photos

roughs

Unfortunately, I'm moving at a snail's pace, but I've spent a lot of time just listening to the album and sketching out ideas. This is a collection of thumbnails of the different ideas I've exlpored.

For me the album has a very midwestern feel to it. That time of year like January or February, when the snow is all grey and hard as rock. It's freezing and miserable and you know summer is a long way off. You're stuck and you've got plenty of time for reflection.

I recommend clicking on the images to view them at a larger scale.

I wanted to have more final versions of all the images, but thought it was better that you saw where things were going first.

1 the forest is fairly straightforward, just trying to capture the feel and add a little narrative. if you can't make it out, the guy is carrying a shovel and crows are sitting on the tree in the foreground. maybe some blood in the tracks


2 going back to the original idea of having a bar on the cover. A little more anonymous than the defenestration building, but smaller and more specific at the same time.




3 crows just seem appropriate. didn't really come up with a single strong image but like the idea of a crow flying in winter, with the city in the background.

4 couples I like the idea of people. I like drawing people and I like album covers with drawings of people. If it's just one person there's the assumption that it's you, and couples kind of get around that problem. To me there's always been a connection between your music and books like Angels. This is just a couple loosely based on the couple in that book, but minus the kids because that's too depressing.




5 more explorations of the same theme, loosely based on the couple from Angels. On a non-descript minneapolis streetcorner.

6 Julie has this story of seeing Bob Stinson wandering down the street in the middle of winter wearing silver pants and a t shirt. it was long after the Replacements, but not long before he died. i always liked that image, but added a girl because otherwise they'd assume it was you.

7 trying something with a wrestler. For all the things in your music, there's always humour underneath. I was just going for a cool image, but also something that touches on that. I used to work at a tv station and film wrestling. It was really small time and after the match the wrestlers would just hang out in their costumes. Sometimes they'd just put a jacket over their costumes and drive home.




Just some ideas for a backcover, simple but evocative: stairs from one of those old residential hotels, trees, a bus stop, a smalltown street, and overhead wires of SF

just some inspiration and unedited sketches

buildings

I like this first one a lot. The mood seems right.

the shallow end

I liked the mood of this for when it was called "the shallow end". it suits your music in a weird way.

graf

This could be cool:

back

Maybe a nice approach for the back.

figures

A cool look, although obviously more like the people from Angels, not a bunch of hipsters.




This is a pretty nice style.

Jeff Soto

Slightly more arbitrary approach, but still sort of the right mood.

carson ellis

I love this.



Maybe the patrons done in this drawing style.

random

These both just look really cool.

03

A nice mix of rural and pop culture.

01

Pretty far into left field, but it could be nice.

covers

This Godspeed one is nice.

Goo is also nice.