My Morning Jacket

Anyone have any ideas as to who the person facing away from the camera is in the front cover artwork?

(http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Square/7781/pics/AMBER.JPG)

?

It ain't me.

p.s. the cover sucks.

(http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/1993_The_Firm/Thumb/993TFM_Wilford_Brimley_004.jpg)

?

(http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0bUxc2qfmn7lX/340x.jpg)

?

Quote(http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/1993_The_Firm/Thumb/993TFM_Wilford_Brimley_004.jpg)

?

ooh that was a good one, plus he knows walker.

edit:  chuck norris name in walker texas ranger was walker right? haha :o

(http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/new_line_cinema/simone/pruitt_taylor_vince/simonepre2.jpg)

(http://www.johnandkenshow.com/blogimages/steve.jpg)

winston churchill.

(http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r268/lindsaycolegrove/logo.jpg)

Quotewinston churchill.

i agree - that's what i thought, too.

question - who designed the album artwork?  i was looking at it more closely today - that big gear wheel that looks like it's inside a clock or something, and then people walking up it like stairs.  like they're walking in circles.  and what's the building in the background? and what's that spotlight on in the bottom left corner?

sorry if this has been talked about before.

maybe the album cover is just filled with all of these images and ideas to evoke thoughts about it, and then relate those thoughts and ideas to our own lives and also to history, because everything seems to be from certain parts of the past.  (costumes, buildings, the theatre)

also, i just read that m. ward article and he talked about history, so maybe that's a topic of conversation amongst all of these dudes.  

see, it's really good to have actual cds so that you can look at the artwork up close.  a computer screen just isn't the same, really.  

angry ewok, how come you don't like it so much?

Quote(http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r268/lindsaycolegrove/logo.jpg)

This may be the greatest. I was gonna go with Bluntmasta's, but you cannot beat a Jake & The Fatman reference. EVER.

I'm not sure if she did the album artwork but all of the band photos were taken by autumn de wilde.

http://autumndewilde.com/

If you look at all of her album covers on the site, I would guess that she did do the cover.

The Winston Churchill one was good, but in keeping with the guessing at historical figures...i'd say maybe Teddy Roosevelt?  Maybe it's just a friend of the band.  Anybody know what the monuments are in the background?  This is a great post!

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Quotewinston churchill.

i agree - that's what i thought, too.

question - who designed the album artwork?  i was looking at it more closely today - that big gear wheel that looks like it's inside a clock or something, and then people walking up it like stairs.  like they're walking in circles.  and what's the building in the background? and what's that spotlight on in the bottom left corner?

sorry if this has been talked about before.

maybe the album cover is just filled with all of these images and ideas to evoke thoughts about it, and then relate those thoughts and ideas to our own lives and also to history, because everything seems to be from certain parts of the past.  (costumes, buildings, the theatre)

also, i just read that m. ward article and he talked about history, so maybe that's a topic of conversation amongst all of these dudes.  

see, it's really good to have actual cds so that you can look at the artwork up close.  a computer screen just isn't the same, really.  

angry ewok, how come you don't like it so much?

I think you got it going on here.  I've mentioned before about how it looks like those two guys are stepping onto the ride, one seems to be introducing the other to it.  I like the two kinds of silhouettes and the two different images PHOTO/PRINT of the band.  I've gone into it a bit but I think this album plays on mirror images, two sides of the same coin, this vs. that etc.  There is a "duality" if you will, thoughts about division etc. etc.  I like where you are going with this.

Quote
question - who designed the album artwork?  i was looking at it more closely today - that big gear wheel that looks like it's inside a clock or something, and then people walking up it like stairs.  like they're walking in circles.  and what's the building in the background? and what's that spotlight on in the bottom left corner?

The will looks like the Hyde Park Ferris Wheel...completely.
(http://www.hydeparkhistory.org/ferriswheel.jpg)
But the figure, that is a good mystery...

It looks like my friend Ted.  Ted sort of resembles Jim with short hair, which got me thinking...

Could that be Jim in the future?  Going back to what you touched on Brian, with the whole two-halves thing.  Could that be future Jim looking back. (I watch too much LOST, I know)  But even in the song Two-Halves he says "...41 things start to fade...when you're older you want the body you have now".  Maybe it's supposed to be be a 41 yr old Jim after things start to fade?
A stretch I know but even the first time I saw it, i thought of jim.

Nevermind, it's probably just my friend Ted.

Awesome, I really think you are onto something.  The image really does provoke a bunch of thought.  Just looking at it, it's not immediately aesthetically pleasing, but there is a bunch of stuff going on and it provokes many different thoughts, feelings etc. etc.  I love it more every day.  

Quote(http://www.johnandkenshow.com/blogimages/steve.jpg)

if it is steve, he's probably yelling at MMJ.

fuckin steve

check this out:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Churchill_portrait_NYP_45063.jpg/250px-Churchill_portrait_NYP_45063.jpg)
even the shoulder slope.  it really looks like winston churchill.
he was around from 1874 until 1965, and was the british prime minister from '40-'45 and then again from '50-'55.  people think of him as one of the world's best leaders.

that ferris wheel is in chicago, and was erected in 1893 to honour the 400th anniversary of columbus' first visit to america.  it was designed by george washington gale ferris.  it is the FIRST ferris wheel.  reeeeeally.  (george ferris died at 37 of TB, btw.)  it travelled to a couple of different places and was eventually blown up with dynamite.

hm.  dynamite.  let's take a look at a picture that we all love:
(ps, remember in good times when JJ used to say dy-no-mite!?  i'm gonna start using that again along with hatorade.)

fuck i can't find it.  anyhow, it's on the inside of the tennessee fire - you know the one with the fireworks store.  riny took another one a couple of years ago.

anyhow, obviously there are some good images in there to get you started on thinking about things, and maybe even the interconnection between everything in the world that exists, will exist, and used to exist.

i kind of feel like riding on a ferris wheel now, though.  i haven't been on one in ages.

Quote it travelled to a couple of different places and was eventually blown up with dynamite.

It travelled to the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904.  That's where it was destroyed with dynamite and buried.  Although, to this day, nobody knows what happened to the giant "hub".  It's a mystery. :o

Also, we know Jim is a fan of the Worlds Fair.  One of my favorite all time Jim between song banter moments was about this subject.   It was the Jim/Carl show at the Performing arts theartre where Jim said this...

"I've been kind of obsessed with the World's Fair lately, because for the Worlds Fair, they always built awesome things just for the hell of it because it was cool.  But they really don't do that anymore, they discontinued the World's Fair and I want to try and get that going again.  crowd applause  It's like everybody's too busy watching TV or something to have a World's Fair.  Even though the TV was something that debuted at the World's Fair.  So I guess the World's Fair kind of shot themselves in the foot." ;D

Commence solo Gideon awesomeness....

hey bh, wanna ditch work and go have coffee somewhere?  detroit?

& don't forget that Jim is a big Elvis fan!  ;)

(http://a1259.g.akamai.net/f/1259/5586/5d/images.art.com/images/-/It-Happened-at-the-Worlds-Fair--C10129789.jpeg)

Maybe it's the King in his later years keeping a watchful eye upon the band?!!  :o

Quotehey bh, wanna ditch work and go have coffee somewhere?  detroit?

Oh my, that sounds wonderful.   Don't screw with me, I'll do it, I will! ;)  Detroit is perfect.  I'll be there in 6 hours.   I might need something a bit stronger than coffee by the time I get there.

By the way, is the steel lion burning train going to be pulling in to St. Louis station?

I REALLY wish this had made the cover.......

(http://www.ci.knoxville.tn.us/Images/sunsphere.jpg)

SUNSPHERE (1982 Worlds Fair, Knoxville Tennessee)  :)

Wait a second, on further review, I think it might have.   :o

On the right side?  Holy Crap!!!!

The Golden Box on the cover also looks like that one panel of the Sunsphere with the light reflecting off of it.  

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc232/bowlofwax/stalinDM2109_468x551.jpg)

the evilest of all.  Allthough it might be Ted.

Quote

Quotehey bh, wanna ditch work and go have coffee somewhere?  detroit?

Oh my, that sounds wonderful.   Don't screw with me, I'll do it, I will! ;)  Detroit is perfect.  I'll be there in 6 hours.   I might need something a bit stronger than coffee by the time I get there.

By the way, is the steel lion burning train going to be pulling in to St. Louis station?

Hey, where are you?   Just got a mocha latte at a little place across from Jack White's old house.   I'm getting a lot of hateful looks.  Not sure if has anything to do with the "Fuck the Big 3" t-shirt I'm wearing or not.   Anyway, hope you get here soon.

where do you see that, brian?  i just saw a couple of things i hadn't seen before.

bh, i'm so sorry - i got stuck at the border for my previous us incarceration and they wouldn't let me in.  god DAMN it, i should've picked anywhere other than detroit.

do you think you can make it to canada?

    I was just thinking that the duality of the painted band and the photographed band, the painted silhouette and the photographed silhouette, kind of represent a reality and an interpretation of that same reality.  Like in the song Librarian, Jim talks about what is perceived to be sexy, then he goes on to paint a picture of a "SEXY LIBRARIAN" I think in the song Jim plays with the idea of - well, Librarian's might not normally be "perceived" as being sexy but if you look a little closer the "reality" can be much different.  Then reality just becomes a matter of your perception.  I think it's interesting that the photographed silhouette is "watching" the entire scene.  The band is a mirror image, but the photo silhouette is looking into the mirror....so I guess the photographed silhouette kind of represents us looking in and making our own reality of the cover itself.  Like I said before at first glance the cover is NOT "SEXY" but the more you look.....

"When God Gave Us Mirrors He Had No Idea"  Jim James

I love this record more and more each day, and what's funny is I really haven't even been listening to it.  I've played it straight through about five times since I've had it and that is it....but I can't stop thinking about it.  :)

Wow Brian, I think you're right on with the mystery person.  Although, I still think my friend Ted stood in for the shot.    ;D



This record is really special.

Quoteangry ewok, how come you don't like it so much?

I just think the photoshopping looks really crappy. The cover reminds me of when I first discovered layering effects in Photoshop 4. About eight years ago. When I was 15.

I've liked/loved the album art on most of the EP's and all of the major releases until now.

I do like the back cover with the three silhouettes and the blob of gold. I cropped that somewhere and now it's the ICO for the website - so that's cool.

I thought it was me until I realized the "figure" didn't have a bald spot starting :-/Shit,getting old sucks ;D

I figured it out.  Evil Urges.

It's Dubya.   ;D  :D  ;D  :o

Do you know that computer imaging software that can produce a future image of you when your older. Maybe the guy is Jim James when he's in his forties [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

QuoteDo you know that computer imaging software that can produce a future image of you when your older. Maybe the guy is Jim James when he's in his forties [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

I like this thought.  

I also like how, the mystery figure could "REPRESENT" the person experiencing the record, but that's ALL it could do......It's kind of a bridge with a sign saying..."You Going To Cross?"

BigEvil, i posted something similar to your thoughts on pg 2 of this thread.  Glad to see I'm not too crazy.  I also like your idea Brian of it representing the listener.  It's like it is saying "okay we got you this far, the rest is up to you."   I think that very much is in line with the theme of this record as well.

 :-*  WORD!!

I got the lyric sheet to this record last night and I just remembered WHY I fell SO deeply in love with this band...........again!!  :)

Quotewhere do you see that, brian?  i just saw a couple of things i hadn't seen before.

bh, i'm so sorry - i got stuck at the border for my previous us incarceration and they wouldn't let me in.  god DAMN it, i should've picked anywhere other than detroit.

do you think you can make it to canada?

Well, I started thinking maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to in the upper right hand corner (the structure that actually holds up the sphere), but now that I have the cd, I looked at the inside artwork and guess what makes an appearance, standing there big as day.......THE FUCKING SUNSPHERE!!!   ;D  I started freaking out and going on and on about the artwork to my friends and my wife.  We had a Listening Party at a cabin in North Carolina this weekend...Well, It was a Wedding but we played Evil Urges quite a bit, late night dancing, singing and serving utensil percussion abounded.  Everyone really loved it.   :)  GOOD TIMES!!!!  THANKS MMJ!!!  :-*

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THE FUCKING SUNSPHERE!!!  

(http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f296/ycartrob/IMGP3029.jpg)

 ;D

this all sounds really good.  i have to go and fun the sunsphere now.

BUT the dude looks to me to be older than his 40s...

Quotethis all sounds really good.  i have to go and fun the sunsphere now.

BUT the dude looks to me to be older than his 40s...

But not if he's a rock star...

Quote

Quote
THE FUCKING SUNSPHERE!!!  

(http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f296/ycartrob/IMGP3029.jpg)

Random thought...I think the Sun Sphere was in a Simpson episod where Bart and his boys go on a road trip, but the Sun Sphere had become a wig shop...

Here is the only other known photo of the man in the figure, that's him on the left:

(http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/80132709.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF1933B836CAF14D5D5C839BFAFD0154D6D905A5397277B4DC33E)

If I had to guess I'd say it's one of the best actors of our generation:

(http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o291/okonokos/Hoffman.jpg)

Looks like my neighbor. I must remember to ask him tomorrow...

QuoteLooks like my neighbor. I must remember to ask him tomorrow...

He'll probably just deny it though, won't he?  ;)

Its Jim when he shaved his head. ;)

(http://thermalexhaustport.com/cam/eu.jpg)