The Last Record Shop
This is a rather intriguing opportunity for artistic expression: Public Pool, an “artspace” in Hamtramck, MI will be creating a temporary record shop full of fictional albums and is inviting submissions.
They have what amounts to an electronic flyer providing modest details about the project (and they apparently have never heard of web accessibility because the whole page is a single image with no alt-text).*
From September 7 to October 18 they’ll be transforming their gallery into “The Last Record Shop.”
We’re inviting you to submit ORIGINAL ALBUM ART (for a standard 31.43 cm square cardboard LP album sleeve and interior label) from the MYTHIC recording artist of your imagining.
The finished sleeve should feature artwork back and front, including the artist/band’s name and track listing, along with – and this is important – artwork for the spindle label. Plus, liner notes, band bios, lyrics, however much (or little) you want to include – anything that brings to life your imaginary band’s legendary album.
A randomly chosen used LP acquired locally will be relabeled and slipped into the artist-created sleeves, and then sold at Public Pool, with all proceeds going to you, the LP sleeve creators (minus the evil record company cut, i.e. our modest gallery commission.) If we have enough great submissions, we might publish a book. Deadline is August 15.
There are no details on what an individual album might sell for, nor any indication whether contributing artists will receive any cut of book sales should they decide to publish one. Interested artists are instructed to contact coordinator Toby Barlow at publicpool.recordshop@gmail.com with questions and electronic submissions.
Overall it sounds like a really interesting project with a lot of room for imagination (although I do wonder how many Spinal Tap knockoffs they’re going to receive). It’d be fun to take photos of friends as “band members” and repurpose the kind of poetry we all wrote in high school as lyrics (or, if you’re musically inclined, play it straight and submit legitimate lyrics that you’ve written).
If you do submit something, be sure to let me know in the comments; I’d love to see everybody’s efforts.
(via BoingBoing)
*I realize I bitch about stuff like this a lot, but I’ve been a web developer for 20 years and Bad Web Choices cause me physical pain.
Posted in Paint It Black | 1 Comment »
May 1st, 2014 at 7:39 pm
Good questions, comments.
Regarding how much we will sell the albums for, we are guessing that will be in the 30-60 range, though we are up for negotiating with contributors if they want to sell theirs for more or for less.
Regarding whether we will share book proceeds with artists, yes, if we do a book, in some manner we would like to share proceeds though that onviously involves a few things like how many submissions we actually get and include, the layout of the book, etc. And we know from our own publishing endeavors that actual profits in this field are rather slim. So we wouldn’t want the cash from that to be the main motivation.
In the end, like many experiments, a few things are up in the air and we will work to sort them out as the exhibit comes to life. We have had great experiences with artists like Scott Hocking and Hygenic Dreas League, so we’re optimistic this will work out too.
And we know our “electronic flyer” leaves a bit to be desired, but it seemed right for the spirit of the thing.
Thanks for your support and contact us at the links above if you have any questions! Thanks! We
Can’t wait to see your records.