The Pixies in 1990

Like I said, I think it's great the way that 4AD made posters to advertise the release of singles and EPs. Just sometimes I wish that the poster was more than just a blown-up version of the EP's cover.

These posters for the Dig For Fire and Velouria EPs are pretty cool though. And one thing that really got my attention was the Dig poster- I'd never seen that version of the "Pixies planet" logo which they use at the top of the poster.

The Pixies in 1991

I was lucky enough to find the Planet Of Sound EP on tape in 1994 in Northampton, MA. I forget, but I think that when Pixies EPs came out on cassette it was done through, or with, a Canadian record label. I ended up finding the Velouria EP on tape too; I'm pretty sure it was at the old Newbury Comics on Cape Cod. This was in the late 90s and I don't think it's there anymore.

After Belly's Star, I think my favorite back cover of an album is the Pixies's Trompe Le Monde. The colors are bright and bold, and those (cow?) eyes are creepy and beautiful. The photo itself is amazing, and the lettering makes it look like a poster for a 1960s Roger Corman horror movie.

"The Cult Of Ray"

Other than the Madonna "Blond Ambition" shirts that I got in 1990, the only music T-shirt I ever had was The Breeders's with the cover of Last Splash on it. One that I always wanted was the one for The Cult of Ray- it was simple and perfect: just the one-eyed face.

And other than Oddballs, Ray is probably the last FB album that had a cover that I liked (well, Show Me Your Tears has a cool cover too).

Raygun was a really neat magazine. I don't know for sure, but I think it was only published in the 1990s. If you've never seen it, all I can say is that it was very much a 1990s kind of magazine. It had a very experimental, "alternative" look- the type was always off-center or different sizes. Photos would be fragmented. It's hard to explain. I bought the issue from 1995 with Belly on the cover, but I'd never seen this one, which came out sometime in 1993, I think. I'd love to get my hands on it.

Some Throwing Muses posters

A couple months ago I was at the record storer a few blocks from where I work and I saw Chains Changed on cassette, used, for $3. It was in good shape and I really wanted to buy it, but it kind of felt like it would be a little bit of a waste- I've got In A Doghouse already (it would've been awesome if Doghouse had included the artwork for Chains the way that REM added the Chronic Town images to the sleeve for Dead Letter Office. I probably should've gotten it. Less than two weeks later I was back and it was gone.

The posters for Hips and Makers and University are fine, but the one that I really like is the one for the Shark EP.

"Surfer Rosa" and "Here Comes Your Man"

I love how 4AD and v23 would make promotional posters, not just for albums, but for singles and EPs. The poster for "Here Comes Your Man" isn't that special, but I love this one for Surfer Rosa.

"Last Splash"

I'd never seen this poster before but I think it's amazing. I always loved the cover for Last Splash and I've got a T-shirt with that picture. I love how the colors are so bright and the way the did the lettering for "The Breeders".

"Teenager Of The Year"

Teenager Of The Year (1994) Frank Black

I never got Teenager on CD, only tape. But I think the first Cd I ever bought, before I even had a CD player, was the orange Headache EP (not the one pictured here; the one with a plain silver circle).

New "The Real Ramona" poster

Well, it's not really a new poster. I think Sire is done promoting that record. But this poster is new to me.

I love it. I'll probably make it my desktop background.

"Surf Epic"

This silver FB image is probably my favorite variation of all of them. The colors are perfect.

"Firepile" CDs and vinyl

Firepile EP Part One and Part Two (1992) Throwing Muses

I also wish I'd bought the Firepile EPs back when I had the chance. Main Street Records- the same place where I bought all my Pixies tapes- had a great selection of imports and I remember seeing the Firepile EPs in the racks. The thing is, they were priced at $10.19. It seemed like a lot to pay for four songs.

Since then I've seen the sleeves and I like them a lot. I also downloaded the B-sides; some of them are really good. I especially like "Handsome Woman". The remix of Firepile also sounds really cool- they really made the drums loud.

In the past I posted the sleeves for individual releases. Today I'm putting up the CD images and the record labels for "Part Two". Tonight I came across images of a package that combines both CDs. I'll post those soon. Yep, this is a cliffhanger.

"Bright Yellow Gun"

"Bright Yellow Gun" EP (1995) Throwing Muses

Throwing Muses have put out some great EPs (I guess releases like this could also just be called 'CD singles').

I finally got this a few years ago; originally I just had the cassette single. The B-side was "Like A Dog". I'd always wanted to hear the other two songs and once I did I wished I'd gotten the full package sooner.

"Crayon Sun" has the coolest guitar sounds and reminds me of hot summer days laying in the sun. "Red Eyes" feels just like a rainy spring afternoon.

I think I've said before: these songs sound a lot like the songs on the Limbo LP which came out in 1996 and I've always wondered if they were recorded during the Limbo sessions. It would make sense- University was recorded before Hips and Makers but held back until early 1995.

Anyway, Throwing Muses re-recorded "Red Eyes" for The Seasons Sessions. If you get a chance, check it out, along with a lot of great new versions of older songs.

There's no reason to post this

But I'm going to do it anyway.

"Counting Backwards" Throwing Muses
"My Lovely Horse" Father Ted

Frank Black on cassette

Did I mention that I've only ever owned Frank Black: Frank Black on tape? So it wasn't until about 8 years ago that I was at a used record store and decided to look through the CD booket and see if it was the same as the tape.

I was fucking amazed. I couldn't believe that I'd been missing out on all those beautiful images all that time.

Anyway, here's the tape, along with the cover of the "Hang On To Your Ego" tape.

FRANK BLACK: FRANK BLACK

Frank Black: Frank Black (1993)

I have to say: I love the artwork that goes along with Frank Black's solo debut from 1993. I think it's some of the best work that v23 did ever. I love the cover, the colors, and the crisp images of the portrait photography is striking too. My favorite thing is the way that they painted variations of the album cover using different colors and reversed the image.

Here at RJ Battles I've already told the story about how I came across The Pixies but I don't think I ever mentioned my first experience with FB's music.

There used to be a record store in downtown Northampton called Main St. Records. They had tapes and CDs upstairs and then a downstairs with records and posters. This is where I bought most of my Pixies tapes in the spring of 1994.

One day I was looking at the racks of tapes and I saw one with the 4Ad logo and it said Frank Black: Frank Black. At this point I hadn't bought Bossanova yet so I didn't even know what Black Francis looked like and all I knew about the Pixies was that they were broken up and Kim Deal was making music with The Breeders. But I figured that this must be Black Francis- the song titles looked like Pixies song titles. There's no way I would've asked a clerk for information, too shy, so I didn't get the tape that day.

About a week later I was looking through Details magazine and there was a review for Teenager Of The Year, which hadn't been released yet. The review said that it was the second solo album from Black Francis, who had inverted his stage name, so it turned out that I was right. I've gotta say, I was a little freaked out by the album cover which they posted above the review. Like I said, I had no idea what any of the band members looked like, except Kim Deal, and not only was the make-up a little creepy, it just wasn't what I imagined Black Francis to look like at all.

I thought the lettering and the colors were awesome though, and over time I started to think that the album cover was pretty cool, in a grotesque kind of way.

Anyway, I bought Teenager the day it came out and I loved it and I probably bought the first album a couple weeks later (and loved it almost as much).

I've probably worn out both of those tapes and it would be hard for me to listen to either album now because I played them so much over the next year.

Frank Black made some amazing songs in the years after that but the sleeve design was never anywhere near as good as those first two records.

Here are some of my favorite images from ther CD book.

Design: Vaughan Oliver (Pixies, Breeders) and Chris Bigg (Belly).
Portrait Photography: Michael Halsband (who also shot the photos for Teenager).
Artwork Photography: Simon Larbalestier (Pixies)

JOE DIRT

JOE DIRT (2001)

I didn't think I'd like it but I love JOE DIRT. David Spade isn't one of my favorite actors but he's so good in this. He co-wrote the script and he makes Joe Dirt a real guy. I get choked up at the end of the movie when Joe Dirt is about to jump off a bridge and Brandy shows up to stop him.

Christopher Walken and Rosanna Arquette have supporting roles- they're together again for the first time since PULP FICTION. They've got something else in common: they both worked alongside Madonna- Arquette was in DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN and Walken played her guardian angel in the video for "Bad Girl".

By the way, Kid Rock, as Robbie, is awesome in this movie. I can't get enough of him.

Samuel Bayer, director

I try not to write about things I don't like, but last time we talked about Kirk Cameron so I guess I can do it again.

Nearly 20 years ago I first saw the video for Melissa Ethridge's "Come to My Window" and even though I was just a kid in high school I recognized that it was incredibly pretentious. Juliette Lewis acts like an over-emotional spaz through the whole thing and it makes me cringe and feel embarrassed to even look at it.

Tonight, I watched Samuel Mayer's video for The Cranberries's "Ridiculous Thoughts" and it's almost the same thing, except, instead of Juliette Lewis- who should've known better- it's poor, unlucky, 14 year-old Elijah Wood. Bayer's got him in the exact same outfit (light-colored pants and white tank top) and crying & wailing like a freak.

Bayer's best known video is for "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The only movie he ever did was the remake of Nightmare On Elm Street.

I'm sad to report that he directed the videos for my two favorite Sheryl Crow songs: "My Favorite Mistake" and "Home". I've always hated the video for "Home" but I didn't know until tonight that it was Bayer who made it. If you've ever seen it then you remember it and hate it too. In it, Crow is performing at some kind of demolition derby somewhere in the South and there's all these black and white shots of audience members and you can tell they were all chosen for having some unfortunate physical feature: fat, wrinkly, bad teeth. It's like he's trying to present the people as inbred freaks but, really, it justs shows the kind of person that Bayer is. I don't like Samuel Bayer and I hate his work.

Kirk Cameron

One thing I don't like to talk about here at RJ Battles is politics. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the main one is the same reason that I don't talk about politics in real-life: even if it were possible to change other peoples' opinions, it wouldn't be worth all the arguing.

The online version of my local newspaper allows readers to post comments about news articles. I try not to read them (without success) because the comments usually make me dislike my fellow humans. Even if I agree with what a certain reader has posted, most of the time they've made their case in such an obnoxious way that it cancels out any positive feelings I might have.

Sometimes someone will post something so wrong- so clearly wrong- that I'll be tempted to respond. Arguments will form in my head until I have the perfect reponse but I don't post because I know that it's nearly impossible to change peoples' minds and even more unlikely that someone is going post afterwards and admit that they were wrong.

Everyone knows that it's frustrating to hold a certain view and then hear someone argue against that view with misinformation or plain lies. And I don't know why I care so much what other people think or say but I do and I guess I'm not alone.

If Cyndi Lauper started going on TV and saying that abortion was wrong and should be outlawed I'd be really upset. I like Cyndi and I care what she thinks and it would bother me if she went around saying things that were just wrong.

I don't care about Kirk Cameron and I never did. When I was a kid I watched Growing Pains ,along with everything else that was on at the time. Even then Kirk Cameron seemed bland; I didn't understand how he had any appeal to anyone. No great acting talent, not funny, and handsome only in the most basic, forgettable way.

I don't think I knew until after 1990, after I'd already lost interest in Growing Pains, that Cameron had become a born-again Christian. Since the show went off the air in 1992 he fell off my radar, and most everyone else's, completely. Once in a while, though, he'd pop up on TV. VH1 would do a show about the 80s and Cameron would be there talking about how important his family was to him, blah, blah, blah.

He's spent the last twenty years making Christian entertainment, and since since I haven't seen any of it, it wouldn't be fair for me put entertainment in quotes like I'd like to.

Anyway, a lot of people are upset with Kirk Cameron because he went on Piers Morgan and when he was asked if homosexuality is a sin he said it was "unnatural, detrimental, and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization".

That doesn't really bother me. It doesn't bother me that he believes that and it doesn't bother me that he's willing to go on TV and admit that to the world. Maybe because I'm not surprised. I don't know.

I saw that a lot of people responded on Twitter. My favorite post was from Billy Eichner (@billyeichner)-
"So great to hear what Kirk Cameron thinks about gay people. Anybody know where Tina Yothers stands on the death penalty?"

I do feel bad about something else he said though- Morgan asked Cameron how he'd react if one of his children (he has six) told him they were gay. Cameron said he wouldn't have the same response as Morgan (basically, "Good for you"). Instead, they'd sit down and have a "heart to heart" (that phrase makes me cringe and it falls under the other definition of "gay": very lame) and Cameron would explain that you can't always act on your feelings.

This bothers me because, like I said, there are six Cameron kids. It's very likly that at least one of them could be gay. We'll never know how many young people have killed themselves because they had a secret that they felt they could never tell.

It's been my experience that Christian men who speak out against homosexuality sound exactly like alcholic Christians who speak out against drinking. In other words, homosexuality is something that they've experienced, if only in fantasies.

It's also been my experience that men who are completely straight are usually not hostile towards gays at all; they might see gay male celebrities as ridiculous, and they might find gay men in real life annoying, but basically they don't care. The real hatred usually comes from the "straight" guys who are fighting their own temptations. Just think of the anti-gay politicians who get caught trying to hook up with Congressional pages or in airport bathrooms.

But back to Kirk Cameron and what really bothers me about him. I read (on Wikipedia, so who knows but I tend to think it's all true- it hasn't been removed) that after Cameron became a born-again Christian he insisted that Growing Pains be squeaky-clean. Writers had to remove anything that was too sexual. Can you imagine what a drag it must've been to work with him back then? He was seventeen years old and telling grown adults what they could and couldn't put into their scripts.

But that's not even the worst of it. Julie McCullough was hired to play the Seavers' nanny in 1989 and after eight episodes she was fired because she had posed for Playboy and Cameron said to the producers that letting McCullough star on the show would be "promoting pornography" (this is what Wiki said Cameron said).

I feel so bad for this poor girl. She's a young actress and finally lands a role on a popular TV show only to be fired for such a stupid reason. I'm imagining her calling and telling her mother the bad news. McCullough says that one of the cast member's was offended that she'd posed naked and right away her mother would assume it must be Joanna Kerns, the mother, Maggie Seaver. McCullough's mother is shocked- Kerns seems so nice, you wouldn't think that she'd be such an uptight prude. "No, Mom, it wasn't Joanna Kerns." At this point she'd be confused. Maybe she'd think it was the daughter on the show, Carol Seaver. Maybe Tracy Gold blames the media and models for promoting an unhealthy body image to young woman. "No, Mom, it was the guy. The 17 year-old guy, Kirk Cameron. He thinks it's wrong that I posed naked in Playboy and he doesn't want me on the show."

I guess that in his autobiography Kirk Cameron denies having McCullough fired but I think he's not telling the full truth. Maybe he never said "Fire her", but I'm sure he made it very clear without actually coming out and saying it that he did not want her working on the show and as a result they let her go.

By the way, I read that Kirk Cameron did not invite any of his Growing Pains co-stars to his wedding. I'm guessing none of his Growing Pains co-stars cared much.