Album
Sometimes it’s better if you pay for it. That’s what the Yeller Bellies’ Rob Bell learned after opting to pay artist/musician Andrew Goldfarb to create album artwork for his band’s new release, Here to Suffer. The front cover features a sinister minister, inspired by Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter. Meanwhile, the back cover pairs song titles with strange items (a fist and “El Guante,” for example). Goldfarb borrowed the concept from an album by former LA punk band The Gun Club. It’s a subtle shout-out, as the CD contains a cover of The Gun Club’s “Preachin’ the Blues.”
Bell and Goldfarb met last year at a show by the latter’s San Francisco-based one-man surrealistic band, The Slow Poisoner. “He’s inspirational,” Bell says. “I really dig his stuff.”
Goldfarb offered to do Here to Suffer for free, but Bell insisted on paying—$70. Bell says this is the first time the band has commissioned someone to create artwork. “It’s a vain thing,” he concedes, “but it’s neat.”
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