I had the great pleasure of working with illustrator/comic artist Peter Bagge on the cover art for my new CD "There's No Sound In Flutes". I've loved his work for years since Comical Funnies, through Neat Stuff and Hate. I especially love his online cartoon series "Murry Wilson Rock & Roll Dad". He seemed like the perfect guy to illustrate the infamous Buddy Rich tapes which the title was taken from.
Luckily, he was my "friend" on Myspace already so making contact was easy. He was familiar with the Buddy Rich tapes but hadn't heard them in a while, so I sent him some mp3s.
He sent me the first sketch (on the left there) which was great. I asked for a few changes (flip the title and my name, make the musicians less jazzbo-ish & more 60's looking, make Buddy a little less intense, put a Carol Kaye type bass player in there) and he made them and sent over this second sketch.
I approved the second sketch with the changes.
A couple days later I got the finished black and white art to approve.
And a couple of days after that I received the full color art.
Peter was great to work with. He followed instructions very well, but still had alot of very good opinions of his own. I would highly recommend hiring him for all of your illustration needs.
I first got hip to the Buddy tapes about 15 years ago, and to be honest... I love 'em. I think it's great that an old guard cat like Buddy would ride his bands ass that way. Sure a lot of it was personal, but a lot of it was because he cared about the audience and his professional rep. I've been to about 26 rock concerts in my life and I can say more than half of them sucked out loud. If they'd had a leader who wasn't afraid to lay it on the line like Rich (or had guys who actually knew how to play their instruments... a rarity IMO) I don't think most rock and roll would be so disposable. While I liked the energy of some early punk bands, the overall attitude it inspired took most the discipline of being a musician along with. A lack of real musical discipline that prevails to this day. That and the whole music as fashion thing. Just my two cents.
Posted by: Roi Trieux | September 25, 2006 at 04:05 PM
I have am a huge Buddy Rich fan and I enjoy listening to the bus tapes! I wanted to incorporate some of the excepts into some kind of song so I did. You can hear it at my myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/stashinrecords
Posted by: Rube | March 26, 2007 at 03:48 PM