gotta admit that an animal in heat isn't a bad way to characterize rock & roll in general, assuming it's done right of course. If you're going to name your record label Estrus, however, you had better deliver on that implied leg-humping promise. I'd argue Estrus Records did just that and more during their prime. So, on the occasion of a new book due out in November that tells the story of Bellingham, Washington's revered garage/trash record label, I submit to you 25 of our favorite album, EP, and single covers from the label's discography dating from 1990 to 2001. Although the book is titled Estrus Records: Shovelin' the Shit Since '87, the music was far from shit—in fact it was often closer to the raw, reckless heart of rock 'n' roll than most anything else released at the time. And the album artwork lived up to that spirit, too. Visual presentation was a major part of the label's identity from day one and nobody contributed more to the label's overall design aesthetic than Art Chantry, the famed Northeast poster, logo, and album cover designer who created more than half of the covers on this list and a shit ton not on this list as well. While he's the hero of this part of their story, numerous other artists also contributed memorable covers along the way, too. As this is just a small view of some personal favorites, I encourage a deeper dive if this gets you all lathered up in the slightest. The music isn't for everybody, I fully get that, but everyone should be able to appreciate a well packaged and creatively marketed product. Estrus Records did just that and here's proof.
As a bonus, I've included, where available, a choice "press kit" pull-quote written for each band listed, taken directly from the PR staff at Estrus, who had their own distinct style when hyping up bands on their roster. This, too, is an art worthy of celebration, so consider this bonus content just for you.
Pickled Priest Album Art Spotlight: Our 25 Favorite Album Covers from the Discography of Estrus Records!
25 The Drags | Dragsploitation...Now! (1995)
We start with a killer (literally?) Art Chantry design. Chantry met up with Estrus founder, and frontman of label stalwarts the Mono Men, early on and a lifetime friendship and working relationship was born. They were two balls in the same dangling nutsack and both had a passion for pure, trashy punk rock, surf, and garage band music (think the famed Nuggets compilation from the late-60s but with a nastier bite). Dragsploitation...Now! by Albuquerque's the Drags is one of several Chantry covers that is inspired by the cut-and-paste style found on many 1960s album covers, but it was also informed by a love of cult horror B-movies from the 1970s. The title font has a similar feel to The Rolling Stones. Now! album cover from 1965 and the graphics use a similar mosaic approach that is positively unsettling in execution. Also notice the light blue concentric circles that run subtly underneath the whole cover, a touch that didn't have to be there to make it cool, but is. It adds another layer of design brilliance to the whole sordid affair.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Prepare to venture into a shocking world of pure trash, where brutality and rawk are the only rules.
24 The Quadrajets | Pay the Deuce (1998)
Chantry again, but a completely different approach this time. You'll find with many artists and designers that their covers have a consistent look and feel (see my previous Album Cover Spotlight on Raymond Pettibon). One thing I can say for Chantry is that one can never definitively rule him out as the artist behind almost any cover on this list. He's a creative chameleon, able to pull off classic black-and-white, dabble in a genre homage, and even deliver full vibrant colors when the situation demanded it. Nothing seemed outside of his talents. Such is the case for this cover created for Alabama punks, the Quadrajets, and their album Pay the Deuce. Complete with "Wide Fuckin' Open" (WFO) license plate, Chantry delivers a cover worthy of Hot Rod magazine here, another world with a similar "live fast, die young" attitude that has always gone hand-in-hand with the full-throttle rock & roll for which Estrus was known. It looks like the car is in the process of running over a group of clowns, which only makes the cover even better. Well, that's how I see it at least.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: This ain't no sissified alterna-rock for the dapper cracker with grits on his chin and kerosene laced cocktails in a can, my man.
23 Marble Orchard | "It's My Time" b/w "Agent Invisible" 7" single (1992)
Our first non-Art Chantry cover is a cool drawing from Darren Merinuk, an amazing artist and cartoonist who occasionally dabbled in album cover design. A quick search for his work on Google is worth your time—amazing stuff! I'm not familiar with Marble Orchard, but no matter, this cover has the look and feel of a badass motorcycle gang jacket (a la Sons of Anarchy), complete with requisite skull and Lemmy-approved war helmet. It benefits from a visually appealing symmetrical layout that would look pretty sweet as a full back tattoo as well. I'm glad Darren stuck with black-and-white for this design as that gives it a more intimidating vibe. Perhaps I will adopt it for my scooter club, which is much in need of a toughness injection.
22 The Goners | "Hide-Out" EP (1997)
Art Chantry, like Estrus label owner Dave Crider, has a significant demented streak laced into his DNA and this disturbing cover proves it. Ain't nothing more creepy than an antique baby doll staring down at you from a shelf at your grandma's house, except maybe that same doll with what looks like a fatal shotgun blast to her temple. By the look on her face, she didn't see it coming either.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: A three-song lo-fi gorified scuzzfest of Memphis meets mod-hari shank that¹ll have you looking both ways for the sucker who it was that sideswiped your cranium with that can o' sonic whoop-ass.
21 The Blow Up | "Microscope" b/w "Suicide Door" 7" single (2001)
One of a small number on this list where I don't have a clear sight to the designer, but whoever you are, good fucking work—you've made a cover worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film featuring a Pam Grier-type lead as a soul-sucking vampire or something approximating that plot line. Love the way the band name and track listing perfectly circle our vampiress's spectacular afro, radiating outward from there. Add stark white fangs and beady yellow eyes and something terrifying lurks within. A black, white, and red palette is never a bad idea if you're going for a scary trash-horror vibe, giving the whole presentation an unsettling feel of impending evil. If this was a movie I'd want to see it. It's an album, of course, so this cover makes me want to hear it. Design mission accomplished!
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Cursed, shunned, deemed unclean and uncool by their former outfits, The Blow Up is a team of sound scientists bent on initiating the hypnotized, desensitized and antagonized wayward youth into the Church of Adrenaline.
20 The Volcanos! | "Deora" b/w "Drums Fell Off a Cliff" 7" single (1996)
Our now good pal, Art (a perfect name), has a sentimental streak a mile wide, so when Detroit surf band (don't ask, just play along) the Volcanos titled a single "Deora" after the famed Hot Wheels surfboard-carrying pickup truck (see photo below) he knew what his cover art theme should be. He basically took a classic Hot Wheels lunch box and replaced "Hot Wheels" with "The Volcanos" and called it a day. It still gets a spot on our favorites list because we too loved Hot Wheels and we particularly adored the classic "Splittin' Image" concept car featured on the cover, a legendary creation that all kids wished was available for their dad to purchase, but wasn't. The cover would've been even better if he found a way to superimpose an actual Deora on the cover, but unfortunately no such lunch box was made. But, just sayin', this cover, while great, doesn't fully add up conceptually.
PRESS QUOTE PULL QUOTE: Blastin' outta the molten bowels of Motorcity, U.S.A. (that's Detriot, Daddy-O) come the VOLCANOS with this smoldering 7" containing two fire-tempered tracks of sizzlin' surf psycosis from the instro kings of the Great Lakes.
19 The 5.6.7.8's | "I Walk Like Jane Mansfield" b/w "Cat Fight Run" 7" single (1993)
This one-off single for Estrus doesn't fit easily on this list because in all ways it's an outlier to the normal Estrus design aesthetic. That's exactly why we like it so much. With the look and feel of a pirated single plucked from the trench coat of a Tokyo bootlegger, these Japanese garage rock mavens were every bit an Estrus band in just about every way but location. They arrived on the scene just as Japan was exploding with garage bands in the mid-80s, coincidentally the same time the vision for Estrus was being concocted. The cover of their purring, aspirational single, "I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield," which is well worth seeking out for it's art alone, features the girls attempting the "Full Jayne" in homage to the American sexpot who dominated the male gaze during the 1950s and beyond. Awash in pink and red, with white Japanese lettering, the visual is decidedly feminine and playful, not something normally found in the output of Estrus back in the day. There's an exotic charm to the whole thing that stands out from everything else the label produced. And, in case you're wondering, this is a damn fine two-sided gem, with a minimalist runway strut on the A-side and a seriously fuzz-fucked rave-up on the flip. Like Jayne Mansfield, the full package.
18 Tales from Estrus, No. 3 7" EP (1996)
It has to come as no surprise that Estrus also released some killer split singles amd EPs over the years. As proven by legendary Nuggets comp from the late-60s, no genre is as perfectly suited to the mixtape approach quite like garage rock, where flashes of brilliance are the norm and one song is all you need to achieve cult immortality. Estrus would make these comps look like a continuing comic book series, complete with full-color booklets inside, which smartly gave them a collectable feel, if only for the artwork alone. Thankfully, the singles, which normally included four songs by four different artists, also contained some ripping slabs of grimy trash rock (this volume the best of the bunch in my opinion). Credit the artwork to Darren Merinuk, who we first met back at the #23 spot on this list (Marble Orchard). We generally aren't in love with comic book culture, to be honest, and we've skipped over a bunch of cartoon covers when developing this list (much to the chagrin of some die-hard Estrus fans I'm sure), but this one is an exception. It features the Creature from the Black Lagoon hilariously soused after downing a bottle of Chernobyl Lite Beer at a beach party and is too delightfully toxic to pass up, even for me.
17 Man...or Astro-Man? | Project Infinity (1995)
Complete with a TV set hurtling through space, threading planets unknown even to the Webb telescope, this cover conveys the eerie feel of a colorized Twilight Zone episode circa the early-1960s. Perhaps a lesser creation from Art Chantry on quick inspection, detailed analysis reveals a well-considered composition that combines the fascinating vastness of space with the band's oddly inconclusive name (wouldn't the answer be "both"?). It takes the format of one of those novelty records that were routinely released in the 60s, when sonic experimentation was in its stereophonic infancy and people would pay actual money to hear people fuck around with emerging technology, and runs with it. I love how he included the phrase "Direct From Outer Space Itself" (the final word tickling my funny bone the most) and then adds an album description, rubber-stamped by the Department of Redundancy Department, "Sounds of Man in Space with Sounds." That's just genius! Leave it to Chantry to bring some color into the blackness of space, too. The more I gaze into this 12"x12" window of space the more I find new things to discover.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Beyond space and time there is infinity. Here, Man or...Astro-Man? breaks not only sonic conventions but also the very laws of physics. Out of this world all-instro mayhem!
16 The Fall-Outs | "Don't Want the Sun" 7" EP (1991)
This Halloween-esque design is credited to one-time Fall-Outs bassist "Shannon" so I'm assuming he/she was a double-threat musician/artist at the very least. Another of our favorite covers in the whole Estrus paddock was also designed by the same person, still to come, so I'm curious what happened next. Perhaps an art career was in the offing. Anyone know? Some great contrast and color use here, with prominent, contrasting black and yellow graphics softened by a light blue background and a sharply detailed and shaded ink drawing of who I assume to be either an undertaker or a graverobber. The separation of the band name and the drawing with an elongated "E.P." is also a clever and subtle design element that doesn't go unnoticed. It's a bit sad that the second date on the headstone is the "Released" date, right where the death date would normally be, as if they knew the record was going to die a quick death shortly after release. Such is the fate of the underground garage band in many cases, sadly. The only hope is that someone remembers this cut enough to dig it up and bring it, despite the protestations of the Fall-Outs themselves, back into the light of day for a second life.
15 The Cybermen | The Cybermen 10" EP (1996)
Art Chantry was born in the 50s, so he had first-hand exposure to many of the cool jazz album designs from the 1960s, the glory era of cover design for the genre. That influence clearly informed some of his later work, including this retro-cool cover for surf-rock combo, the Cybermen, a band who came and went as fast as a tasty wave. But they left behind this self-titled EP, which is notable mostly for this striking hip-cat design from an underappreciated industry legend.
14 The Mortals | "Disintegration" 7" EP (1991)
Speaking of 1960's jazz album covers, here's an outright homage from Estrus house producer Richard "Dick" Head, who also had a strong affection for the iconic Blue Note album covers of Reid Miles from the glory era of that label. This one is a rip-off by design, with no intention of hiding it. It's an inspired take, down to the classic "oval/rectangle" label logo, the song titles in the same spot as the musician list, and the same red/white/yellow color palate. I do wonder why he didn't "dot matrix" the photo, which is one of the coolest parts of the Art Blakey cover. Perhaps he didn't know how to pull it off? Either way, I do love when genres collide in such a way. It makes me believe that all graphic designers are part of one large community, spread out over time, appreciating each other's work. Kind of like rock & roll, the more you think about it.
13 Man...or Astro-Man | Destroy All Astro-Men! (1994)
Art Chantry probably played with toys like these growing up in the 1960s, smack in the middle of the space race, so it isn't a surprise that his concept for Man...or Astro-Man's third record would mimic the floor of a 12-year-old boy's bedroom as he acts out his secret intergalactic fantasies. The cover looks a little like an antique toy box that you might find at an estate sale, complete with enough small metal parts to choke a classroom of preschoolers. He accomplishes the visual effect by using colors that look faded and a bit worn—like a movie poster that's been exposed to the sun for too long.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Be warned! This petroleum based saucer explodes with lethal, reverb drenched blasts of high intensity RayGun Rock© so strong that they could shatter the very fabric of the universe!
12 The Mummies | Play Their Own Records! (1992)
This had to get old real fast. Playing with your heads wrapped in gauze or bandages or whatever seems conceptually cool, but it had to be highly impractical over time, especially considering the band formed in sunny California. The touring van had to reek to high heaven, but bless the Mummies for sticking to their guns. They were DIYers when it wasn't cool, extremely lo-fi by design, and old school in all ways, to the point they only released their records on vinyl during the CD age, complete with a "Fuck CDs!" sticker on the front. The time is now for a comeback, gentlemummies, for vinyl is hot again! Let's give them some props for being ahead of their time. To the Mummies, the sound other Estrus bands was too polished so they intentionally wanted their music to sound like shit—so they played and recorded through broken equipment to drive home the point. Which was what exactly? No matter, it worked, and they are revered retroactively for their dedication to whatever foolhardy principles they had. The term "budget rock & roll" was specifically created for these nut jobs, after all! This cover, from an LP-only (of course) compilation is similarly and perfectly basic, with photo of a mummies gig and some cut-and-pasted graphics (including funny title). Color? No fucking way, not for these fuck-ups. And we like it exactly as it is. My only regret is never seeing this wrap-group live.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Volstead tried to kill the still. Squeaky tried to kill the Ford (or was it GM?). And Red Book tried to kill your records. The Mummies proudly join the ranks of these other immutable, indestructible forces: Alcoholism! Imperialism! Consumerism!
11 Jackie & the Cedrics | Thunder Struck! EP (1993)
Estrus did not discriminate. They knew everyone had garages no matter where you went. And in those garages? Bands. Lots of great rock bands. Jackie & the Cedrics, from Tokyo, were a surf-rock band (what hath Dick Dale wrought?!) with dapper style and a blistering attack. No, they didn't look the part, but who gives a shit? Even their album, which was released not in 1963 as it looks but in 1993 on Estrus, had a classic retro look. Great fonts, perfect background coloring, some sweet period graphics, and a thunder bolt that seems to be striking bandleader Jackie T-Bird in the head. Maybe that was the band's secret power source all along.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Tokyo's Jackie And The Cedrics are without a doubt the hottest instro/surf band in the Land Of The Rising Sun, if not the world, and churn out some of the most energetic and raw surf twang you'll ever put a ear to and their smolderin' four-song debut, "Thunder Struck" 7" ep, is ample proof of that fact, Jack.
10 The Gimmicks | High Heels (1998)
Sex sells. You don't need to lecture Art Chantry on that fact, nor anyone else in the hallowed halls of Estrus. Seattle's the Gimmicks were surprisingly and refreshingly gimmick-free and understood the power of a titillating album cover. Chantry delivered this vintage-styled cover, which leaves pretty much everything to the imagination. Again, credit his Blue Note fascination for the yellow photo tint and staggered font approach. He was a student of the game and sometimes more can be said with less. No fucking gimmicks needed.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Eight fired up broken bottle blasts of lo-grade, street-junk punk that'll leave you begging for the electric chair.
09 The Mono Men | Recorded Live! at Tom's Strip-N-Bowl (1995)
Art Chantry is all over our Top 10, predictably, and this bowling-themed cover for this live album is special to me because I personally witnessed the Mono Men on their famed Strip-n-Bowl tour at Chicago's Empty Bottle, Estrus Records' midwest home base in the 90s. I even bought and still have the decal shown below, a classic example of mid-90s garage trash-rock ephemera if there ever was one. The album cover is similarly kitschy in the best way, albeit not exactly appropriate for modern American sensibilities. A bikini-clad girl as the head-pin, ready to be knocked down? What's wrong with that? Perhaps the word "Broads" at the top was a bit much, but that's how people used to talk back in the day and that aesthetic is what this cover is trying to tap into. Hey, at least she's not buck naked. Scroll further if that's your jam.
08 The Fatal Flying Guilloteens | "Ask Marie Antoinette" 7" single (1999)
I love how the band name tastefully separates head and body with a pleasing swoop of red lettering like it's a banner trailing a biplane and not a blade substitute as should be implied. The lettering is naturally blood red, of course. If you've watched even one episode of Game of Thrones, you know there will be blood during a decapitation. I also appreciate that the target of the beheading looks to be a gorgeous country girl, perhaps a Nashville star fresh off an Opry performance. What could she have done to deserve her fate, butcher a Tammy Wynette song? This album cover, suffice it to say, could've been so much worse. If you've seen the cult film that likely inspired the band's name, Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976), you'll know what I mean. It wasn't pretty at all, I assure you. The movie plot was a classic tale of vengeance with the gruesome, titular weapon used to hunt down a mortal enemy. I won't go into too much more detail, but I've always found it amusing that they made the guillotine master blind for some reason, as if mastering a flying guillotine wasn't hard enough as it is. But I digress. In this case, Chantry (again!) takes the least gruesome approach possible and it works because it's simple and efficient and clean, just like the guillotine itself.
One final note: I have to also show my appreciation for the way the band changed the spelling of guillotine to guilloteen like they were some teeny-bopper band from back in the early-60s. I guess it's a short distance from a sock hop to a head lop when you really think about it!
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: The Gang of Four of garage rock? Scientific garage? Of course the description of headchoppin' hardcore has been used in the past and a couple of drunken, rowdy fans have described the sound as, "texas death fuck blues."
07 The Statics | Pinball Junkies!! (1995)
Same artist, "Shannon," who did the art for our #16 selection (The Fall-Outs). I rarely say this, but this would've been even better in color. Perhaps that would've made it less trash-rock and more new wave, but I can live with that trade. If I had to guess, I might've predicted power-pop from the Statics, especially if you hid their label affiliation from me, which wouldn't have been fair. Either way, this is a cool presentation with lots to look at. I've been trying to remember where I saw the band font before, but can't place it. Any help from the congregation?
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Those lurid lo-fi lane lizards from White Center, WA., the Statics, serve up six brand new slash and burn slopfests on their Estrus Records debut.
06 Fireballs of Freedom | Total Fucking Blowout (2000)
Art Chantry was full of surprises, and as a result, was hard to pigeonhole as an artist. A great quality in a "house" album cover designer, too. This cover, with a simple treated photograph, somehow manages to draw my attention for long periods of speculation. Is she hammered, high, captivated by the music? All ot the above? Either way she's got some serious cans employed here, perhaps primed for the total fucking blowout promised in the title or has just completed the process. Either one might be true.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: These four finely feathered fountleroys of the eternal flame have arrived from the future via Missoula, MT to foil all weak assed rockers of tomorrow by smashin' their hash today!
05 The Mono Men | Skin & Tonic (aka Sin & Tonic) (1994)
Art Chantry always saved up something special for the Mono Men, likely because they were the label's "house band" and the musical vehicle for his pal and Estrus founder, Dave Crider, a man who practiced what he preached when it came to nasty, raw rock & roll. For some reason, the vinyl version was titled Skin & Tonic and the CD version was called Sin & Tonic—both work for me—but they had different covers, so take your pick. They're both cool and both inspired, once again, by old jazz covers from the 1960s Blue Note catalog, something I'm fine with. Why not add a little high brow to a band known for calling themselves "no brow"! (See pull quote below.) Skin & Tonic was a loose interpretation of Freddie Hubbard's legendary Hub-tones album cover from 1962 (shown below), complete with black bars and red image in the "drop down" non-conforming bar. From there, a little artistic license taken, but clearly an homage nonetheless.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Their fourth full-length LP of heavy handed, "no-brow" rock. Twelve brand new booze fueled scorchers delivered loud and lewd all in one swank package. None of that "groundbreakin'", "cutting edge" crap here, just another three chord dose of the Mono Men's patented no-B.S. guitar charged attack.
04 The Mono Men | "Wrecker!" (1992)
Clearly, I'm a sucker for a Blue Note homage because this is the third one on this short list. Perhaps Art and Dave liked to think of Estrus as the Blue Note of trash-rock, and there's plenty to support that claim, although a few other labels might take issue with such an assertion (In the Red, Bomp!, Crypt, Sympathy for the Record Industry, et al). There's no use analyzing the artistic merits of this one because it's a straight rip job—much like rock & roll itself if we're being fair. I've included its source inspiration, Big John Patton's Let 'Em Roll, below for comparison. If this one doesn't work for you, Art did a second version for exports to France and Argentina, who have a much healthier and far less prudish view of the female body. Gotta admit it. This literal "blue" version also works for me.
PRESS KIT PULL QUOTE: Another slab of drunken nitro-burning mantras about chicks, cars and booze!
03 Teengenerate | "Sex Cow" b/w "Bad Boy" 7" single (1994)
I'm not a big cartoon album cover guy, as noted earlier, nor am I a big hot rod enthusiast, but I do have a stack of old Gearhead magazines (which covered fast cars and fast music with equal fervor) in my basement somewhere, so I'm clearly open to the concept of combining the two together. Perhaps my boyhood love of the briefly popular cartoon series Wacky Races has something to do with it, too, especially with the undeniable allure of one Penelope Pitstop (seen below) dominating my cartoon fantasies. And I clearly wasn't alone. Chris "Coop" Cooper, the artist who supplied this cover for the absolutely maniacal Japanese garage-punk band, Teengenerate, managed to capture the spirit of their nitrous-fueled brand of garage-punk with a top-notch hot rod ink drawing that would also make an amazing tattoo if I had the balls to book a session. "Coop" is a well-known artist in this genre for good reason. I mean, check out the four-arms on this guy!
02 The Makers | The Makers (1995)
There are some very snazzy covers on this list, but trashy rock & roll doesn't require them to succeed. Estrus Records' operating model was to provide in-your-face, devil-may-care rebellion of the most primal variety. It wasn't quite punk, but it definitely had the same "fuck you" sensibility. So this copy machine bird, presumably Art Chantry's middle finger (definitely not Johnny Cash's), is the perfect distillation of the entire garage rock genre; not to mention a fitting representation of the Makers' snarling sound and nasty attitude. In my opinion they were the greatest Estrus band ever (and their album Psychopathia Sexualis the best album in the label's catalog, although the album cover is a little too "posed" for my tastes). The tunes on their self-titled record packed some head-snapping force with titles like "Not a Social Kind of Guy," "Waste of Flesh," and "Please Kill Yourself" offered as proof. This record was a flying "fuck you" and its cover makes sure you don't miss the message.
01 The Brood | "I'll Come Again" b/w "Knock On My Door" 7" single (1992)
Apologies to the great Art Chantry, but my top pick belongs to another fabulous artist, Peter Bagge. No slight to the master, but I just love Bagge's cover design for this Broods single, which surely sold a bunch of copies on sight alone back in 1992. I mean, how can a band not be great that looks like this? They could be decorations, Christmas tree ornaments, wine bottle stoppers, playing cards, golf tees, game pieces, perfume bottles, and who knows what else. Over an appealingly crisp black and white checkerboard design, these bodyless figurines with the matching sunglasses are as cool as anything I've seen since I waited in a bathroom line with Urge Overkill back in the 90s. You just want to party with these gals. And dress like them. And have hair like them. And play wild, trashy rock and roll like them. At least for one night. But make no mistake, just because this is the first time you've heard Peter Bagge's name on this list doesn't mean he doesn't have artistic credentials out the wazoo. I'm not an expert in this area, but apparently he has been quite a successful and decorated cartoonist/graphic novelist for many years thanks to his work on acclaimed publications like Neat Stuff, Hate, and Weirdo (the last one at the invitation of comic legend Robert Crumb), not to mention countless other projects here and there, but I'm not here to write his resume, just tell you how cool his cover for this hard-to-find single is and that maybe you should consider hunting it down and framing the artwork. Maybe even listen to it.
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That about covers it. See you soon, my beloved.
Cheers,
The Priest