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UNCLE MEAT

 Introduction II

Calvin's cover notes
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From: calvin@RALF.com (Cal Schenkel)
  10506/07 UNCLE MEAT
  After everybody moved out of the Log Cabin, I found a space over this blood-testing lab next to a famous hot dog stand on Melrose avenue that used to be a dentist's office (need I say more?) Well yes actually, but at a later date.
  (This is also the place of genesis of many other gems of albumcoverdom including Captain Beefheart's- "Trout Mask Replica" & "Wild Man Fisher Pretties for You With A Real Knife!!")
  95RR-inlay: 2 of the found Dentoid elements that were used in the cover assemblage (turned into mush when they printed it with a scan instead of a simple line shot.)
From: Vladimir Sovetov
  Below also some dusty pieces of informal aff-z 1996 discussion about UM front and back cover
From: caveman@vnet.ibm.com (Keith Shiner)
  Were the dental texts left behind by the dentist, or did you get the idea to use them from the office and then search out the photos?
From: RRAALLFF <rraallff@aol.com>
  boots? anyway...yes- the books, plaster-casts, teeth, x-rays, etc. left behind when the dentist vacated the building. a space over a blood-testing lab next to a famous hot dog stand on Melrose Avenue- site of Trout Mask & (you'll notice a piece of the yet-to-be-constructed Uncle Meat cover in the mat of the frame painted over in the background of the Wild Man Fischer cover).
From: Brain Zavits
  As long as we're on the subject of the back cover of Uncle Meat, what significance does the date have on the forehead of the skull?
From: RRAALLFF <rraallff@aol.com>
  As Ben Watson noted in "Poodle Play", it is the year of the [beginning] of the Black Plague. However, that was coincidental: Actually it is a catalog number. The skull was from an old dental text- one of many, selected more or less at random.
  And Calvin clarification number 2
  This coincidence [?!] I noticed myself some time after completing the cover, I was surprised when Watson mentioned it in his book. The Plague, of course, lasted for quite some time, but 1348 has some special significance that I can't recall right now.
From: Charles Ulrich
  As long as we're on the subject of the back cover of Uncle Meat, are those Art Tripp's, Don Preston's, and Ray Collins' real dental x-rays?
From: RRAALLFF <rraallff@aol.com>
  No.
From: Vladimir Sovetov
  And another very, I mean very, important information about "discrepency between who performed on the album, and who was listed or pictured on the packaging" was revealed during discussion on Lowell George's Departure.
From: stuart@apollo.hp.com (Stuart Troutman)
  ...plus he's included in Cal Schenkel's cover art on "Uncle Meat", though FZ didn't list him in that album's credits.
From: RRAALLFF <rraallff@aol.com>
  That's the back cover, and here's why: [of interest in re-constructing when Lowell George joined the group]
  To illustrate the ever-changing MOI*[see note] it was necessary to make last minute changes (3 times) to the back cover art after it was finished:
  1. Ray Collins quit the group (this was an on&off occurance), hence the X over his pic.
  2. Buzz Gardner joined- I scrawled his name in a box, on the artwork (there was no time for a photo).
  3. Lowell George joined- At this point the artwork was already at the printers and color separations were completed, so it was necessary to add his name to the negatives. If you look closely at the writing on the album back cover, you will see a distinct difference in the way it was printed (from the other names) in that it was inserted photo-mechanically (this is on the vinyl jacket- the CD separation was from a proof of this vinyl edition, so it is not so evident -you might see a difference, it has a harder edge to it).
  Presumably, neither is on the album (?) or they would have been listed inside.
  *[note]: There was, at times (at least in earlier years), some discrepency between who performed on the album, and who was listed or pictured on the packaging. I would say this was primarily because: the album package illustrated the MOI "group" as it existed at the time of release as differentiated from the actual recording personnel; listings and photos of the MOI usually were of whoever was in the "group" when the list or photo was made, and the band was ever-changing (as were some albums).
From: Vladimir Sovetov
  For more dentist's office details see also Calvin's comments to For Calvin (And His Next Two Hitch-Hikers) song.
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Provocation, compilation and design © Vladimir Sovetov, 1994-2004
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