High Time

High Time were an MC5-influenced rawk band from Spain back in the late '90s. I think I was under the impression that this would be a record sleeve when I drew it but it ended up being used for T-shirts and stickers instead. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Fuel-Injected Suicide Machine

I drew this one back in 1995 and it was originally intended as a submission for Roctober magazine. I don't remember why I never sent it to them but it eventually appeared instead in Winnipeg's alt comix anthology Sunburn sometime in the late '90s. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

What's That Smells Like Fish?

Another wacky one for you today. This was drawn back in the '90s as part of a press release to promote an event called The World Cup Of Fishing. It was intended to be published in newspapers accompanying articles on this event but I dunno if it ever actually appeared anywhere. Well known comic book colorists Digital Chameleon made the full color version which I don't seem to have a copy of in my files. Anyhow it seems that The World Cup Of Fishing didn't become the high profile annual media event its creators had hoped for but its legend shall live forever here in the Rubber Room. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

The Fuzz

Hot off the old drawing board, here's the art for the forthcoming 12" EP by Ursula 1000 outta Brooklyn, NY. Actually a dance/electronica act with retro elements, on this release U1000 incorporates a fuzzed out '60s garage approach and who better to illustrate this paisley predilection than good old King Merinuk? Also featuring a guest appearance on one track by B-52s singer Fred Schneider, this one will be available for your impulse buying pleasure as a swingin' picture disc and should be hitting the streets real soon. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

The Knurlings

Answering the musical question, "Do they have garages in outer space?", The Knurlings had their Earthly headquarters in Ottawa and played a trashy kinda outer space rock'n'roll that Nervous Norvus himself might'a dug. I made these sticker designs for 'em back in the '90s. Not sure how many records they had; alls I have is one song on a 7" comp EP. Their wily leader Merle Knurling is still at large upon our Earth, so beware! His mutated musical stylings may soon be heard in your town. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Ugly Monster

Here's another drawing from the unpublished Unbelievably Ugly! #2. This was drawn on the same piece of paper as the one in yesterday's post so I thought it would be an appropriate followup. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

She's Ugly

From 1995, here's the cover for my unpublished Ugly Art zine Unbelievably Ugly! #2. The title of this piece is "Zitty Sue from The City Zoo." This one has never been published anywhere. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Family Values

I made this cover for a planned sampler CD by Winnipeg's hippest record label Transistor 66. The T66 roster has been expanding so quickly that a final lineup for the sampler has yet to be confirmed, so we are still waiting for this CD to hit the streets. I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION

Wylde & Woolly

The Woolly Bandits are a fuzzed out '60s punk combo from the L.A. area who also played under the name of the Seeds while backing Sky Saxon late in his career. I saw them play with Sky in Las Vegas back in 2004 and they did a great job recreating the sound of the original Seeds. I did this cover for their 2006 album released by Dionysus Records on CD and very limited LP. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Who's Got The Button?

Just finished this caricature for Winnipeg punk musician, graphic designer and entrepreneur Steve Hallick. Steve is gonna design a poster around this image to promote his button making services, so I'll update this post with the finished poster design when it's ready. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Rockabilly Psychosis

I drew this psychobilly illustration back in the '90s for cool British zine Deathrow Database. Not sure if they ever printed it but it did turn up later in another well known psycho zine , Fiesta Germany. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Letch Patrol

Letch Patrol were a "scum rock" band outta NYC in the late '80s/early '90s. At the time I did this sticker design for them they had just added punk poet and zinester Johnny Puke as their lead vocalist. Mr. Puke is best known nowadays as the guy whose apartment that lovable miscreant GG Allin fatally ODed at. Anyhow Letch Patrol broke up not long after I did this drawing so I dunno if they ever actually printed stickers of this. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Zombie Drive-In

After Rockin' Bones folded back in 1993 my idea was to do more of a straight EC-style horror comic for a followup project. This drawing was intended to be the cover for that and was about 95% completed when I got distracted by a lot of record sleeve work and other assorted complications. It remained unfinished until a few years ago when I filled in a few missing bits and added color to it. Not a classic of comic art by any means but it's kinda fun. This one is previously unpublished. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Destroy All Astromen

This was drawn back in 1997 and was meant to be the cover for an Aussie zine called Resistant Harmony. The cover was supposed to illustrate an Australian tour diary written by extraterrestrial surf weirdos Man or Astroman? and the issue was also gonna feature an interview with yours truly. Unfortunately the zine never came out (or if it did nobody ever told me about it). Maybe it will surface someday but in the meantime and in between time here's the previously unpublished cover art for you to check out. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Meat Depressed

I did this caricature back in 2004 for Massachusetts-based punk rockers Meat Depressed. It appeared in one of their CDs but I didn't get a copy so I can't tell you what it's called. They broke up for awhile but are back together now and it looks like I might get to do the cover for their next album. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Let's Get Wylde!

Just finished this sleeve design for mod-infused Aussie garagesters Thee Wylde Oscars. The LP should be out real soon on copaseDisques Records outta Hamburg, Germany. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Cellar Dwellers: The Final Chapter

Drawn back in 2006, these are the last 2 entries in the Cellar monster series. Given the ongoing collapse of retail CD and DVD sales I would be pretty surprised to get the call to do another one of these, but maybe the characters will appear again in some form. Stranger things are happening every day. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Cellar Dwellers Part 4

Here's the penultimate installment in the Cellar ad series. The demise of The Cellar itself could not spell the end for our indomitable monster heroes and their ceaseless quest for weird underground music. These two ads date from 2003 and 2004. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Cellar Dwellers Part 3

In 2003 the downtown Winnipeg Music Baron store that housed The Cellar closed and all the stock was moved to the CD Plus location in the suburb of St. James. This ad was done to announce that move. Although The Cellar technically ceased to exist at that point we carried on doing new ads featuring the monster characters for the next 3 years so there are still a few more to come in future posts. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Cellar Dwellers Part 2

Here are a couple more ads from the Cellar series. At this point the basement underground music part of the store moved upstairs and took over the whole building, though they kept using the Cellar name. Around that time Andy O. quit his Cellar job to go back to school so the Luau ad was the last to have his input but the series continued on for a few more years. More of these tomorrow. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Cellar Dwellers Part 1

Here's the first of the Cellar ads featuring the monster couple. Andy O. came up with the idea for these characters (originally they were supposed to appear on the cover of the CD by Andy's band The Horribles but that plan fell through) and the basic concept of the first few ads in this series and I filled in the details. More of these to come in the next few days. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Down In The Cellar

Back in the late '90s I scored a pretty cool gig doing ad art for a hip local record store called The Cellar. Actually just the basement annex of mainstream music store Record Baron, The Cellar was the only place in Winnipeg specializing in underground music at the time. This was the first of about a dozen Cellar ads I did. The rest of them feature a couple of monster characters that Cellar manager Andy O. Horrible and I came up with. I guess the human couple in this drawing are sort of the prototype of the gruesome twosome that inhabited the later entries in the series. At the time I was disappointed in this piece because I didn't have time to add any texture and detail to the monster but looking at it now it kind of appears as if the dead white flesh of the unearthly thing is giving off a sick, unwholesome luminescence which adds a pleasingly Lovecraftian overtone to the piece. Anyhow I'll be posting the rest of the Cellar ad series over the next week or so. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Live Monsters Invade Audience! They May Grab You!

Another missing link for you today. This was meant to be the cover for a live LP by the well known Swiss garage/rockabilly/trash combo The Monsters. Intended for release on the Record Junkie label, this LP never came out for reasons that are unknown to me. Monsters leader Beat-Man told me I could go as crazy as I wanted with sex and violence for this cover (a pretty dangerous thing to say to the likes of me) and this weird mashup of Jack Kirby, Wally Wood and Mars Attacks was the inevitable result. This piece was published in Winnipeg's premiere alternative comix anthology Sunburn back in the late '90s but has remained otherwise unseen until now. Oh yeah, uh, Warning: May contain graphic violence. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Rock'n'Roll Animal

I probably spent more time on today's drawing than any other single piece I've ever worked on. It was the cover art for the Rock'n'Roll Animal demo release by one of Winnipeg's best bands ever, The Squareheads. Featuring former members of The Horribles, Mohosimrots and Mo Bi666sley, the Squareheads blasted out a high-energy mix of punk and rock'n'roll for the better part of a decade and are still managing the occasional reunion show. They were at their peak around the time of this demo with original drummer Brian still in the fold. Brian also plays on their one and only full length release, the amazing Persona Non Grata CD. They also have some tunes on compilations here and there, including an appearance on Winnipeg Riot!, naturally. This Animal House takeoff features our beloved dive bar The Royal Albert and caricatures of over 60 punks, drunks and random rockers that used to hang around there in the heyday of Winnipeg's rock'n'roll scene. Drawing this was maddening, especially since I was working from blurry Polaroid snapshots of these people drunkenly flailing around as reference for many of the caricatures. For a swell bonus, you can check out a sticker/logo design I did in the early days of the band below. Stay tuned for MORE U-BOAT ATTACK ACTION!

It Came From The Bargain Bin!

Here's a little thing I drew 15 years back for Gravedigger zine outta the UK. This was a logo for a column about bargain bin record hunting. The publisher of Gravedigger later hit it big in zinedom with the much slicker Shindig! mag. I did the cover art for the first 2 issues of Gravedigger which will no doubt show up here at some point. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Death May Be Your Santa Claus

This was the poster for a post-Xmas punk rock show at the Royal Albert way back in 1999. You can read about The Horribles and Insaniacs in previous entries on this blog. Figure IV and Reality's End were big local names in the '90s-style hardcore scene, a style of music I was never particularly interested in myself. Anyhow with this poster I was trying for the kind of bluntly unadorned style of early '80s HC flyers; a real in-your-face kinda graphic approach. Later the Reaper image from this poster was used as a sticker design for The Independents. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Scorpions

Here's a quick CycleToon I drew for Norman from Motorcycho mag a few years back. It was a T-shirt design for a sickle organization he was involved with. I think they did buttons and stuff with this art too. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

Tiki Freakout

Here are a couple samples from my Secret Tiki Project. More on this later. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

I'm In Love With Dracula's Daughter

This one was drawn back in 2003 for The Independents and was used as the CD label art for their Full Moon Arise CD. It's kind of a tribute to all of those Vampirella comix I read during my impressionable teenage years. Stay tuned for MORE LIPS OF BLUE, EYES OF RED ACTION!

Destroy All Monsters!

Here's an ad I drew back in 1992 for a new club in Winnipeg called the Alternative Cabaret (yep, I actually managed to get the name of the place wrong in the drawing!). The venue didn't last that long but played host to cool combos like The Devil Dogs, Lunachicks, Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet, Fleshtones and Stranglers during its brief lifetime. Later it became some kind of goth/dance club and had an infamous incident where a dazed and confused DJ type crawled into a space between the walls and died there, not to be found until 6 months later. The building is now an American Apparel store. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

More Mass Destruction

As promised here is the third and final installment in the Women Of Mass Destruction poster series. The Gorgon and local garage rockers The Angry Dragons did a series of shows in Eastern Canada back in fall 2008 and this was the official poster for that tour. The version you see here was made for the tour kickoff show in Winnipeg (also featuring excellent local powerpop combo The Sweet Nothings). We also made kustomized versions of this poster for each show on the tour. If I am remembering rightly color prints of this one were available for sale at the Lo Pub show. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!