Shavin' And Ravin'

Made this poster last year for a local production of the Sweeney Todd musical. Local rockabilly hero Shawn Farrell played the Demon Barber and he's the one who hooked me up with this gig. Thanks, Shawn! Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Retarded

Just another graduate of the Roth/Wolverton school of ugly. This one is unpublished. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Van Hellsing

German rockers Van Hellsing blasted forth a speedy mix of '70s hard rawk and garage punk reminiscent of early Motörhead on the CDR that my friend Willem from Swamp Room Records sent to get me primed to design their record sleeve. Their songs reminded me of the mid-late '70s issues of Metal Hurlant somehow so I decided that the art should aim for the same mix of old school comic style and flashy/decadent sci-fi imagery that typified that fine mag in its early days. This 4 song 7"er came out in 2004. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Switchblade Martians

Quickie poster for a gig featuring two local powerhouse combos back in 2001. See below for a lengthy, semi-accurate post on The Martian Graverobbers. The Switchblade Sisters were a crazed mix of '70s r'n'r and punk, NY Dolls + Sweet + Dead Boys shot through the Killed By Glam grease. They were an unstable conglomeration of larger than life characters and were noted for their epic 90 minute plus sets crammed with a month's worth of maddening mayhem. They had a bunch of wild originals but unfortunately broke up without doing any studio recording. You can hear a low-fi live track on the Winnipeg Riot! comp CD. I remember that we went to another show at the same venue a day or two before this one and wanted to put up a few of these posters. Lacking tape or a stapler, ever-resourceful SS singer Vom stuck 'em up with bubblegum. Baby, that is rock'n'roll. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Degener-Ape

This charming little image was created for local drunk/shock punkers The Degenerates way back in 2000 AD. They broke up not long after I drew this so I dunno if it was ever used for anything. When I showed the art to their drummer Sebastian he told me that it needed a vomiting rummy to make it complete so I added that detail at the lower right of the piece. They paid me with a big box of weird records including a cool Sex Pistols bootleg, an original pressing of the first Antiseen LP and a bunch of 12" remix EPs by The Damned (from their goth period) amongst other things. That's right, kids... King Merinuk will work for cool records, cold beer or a date with your cute sister. No reasonable offer will be refused. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Back To The Cave

Here's another one of the caveman themed posters I made a couple of years back for the Deadly Sin folks over in Gay Paree. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Zombies In My Garage

Here's the sleeve design I did a couple years back for the debut album of trashy French garagesters The Mean Things. These cats had a cool stripped down '60s sound with just a taste of Rip-Off Records style punk thrown in the mix. My buddy Periklis put the CD out as the first release on his Lost In Tyme label. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Boss Instrumentals

Drew the sleeve for this 7" comp of obscuro '60s instrumental action way back in 1994 for the alien archivists of Earthling (un)popular culture over at Romulan Records. Dunno if they all came that way but all the copies I have seen are on nice sea-foam green wax. Tasty little record. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Chrome Crankin'

Here's another of my pieces from Pussycat mag #4, this one a caricature of NYC-based avant-primitive swamp garage sludgesters The Chrome Cranks. This was also printed on the label of the 7" that came with that issue, which included a track by the Cranks. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Raised By Wolves

Raised By Wolves were a trashy garage combo outta Vancouver and this was the cover of their 2004 debut 7" on well known Swedish trash punk label Ken Rock. Later I did the cover for their self released CD, Hot Blood. Wolves leader Billy Bones came up with the pinball playin' wolf concept for this cover, can't remember if it was him or me who decided to title the pinball game after their song Motorcycho but both the song and the art are intended to pay tribute to that kool and long lasting Canadian sickle zine. Intriguingly enough Billy and Motorcycho editor Norman are now rockin' side by side in a new trashy combo called The Vicious Cycles. I've been talking to Billy recently about working on an extremely cool project for the VCs; more on that when or if it comes to fruition. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Swamp Sessions

My friend Willem from Swamp Room Records in Germany came up with a neat idea for this 2004 release. The Swamp Sessions recordings (stoner/psychedelic jam rawk recorded by various musicians associated with the label) were available for download but you could get slick printed CD sleeves featuring the artwork above to store your burned CD in. He was making the best of a bad situation since declining record sales caused by rampant music downloading had caused him to cancel the original plan of releasing these recordings on CD and pic disc vinyl, but it's still a neat little one-off novelty item if you ask me. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Bad Case Of The Glads

The Glads were a hip '60s garage style combo outta Ottawa a few years back. This was the sleeve art for what I believe was their only full length release which came out on Music For Cats Records back in 2003. I was always pretty happy with the way this sleeve came out and it's a cool album too. Scroll down a ways to see a T-shirt design I made for these guys. Stay tuned for MORE INSTITUTIONALIZED ACTION!

Loverboy

This handsome fellow should have put in his appearance a couple of days back but better late than never, here he is to thrill the ladies. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Repressed

Drew this one for fun back in 1996. As with a lotta my "just for fun" projects this one took a long time to finally get finished but I put the final touches on it in 2006. It's unpublished. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Satan's Pilgrims

Here's an unpublished drawing that was intended to promote the release of the Soul Pilgrim LP by noted '90s surf revival combo Satan's Pilgrims. The original plan was for this to be printed as a die cut standup for display on record store counters. I'm not clear on what went wrong but that didn't happen and plan B, which was to use this as a T-shirt design, also went awry somewhere along the line. So this thing is making its grand debut right here and now, a mere 15 years out of time. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

What's New, Pussycat?

Here's a T-shirt design I did for North Carolina zine Pussycat way back in 1995. Published by a nice guy named Mark D, Pussycat was covering the general alt rock scene of the early '90s and started to feature a lotta garage-type stuff when the Crypt/Estrus/Sympathy trash scene kicked into high gear. I did a bunch of illustrations for the forth issue and was lookin' forward to doing a lot more work with Mark but sadly that issue turned out to be the swan song for the mag. Too bad, he had an interview with Russ Meyer lined up for issue 5 and I was lobbying hard to get to illustrate that! Oh, well. There are 4 or 5 more Pussycat illustrations in my archives so look forward to seeing more of those in the future. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Flying Saucer Attack!

I drew this logo for Vancouver's hip psycho/rockabilly label Flying Saucer Records a few years back, around the same time that I did the cover art for their psychobilly comp CD The Sick Ones. It has since graced many of the label's CD releases and was also available in T-shirt form. Check out the Sick Ones and Deadcats posts down below for a bit more info on FSR and... Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Big Bad John

Made this poster a few years back for one of many, many Winnipeg shows by Vancouver-based psycho-surfabilly guit mangler Big John Bates and his Voodoo Dollz. Musically these cats are coming outta the Cramps/Reverend Horton Heat school of twangy, decadent sleazabilly with a stage show that includes belly dancing, fire eating and the retro-burlesque antics of a rotating cast of bump'n'grind babes known as the Voodoo Dollz. Sex, booze and rock'n'roll served up raw: all the things that make life worth living. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

They Won't Stay Dead!

Here's an old school punk rock flyer from 1999 featuring a definitive lineup of some of the most ubiquitous bands on the Winnipeg scene at the time. I've talked about The Horribles, Insaniacs and Breath Grenades in earlier posts on this blog. The Degenerates were one of those nihilistic, beer sodden drunk-punk combos and their un-PC humor was pretty controversial for awhile. Their drummer once showed me a video of them playing at the Albert while a guy in a gorilla suit was going nuts and smashing things. I said, "Cool, you got a friend to dress up in a gorilla suit for the show." He said, "No, we didn't even know the guy. He was just some drunk hanging around the bar in a gorilla suit." I did a couple of vomitously funny illustrations for The Degenerates which I will post here at some point to mess up your mind. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

What's Behind The Mask?

Here's the cover I made back in 1997 for the cool local alt-comix publication Sunburn. The mag started in 1996 and lasted through to 2000 or thereabouts. At first the contents were almost entirely by Winnipeg artists but the last few issues branched out to include contributors from all over the world. I had art in most of the early issues but got kinda distracted and mostly missed out on appearing in the latter part of the run. This gratuitously hideous offering is one of several pieces of mine dealing with the idea of masks and what might be lurking behind them. The heart of another is a dark forest. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Duh!

If I had to pick a single drawing to represent what I am trying to do in the realm of art, this would have to be the one. It was originally meant to be the cover of a comic I was gonna call Horizontal Action! which was about half finished when I ran out of steam on the project. I eventually used it in the booklet for the McRackins/Manges split CD on Amp Records and there was a promotional pinback button made for that release which featured this drawing as well. This one kinda speaks for itself, I suppose. Anyway I'm not gonna try to explain it. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Don't Fear The Reaper?

So far this is the magnum opus of my Memento Mori series, though I have ideas for a few more that may yet top it. This one is unpublished. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Death To The Sickoids

I used to have a crazed artist friend who was into doing super detailed, highly textured drawing with the maximum possible amount of crosshatch and stipple shading. Since I was also into this exact kind of thing, we got into a friendly competition of trying to one-up each other in outlandishly detailed underground comix style freakout art. There was never an official winner declared in said battle of the blazing pen nibs but this was my ultimate effort; the most deranged, sickeningly detailed mad monsterpiece I've ever produced. I suppose I should try to top it someday but that day will not be coming anytime soon. If memory serves this piece appeared in a few zines back in the mid-'90s, Fiesta Germany for one. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Tiki Freakout

I am just finishing up a little project involving accurate renderings of authentic ancient Hawaiian sculpture. The piece above was a first conceptual attempt to figure out how best to approach this series. In the end it was decided to render the finished drawings in shaded pencil rather than the stipple effect used in this piece. Since I spent the better part of a day making all those little dots, I thought I would post it up here rather than just letting it rot in my Closet O'Art. If possible I'll post the rest of the series later. Stay tuned for MORE PAGAN ICON ACTION!

Be A Caveman

Made this drawing and logo a few years back for Thee Cave, a website my old friend George from Greece put together. The site features lots of useful info on the bands that made up the '80s garage rock scene and contains more photos of guys with Brian Jones hairstyles than you could shake a maraca at. I checked out the site the other day and it doesn't seem to have been updated in a couple of years. I didn't see this artwork on there anywhere so perhaps it is making its grand debut right here. Anyhow... Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight

Quickie poster for the most recent Winnipeg show by Th' Legendary Shack Shakers. These guys get tagged as psychobilly most of the time which I guess is a fair description of the straight ahead wild rockin' you get in their live show but on record they are a real eclectic and eccentric mix of just about every kind of Southern roots music from gospel to Southern-fried soul. Warmin' up the crowd at this show were the mighty Angry Dragons in one of their very first onstage appearances. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Murder Beach

Rocketin' way back to 2003, here's the first of many things I've drawn for North Carolina-based horror/punk/ska-sters The Independents. Amp Records put out this live disc and there was also a poster design for the accompanying tour which I will have to dig out and post for you sometime. This was drawn shortly after the deaths of Joey and Dee Dee Ramone and The Independents asked me to include the deceased duo in the cover art as a tribute to them. Many more Independents/Merinuk collaborations were to follow this one, all to be revealed in due time here in the Rubber Room. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Motorcycho Nitemare

Here's a little thing I drew some years back for hip Canadian sickle zine Motorcycho. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!