[HN Gopher] Cheap Thrills, an album cover by Robert Crumb (2020)
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Cheap Thrills, an album cover by Robert Crumb (2020)
Author : stareatgoats
Score : 160 points
Date : 2024-11-04 09:35 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (musicaficionado.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (musicaficionado.blog)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| wonder what R Crumb would've thought of Electro Blues (either
| before, or after, a few tabs from that black on yellow Joplin
| portrait)?
| ginko wrote:
| He's alive and (afaik) well. Someone could probably ask him.
| tmountain wrote:
| He's alive and living in the south of France. His wife,
| Aline, died back in 2022.
| narrator wrote:
| Anyone see the documentary about him: "Crumb" (1994)? Everyone in
| his family is a little off, but back in those days, you just did
| the best you could with what you got and if you were a gifted
| artist like Crumb, you turned being an odd ball into a career.
| jb1991 wrote:
| "back in those days" ... it really was not that long ago, and
| what you say is also true today.
| theFco wrote:
| and furthermore, "families that are a bit off" are still
| plenty today, and people still do the best with what they
| got. I don't see the need to say that was that way then...
| gosub100 wrote:
| Agree, and the bizarre things that the family members were
| into have simply been replaced with a new set of things.
| Arguably the only difference is back then they weren't
| thrown out on the streets due to high rents
| leoc wrote:
| Yes, but they tend to be 'off' in quite different ways.
| Crumb's father was the kind of hyper-repressed figure who
| for most of us nowadays only exists as a boogeyman
| character in fiction, but who was much more of a reality in
| the pre-1970 world.
| ggm wrote:
| 1968 is over 50 years ago. As a 1961 vintage person, 50 years
| back was pre WW1.
|
| the past is another country. They do things very differently
| in Fritz the cat's time. I don't think you could publish that
| now.
| Joeboy wrote:
| > I don't think you could publish that now
|
| Maybe you'd struggle to get widespread (physical)
| distribution, or to build an audience, or to make a living
| off it. I don't think anybody would stop you printing it,
| or take down your website or whatever.
|
| It wasn't mainstream or uncontroversial in the '60s either.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Wally Wood did "The Disneyland Memorial Orgy" (Google it)
| around the same time.
|
| I'm pretty sure it was banned (not anymore, as that Google
| It will show).
| jb1991 wrote:
| there are plenty of things published today that push
| boundaries in the same way
| bazoom42 wrote:
| > I don't think you could publish that now.
|
| What would prevent you from publishing something like that
| today?
| leoc wrote:
| It's not merely that 50 years is a long time. There's a
| profound cultural watershed between the Before Times, the
| overcontrolled, neurotic world of roughly up to the late
| '60s, and the narcissistic/sociopathic world of today.
| Robert Crumb, and the whole Crumb family, embody that
| change in an unusually extreme way.
| lqet wrote:
| I strongly recommend the documentary. But "a little off" is an
| understatement. By the time of the documentary, his highly
| intelligent brother Charles is still living with his
| amphetamine-addicted mother in his late 40ies and rarely leaves
| his childhood bedroom. He admits on camera that he has
| "homosexual pedophiliac tendencies" and fantasized about
| killing Robert as a teenager, and complains that he cannot have
| an erection anymore because of his medication. Tragically,
| Charles killed himself shortly after filming of the documentary
| wrapped. Crumbs other brother Maxon [0], an accomplished and
| highly talented painter who earns money as a beggar on the
| streets, tries to find some peace of mind by living a zen-like
| life in celibacy, in a decrepit hotel room, full of meditation
| on a bed of nails, and is struggling with his intense sexual
| desire, several sexual harassment suits, and the fact that he
| cannot physically _have_ sex, because the pleasure is so
| intense for him that it triggers epileptic seizures. All three
| brothers appear to have problems with extreme sexual desire,
| and Robert is the only one who seems to be able to function at
| all, although the documentary shows him several times in a
| trance-like, babbling state induced by the sight of a woman (in
| older age, he once said in an interview that he is "no longer
| a slave to a raging libido" [1]).
|
| [0] https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Still-in-the-
| sh...
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/07/robert-
| crumb-i...
| leoc wrote:
| Wasn't one of the brothers also a (heterosexual) stalker with
| an Asian fetish and a habit of drawing art about it?
| Presumably that was Maxon. It's been a long time since I've
| seen the documentary.
|
| TFA is also frankly pretty underhanded in talking up Crumb's
| love of inter-war blues recordings while saying very little
| about his forays into anti-black racism, including one
| example which is so notorious that the _Crumb_ documentary
| confronts him directly about it.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Or more directly, his art often portrayed black people in
| caricature.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> his art often portrayed black people in caricature
|
| His art often portrayed people in caricature.
| alt227 wrote:
| If the subjects are rarely white and mostly black, is it
| not fair to say that he often portrayed black people in
| caricature?
|
| Similar to saying 'Van Gogh often painted sunflowers'
| instead of 'Van Gogh often painted flowers'.
| tokai wrote:
| A majority of Van Gogh's flower painting are not of
| sunflowers.
| leoc wrote:
| There's a fuzzy but very real distinction between
| caricature in general and frankly _racist_ caricature.
| Quite a few of Crumb 's drawings of black people have
| been clearly over that line, and (polite warning) it
| would be pretty rash to try to deny that.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| That is putting it mildly. Crumbs art is ridiculously
| over the top offensive.
|
| Of course taboo-breaking was the point of underground
| comics.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| the art was published _underground_ because plenty of it
| was plenty offensive to lots of groups of people. .. that
| was the intention completely. Lots of R Crumb 's art was
| controversial and outrageous by definition. Lots of
| reasonable and caring people had a lot of concern,
| volunteer censors appeared from many corners with torches
| and brimstone, and the art was published anyway.
| Daub wrote:
| Little mentioned is the fact that the three crumb brothers
| had two sisters. Neither of them agreed to take part in the
| movie, and very little is known about them.
| lqet wrote:
| One of them reportedly declined to take part because of his
| "crimes against women".
| Aransentin wrote:
| I found Gwern's review of that quite good:
| https://gwern.net/review/crumb
| aardvark179 wrote:
| It is an excellent documentary, even if you've had little or no
| exposure to his work.
| loudmax wrote:
| Along similar lines, Steve Buscemi's character Seymour in
| "Ghost World" (2001) is pretty clearly heavily inspired by
| Robert Crumb. Seymour collects old blues records and it put off
| by rock music, not to mention normal mainstream American
| culture. "Ghost World" was based on a comic book and was
| directed by Terry Zwigoff, the director of "Crumb".
| tosser0001 wrote:
| The first record Enid looks at is actually by "R. Crumb and
| his Cheap Suit Serenaders" that Seymour directs her away from
| to another selection. Zwigoff was a member of that group.
| havblue wrote:
| Is that where the subplot of the chicken poster in that movie
| came from? I was just thinking about Ghost World as I was
| reading the comments above, thinking, "now that's a subject
| Hollywood doesn't want to touch anymore."
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Also Seymor gets into trouble because of his fascination with
| vintage racist carricature.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| I didn't know that about Buscemi's character.
|
| Ghost World was such a rare film for me. The story wasn't
| anything I was expecting when I randomly turned the TV on
| that day.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Add "David Lynch: The Art Life" and make it a double-feature.
| The-Old-Hacker wrote:
| https://ok.ru/video/1214780017199
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The intro about him not liking the music reminded me of the
| Letter of Note entry when Crumb is sent an experimental jazz
| album and replies to the musician:
|
| https://lettersofnote.com/2015/12/17/torturing-the-saxophone...
|
| > I gotta tell you, on the cover of the CD of your sax playing,
| which is black and has no text on it, I wrote in large block
| letters, in silver ink, "Torturing The saxophone--Mats
| Gustafsson." I just totally fail to find anything enjoyable about
| this, or to see what this has to do with music as I understand
| it, or what in God's name is going on in your head that you want
| to make such noises on a musical instrument. Quite frankly, I was
| kind of shocked at what a negative, unpleasant experience it was,
| listening to it.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> I just totally fail to find anything enjoyable about this,
| or to see what this has to do with music as I understand it, or
| what in God's name is going on in your head that you want to
| make such noises on a musical instrument
|
| When I was young, a music review like this would have 100%
| gotten me to buy the CD.
| NDizzle wrote:
| What changed?! I'm going to check it out right now!
| shermantanktop wrote:
| I used to do that too, except typically it was hardcore
| punk and 1980s noise/industrial, but yes there were some
| Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy records in there too.
|
| I finally realized that once I had satisfied my consumerist
| urge to be the coolest connoisseur, I now had to listen to
| the stuff, and I didn't actually like it.
| grujicd wrote:
| Hey, I'm 51, music is a big part of my life and I love
| hearing new things. Among other concerts, I visit few jazz
| festivals every year so I'm exposed to a lot of different
| music.
|
| But let me tell you, I could easily write similar review for
| some (most?) jazz sax musicians I heard. It seems that sax
| encourages players to visit musical areas I don't understand
| and enjoy. Therefore, if I read a review like this, I would
| most likely totally believed it!
| fallinditch wrote:
| Jazz music is many things but in its essence it is avant
| garde. Some of the best music, like all art, can be
| difficult and challenging. To reveal their beauty and
| inspiration it may require some effort, but the rewards are
| worth it!
|
| Check out these albums by avant garde saxophonists. You may
| hate them on first listen but I urge you to persevere and
| hopefully open your mind and soul to their brilliance.
|
| Anthony Braxton's 1970 masterpiece, For Alto, is a landmark
| of free jazz. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs9zwqXsce
| UikMH4R_yWvR62w...
|
| New History Warfare vol 2: Judges by Colin Stetson, from
| 2011 is so deep, he created new landscapers of sound with
| his sax, but it is also sublime and beautiful. https://yout
| ube.com/playlist?list=PLnpQFjefXCROSKaSWDOtHyWEU...
|
| And then for your next homework, check out the massive
| discography by John Zorn ;-)
| https://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-zorn-mn0000239329
| 0x1ceb00da wrote:
| My favourite:
|
| https://youtu.be/AIcjsqGln2w?si=-lY4h3vvGr52ZH8l
| grujicd wrote:
| I'm no stranger for persevering through dificult music if
| I have strong recommendations it will be worth it. I'll
| give a chance to all of that. Thanks!
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| One of my favorite bands (Igorrr), a friend described to me
| as "musical ADHD, they can't pick an instrument to stick with
| for more than 20 seconds on any given track."
|
| It's perfect.
| pavlov wrote:
| The album cover is from 1968. This article is from 2020. Just to
| clarify the ambiguous date added to the title on HN.
| dghf wrote:
| Reg Mombassa's stuff is somewhat reminiscent of Crumb's,
| especially his designs for the surfwear label Mambo:
| https://www.regmombassa.com/pages/mambo
| Teever wrote:
| I had always know him as a visual artist so I was recently very
| surprised to learn that not only does Robert Crumb play music but
| he's actually been in a few different bands.
|
| It's a bit too early in the morning for me to find the specific
| albums that I found enjoyable so I'll provide the links to the
| bands and perhaps others who know more about the musical
| performer side of Crumb can expand on this.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Crumb_%26_His_Cheap_Suit_...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_and_John%27s_East_River...
| aurizon wrote:
| One of his co-temps, Gilbert Shelton made great comics - the
| Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabulous_Furry_Freak_Broth...)
| were my favorite. He had many characters in the FFFB, Norbert the
| Nark, Fat Freddy's Cat, Let My Chickens Free, and many others.
| waihtis wrote:
| I came looking for this (thought the art style was very
| similar!)
| aurizon wrote:
| Gilbert Shelton is a comic
| genius.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXaHUMESoM4 His comic
| were creative and had very little NSFW and were the funniest
| thing I ever read, while much of the other UG comics were a
| lot more gross, some extremely so, his were like Scrooge
| McDuck humor - overlaid with generous marijuana use as well
| as a sprinkling of other drugs. Norbert the hapless Nark
| always came to grief in a funny way. Now we sell marijuana in
| many special state shops, while the feds think it =
| damnation. It had no social effect on me - I am a non smoker
| = smoke zero combustion carried drugs, like Nicotine or THC
| from that day to this - I just enjoyed the vicarious
| thrashing of the man. As a cat lover = Fat Freddy's cat was
| my fave...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Loved "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" too growing up. My
| step-dad had several -- probably picked up from a head shop
| back then.
| aurizon wrote:
| Yes, thanks, you are right, it was Oat Willy I was thinking
| of, https://www.ebay.ca/itm/385506437409, I was within the
| edit window = corrected.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >about an artist who draws an album cover for a band he does not
| care for, playing a music style he does not listen to, appealing
| to an audience he does not connect with
|
| What? None of that is true.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The rest of the article contains quotes from Crumb backing most
| of that up.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Did we read the same article?
|
| I'm talking about this one -
| https://musicaficionado.blog/2020/01/28/cheap-thrills-an-
| alb...
|
| >an album cover for a band he does not care for
|
| _" I am going over to meet Janis Joplin tonight... CAN'T
| WAIT!"_
|
| _" Janis asked me to do an album cover. I liked Janis OK and
| I did her cover."_
|
| >playing a music style he does not listen to
|
| _" She wasn't nationally known yet. I remember going to see
| her at the Avalon Ballroom and you could tell right away that
| she had an exceptional voice and she would go far. She
| started out singing old time blues like Bessie Smith. She was
| kind of a folknik originally."_
|
| >appealing to an audience he does not connect with
|
| _" But within six months Zap comics caught on and Crumb
| became known for his talent as an underground comics
| artist."_
|
| _" Janis, James (Gurley, guitar player) and I were all big
| fans of his work, we loved his cartoons which were appearing
| in the SF underground newspapers and Zap Comics."_
| nerdponx wrote:
| You're cherry-picking quotes. The whole point of him saying
| what he liked about Janis was that he _didn 't_ like Big
| Brother & the Holding Company, both as a style/concept and
| as musicians. The article is also full of quotes from Crumb
| himself saying how he didn't really like the hippie
| movement overall, even though he liked certain things about
| it, and the general impression is that no, he did not
| really feel connected with many of his own fans and fans of
| Big Brother.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Janis Joplin sang the kind of music he liked, but her
| current band did not. Keep reading the rest of the article.
|
| > an album cover for a band he does not care for
|
| > playing a music style he does not listen to
|
| _While he did not care for her current band and the
| psychedelic spin they took on blues, he recognized her
| ability to belt out the good ol' blues: "Janis had played
| with earlier bands just playing country blues and it was
| much better. Way, way better. She's singing well, not
| screaming, not playing to the audience that wanted to watch
| her sweat blood. In the beginning she was just an
| authentic, genuine Texas country-girl shouter."_
|
| _Getz adds: "The next weekend Crumb came to our show at
| The Carousel Ballroom, sat on the floor in our backstage
| dressing room and observed. He really wasn't into our music
| but it didn't matter._
|
| _Getz is understandably mild in his description of Crumb's
| opinion of Big Brother and the Holding Company. Here is
| Crumb's version, unadulterated: "She was a swell gal and a
| very talented singer. Ever heard any of this pre-Big
| Brother stuff she recorded? She was great. Then she got
| together with those idiots. The main problem with Big
| Brother was they were amateur musicians trying to play
| psychedelic rock and be heavy and you listen to it now and
| it's bad... just embarrassing."_
|
| > appealing to an audience he does not connect with
|
| _But Crumb came from another era, mentally, and to him
| this music was commercialism personified compared to the
| roots music from the 1920s and 1930s that moved him: "I had
| no patience for any of that psychedelic pop music or crap
| that came in the 60s: The Grateful Dead, Jim Morrison, The
| Doors, The Beatles, Bob Dylan. I had little or no interest
| in any of that. I thought I had found some music that was
| much more real, that came from the heart of people's
| culture but had been wiped out by mass media and
| commercialism."_
|
| _He liked some aspects of the Hippie movement, what he
| termed as seeing through the hype of consumer culture. He
| valued how they strived to live simply and saw the ecology
| movement being sparked by that. But he quickly became
| disillusioned by the movement: "Since it was mostly
| children of the middle class, it was immediately something
| for them to be smug about. 'Oh, I have seen the light and
| you haven't. I'm beautiful, I'm spiritual. I lost my ego
| and you haven't.' It became where in any social gathering
| everybody sat around trying to out-cool each other." But as
| he admits, he never felt comfortable in that environment
| anyway, even when it was at its peak of innocence: "I
| couldn't kick off my shows and go dance in the park. I
| didn't have it in me."_
| moralestapia wrote:
| All those things don't come from Crumb, they are
| hallucinations by the article's author. If you stick
| strictly to what Crumb said about it, the story is quite
| different.
|
| Also, https://www.janisjoplin.net/life/friends/robert-
| crumb/, mentions none of that.
|
| But yeah, some random neckbeard's blog is more
| authoritative than Janis' own site, for sure!
|
| (Also, if you knew a bit about Crumb you'd know it's the
| type of guy that just wouldn't do stuff he was not
| interested in.)
| cma wrote:
| > But yeah, some random neckbeard's blog is more
| authoritative than Janis' own site, for sure!
|
| That site said it was made by super fans in 1998? Doesn't
| seem like go to source for critical quotes (not that an
| official site would be either).
|
| Here's a source for the quote about him not liking her
| band from 2013, so no, it doesn't seem to have been
| hallucinated by the 2020 author:
|
| https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2013/12/robert-
| crumb-i...
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Everything I've quoted contains quotes either attributed
| to Crumb, or to the drummer of Janis Joplin's band.
|
| Unless you're suggesting that the author literally made
| those quotes up?
|
| > _(Also, if you knew a bit about Crumb you 'd know it's
| the type of guy that just wouldn't do stuff he was not
| interested in.)_
|
| He sounds like _exactly_ the kind of guy who 'd do a
| favor for a girl he wanted to fuck, despite not liking
| the band she was currently in.
| taylorbuley wrote:
| Crumb is from my small town in CA. During the fires, not so long
| ago, my mentor kept some of his old journals safe for his family.
| 10 or so notebooks full of doodles, all in one place. I can only
| imagine what that was worth! Much more, culturally, to be sure.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I hope they can be scanned and made available - assuming, Mr.
| Crumb is ok with it.
| egypturnash wrote:
| https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/r-crumb#/filter:mf.
| ..
|
| Fantagraphics has you covered. I'm sure someone has shared a
| PDF if you don't want to track down physical copies.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Approved by the Hell's Angels?
| _sys49152 wrote:
| >> The Hell's Angels used to stage concerts in San Francisco in
| 1967-68, and Big Brother & the Holding Company played in some
| of them. You can find posters promoting these shows on the web.
| fallinditch wrote:
| Robert Crumb was interviewed for a BBC Radio 3 program where he
| played some records from his collection and talked about them.
|
| One song was particularly fascinating: a primitive attempt at the
| new fangled sound called 'jazz' by a French country musette band
| from the early 20th C.
|
| Crumb explained that when early American jazz bands went to Paris
| in the 1910s, the new sounds caused a sensation when they
| performed in the up-market venues. So the country bands were
| aware of the new style of jazz but most people had never actually
| heard any and had to play what they imagined jazz to be, mostly
| based off verbal descriptions. I remember this record as a crazy
| sound, but brilliantly entertaining.
|
| Unfortunately I can't point you to the song or the interview, but
| if anyone else can please reply :-0
| kencausey wrote:
| I got as far as finding this:
| https://tenwatts.blogspot.com/2011/01/crumb-and-blues.html
| nimbs wrote:
| Is this the program?
|
| R. Crumb's Sweet Shellac - Early French Jazz Before Django:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHsqAK_kJ2o
|
| You can find track list from here:
| https://www.organissimo.org/forum/topic/71710-r-crumbs-sweet...
| fallinditch wrote:
| Yes, this is what I was trying to remember, thanks for the
| links!
| throwme0827349 wrote:
| There's a picture of Janis Joplin standing on the sidewalk in SF
| in which the city looks exactly the same, as though frozen in
| amber for 50 years.
| aithrowawaycomm wrote:
| This is just pure cowardice:
|
| > As for Crumb's depiction of that scene from the musical [the
| viciously racist depiction of a black woman], lets not even go
| there. Suffice it to say that a cover like that will not see the
| light of day today.
|
| Especially if you're not completely avoiding Crumb's views on
| race:
|
| > Asked about how a white guy connects so deeply with black music
| created in the 1930s, he answered: "I don't know. There's
| something so raw, kind of beauty that speaks to me in a deep and
| direct way. Personally I barely even know any black people and I
| can't relate to lower class black culture very well at all. It's
| very alien to me in a certain way, and people I've known from
| that black culture, I've never been able to get very close to,
| because their values are so different. So what is it about their
| music that speaks so directly? It has some universal appeal
| because it has had such a big influence on the music of the
| entire world."
|
| There's a straight line between "lower class black culture is
| very alien to me" and using darky iconography the same year MLK
| was shot - even in 1968 this was a deliberately racist
| provocation. There's also a line between Janis Joplin as a white
| blues singer and her approval of the artwork. And of course
| there's the straightest of lines between ignoring Crumb's racism
| while uncritically hagiographizing his connection to black music.
|
| You can still tell a sympathetic story about Crumb: he is far
| from the only young avant garde American artist to use racist
| rhetoric to elicit cheap thrills and controversy. And unlike,
| say, Quentin Taratino, Crumb's later work shows a sincere
| understanding of and repentance for his earlier dreck.
|
| But you can't claim to be telling the story of the album cover if
| you're whitewashing its most controversial aspect. What you're
| doing is spinning a fairy tale.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| "lower class black culture is very alien to me"
|
| ... just sounds honest, I don't get racist from that. I'd
| probably say the same thing today, though "lower class white
| redneck culture is very alien to me" would be just as true.
| alcover wrote:
| Crumb has been living in a small village in the south of France
| since the 90's.
|
| In the _" Crumb"_ doc he says something along "They're all
| wearing baseball hats. I'm getting out of here.", speaking about
| the US.
|
| He also laments having taken too much LSD.
| dmix wrote:
| The nice thing about vinyl album covers is there's plenty of
| space for art.
| delichon wrote:
| https://www.pinterest.com/pin/440508407309861046/
|
| fly on the wall
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