Friday, March 16, 2012

Tokyo Trashville

Tokyo Trashville CD Booklet
 A cover that's truly hard to ignore. 

What you're seeing above is the CD booklet to the Au Go Go Records compilation, Tokyo Trashville, and it's among my favorite covers of all time. When I first laid eyes up this in the mid-90s, I was truly in awe. I had two questions:
"Why is that sweaty lady humping the Eiffel Tower?" (I didn't realize it was the Tokyo Tower), and "Who the fuck is Rockin' Jelly Bean?"

That last question had me on a hunt, because I had to know who this magnificent bastard was, because he was obviously talented. In 1996, RJB didn't really have a web presence, and Alta Vista (remember that?) searches turned up random, barely translatable Japanese sites with broken links and references to Petty Booka, a duo he did work for. Any images I did find were often small and rather poor.

As the years progressed, I kept searching for stuff, and more RJB shit started to appear on the web, until he finally got his own nifty site and a great little store in Harajuku, where I copped this dope poster for his band Jackie and the Cedrics.

To think my admiration started with this sweaty-ass cover. Truthfully, that may have been the last time a cover blew my mind.

2 comments:

Jeope said...

This reminds *me* that Guitar Wolf continues to be one of my all-time favourite band names.

Allan Lorde said...

And unlike a lot of bands, they live up to their name. No word of a lie.