Great Punk Rock Fiascos Of The '90s

Back in the mid-'90s I did a few drawings for a French 'zine and record label entrepreneur named Philippe. He started out in the Garage Punk scene and switched over to hardcore and industrial noise after awhile. In that phase he had a label called Erase-Yer-Head Records which had kind of a neat concept. Their output was exclusively split 7"ers, each with a well known American or Japanese aggro-noise combo on one side and a less-known Euro band playing in a similar style on the flip. Each one came in a gatefold sleeve with full color artwork inside and out and an insert with 4 additional pages of black and white art by the same artist. All the artists for the noisy industrial style releases were contributors to Le Dernier Cri, a French avant garde comix magazine with a heavy Raw influence. I was asked to provide the art for a punk rock spinoff from the main series featuring pop punkers Horace Pinker from the USA and NRA from Holland, so I dutifully whipped up a couple of acrylic paintings and 4 B&W illustrations, two of which you may see atop this very stack of type. As this was an "art for art's sake" type of enterprise I let myself go a bit as far as the style and subject matter were concerned. I was pushing the deadline by the time I got everything done so I sent it over to France via FedEx. A couple days after sending it out I received the most baffling telephone call I've gotten yet in my career in the arts... More on that in tomorrow's post. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!