Showing posts with label Soundgarden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soundgarden. Show all posts

Kings of Concert Posters: Chris "Coop" Cooper


Devil is in the details for this renowned and rebellious "Lowbrow" artist
By Peter Lindblad

Steel Pole Bathtub 1995 Jabberjaw
Original Concert Poster
Silkscreen by Coop
To say the irreverent artist known as "Coop" – his real name is Chris Cooper – has a way with women is a massive understatement.

With devilish glee and an appreciation for bold colors and kitschy imagery, he seems to relish creating titillating scenes of scantily-clad, voluptuous women in lascivious poses, although he's also widely known for works featuring a smiling Satan chomping on a cigar.

In the forward to Coop's 2001 book "Devil's Advocate: The Art of Coop," Robert Williams writes, "Coop doesn't exploit the occult metaphysics of satanic malarkey. Why should he? This gifted wonderboy is the devil himself."

Those wanting to see more of Coop's art should hunt it down, seeing as how it boasts a treasure trove of reproductions of his posters and stickers and other assorted memorabilia. Or, to own one or more his pieces, which generally range in price from more than $100 to $500, check out http://stores.ebay.com/Rock-On-Collectibles/Coop-Posters-/_i.html?_fsub=3340762&_sid=70220124&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

Born in Tulsa, Okla., in 1968, but now living in Los Angeles and working as a hot rod artist, Coop fashions himself as the "Insensitive Artiste." With a wicked sense of humor, Coop made his bones coming up doing ads and illustrating album covers for the similar-minded indie record label Sympathy for the Record Industry and its leader Long Gone John Mermis. Other artists whose work graced Sympathy for the Record Industry material included Williams, Todd Schorr and Mark Ryden.

Green Day The Riverdales 1995
Original Concert Poster Silkscreen
Art by Coop
Eventually, Coop made a connection with famed concert-poster artist Frank Kozik, whose influence on Coop's work is fairly evident, even as Coop developed his own unique style. Along the way, Coop became a go-to artist for some of the biggest alternative-rock acts of the '90s, doing posters for Green Day, Nirvana, Soundgarden, the Reverend Horton Heat, Lords of Acid and the Foo Fighters. Those signature "femme devils" he's so fond of are often seen on various stickers, usually plastered on cars. That, more than anything, has made Coop's art a cultural phenomenon.

Again, in that same forward, Williams writes, "It is with this kind of exposure that the name Coop has come to typify art for many people who like visual stimuli." Often, Coop is associated with the revolutionary visual art movement referred to as "Lowbrow," also called "pop surrealism," which exploded in the Los Angeles area near the tail end of the 1970s and is laced with a sardonic sense of humor that gained favor in underground comix, punk rock and hot-rod culture. And he is held in high esteem in the Kustom Kulture community.

In 2004, Coop released another book titled "The Big Fat One," which contains more than a thousand sketches. Another one, "Idle Hands," was published in 2012 by Baby Tattoo Books and is a collection of his fine art created between 2001 and 2012. For Hot Wheels fanatics, Coop recently collaborated with the toy car maker on a series of miniature "Coop-Customized" hot rods.

To get a taste of his style, here are some examples of Coop's work:

Unsane Steel Pole Bathtub
1995 Original Concert Poster
Silkscreen by Coop S/N


Go Nuts 1995 Jabberjaw Silkscreen
Art Concert Poster Original by Coop S/N

Gas Huffer Clawhammer 1996 The Whisky
Concert Poster Original by Coop S/N
Dave & Deke 1996 San Francisco
Kilowatt Original Concert Poster
Art by Coop


Kings of concert posters: Frank Kozik

First in a series on rock artists who shook up the modern-rock underground
By Peter Lindblad

Frank Kozik Unsane
Guzzard 1995 Concert
Poster The Whiskey
Hollywood S/N
Often shockingly bloody and unapologetically violent, the grisly album art for New York City noise-rock merchants Unsane was never for the faint of heart.

Seeing two cuddly bears, one carrying a bucket of PCP, on a concert poster promoting the band's 1995 show at the Whiskey in Hollywood with openers Guzzard and Lowercase in what looks like an otherwise innocent scene from an illustrated children's book certainly subverts expectations. Artist Frank Kozik is notorious for doing that.

Born in Spain and raised during the reign of fascist dictator Franco, before his family settled in California, Kozik has parlayed his delightfully twisted world view, fearless cultural commentary and incredibly bold use of color and clashing textural elements into worldwide fame. His works are highly sought-after by collectors.

Until Kozik arrived on the scene, the art of making concert posters had, for all intents and purposes, gone the way of the dodo bird. Many believe it was Kozik – his Unsane poster one of hundreds he's made over the years – who was responsible for bringing it back from the dead. (To view a really good selection of his works you can check out prints available for purchase on eBay: Frank Kozik Posters

Zeni Geva Original
Concert Poster by
Frank Kozik S/N
In his zeal to spread the word about the early '80s underground punk scene in Austin, Texas, where he was stationed while in the Air Force, the self-taught Kozik's first forays into the world of rock art involved making black-and-white fliers for friends' bands and splashing them all over telephone poles. Soon, people began taking notice of his provocative, in-your-face designs and unique treatment of , noting how the oddly compelling imagery made subtle and not-so-subtle cultural statements.

Eventually, Kozik moved on to developing the vivid and almost surreal silkscreen concert posters that gained him world-wide fame, creating artwork for the likes of Green Day, The White Stripes, Neil Young and Nirvana and lesser-known acts such as Hammerhead and others, and then going on to direct various music videos, including Soundgarden's "Pretty Noose."

Hammerhead Liquor Bike
1996 Original Concert Poster
by Frank Kozik X/N
After moving to San Francisco in 1993, Kozik established his own record label, Man's Ruin Records. Most of the posters and album art he produced back then were hand silkscreened and numbered at his studio. More than 200 singles and full-length albums were designed and released by Kozik – among them a Sex Pistols record and the first Queens of the Stone Age single.

In 2001, he shuttered Man's Ruin and moved on to other artistic pursuits, including throwing himself into the exploding art toy movement. He has designed more than 500 different limited-edition figures. Living in San Francisco today, Kozik also designs products and campaigns for a wide range of major companies. But, it's his wildly imaginative concert poster artwork – with pieces ranging in price from as little as $12 all the way up to $500 and beyond – that are his crowning achievements.

Here are some examples of his best work:

Groove Merchant 1997 Original
Silkscreen Gig Poster by
Frank Kozik 9737 S/N


Frank Kozik Man's Ruin Records
The Hammer of the Gods 1996
Concert Poster S/N




Butthole Surfers Pigface Bad Livers
1991 Original Concert Poster
by Frank Kozik 

Smashing Pumpkins Garbage 1996
Original Concert Poster by
Frank Kozik S/N

Soundgarden 1996 Mesa, Arizona Gig Poster
by Frank Kozik 9654 S/N

CD Review: Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye


CD Review: Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye (reissue)
Candlelight Records
All Access Review: B+
Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye 2012
Eye for an Eye had been missing for so long that many Corrosion of Conformity followers had given up searching for it, fearing that it was lost forever. Released in 1983, the furious debut from these punk-metal crossover firebrands had been out of print quite possibly since the Reagan administration, it undoubtedly having burned out rather than faded away. Then, a funny thing happened.
The Animosity lineup of Corrosion of Conformity – perhaps the most combustible combination of rumbling, roiling hardcore and Sabbath-inspired riffage that underground metal has ever produced – returned with a vengeance in early 2012, their self-titled LP a satisfying contrast of sludge (“The Doom”), sinewy grooves (“The Moneychangers” and “What We Become”) and speed (“Leeches”) that shifts tempos easily and often and immerses itself in the thick, heavy psychedelia of the Soundgarden-like “Come Not Here.” Finding audiences hungry for COC’s meaty riffs, Candlelight Records thought that the time was right to revisit the thrashing, combative Eye for an Eye and tack on the Six Songs with Mike Singing EP for good measure.
Corrosion of Conformity - S/T 2012
Featuring the original COC lineup of singer Eric Eycke, Mike Dean on bass, guitarist Woody Weatherman, and drummer Reed Mullin, Eye for an Eye is … well, a bit misunderstood. Often characterized, and rightly so, as a high-velocity hardcore record that wraps itself in Henry Rollins’s Black Flag, Eye for an Eye is, indeed, that and bruising, frenzied tracks like “Broken Will,” “Rabid Dog,” “Coexist,” “Dark Thoughts” and “Excluded” – all checking in at under 2:50 – that race at a breakneck pace won’t disabuse anybody of that notion. It is a raw and reckless album, with playing that is fast and loose, and the violence of “What” and the growling viciousness of “Negative Outlook” – as angry as a badger protecting its home – are also punk as all get out. But, there are moments where this version of COC betrays its metal inclinations, and not just when they deliver a snarling, torn-and-frayed take on Judas Priest's cover of Peter Green's “Green Manalishi.”
Before “Indifferent” threatens to blow apart, as it does in the choruses, the verses crawl menacingly, quickly building in intensity until all hell breaks loose. Many of the song intros consist of trudging, brawny riffs wrenched into difficult, tortured shapes, the kind The Melvins might sculpt out of the twisted metal wreckage of a car crash. And on “L.S.” – a song that has all the wicked charm of a murderous hillbilly dragging a corpse out behind a shed – COC clearly reveals a fundamental, if still in its formative phase, understanding of metal dynamics and a taste for brutality, even more evident on the raging “Rednekkk.” Tweaking Southern-rock conventions, it’s an absolute nuclear meltdown of a song.
Eye for an Eye is a ragged record, the product of a band in its infancy that is just beginning to question its identity. The Six Songs with Mike Singing EP, originally released in 1989 and featuring very old tracks with Mike Dean on lead vocals for the only time in the history of COC, presents a cleaner, more developed vision of COC’s punk-metal hybrid, as fine specimens of early thrash-metal like “Center of the World,” “Citizen” and “Not for Me” burn white-hot and surge toward their fiery ends with hostility and ferocious guitars. Growing up as left-leaning political and social animals – always spoiling for a fight in lyrics that take on opposing points of view with a ferocious intelligence – in the land of Jesse Helms and other right-wing demagogues must have driven COC to madness. Thankfully, they’ve harnessed that wild, unpredictable energy of Eye for an Eye and exacted their revenge, expanding their scope of influences to include more soulful elements and constructing well-defined, varied song structures that could withstand earthquakes. They’re still a force to be reckoned with.
-            Peter Lindblad

Metal Evolution - "Grunge"

Metal Evolution: "Grunge" - Episode 107
Sam Dunn
VH1 Classic


All Access Review:  B+


Seeing it as the province of dumb jocks and sex-crazed hair-band charlatans, one-time Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur steadfastly resists the notion that Grunge, in its original form at least, had much, if anything, in common with heavy metal. Fastbacks bassist/lead vocalist Kim Warnick, while admitting to some nebulous connection between the two genres, insists that Grunge artists never thought of themselves as having a single cloven hoof in the metal world. And when the conversation turns to what musical black arts influenced Soundgarden, Kim Thayil still bristles at the suggestion that he and the rest of the band based their recipe of sonic sludge around equal parts Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. This even though Chris Cornell, bare-chested and sweating machismo from every pore in old live footage, bellows like Robert Plant and Thayil’s own guitar riffs seem stained with the same industrial soot and smoke that smudged those conjured by Tony Iommi at the dawn of Black Sabbath.
The relationship between Metal and Grunge is, indeed, a thorny one, as the amiable and insatiably curious Sam Dunn discovers in the latest installment of his acclaimed “Metal Evolution” series, “Grunge,” which aired on Saturday on VH-1 Classic. At the mere suggestion that they were, in fact, cozy with one another, Grunge’s OGs are likely to squirm in their seats and turn defensive. Then again, in talking to Dunn, Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover of The Melvins freely admit a love of metal, and Tad’s Kurt Danielson owns up to fawning over Iron Maiden and the first Van Halen record, while, at the same time, being blown away by the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks – anything to tweak the parents. As for Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, he’s not at all ashamed to confess to borrowing a few tricks from proto-metal monsters Blue Cheer and Motorhead, as well as Sabbath.
So, what to make of all this falderal? That there happen to be strong opposing opinions as to Grunge’s place in the growth and development of metal is hardly surprising – especially to Dunn. After all, getting everyone involved in the Grunge movement to agree on anything regarding heavy metal and the role it played in its formation is next to impossible. That’s par for the course, though. Grunge was never the most homogenous of genres, even if a lot of acts did share an affinity for angst-fueled emotions.
The great thing about Dunn is he doesn’t set out to prove an already established hypothesis. There is genuine sincerity in this probe, because he himself is not entirely sure that Grunge belongs in heavy metal’s family tree. What emerges from Dunn’s quest is a sense that Grunge artists don’t really see themselves as having much of an impact on metal because they don’t feel a part of that scene. That view isn’t shaped by Dunn through creative editing or his own prejudices; instead, it extends naturally and organically from the extensive interviews he does with journalists, writers, producers, and artists who observed and participated in the early ‘90s explosion that blasted Grunge out of Seattle’s underground and into the public consciousness of a nation.
It’s not just that Dunn is comprehensive in the range of interview subjects he corrals or the issues related to the episode’s topic he attempts to cover. Time being the harsh mistress it is, there’s always something that’s going to be brushed under the rug or left out entirely. For example, in “Thrash,” as a reader so passionately pointed out to me, no mention was made of Overkill or Metal Church, and Hanoi Rocks should have received way more attention for their groundbreaking sound and look in “Glam.” As for “Grunge,” it’s the women who get short shrift. L7, Hole (aside from the Auf der Maur comments) and The Gits – none of them get any play, and that’s a glaring omission. But, remember, Dunn’s aim is not to present a history of Grunge, although he does, in fact, do a fine job of weaving its tale with subtlety as almost a sort of sub-plot. Establishing the “who, what, where, when and how” is not so easy when, first and foremost, there are important questions to be settled.
And there are moments of dazzling insight, including writer Michael Azzerad (“Our Band Could Be Your Life” and “Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana”) citing Black Flag’s 1984 Seattle tour stop in support of the LP My War as a turning point for Grunge, the line of demarcation where local bands weaned on metal found that punk could slow things down, become unremittingly heavy and take on an apocalyptic feel. There’s DJ and journalist Jeff Gilbert and Sub Pop co-owner Jonathan Poneman confirming that Grunge messiah Kurt Cobain did, indeed, incorporate not only the pop sensibilities of The Beatles and the punk nuclear fallout of bands like Flipper into his tortured oeuvre, but also welcomed in the massive riffage and controlled chaos of metal. Or, how about Steve Albini, the famed indie producer who guided Nirvana during the In Utero sessions, proclaiming that while heavy metal was often all about flamboyance and camp, it did breed virtuosos, while Grunge artists practiced a more “functional musicianship.” And at the same time, another of Grunge’s more ubiquitous producers, Jack Endino, provides a lot of the background information about Seattle’s music history – specifically, the energy and spark of rebellion found in the music of garage bands The Sonics and The Wailers – and links it to the wide scope of Grunge’s sonic achievements.
All of this and more is here, and once again, Dunn skillfully meshes the interview footage with rare live and video clips of bands like Tad, Mudhoney, Soundgarden (check the dark, brooding, and heavy performance of “Loud Love”) and Black Flag, among others, while comparing Pearl Jam’s more classic-rock leanings with the rest of the genre’s more punk-ish or metallic progenitors. And with the briefly told story of Alice In Chains, he is able to establish that connection between metal and Grunge, once and for all.
Toward the end of “Grunge,” Dunn tackles a sore subject with Grunge’s main innovators, like Arm, Endino and Osbourne, and that is the rise of “Grunge lite” acts like Creed and Nickelback. Fearlessly, Dunn asks point blank how people like Arm feel about Grunge creating this more “pedestrian,” as Osborne calls it, Grunge monster, and Arm expresses his misgivings, saying that if he had anything to do with it, “Just kill me.” Likewise, the men of Creed try to distance themselves from the real thing, boasting in fact that they are not Grunge at all and that they feel they’ve created something new. It’s a little hard to swallow when the singers of Creed and Days Of The New try so, so hard to sound like Eddie Vedder – doing their “yarling” form of singing, as Endino calls it. It’s an uncomfortably humorous segment, and an issue that needs to be addressed, though the popularity of Nickelback gets perhaps more time than it deserves, even if Alice In Chain’s Jerry Cantrell does give them his stamp of approval. It’s a minor drawback in what is another in-depth and compelling installment of a documentary series that is fast becoming must-see TV for anybody interested in aggressive, rebellious music – as heavy metal is. 
- Peter Lindblad
Metal Evolution - Grunge
View the Full Episode -  Right Here, Right Now



Episode Summary - Sam explores grunge, a.k.a. the Seattle Sound, from a decidedly fresher approach, inspiring two fundamental questions: "Why did grunge polarize the Metal community?" and "What are the true roots of grunge?" While grunge was enjoying its meteoric rise, replacing the MTV face of Metal that was glam with its own brand of telegenic, easy to digest "rebellion," diehards within the Metal community struggled to adjust. We'll explore how fans and musicians felt a profound sense of disillusionment with the ascent of grunge, alienated by its lyrical obsession with depression and endless self-examination, and suspicious of the flannel-wearing façade that was deemed antithetical to the ethos of Metal. At the same time, there were other metallers who felt a connection with grunge-legends like Geddy Lee and Sabbath's Bill Ward discuss their admiration for the Seattle Sound, and how they incorporated elements of grunge into their own music and in doing so, shed light on a profound irony that was at play. We'll also reveal why the leaders of grunge were publicly shunning their Metal roots, preferring to advance the dubious notion that their music was an offspring of the American punk movement. But, through plain-spoken dialogue with Sam Dunn, surviving purveyors of grunge like Kim Thayil, Jerry Cantrell and Thurston Moore, will, for the first time ever, "come out of the closet," and own up to the enormous debt-technically, viscerally and aesthetically-they owe to Metal giants like Led Zeppelin, Blue Öyster Cult and Black Sabbath. In Episode 6, the history of grunge will be rewritten.

Click Here for more information on VH1's Metal Evolution

Collectible Posters: 

Grunge Posters
Metal Posters



ONE OF KIND FIND: CHRIS CORNELL CUSTOM MADE GUITAR

SOUNDGARDEN CHRIS CORNELL'S SILVER CUSTOM GRETSCH GUITAR


There are lots of cool and collectible guitars in the world - but rarely do you find an opportunity to actually own one as cool and significant as THIS silver (pre-Fender) Gretsch 6128 DuoJet with Bigsby that belonged to none other than Chris Cornell of Soundgarden. !!! Yes, you read that correctly. THE Soundgarden, one of the pioneering bands at the epicenter of the "Seattle sound" known as Grunge that emerged from the Great Northwest in the early 1990s. Soundgarden were - beyond question - at the forefront of that movement, along with the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains, and this Gretsch DuoJet was undeniably involved in the creation of that sound. 

The Gretsch 6128 (DuoJet) is a solid body electric guitar manufactured since the mid 1950s. Made of a chambered mahogany body, the DuoJet model 6128 is one of Gretsch's most sought after guitars. The difference between the DuoJet and comparable guitars, is in its configuration variations. While it shares the same two pickup, single cutaway style of the popular Gibson Les Paul guitar, the 6128 DuoJet models have more controls for shaping the tonality of the instrument. 

The DuoJet has been popular with anyone from Chet Atkins to David Gilmour, and is still in demand to this day. The most famous example of a DuoJet being played was by George Harrison during the Beatles' early days in Hamburg, and first few albums. In fact, he used that exact guitar on the cover for his 1987 "come back" masterpiece, "Cloud Nine." Clearly these guitars have impacted all types of music and players - including Chris Cornell and Soundgarden! 

Soundgarden achieved their biggest commercial success with the release of their 1994 album "Superunknown," spawning mega-hits "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman" which won Grammy Awards and helped Soundgarden reach mainstream popularity. In 1995, the album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. 


The album has been certified five times platinum by the RIAA in the United States and remains Soundgarden's most successful album. In 2003, the album was ranked number 336 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time! Their follow-up album "Down on the Upside," their last studio album to date, produced a few successful singles as well. The video to one of these singles, "Pretty Noose Live" shows Chris Cornell playing the Gretsch as offered here. In addition to this video there are numerous pictures and videos floating around of him playing it, and you can rest assured knowing that there is no other single guitar on the planet that will match this one.


Specs: 
Gretsch 6128 DuoJet: 
* Custom Silver Finish 
* Solid Body 
* Two Humbucking Pickups 
* Bigsby Tremolo 
* Silver Pick Guard 
* Two Volume/Tonal Controls 
* Neck/Bridge Pickup Switch 
* White Pearl Fret Inlays 
* White Pearl Gretsch and Horseshoe Inlay in Headstock 
* Chrome Hardware 
* Serial Number: 9411129.301 (11/1994) 



For more information on how to acquire this super rare and unique guitar, visit our website for more information: CHRIS CORNELL SILVER CUSTOM GRETSCH GUITAR







Here is an awesome clip of Chris playing the guitar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8nkHrv_4Mg (Pretty Noose Live 1996)