Cover Art Of The Month - September 2001
The Sounds of the Weird-ohs LP
The bossest! I'm not sure who the artist was on this LP, but it's one of the all-time greats cover-art-wise. One of those great tie-in schticks from the 60s, this 1964 LP had 6 songs for each of two model kit series made by Hawk - the Weird-ohs pictured above, and the Silly Surfers included below. Each of the Weird-ohs on the cover above was also the box art for the model of the same name. As far as I can tell, the little signature on each character pic looks like "Campbell" or some kinda scrawl like that. Great, fun kooky characters that were stared at by a whole generation of kids and teens! Anyway, who else but the great Gary Usher would be appropriate to tap for the musical responsibilities on this job, considering his extensive experience with the California sound! His experience with creative reuse of musical numbers didn't hurt either. See the December 1999 feature in my archive for some more gabbing about another great Usher tie-in thing, the Rods N Ratfinks stuff (connecting with the late great Roth). Of course, like so much great surf stuff from the 60s, this LP is now one of the primadonna items for price-guide-wielding collector dinks. The models themselves fetch some bucks too, but Hawk/Testor did reissue them with the original box art around 1995 I think.
Bonus pic - see the flip side of the cover art on the same LP below! The folks at Hairy Records knew how to treat the customer right!
