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