This is the sort of thing that Sunday morning dreams are made of. Rummaging through a flea market and finding an entire collection of surreal handmade album covers with fake cardboard records, all dating from the late 1960s and early 1970s and all by a mysterious funk/soul artist calling himself "Mingering Mike".
From the 2/2/04 New York Times article by Neil Strauss:
The front covers were intricately painted to look like
classic funk albums; on the spines were titles and
fake catalog numbers; the backs had everything from
liner notes to copyright information to original logos;
the inner sleeve was often a shopping bag meticulously
taped together to hold a record; and some actually
opened to reveal beautiful gate fold sleeves. A few
albums had even been covered in shrink-wrap and bore
price stickers and labels with apocryphal promotional
quotes.
classic funk albums; on the spines were titles and
fake catalog numbers; the backs had everything from
liner notes to copyright information to original logos;
the inner sleeve was often a shopping bag meticulously
taped together to hold a record; and some actually
opened to reveal beautiful gate fold sleeves. A few
albums had even been covered in shrink-wrap and bore
price stickers and labels with apocryphal promotional
quotes.
The couple was able to track down Mingering Mike, and it turned out that the music to these fantasy records really exists. He still has tapes of the homemade music, which has people mouthing the sounds of instruments in the background. You can listen here.
I think I'll take a break from my air guitar lessons and start making cardboard albums.
Link to the home of all things mingering.
