Upon the release of my second solo album earlier this year, I decided to assemble my discography over the last twelve years.  On a whim, I lined up the six main CD’s from my career on the floor of my studio and noticed a curious visual trend.

Beginning with our 1999 release “The Legende of Jeb Minor”, the band (or artist) name is positioned slightly higher in the design of each subsequent album cover.  Some of the designs I had a major hand in and others I merely approved drafts from a hired designer so it would be difficult to make the case that there was a subconscious intention at work here.  Still, I thought I’d go back and take a brief look at each release and see if there was anything to it.

The Legende of Jeb Minor by The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love (1999)
This was the first legitimate release by anyone in the band.  After the teenage and college years of weird weekend bands, 4-track cassette releases and odd gigs, this was the first time any of us had worked hard enough to create something worthy of considering a “release”.  We were a new band intent on working our way up.  The original 1999 release on Planet Ant Records didn’t even have the band name on the cover.  It was added to the lower right corner after we were picked up by The Telegraph Company in 2000.

H.O.M.E.S. Volume One by The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love (2001)
Jeb Minor gave us some clout locally and led to a record deal with The Telegraph Company in Brooklyn, NY.  With the addition of Fido Kennington on drums, the lineup was solidified and we moved to a new studio and started working on better equipment.  Our confidence was building, but the classic “Calithumpian Band” photo was the hero of this album cover and our name had to settle just below it.

Summer Cherry Ghosts by Timothy Monger (2004)
After three years of work and a lifetime of thinking about it, I released my first solo album.  I admit that by the time we got to the artwork, I was crippled with debt and completely stressed out.  Although I love the birdhouse photo session I did with Doug Coombe, I’ll admit to having had greater intentions for this album cover.  I worked with a designer I met through a mutual friend and it was done very quickly.  She did an excellent job with what I gave her, but I remember mere days before going to press choosing this version of the cover out of a line-up of four.  In the year leading up to the release, I had imagined my name in a classic illustrated 60’s-style banner across the top, but in the panic to get it all done, it never materialized.  The named climbed up a notch from the last release but it wasn’t ready for prime time, I guess.

Great Lakes Myth Society by Great Lakes Myth Society (2005)
Technically this album was recorded as “H.O.M.E.S. Volume Two” by The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love and we had another bizarre 100 year old Northern Michigan clown band photo already chosen for the cover which would mirror our previous release.  After three years of recording we presented the finished album to our label just as they were going bankrupt.  Depressed and disenchanted, we actually disbanded for a few months before reforming as Great Lake Myth Society in early 2004.  We began reworking our new live show and image and the album eventually fell into the hands of Boston label Stop, Pop and Roll who released it in 2005.  We called on our friend Dan Shepelavy who had done our previous cover to construct something classy and moody.  His simple and understated photo of the dark water surface aptly fit our new black-suited image and our name could be nowhere except front and center.

Compass Rose Bouquet by Great Lakes Myth Society (2007)
Newly signed to Ann Arbor’s Quack Media label, we recorded this album more quickly than we had ever done before.  We had a great batch of songs, a willing label and were back in the comfortable confines of our favorite studio Big Sky Recording.  We knew we wanted to commission a piece of art for the cover and hired Brooklyn illustrator Rachel Salomon.  Her lovely painting of the high-wire tower dictated that our name would should rise into the air above it, but we were ready to move up anyway.

The New Britton Sound by Timothy Monger (2011)
The cover photo of my newest solo album was chosen long before the record was finished.  It’s a crop of a gorgeous panoramic photo taken by my girlfriend Kristie Brablec.  It was shot about a half mile from our farm on nearby Centennial Road.  Once again, I hired designer Dan Shepelavy and he came up with the classic lock-up text for the album cover.  In an early draft, he had place my name even higher in the image but I asked him to bring it down a bit.  I have to leave a little headroom for future releases.

Conclusion: It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.

-TM

This is the dream I had last night…

I was at a streetside demo for the iPad and my friend Scott DeRoche was playing with a new version that had a lot of buttons all over it.  He was manually scrolling with the arrow keys installed onto the top border and I realized that his was a PC version and many of the controls were not touch screen based.  I pulled out my 1st generation Mac platform iPad and someone exclaimed “Oh, I like that one so much better!”

I walked on down the street and suddenly it was nighttime and I was in Detroit.  I ran in to GLMS drummer Fido Kennington who had our old band van “Jeffine” parked against the curb.  Jeffine was about 14 feet long and parked in several feet of dirty snow.  As I began to shovel them out a digitally rendered, very pixelated U.F.O. in the bright rainbow colors of the 1980’s Apple logo flew over our heads.

Fido and I instantly knew that Scott DeRoche was inside with Mike Pinder from The Moody Blues and they had just started a band together.  I’d been so proud of my Mac iPad, but now I felt like I’d missed a great opportunity to hook up with Mike Pinder and was sad I hadn’t stayed at the demo a while longer.

Fido said “Whoa, is that Mike Pinder?  What does he need a spaceship for?”

I said “To put his mellotron in.”

-TM