Cool Cartoon Record Sleeves and Art #1

The Tommyknockers: Caught Dead Inside Unique Records: UNR 33002.8 (1990)

I'm gonna start posting and talking about records* with cool cartoon art** in my collection. I may also do a companion series of posts about rock 'n roll comics.*** Admittedly, I've tried to do this type of thing before, and never got enough personal traction to keep it going for any length of time, but maybe this time it will take... Besides I just bought this cool record! The Art/Artist: I bought this record at a Half Price Books in Austin this past weekend. The great fantasy artwork on the jacket is what made me pull the trigger... This is despite a $19.99 price tag on it that I knew was probably high given the condition of the jacket. (Tape damage across the top, bent/rounded corners, an obnoxious HPB barcode sticker across the back. Record itself is in nice shape.) I just couldn't resist the image of the band, armed with torches and guitars about to start some hellish fantasy adventure by knocking on a door clearly marked "caught dead inside." Presumably, the Tommyknockers are basically dressed the way they would be on stage, if not life, which fits in well thematically with the D&D-esque artistic theme. We. the audience, watch the band starting the quest from above through massive thorny branches and shadows. I'm unfamiliar with the artist, Joaquin Jones. A quick internet search showed me nothing. I hope that he did a lot more, because this art is aces! The figures and their facial features kind of remind me of Marvel Comics artist MD Bright.

The Record/Band:

While I hadn't heard this record before purchase, I was familiar with the band from reading and collecting artists from "The Knights of Fuzz" encyclopedia. I have two of their seven inches in addition to this mini album. The music is of a solid garage-punk-fuzz variety. I would say that as a group they veer more towards the punk end of it than the garage revival sound. (So more Cynics than early Chesterfield Kings.) I think that is at least in part to singer/guitarist/songwriter Rich Coffee being the front man. Coffee did a lot of 60s informed music, but also was part of venerated punk group The Gizmos in the 70s and part of the early aughts' power pop band the Excessories. Dude just did a lot of cool stuff in a lot of bands. I suspect he had (has?) a streak of the geek in him, one of those multitudinous bands was called Cerberus and at least one promo photo of the Excessories he is wearing a Fantastic Four logo t-shirt.

Footnotes:

*By "records" I mostly mean vinyl. 12"s, 10"s, 7's, shaped picture discs, et. al. I do reserve the right to include flexi-discs, CDs, Cassettes, 8-Tracks, or whatever medium.

**by "cartoon art" I mean art that uses images to tell a narrative and somehow relates back to the American tradition of comic strips or comic books. By telling a narrative, I mean the image can't be summed up without using a complete sentence, going beyond simple portraiture, graphic design, or illustration.

***I'll define this separately. expect the rules to be similarly squirrelly.