Perhaps this blog will morph for a time into a recording blog, rather than a tour blog? Either way, we'll keep the interested parties well informed about what's going on with us.
For the time being, it's the holiday season, i'm laid up with a mysteriously broken foot, Bryant's Poland-bound and my son is due to arrive in just a few weeks. Things are probably going to be somewhat quiet around here for at least a little while, so I thought i'd share something with you that came up in the van on our recent trip to Michigan...
CONCERNING THE PROUD FLESH ALBUM ARTWORK :
For each of our previous records (Operation:Surgery, and Dark Dark Woods) we felt it very important to do something kind of crafty for the album art. Something that we made with our own hands, that no one else had ever made or put together before. The whole approach to those records was kind of like that on all levels; capturing moments unique to us on tape, on film, whatever, that had never happened before. Proud Flesh was very different than that for us, because we wanted to make a high-energy record, very quickly. In order to do that, we had to borrow a lot of things...equipment, ideas, lyrics, and even artwork.
Believe this or not, but during the day all four of us have to hold down steady jobs in order to pay our bills and stay alive. Not because husband&wife doesn't bring in boat loads of money, it does, but because we live very extravagant lifestyles. It's not easy to keep up with the Joneses on the meager few millions that this rock n roll dream brings in every couple of weeks. So, we each go off to our favorite little day jobs everyday in order to supplement...you know how it goes.
Anyway, my job is at a local television station. Every third Thursday of each month we tape an event at the county history center called, "Third Thursday Event". Typically, a TTE is a powerpoint-style slideshow accompanied by a guest lecturer who happens to be an expert on the subject of the day. One such event happened to be led by a former professor of mine (I dropped his class in order to work in a warehouse...) from Indiana University, Dr. Eric Sandweiss. And, his subject was the Kodachrome slide collection of Charles W. Cushman, recently donated to IU.
Dr. Sandweiss is a great, personable speaker and there's no way I can do his lecture justice here, so I'm just going to give you some of the information from his presentation that stood out to me. If you're interested, or if you want to fact check me (I could use the editing...) Dr. S has a book coming out in March that i'm eager to check out about this very subject.
The main point of the lecture was about color. Through the 1930's and 40's professional photography was apparently limited to black & white. Color was new and novel and reserved for advertisements, cartoons, and cheap hobby photographers. And that's precisely what Charles Cushman was, a hobby photographer. He was also a world traveler. He and his wife loved to travel around the States, and the world, and he loved taking photos of ordinary, everyday things he encountered. He also kept a strict catalog of every photo that he took, where it was taken, and the slides' subject matter. All in all, after his death, over 14,000 color kodachrome slides were donated to his alma mater, IU, along with his detailed catalogs, and his photo equipment. One of the most fascinating things about his collection, aside from the detailed record, is that it gives us a rare, full-color, view of the US in the late 30's and 40's that we're simply not used to experiencing.
The photo on the cover of Proud Flesh was taken in 1938, in Posey County, Indiana.
I was really intrigued and interested in this stuff after that lecture, so I came home and told the other dudes about it and showed them the unbelievable online archive of Cushman's stuff. We agreed that this would make great album art, if we could get permission to use it, so we started combing through the photos, looking for the ones that suited us and went loosely with the themes from Proud Flesh. Like I mentioned before, there are over 14,000 of these images, so we intentionally limited ourselves to only choosing from photos taken in Indiana.
Even with our self-imposed limitations, narrowing down the field was very difficult. There were many runners-up that, for one reason or another, ruled themselves out. As you know, these were the results :
Another interesting thing about Cushman's life that I haven't mentioned yet has to do with his wife, Jean. Jean accompanied Charles on most of his travels and can be seen in many of the photos (including seated in the car, on our album cover).
At some point Jean began suffering from some sort of mental illness, i don't really know what it was, or to what extent. But, the story goes, one evening after Charles heard some commotion downstairs he came out of his office to find Jean waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase. She said something to the effect of, "I'm going to Hell, and you're coming with me". She then fired a shot at Charles, turned the gun on herself and fired one shot into her own head. Remarkably, both Cushmans (Cushmen?) survived!
Subsequently, Jean was hospitalized for a time, treated and medicated. Once her illness was addressed and she was properly taken care of, she continued to travel with Charles. She pops up less frequently in the pictures, and when she does there's a marked difference in her demeanor.
But what a living testament to what it means to be husband&wife! AMIRIGHT!
