ARF: Notes and Comments: WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH: Introduction: Album cover permutations rap

WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH

Introduction

Album cover permutations rap

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A little bit of apropos :-)
From: sundin@adb.gu.se (Ulf Sundin) Does anybody know why the original cover to the album Weasels Ripped My Flesh_ was changed. The original picture a metal doll (chrome?) caught in a mouse trap. This was sometimes in the 70's changed to the man shaving himself with a weasel.
I was reminded of the original cover when I found two fresh copies of it in a second hand shop in Gotherburg for 500 SEK each (that's about $70)
From: mico@cico.com (Michael Heth) From 1984 to about 1988 I was very good friends with John Williams who worked for Zappa for about 15 years. John stated to me that the original cover as envisioned by him was the image as painted by Neon Parks with only the word "Rzzzz" in the sound balloon. The record company execs had a fit claiming that they could not put out the album without some identification as to the band etc. John "went to the mat" for his concept and was assured that it would appear as he intended. Then the execs screwed him by adding the other word balloons, "The Mothers of Invention" and "Weasels Ripped My Flesh". John went ballistic and seemed to alienate some "big wigs" (nee dickheads) at the record company. They proceeded to screw him whenever possible, such as the photo credit for "Chunga's Revenge". John took the photo of Frank on the cover but they switched the credits so it reads that he took the photo on the back (can you tell that Frank is yawning, not screaming as it looks at first glance?). Although I remember John saying that the WRMF cover was his idea and that he commissioned Neon Park to paint it, I may be wrong about that and do not have a way of contacting him to confirm my memory.
Any other "cover art" was put on by the local arm of the record company. The original was the Neon Park painting.
From: Vladimir Sovetov <sova@kpbank.ru> May be other cover art was just for European version? My original Bizarre WRMF ( Printed in Holland ) also has on front cover green background metal doll in mouse trap. Cover art by someone named Dieter Boe.
BTW, this is Neil Slaven's part of story. Electric DQ p.135
"It [two minutes of title song feedback] also gave aural enhacement to a cover illustartion that alienated and amused in equal measure. It had been painted by Neon Park (real name, Martin Muller), a poster artist working with Family Dog in San Francisco. The inspiration came from the cover of the September 1956 edition of 'Man's Life', which depicted a man naked to the waist and standing in a river, being attacked by a number of small reddish-brown flesh-eating mammals. Frank's challenge was to come up with an even more gruesome picture, for which Park would be paid $250."

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Any proposal? I'd like to hear!

Provocation, compilation and design © Vladimir Sovetov, 1994-2004
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