A Damned Quick One

The 1977 Damned in a composition taken from The Who's 1966 album, A Quick One. Maybe a rejected cover for Music For Pleasure? 

The Return Of Twiggy and the Stooges

Twiggy and the Stooges' Funhouse
C. Earnhart 2013
Concept by Dr. Johnson

Trying out Derwent watercolor pencils and nighttime sinus medication.

Misplaced Misunderstood

The Misunderstood
Rick Moe, Rick Brown, Tony Hill, Steve Whiting and Glenn Campbell

Psychedelic rock greats, The Misunderstood, from near-by Riverside, CA.

Drawn in September of last year and found again yesterday.

What About Us?

Like the Coasters asked, 'what about us', Pop Hall of Fame?

More ignored founding fathers, pioneers and influential artists from unpopular genres like rockabilly, garage glam and doo-dah.

Charlie Feathers
1932-1998

Link Wray
1929-2005

The Sonics
Andy Parypa, Larry Parypa, Jerry Roslie, Bob Bennett and Rob Lind

T. Rex
Marc Bolan, Mickey Finn, Bill  Legend and Steve Currie

The Bonzo Dog Band
Clockwise from left: 'Legs' Larry Smith, Rodney Slater, Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall, Dave Clague and Roger Ruskin-Spear.
Difficult to see: Vernon Dudley Bohey-Nowell, Dennis Cowan, Sam Spoons, Joel Druckman, and the Rawlinsons

Pete Johnson
1904-1967
Our new Epson scanner rotates this drawing slightly every time I try to scan it. Roll 'em, Pete.

Ramones Rumored Return

Wigs all around: Meet the new Ramones [l-r] Rici, Pauly, Marky and Gigi.

   Marky Ramone is rumored to be adopting some new brothers to play with. Founding Kiss members, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons have been in talks with Ramone about touring under the Ramones' name. Simmons commented, "After going over the figures with Mark, it looks like we could make even more money being another band." Kiss will still be touring this summer with stand-in members [rumored to be earning minimum wage] while Stanley and Simmons work as Pauly and Gigi Ramone. Former Cars front man, Ric Ocasek will also be joining the family as lead vocalist.

The Original Syd and Nancy

Syd and Nancy
C. Earnhart 2013

Paul and Art

Simonon and Garfunkel
C. Earnhart 2013

Ignored Pioneers, Part 2

Some other Little Richard-style rockers. Honorable mention to Tony Harris and Big Al Downing.

S.Q. Reeder, Jr.
Eskew Reeder
ESQUERITA!
1935-1986
Some people think Little Richard was doing a toned-down Esquerita impersonation. If he was, it must have been hard for him to control, more than a couple of Richard's Specialty sessions begin with Art Rupe begging him to "please, slow it down".
Blue Cap, Paul Peek used his pull as clapper boy and got Eskew signed to Capitol Records who actually released, Esquerita!, one of the rawest albums of the 50's, just maybe a few years too late in style. Despite it's greatness, I doubt "There's a hole in my heart and my love leaked out" got much air play. 
The liner notes to S.Q.'s 1959 LP say, "...Esquerita stoutly insists on his right to wear what he calls "Esquire-ita" outfits: generally a lace-ribbed jacket-shirt with a fist-sized rhinestone brooch at the top button, and wraparound, close-fitting sunglasses splashed with smaller rhinestones. An oversized wrist watch and band hold tightly onto one chopping arm and his long hair sails skyward."



Larry Williams
1935-1980
Lloyd Price's valet and the author of  "Slow Down", "She Said Yeah", "Bony Moronie", "Short Fat Fanny", Dizzy Miss Lizzy", 'Bad Boy" and several others. When rock music was young and dumb Larry was the man. Another old pal of Little Richard's, Larry ended up producing Richard's Okeh sessions in 1966 and '67 and ten years later almost killed him over a drug deal. William's was found shot in the head in Los Angeles home. His songs have been covered by everyone from Bill Haley to The Jam.    

Don Harris
1938-1999
and
Dewey Terry
1937-2003
Don and Dewey were also more successful as songwriters with Dale and Grace's 1963 #1, "I'm Leaving It Up To You". The Searchers' and Premiers both recorded "Farmer John" and The Olympics' "Big Boy Pete" in 1960. The duo's own recordings for the Specialty label, like "Justine" and the Sonny Bono penned, "Koko Joe" were a little too crazy for the radio. The pair also backed-up former label mate, Little Richard for his 1964 comeback.



Ignored Pioneers

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is back at it again, currently trying to decide if Randy Newman is more rockin' than Kraftwerk or Chic. Oooh, what about the Captain and Tenille?
The hall could easily avoid a lot of criticism by changing their name to the more accurate, Pop Music Hall of Fame. Instead, they clutch onto their misnomer and show us annually how little they know about rock music. Face it guys, you are all about the most popular music, whether you think it sounds cool or not. The hall knows damn well they will be inducting Christina Aguilera long before Arthur Lee and Love are ever considered. They don't dig The Sonics, like me and you, they don't get it.
Here are some more caricatures of the ignored, some of rock's founding fathers who have been left out of the hall for over 25 years now. I guess they figured they had all their bases covered with the induction of Jelly Roll Morton?

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
1905-1974
Arthur's 1947 release of "That's All Right" was Elvis' first record for Sun in July of 1954. Elvis also recorded Crudup compositions, "My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine". Unfortunately, Crudup's royalties were not collected in his lifetime.



Mr. Blues, Wynonie Harris
1915-1969
Wynonie hit #1 in the R and B charts with "Good Rockin' Tonight" in June of 1948. "Bloodshot Eyes", "Good Morning, Judge", "Down Boy Down", "Blow Your Brains Out" and many more great songs done before Elvis was King.



Roy Brown
1925-1981
The composer and first recording of "Good Rockin' Tonight" in September of 1947. Chosen as Elvis' second release for Sun Records in September of 1954. Roy finally did hit the #1 spot with "Hard Luck Blues" in 1950. Hard luck was right though, soon after Roy was blackballed for trying to collect his royalties from King Records.



Amos Milburn
1927-1980
Amos had a #1 R and B hit with "Chicken Shack Boogie" in December of 1948 and a #2  with "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer" in 1953. The Rolling Stones covered Amos' 1946 tune, "Down The Road Apiece" on 1965's The Rolling Stones, Now! LP.  

Roy Hall
1922-1984
Roy's "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" was released by Decca in September 1955. Roy's after-hours club in Nashville, The Music Box, was where a under-age Jerry Lee Lewis played piano 'til dawn. "Three Alley Cats" from 1956 is my favorite.



More to come...

New Drawings

Bela Lugosi's Waiting

My 44th birthday drawing, black ink and brush 10/1/12. October 20th will be Bela's 130th birthday.

Some other early October birthdays...

The guy I consider to be the Godfather of British Rock, Eddie Cochran. Born Oct. 3, 1938 in Albert Lea, Minnesota.

 10/6/12

Johnny Ramone

Oct. 8, 1951

10/8/12

FREE! The Who's John Entwistle coloring page

Oct. 9, 1944

10/4/12

The Iggy Back Ride [Glam a la King]

The previously mentioned, Bowie and Iggy meet Nixon.

7/9/74 - David Bowie, on tour in America and Iggy Pop, on the loose from the recently disbanded Stooges, visit with President Nixon during his final weeks in the oval office. The photo op comes to an abrupt end after Mr. Pop leaps onto the President's back and the Secret Service leap into action. Pictures of the meeting were canned and all charges were dropped to avoid any further embarrassment to Nixon and the White House.

Aladinstein

Sketchbook pencil drawing 2011

Idea stolen from Kat Thompson.

Black Magic Woman, Kill! Kill!

In my day...

Scraps from the filing cabinet.

A rough looking comp for the Shrunken Head booklet cover.

Harley's idea for the cover was something like the Smokey Robinson cd below, a b/w band shot with a solid, bright color behind. I'd swear he showed me a hot pink Coasters cd as the example but I couldn't find it when I searched. The red background was cut out around the band photo on rubylith film and the lettering and small heads in the upper corners were put onto over-lays of acetate, this was now "camera-ready" art for the printer. I've spent a lot of time in a dark room with a photostat camera but that's another story.

All the song titles were written by hand using my own Deadbolt lettering based on the italic logo I had already created for the band. In the late 80's and early 90's lettering for graphic art was still supplied by a typesetter, if you wanted anything fancy there was always rub-down Letraset lettering or drawing it yourself.

 Tiki Man cover bamboo logo 

 Tiki Man disc lettering, 1994

Breakin' the law...

 The color version that was made into stickers and embroidered patches. No oval, as intended.

Is That Exactly What I Thought I Read?

The Who in 1966

clockwise from top: John Entwistle, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and Keith Moon

The Who since 2002

l to r: Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey

They don't give a shit Keith Moon is dead

Is that exactly what I thought I read?

Pete Townshend - Jools and Jim

So, the organizers of the upcoming London Olympic games don't even know Moonie's dead. London, the city where Moon lived and died in 1978. Maybe they were under the impression a successful sobriety had kept him from the headlines for the past three decades? "He moved away to Malibu years ago." More than likely, we are dealing with people under 30 and the popular excuse, "how am I supposed to know what happened before I was born?"

The above Who caricatures were done in late 2003 while working at Lyle Tuttle's.

My little shrunken headed boy is 18

The Deadbolt Shrunken Head logo I designed for the band in '92 or 3. The design adheres to the Oval Logo Law of the same year. I don't know if we have The Casbah to blame for that law or O?

The logo design sheet I showed the band from '92. The checked logo in the lower right corner was pretty much just an all caps version of the logo they already had, which I think was designed by Mrs. Valdez and why they chose it again. Harley chose the circled one, which we all thought looked a little too much like the Cramps logo. Soon after, I painted it on Les' bass drum head and used up until Tijuana Hit Squad, when they changed to the James Bond-inspired logo with the Luger T.

I think most all of these came from old horror movie posters and are hand drawn, pre-fonts.

Three 50's Rockers

Brian Holden

1939-1991

The original Ziggy Stardust.

Jalacy Hawkins

1929-2000

What walks on two feet and looks like a goat? It's that crazy Screamin' Jay in a bright yellow coat. I got to see Jay twice around 1989-91 with Bo Diddley Jr. playing guitar.

Wanda was born in 1937.

I've seen her perform quite a few times from 1995 up until a couple of years ago and she still sounds incredible.

A few more scans of rock and blues caricatures from about 12 years ago.

Not Richie Valenz

Ricardo Esteban or Richard Stephen Valenzuela

1941-1959

I guess Bobbo didn't think leaving the 'z' at the end of Valens was cool, too exotic? The addition of the 't' in Richie is an odd choice too, but what do I know? The last good stage name I came up with was 'Molly Ringworm' and I haven't seen 'La Bamba' in a few years.

"Come on, Let's Go", "La Bamba", "Donna", "We Belong Together", "Ooh My Head", "Fast Freight", "Stay Beside Me", "In a Turkish Town" and many more, all packed into an eight- month-long career. A body of work that still sounds fresh over 50 years later, recorded by a 17 year old, killed in an accident three months short of his 18th birthday.

I think that's a lot sadder than Kurt Kobain.

Drawing for a Ritchie Valens painting done for a Dia de los Muertos art show at Flying Panther Tattoo. And of course, I didn't get a picture of the finished painting before I took it in.

2007

Still Sick

A cross-hatching nightmare version of Bal's cover art for Rockabilly Psychosis & the Garage Disease. Worked on occasionally over the past year or two between tattoos.

One of my favorite comps that still sounds just as good 25 years later. In the years following my purchase of this record I would get to see the Cramps, Gun Club and Meteorhead, live. In 1994, Gary Burns and I were putting a band together with Grant of the Geezers, we joined Deadbolt instead, as "the Wall of Thunder", replacing departed bassist R.A. MacLean with a bass duo. Playing with Deadbolt gave me the honor of sharing the stage the Cramps, Guana Batz, the reformed Geezers, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy and the late, great Hasil Adkins.

Johnny Come and Get Me...

Jeffrey Lee Pierce

Illustration by Chris Earnhart Oct. 2011