Поделиться
THE HIGH PRIEST OF LOWBROW. ARTIST ROBERT WILLIAMS. LENDS CONTROVERSY TO AXL &…
Сен 20 2009, 21:27
WHEN PAINTER ROBERT WILLIAMS GOT A call from his publisher saying that a fledgling hard-rock band called Guns N' Roses wanted to use one of his paintings as the cover for their debut, the then 44-year-old artist couldn't be bothered to call them back. This was 1987, and unknown bands . were regularly calling on Williams. As a mem¬ber of the Zap Comix collective in the '60s and
'70s (alongside celebrated Camcorders
underground cartoonist
Robert Crumb), Williams hadxi^f
become a counterculture ^ institution by the time Guns
came knocking. In 1979, heJfgi$J|
1 had published The Lowbrowt$J-'
' Art of Robert Williams, ai
folio book, which kickstarted
the surrealist "lowbrow" art/
,' movement, sporting a paint¬ing from his four-part "Super Cartoons" series, j^-. [Med Appetite
for Destruction, on its cover.
"The paintings were highly
"~ --^^JpЈ,detailed," he tells Revolver. Power Acoustik
"' did them with a magnify-
^fLJFf I ing glass — and they all
4?55T?. Jhad a certain degree of
^U)r J gratuitous sex and violence.
IIt wasn't so much the subject
matter that was important but the composition of an anxiety
four-by-five transparency and the^r~\~
price that I'd give a shitty punk-^ '
rock band. A few weeks later,jj J
they called me up and asked if 7|' # jjp\ '
they could use the name. They y
couldn't come up with a name' 1 WfWr/
for the album, I guess, so that's i \jjjjijiM
how Appetite for Destruction'At.(
came into our vernacular."71
When Geffen Records released / Appetite on July 21, 1987, the shit hit the fan almost immediately. Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center began lobbying against it, and some retailers asked the band's label, Geffen, to cover it in brown paper. Williams was soon explaining his painting to national newspapers and MTV. The band eventually compromised and moved his image to the inner sleeve, replacing it with a painting by Billy White, Jr., who hung out at their "Hell House" abode, of the five band members' skulls arranged on a cross. Over two decades later, Williams is still ambivalent towards his painting being used as the cover. "The purpose of the painting [was] diluted in all the sensationalism," he says. "This painting was never intended for the general public. It was made for an arcane group of people who loved this sort of thing." j. BENNETT
IS THERE AN ALBUM COVER WHOSE STORY YOU WANT US TO TELL?
'70s (alongside celebrated Camcorders
underground cartoonist
Robert Crumb), Williams hadxi^f
become a counterculture ^ institution by the time Guns
came knocking. In 1979, heJfgi$J|
1 had published The Lowbrowt$J-'
' Art of Robert Williams, ai
folio book, which kickstarted
the surrealist "lowbrow" art/
,' movement, sporting a paint¬ing from his four-part "Super Cartoons" series, j^-. [Med Appetite
for Destruction, on its cover.
"The paintings were highly
"~ --^^JpЈ,detailed," he tells Revolver. Power Acoustik
"' did them with a magnify-
^fLJFf I ing glass — and they all
4?55T?. Jhad a certain degree of
^U)r J gratuitous sex and violence.
IIt wasn't so much the subject
matter that was important but the composition of an anxiety
four-by-five transparency and the^r~\~
price that I'd give a shitty punk-^ '
rock band. A few weeks later,jj J
they called me up and asked if 7|' # jjp\ '
they could use the name. They y
couldn't come up with a name' 1 WfWr/
for the album, I guess, so that's i \jjjjijiM
how Appetite for Destruction'At.(
came into our vernacular."71
When Geffen Records released / Appetite on July 21, 1987, the shit hit the fan almost immediately. Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center began lobbying against it, and some retailers asked the band's label, Geffen, to cover it in brown paper. Williams was soon explaining his painting to national newspapers and MTV. The band eventually compromised and moved his image to the inner sleeve, replacing it with a painting by Billy White, Jr., who hung out at their "Hell House" abode, of the five band members' skulls arranged on a cross. Over two decades later, Williams is still ambivalent towards his painting being used as the cover. "The purpose of the painting [was] diluted in all the sensationalism," he says. "This painting was never intended for the general public. It was made for an arcane group of people who loved this sort of thing." j. BENNETT
IS THERE AN ALBUM COVER WHOSE STORY YOU WANT US TO TELL?
