At Dawn cover art similarity, here?

Started by timshel, Apr 28, 2006, 12:02 PM

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timshel

Hi fellow fans,

I'm a new poster (but longtime Jacket fan) with a question to pose for y'all.  Weirdly enough, lately I've started getting into the psychedelic/power pop/white boy soul of Tommy James & The Shondells (from the 1960s).  It's surprisingly enjoyable, though dated, stuff.  Anyway, I discovered that one of their old album covers, for "Cellophane Symphony," seems to bear more than a passing resemblance to the cover of "At Dawn."  I've tried to post a pic here, not sure it'll work:

http://www.tommyjames.com/audio/cellophanesymphony/images/cellophane_sym.jpg


What do you all think?  Could this be a tribute?  I know they're not THAT identical, but there is similarities in terms of a domed stage kind of thing, and a sort of pastiche-lookin thing for where the audience is supposed to sit.  Have any of you ever heard MMJ sing the praises of Tommy James?  Stangely enough, I also hear some weird echoes between the music (just in a general, "influences" sort of way).

For that matter, does any one have any more information about the "At Dawn" cover art in general?  It's one of my favorite album covers of all time......not sure why!

Thanks,
Jason

P.S.  Not trying to suggest here that MMJ were *plagiarising* any artwork.  Hell, I love album covers which are subtle visual tributes to other bands.  One of my other favorite covers is Sleater-Kinney's "Dig Me Out," which pays homage to the Kinks.

ManNamedTruth

I love the song Crimson & Clover by Tommy James and The Shondells. Tommy James is from Ohio and put together his band The Shondells in my town of Pittsburgh. So they were pretty big around here at one point and Crimson & Clover still gets a lot of play on the local oldies station.
That's motherfuckin' John Oates!

BH

I'm digging, digging deep in myself, but who needs a shovel when you have a little boy like mine.

banjohead

I think if you looked for a while you could find plenty of other album covers with stages on the front with similar shapes besides these two. I don't think they look anything alike besides the stage thing. No color similarities, no scale similarities, an audience is on the MMJ cover. I see that they are both pictures of a stage with a dome.. but that is all.